The Daily Madisonian

ENTRANCE UPON THE NEW YEAR—POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT.

We have entered upon a New Year. The record
of such an era is enduring and eternal. The past
has been tried—the future is to be tested. The
opening of the New Year brings with it a solemn
train of interesting reflections. Mementos of days
that have fled—of their joys and their sorrows, rush
unconsciously to the heart, and mingle in its keenest
emotions on an occasion thus hallowed by the en-
dearing ties of country and of home, of freedom and
happiness.

To our friends, we tender the salutations of the
season. Monday dawned upon us in all the splendor
and beauty of a serene and cloudless sky—in
all the glory of an advent commemorative of the
past, and admonitory of the future. New scenes are
opening around us. We feel the deep inspiration of
the occasion, and with the buoyant spirit of our nature
we enter with renewed ardor and animation on the
duties before us. We are all apt to look upon the
bright side of a picture; but the reflecting mind,
when warmed and animated by a sense of human
wo, can never turn aside from want and suffering;
or mock the miseries that hang in sadness and gloom
upon the brow of misfortune. In prosperity or affliction,
the man of feeling and principle is ever the
same.

How prosperous and happy is our rapidly expanding
and wide-spread land: Peace and plenty are the
companions of the hut and of the mansion. Disaster
and trial, indeed, may come, but the same overruling
Providence that upholds and sustains the successful
and worthy, watches over the slumbers of the needy
and the destitute upon his humble pallet of straw.

The anniversary return of the New Year finds our
nation and country basking in the bright and enliven-
ing sunbeams of unexampled wealth and prosperity.
And to whom, let us solemnly ask, to whom more
than to the honored Chief Magistrate of our glorious
Union—to what individual more than to Mr. TYLER
himself, are we indebted for this auspicious and
praiseworthy condition of things? Let us cast a cur-
sory glance over this yet infant, but growing and
prosperous Republic—over the broad surface of this
free and happy land—and mark the giant strides of
public improvement every where abounding—the on-
ward march of industry and enterprise, and the rapid
advancement and spread of intellectual intelligence
among the great mass of our countrymen and people
in every quarter of the continent—and how soul-
inspiring and joyous, how exquisite and thrilling is
the aspect of affairs every where around us! We
have the happiness to live under the bright smiles of
an Administration, which, though falsely accused and
rudely assailed through the cruel and unmanly viru-
lence of partisan malignity, yet stands forth to the
world, and will, as we hope, continue so to stand, the
purest and the happiest of any since the early days
of our Republic. And, though the haggard image of
war has for years been seen, like a bedizened spec-
tre, hanging threateningly over us, the spirit of peace
and contentment, that scatters its blessings around
us, (the natural characteristic of the people of this
country,) extends to us all her cheering welcome, and
her warm and ardent congratulations. Here, in this
free and prosperous land, we have never yet been
called to mourn over the ruins of a degraded and
fallen peasantry, or to mingle our tears around the
miserable cot of want and destitution, made desolate
by the cruel hand of arbitrary rule. Monarchies
and despotisms, those heartless usurpers of dominion
and power, are the common inheritors of calamities
that send pain and anguish to the beating bosom of
poverty and wretchedness. WE ARE FREE. We
know little of the miseries that prey upon those who
have no home. John Tyler is our President. He
feels deeply for the country in whose counsels he
presides. It has been his good fortune, amid a host
of trials and troubles such as no man before him has
ever seen or known, so to steer the majestic ship of
State through the dashing surges, shoals and quick-
sands of partisan strife and malevolent abuse, as to be
enabled to welcome the in-coming of the New Year
upon which we have just entered, with all the pride
of the philanthropist, and the inspiration of the pa-
triot. And who, let us humbly but earnestly inquire,
who are his accusers? Where the guilty, cavilling,
complaining, persecuting, denunciatory clan, who
would wantonly and cruelly heap imprecation upon the
head of one whose whole life has been so untiringly
devoted to the best interests of his country? Where,
in what cloister, from behind what envenomed bat-
tery, do they hurl their barbed arrows? Come forth,
all ye Bank-ridden revilers—ye who denounce the
Veto, and ye who applaud it the better to stab your
benefactor—come forth with your budgets of indict-
ments and false accusations, and lay them all on the
altar of your country, for trial. On this day, in this
era of good feeling, under the bright sun of universal
prosperity and enjoyment, we call for specifications.
We demand, most feelingly and solemnly do we de-
mand, in the face of the country and the world, ALL
THE PROOFS at your control, of that faithlessness and
duplicity which you have so wantonly and maliciously
charged. Where are the facts, the demonstrations,
of the mal-administration of which you so foully
complain? Do you find them in the animating smile
of plenty that now gladdens every branch of our na-
tional industry? in the present high prices of our agri-
cultural products? in the multiplied bounties of
abundance that fill the farmer's granary? in the
heavy laden ship that whitens every sea? in the many
and diversified sources of intercommunication and
trade that reach, or will yet be made to reach, nearly
every family fireside? Do you find them in the price
of the public stocks—in the elevation of the public
credit—in the wide-spread bounties and blessings
that freshen the very atmosphere we inhale, ennoble
our nation, and make it the standing theme of enco-
mium in every quarter of the globe? Are these your
facts and specifications?—these a part and portion of
the long roll of accusations you bring into court
against the Chief Magistrate of your country? Look
back upon past Administrations. Let your thoughts
run over a few of the years that are fled, and how
stands the present in comparison with the past? Have
disasters whose paralytic effect upon our great na-
tional interests sometimes shake the very foun-
dation of the Government, come down upon the head
of John Tyler? Look back upon that day when the
devastating blight of unwise measures and failing
counsels spread a devouring blight and mildew over
this land of the free. No discredit of such a charac-
ter attaches to our present ruling powers. The wheels
of Government move on prosperously and regularly.
Every department of the national councils is ably and
skilfully managed. The Cabinet of the President has
seldom been so ably filled, or so successfully conduct-
ed. Practical, prudent, industrious, attentive men,
are at its respective heads—men who do not 'feel pow-
er and forget right,' but whose whole energies of soul
and mind are devoted to their country, to its interests,
its institutions and its laws. And how, under such a
cheerful state of things, sharing as we do blessings
so numerous and pure, every where so liberally
dispensed, can we have a heart to pine over imagi-
nary ills, or to mourn over troubles never felt or
known?

In evening shade, or noon day sunshine, well and
freely may we, on this day, contemplate the destiny
of the world, its pleasures and its pains, its joys and
its misfortunes. Our own happy land is free, and free,
we trust, forever. Its President has a conscious rec-
titude of conduct and intention that will be his shield
in every storm and trial. Aspiring ambition may
make him its victim. Rivalry may point its enven-
omed arrows at his fame. The sluices of a prostitu-
ted press may mark him as their prey, and yet he will
stand, amid the thunders of malevolent denunciation
and abuse, the President of a nation and country in
whose future history he will be remembered as one
of the champions of freedom, the defender of the
constitution, and the conservator of the public peace
and welfare.