Virginia Argus

From the Spirit of Seventy-Six.

TO THE FREEHOLDERS OF CHARLOTTE, PRINCE EDWARD, BUCKINGHAM AND CUMBERLAND.

Fellow Citizens,

I dedicate to you the following fragment. That it appears in its present mutilated shape is to be ascribed to the successful usurpation which has reduced the freedom of speech in one Branch of the American Congress to an empty name. It is now established for the first time, and in the person of your representative, that the House may, and will refuse to hear a member in his place, or even to receive a motion from him upon the most momentous subject that can be presented for legislative decision.—A similar motion was brought forward by the republican minority in the year 1798, before these modern inventions for stifling freedom of debate had been discovered. It was discussed as matter of right until it was abandoned by the mover in consequence of additional information [the correspondence of our Envoys at Paris] laid before Congress by the President. In the reign of terror the fathers of the Sedition Law had not the hardihood to proscribe liberty of speech, much less the right of free debate on the floor of Congress. This invasion of the public liberties was reserved for self-styled republicans, who hold your understandings in such contempt as to flatter themselves that you will overlook their every outrage upon the great first principles of free government, in consideration of their professions of tender regard for the privileges of the people. It is for you to decide whether they have undervalued your intelligence and spirit, or whether they have formed a just estimate of your character. You do not require to be told that the violation of the rights of him whom you have deputed to represent you is an invasion of the rights of every man among you, of every individual in society. If this abuse be suffered to pass unredressed—and the people alone are competent to apply the remedy—we must bid adieu to a free form of government. forever.

Having learned from various sources, that a declaration of war would be attempted on Monday next, with closed doors, I deemed it my duty to endeavor, by any exercise of my Constitutional functions, to arrest this heaviest of all possible calamities, and avert it from our happy country. I accordingly made the effort of which I now give you the result, and of the success of which you will already have been informed before these pages can reach you. I pretend only to give you the substance of my unfinished argument,—The glowing words—the language of the heart have passed away with the occasion that called them forth.—They are no longer under my controul.—My design is simply to submit to you the views which have induced me to consider a war with England, under existing circumstances, as comporting neither with the INTEREST nor the HONOR of the American people, but as an IDOLATROUS SACRIFICE of both, on the altar of French rapacity, perfidy and ambition.

France has for years past offered us terms of undefined commercial arrangement, at the price of a war with England, which hitherto we have not wanted firmness and virtue to reject. That price is now to be paid. We are tired of holding out—and following the example of the nations of continental Europe—entangled in the artifices, or awed by the power of the destroyer of mankind; we are prepared to become instrumental to his projects of universal dominion. Before these pages meet your eye, the last Republic of the earth will have enlisted under the banners of the tyrant and become a party to his cause. The blood of American freemen must flow to cement his power, to aid in stifling the last struggles of afflicted and persecuted man; to deliver up into his hands the patriots of Spain and Portugal, to establish his Empire over the ocean and over the land that gave our fore-fathers birth; to forge our own chains!—And yet, my friends, we are told, as we were told in the days of the mad ambition of Mr. Adams, "THAT THE Finger OF HEAVEN POINTS TO WAR." Yes, the finger of Heaven does point to war. It points to war, as it points to the mansions of eternal misery and torture; as to a flaming beacon warning us of that vortex which we may not approach but with certain destruction. It points to desolated Europe and warns us of the chastisement of those nations who have offended against the justice and almost beyond the mercy of Heaven. It announces the wrath to come upon those who ungrateful for the bounty of providence, not satisfied with peace, liberty, security, plenty at home, fly, as it were, into the face of the most high and tempt his forbearance.

To you, in this place, I can speak with freedom & it becomes me to do so: nor shall I be deterred by the cavils and the sneers of those who hold as "foolishness" all that savours not of worldly wisdom, from expressing fully and freely those sentiments which it has pleased God, in his mercy, to engrave upon my heart.

These are no ordinary times. The state of the world is unexampled. The war of the present day is not like that of our revolution, or any which preceded it, at least in modern times. It is a war against the liberty and happiness of mankind. It is a war of which the whole human race are the victims, to gratify the pride and lust of power of a single individual. I beseech you, put it to your own bosoms, how far it becomes you as freemen, as christians, to give your aid and sanction to this impious and bloody warfare against your brethren of the human family.

To such among you, if any such there be, who are insensible to motives not more dignified and manly than they are intrinsically wise, I would make a different appeal. I adjure you by the regard which you have for your own security and property, for the liberties and inheritance of your children, by all that you hold dear and sacred, to interpose your constitutional powers to save your country and yourselves from a calamity the issue of which it is not given to human foresight to divine.

Ask yourselves if you are willing to become the virtual allies of Bonaparte? are you willing for the sake of annexing Canada to the Northern States, to submit to that ever-growing system of taxation, which sends the European labourer supperless to bed? to maintain by the sweat of your brow, armies at whose hands you are to receive a future master? Suppose Canada ours. Is there any one among you who would ever be, in any respect, the better for it?—the richer—the freer—the happier—the more secure? And is it for a boon like this, that you would join in the warfare against the liberties of man in the other Hemisphere, and put your own in jeopardy? or is it for the nominal privilege of a licensed trade with France that you would abandon your lucrative commerce with G. Britain, Spain and Portugal, & their Asiatic, African and American dependencies—in a word, with every region of those vast continents? That commerce which gives a vent to your tobacco, grain, flour, cotton—in short to all your native products, which are denied a market in France.

There are not wanting men so weak, as to suppose that their approbation of warlike measures is a proof of personal gallantry, and that opposition to them indicates a want of that spirit which becomes a friend to his country: as if it required more courage and patriotism to join in the acclamation of the day, than steadily to oppose one's self to the mad infatuation to which every people and all governments have, at some time or other, given way. Let the history of Phocion, of Agis and of the De Witts answer this question. My friends, do you expect to find those who are now loudest in the clamour for war, foremost in the ranks of battle? or is the honour of this nation indissolubly connected with the political reputation of a few individuals, who tell you they have gone too far to recede, and that you must pay, with your ruin, the price of their consistency.

My friends, I have discharged my duty towards you; lamely and inadequately I know, but to the best of my poor ability.—The destiny of the American people is in their own hands. The nets are spread for their destruction. You are enveloped in the toils of French duplicity: and if, which may Heaven in its mercy forbid, you and your posterity are to become hewers of wood and drawers of water to the modern Pharaoh, it shall not be for the want of my best exertions to rescue you from the cruel and abject bondage. This sin, at least, shall not rest upon my soul.

JOHN RANDOLPH, Of ROANOKE.

May 30th, 1812.

[We hope to commence the publication of the speech which follows, in our next.]