Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

From the Federal Republican.

CONSIDERATIONS UPON THE ELECTION.

Within the short period of a few weeks, the people of Maryland will be called upon to exercise the right of electing men to represent them in the next congress.

Upon this occasion, fellow citizens, it becomes you to consider with serious attention the qualifications of those candidates who solicit your votes. The right of suffrage was not given you that you might indulge individual partialities or party animosity. It is a trust committed to your hands to be exercised as the good of your country may require. She has a claim upon you. She requires that you disregard all feelings, but such as originate in an anxious solicitude for her safety, prosperity and happiness. It is in this sacred name we call upon you to rise superior to the little prejudices which artful men have laboured to instil into your unsuspecting hearts. We call upon you to awake from your delusive dreams of fancied security, to contemplate the awful precipice upon whose verge you are treading, and by a generous effort to rescue yourselves and your posterity from ruin.

The freemen of America have too long suffered their reason to be blinded by the delusions of party. Too long have they been habituated to sanction the grossest abuses originating in the violence of faction. It is time to think for our country. People of Maryland, the narrow-minded prejudices of party are unworthy of freemen. Do not then suffer a few artful men, who have only their own emolument in view, to impose upon you any restraints which may control your free, unbiased judgment. When you go to the polls do not enquire under what denomination of party a candidate is ranked, but consider whether he has ability or knowledge to serve the state in this eventful crisis, and whether his sentiments upon our present situation will lead him to advocate such measures as can alone save us from irretrievable ruin. Consider these questions:

Have the motives and intentions of your present representatives been at all times pure and patriotic, purely American, and tinctured with no foreign partialities?

If you cannot answer these questions in the affirmative, you are bound to dismiss them as servants unworthy your confidence, and to supply their places with men who will more truly represent your feelings and your wishes.

The principal measure adopted during the last session of congress was the embargo. It is this ruinous act, that has destroyed the commerce and revenue of our country, has deprived us of our seamen, involved you in distress, and blighted the fruits of your industry. Farmers and planters of Maryland, do you approve of this measure? do you perceive the necessity of an act, which from its nature must produce such extensive individual suffering, and will inflict a wound upon the growing prosperity of this infant nation that years will not heal. Many, many millions of dollars have already been lost to us, irrecoverably lost, by this monstrous act of folly and blind infatuation. It is for you to say, whether the sources of plenty shall again be opened, and whether the streams of wealth shall once more pour in upon us to fructify our land. You have now an opportunity to express your sentiments upon this question. If you wish for poverty, for individual ruin and national bankruptcy, you will vote for your present representatives, and such as agree with them in opinion; but if you desire a return of happy days, if you wish to have a market for your produce, and if you prefer wealth to poverty, you will give your suffrages to those gentlemen who have been uniformly hostile to this annihilation of our commerce.

Have they adopted the measures best calculated to promote your happiness, to increase the power, wealth and prosperity of this nation?

Have they exhibited a determination to maintain our country's honor, or have they not meanly submitted to the degrading pretensions of a tyrant?

And have they shown themselves the independent representatives of freemen, instead of being the mere tools of executive power?

from the same.

The servile obedience which some members of the present Congress have shewn to executive mandates cannot surely be agreeable to freemen, jealous of their rights, and attached with peculiar fondness to the popular feature in our constitution. The republicans of Maryland will discard from their confidence the representative who shews an uniform disposition to increase Presidential influence upon the ruins of the constitution; who makes himself a mere automaton for others to move, and by degrading himself degrades his constituents. It is proper, and was the intention of the constitution, that the measures of government should be recommended by the President, and upon his responsibility: but it was never intended, that the house of representatives of these United States should bear any similitude to the senate of Napoleon, or the Divan of Turkey: that they should merely sit to enregister edicts without daring to deliberate.

Recollect, fellow-citizens, that a measure of the utmost consequence, the Embargo, whose effects have been so ruinous and distressing, was adopted upon the mere recommendation of the president; without any information being laid before congress which could in the slightest degree justify such an act. It was voted blindly and ignorantly. It was recommended by Mr. Jefferson, and was adopted as a mere matter of course. The independent gentlemen asked for information—it was denied. One gentleman, in the confidence of administration, so far lost sight of his character, as to say, 'I would not deliberate, I would act. The president has recommended an embargo upon his high responsibility; he has undoubtedly the information to justify the measure.' This important act, which you now feel so sensibly, was forced thro' the senate in four hours; the efforts of a few patriots in the house delayed the passage for a day, but it was their opposition alone; for the administration party did not attempt to defend the act; they merely voted. People of Maryland, such has been the conduct of too many of your representatives. Does it meet your approbation? The election will determine. By your votes it will be ascertained whether you have the spirit of freemen, or whether you have abandoned those glorious principles for which your fathers contended.