Virginia Argus

From the Boston Chronicle.

ELECTORAL NOMINATION.

Boston, Oct. 23, 1812.

DEAR SIR,

The undersigned have the honor of being appointed a Committee, by a large convention of Senators, Representatives, and other citizens of the Southern Electoral District of this Commonwealth, to solicit permission to place your name at the head of their list of Candidates for Electors of President and Vice-President of the United States.

In this period of public anxiety, when our citizens are agitated by diversity of political sentiment, and our country afflicted by foreign aggressions, it is of consoling and happy reflection that the people may yet repose upon that wisdom which heretofore protected, and that firmness and patriotism which once redeemed them from more suspicious prospects. Elevated above the influence of party, and placed upon an eminence commanding the best opportunity for impartial observation, pledged to no measures, attached to no men, but devoted to a country whose happiness and glory you have so early and continually promoted, you are peculiarly qualified for the unbiassed execution of the important function of an Elector. Assist us, Sir, by your opinions and experience, in this exigency of our beloved country, and may the gratitude of posterity and the perpetuity of the Republic be the reward of your services.

SETH SPRAGUE,

JOSEPH TISDALE.

JOHN ENDICOTT.

Committee

GEORGE CANNON

MARCUS MORTON.

To John Adams, Late President of the United States:

Quincy, Oct. 26, 1812.

GENTLEMEN,

I have received the polite and obliging letter you did me the honor to write me, on the twenty third of this month; and I ought perhaps, to have taken a longer time to consider the serious proposition you have made to me.

To have remained inactive in my solitude would have been more agreeable to me; but common decency and civility require of me, a respectful answer to gentlemen of your honorable characters and conditions in society.

I can acknowledge no authority in any of those congregations of people, of whatever character or station, that are called caucuses, conventions, or assemblages, any more than in the same number of citizens scattered over an hundred hills or a thousand vallies.

It is very true that I could never hear the shackles of faction,—wear the livery of party, or descend to low, dark, insidious or jesuitical intrigues.

It is very true that I have no attachments to individuals, to parties, to states or to nations, any farther than I believe them disposed to do justice to the United States of America.

It is very true that I have no private interest, hopes, or wishes to promote, in either the National, or the State Government, for myself, my family, or my friends.

It is very true, that I have been so long accustomed to consider the American Confederation as one; the Northern & Southern, the Eastern and Western, the Transalleghanian and the Atlantic divisions of it, as parts of the same great whole; entitled to equal rights, privileges, immunities, and advantages; and obliged to sustain equal burdens, to perform equal duties, and to afford equal encouragement to Agriculture, Commerce, Manufactures, and other Arts and Sciences, in their proper places, that the habit has become a second nature.

I must moreover, explicitly declare, that I would not give my vote for any man, though he were the greatest and best in America, if I had reason to believe him hostile to Commerce, or indifferent to a Maritime Attitude, and Armour for its protection and defences.

Because, as a Naval Power is an essential and fundamental article in our National System of practical policy, for preservation and perfection of our Union, our Constitution, our Agriculture, Commerce, Manufactures, and all other Arts, Sciences, Comfort, Conveniences and Embellishments of Life; so an understanding and a will to encourage and promote a Naval Power, is, in my humble estimation, essential to the Character of a President of the United States.—If, by an error in judgement, or misconception of character, I should be left to vote for any gentleman of different sentiments, and find myself disappointed in my expectation, it would be a source of mortification, regret and remorse to the end of my life.

Descended from that vigorous youth, who first leaped upon the rock at Plymouth, and from other lines of ancestors who all lived in this District: having been born and educated in it, and in former parts of my life personally and familiarly acquainted with every county of it: if there is a spot of earth for which I have a more tender affection than for any other, it is the Southern District of Massachusetts.

If, with these views and sentiments, I should be designated by the free, unbiassed and unsolicited suffrages of the Citizens of this District, to the important office of an Elector—more important, perhaps, at this dangerous and disastrous crisis, than at any former period, I shall endeavour to execute the trust, according to the best of my knowledge, judgment and conscience.

With great respect, I have the honor to be, gentlemen, your affectionate fellow citizen, and most obedient humble servant,

JOHN ADAMS.

Hon. Seth Sprague,

Joseph Tisdale,

John Endicott,

George Cannon,

Marcus Morton.