Portland Gazette, And Maine Advertiser

COMMUNICATIONS
ANIMADVERSION

On the Reply of the Convention by their Committee, to the Protest of members of the minority against the acceptance of the Report.

A production has appeared in the Argus, purporting to be an address from the Convention assembled at Brunswick to the people of Maine, bearing the signatures of certain gentlemen, calling themselves a committee appointed by that assembly "to prepare and publish an address in answer to the protest of the minority, and in support of the proceedings of the convention" in relation to the subject of the separation of Maine from Massachusetts. The persons thus exercising the office of a Committee appear accordingly to have prepared a Communication, which they ask leave to make to the public.

As this is a performance of considerable pretension,—as it intimates a claim to the character of a State-paper, and appears to be intended for popular effect, it is of course entitled to receive the consideration, which it seems to deserve. The people, who present no man for lucre or malice, nor leave any man unpresented for love, fear, favour, affection or hope of reward, have arraigned the majority of the convention of a violation the high and solemn duty with which they were charged: The convention have placed themselves at the bar of public justice by agents duly authorised to represent them and to make their defence against the accusations substantially contained in the protest of the minority.

They have put themselves upon the country by able counsel of their own choice, and the manner in which their advocates have discharged the service assigned them, will form the subject of a few observations, which will be attempted to be made in a spirit, as free from passion, as firm to principle.

Passing over the inaccuracy of the title of the address, by which it would appear, that the convention was still assembled at Brunswick, in some shape or construction, by a committee appointed for the purpose—a poetical idea, which was possibly intended to be conveyed, and which it would probably be easy for the committee to prove; the first impression, which strikes the mind, with regard to this singular production, is the extraordinary character of the proceeding itself.

It is a replication on the part of the convention to the protest of a minority of its members against the doings of that body in its official capacity, in the acceptance of the report and the adoption of the resolutions prepared and recommended by a committee, partly composed of the individuals constituting the present committee, who also as delegates voted in the majority.

The power of protesting is the privilege of the minority. It is the weapon of the weaker party. It is the last resort of unsuccessful opposition in the discharge of public duty. Retiring from an unavailing contest with superior strength, unable to arrest the progress or resist the passage of a measure in their opinion improper, impolitic or injurious, in order to wash their hands of all concern in the affair, to be absolved from all participation, and leave the responsibility entirely where it belongs, they barely request leave of the assembly, of which they are members, to place upon the record their testimony against the proceeding. This is a natural and proper mode of avoiding a burden which ought not to be borne; it is a privilege, which may be exercised with permission of the majority by any member of the body, and was probably never refused when employed with propriety.

To reply to a thing of this kind is altogether unprecedented and unparliamentary. It is a departure from established usage and betrays an ignorance of correct proceeding. A public body should be above the miserable ambition of having the last word. It is beneath the dignity of a parliamentary assembly to apologize for the legal exercise of its authority. It is descending from its lofty station in the public view to notice the remonstrance of a minority, or stoop to vindicate a measure which if correct will carry its own justification along with it. The truth bears witness of itself. "A good cause requires no colouring. A public body by such an irregular action compromises its respectability. It is a concession made to its respect or the minority, which it denied to its own sense of character. Such a step shows a want of confidence in its own integrity. It admits the necessity of some explanation. It manifests a kind of consciousness—it implies a sort of internal uneasiness; it discovers a degree of sensibility on the part of the majority, which comports better with the delicacy of personal honour, than the dignity of an august public assembly.

Nor is the mode of this proceeding less a matter of admiration. This measure so important to the vindication of its conduct is not undertaken by the convention itself, but is left to be performed by a committee, and that committee is invested with perfect authority to execute their commission in any manner they think proper. The usual and only proper mode of proceeding by Committee, is by report, which is made to the body creating it, where it is necessary for the report to be accepted. Without acceptance a report is altogether an imperfect thing. It has no existence in nature. It has only an existence among the class of possibilities. It is like the earth at the process of creation, without form and void. Here a committee is appointed to report not to the convention, but through the channel of a newspaper to the public ;—and its proper commencement should be "Know all men by these presents." When the report is made, if at all, the convention is in recess. Indeed it is not in existence, unless by a happy
By fiction it is assembled at Brunswick by the committee appointed for the purpose.

The report therefore has no legitimate sanction whatever except what it receives from the carte blanche given them by the convention, which authorizes them to accept their own relegation of delegated authority—an act which is contrary to a principle of public law, the convention, if it could be considered, that a corporation had any conscience, places its own in commission, and consigns to the discretion of a small number of individuals, whom it invests with full power for the purpose, the task of vindicating their reputation, with the privilege of publishing whatever they please on their behalf in their name—leaving themselves in fact entirely at the mercy of their own ministers. In what manner such a committee would be likely to execute the office assigned them, may be inferred from the circumstance, that they were the principal members of the very committee, which made the original report, and of course possess all the feelings and have all the inducements of participators. Accordingly you find them chiefly anxious for their own exculpation, making the convention a stalking horse under which to discharge their functions, and exercising the liberty of devolving upon their principals the heavy load of imputation which they have personally incurred. It is manifest, that such a communication so made, comes clothed with no extraordinary importance—being altogether a posthumous affair, and deriving no consequence from any ratification it has yet received from the convention. It may therefore be considered as the reply IN PART of three persons implicated in the report, to the protest of a large and respectable minority.

There is greater inducement to adopt this conclusion from the manner in which the committee have executed their commission,—a manner which is entirely inconsistent with the respect which a large and honourable body owes to itself. It cannot therefore be construed into any disrespect for that honourable body to say that it is a performance intemperate, indecent and undignified; that it is entirely deficient in taste, interest or eloquence. It is a bilious and declamatory production altogether unsuitable to the gravity of a deliberative assembly. It excites much uneasiness, irritation and perturbation; and manifests a state of mind of great solicitude and unhappiness. It is strongly expressive of the feeling of alarm and agitation incident to a powerful public accusation, succeeded by a sudden conviction, when a violent effort is about being made to prevent judgment from being rendered on the verdict; and while it evinces all the agony of apprehension, it affects at the same time to assume and carry out the character and language of impeached integrity of injured innocence and suffering virtue.

To proceed from the manner of this production to its matter, it would appear that the convention had somewhat receded from the original ground assumed in the report, if it does not indeed amount to an abandonment of it. There it was the only correct construction. In that way only, the committee there say, can they give a construction to the language employed in the act, and the construction adopted by the committee was solemnly pronounced in the convention to be true, as God himself is true. Softer strains have succeeded the acceptance of the report, since its reception by the public has been ascertained; and the convention have now expressed a simple preference but not a decided opinion in favour of that mode of construction. There is no occasion to enter into any discussion of pure points of preference, especially as taste is admitted not to be a subject of dispute. But it is certainly a taste of some singularity to prefer that which is not true to that which is. Next to telling a tale of that kind is the virtue of loving it; and even to prefer the interpretation adopted for its doubtfulness, seems only to be choosing darkness rather than light—a preference of evil to good argues a depravity of appetite not to be imputed gratuitously to gentlemen sustaining high and honourable relations in society. That the committee preferred, that Maine should be separated from Massachusetts whether there was any majority for it or not, there can be no manner of doubt; and they profess therefore to prefer the construction most likely to produce this desired consummation, indifferent whether the act authorized it or not. To resist so plausible and national a construction merely on the ground of its novelty they consider would have been highly censurable. But it would be letting off the convention too lightly to suffer it to be supposed that the act will bear their construction, when the fact is that it will not admit of the interpretation imposed upon it, and can be made apparent not only to be not the right one, but one which it can with no violence be forced to endure.

[Remainder next week]

More opinions on Separation and the Rump Parliament.

When the leaders of this assembly get to Boston, on the meeting of the Legislature, they must give up the idea of getting themselves directly confirmed in power, and must approach their friends in the work of separation with a little more decency than they have heretofore contemplated. "But" by the Rump Parliament, "we will proceed carry the law into effect according to our own understanding of it." If they should persist in this, projectors will be put to their shifts; and suppose that in this conflict between the Legislature and the faction, each should take a different course, and that the Legislature should send the question back to the people, while the Rump Parliament are gravely manufacturing a constitution for them. This would be a political spectacle at once grand and novel! The Legislature would disdain such a course.

But it is much more probable that by the leaders of the faction a coalition will be attempted. With whom? And to what end? Whom can the grand manager approach? Not a man of honour or probity in the Legislature. All of that description will avoid him. How then can a coalition be formed? The Legislature of Massachusetts can never with safety trust the administration of laws touching the property of the state to polluted hands, upon a bare majority of votes, without inflicting a wound upon themselves that can never be healed.

The consequences of such a measure may now be foreseen by every man of reflection, and in a very short time they would be visible in Massachusetts proper. A ten years embarrassment of the people of Maine, by the policy of the general government has been felt throughout the state. But another year will show that the land and the forests of the Commonwealth are yet to become an immense resource. Never was the labourer and mill owner better rewarded than at the present moment. The ship owner is still a great sufferer. It is certain to the view of an attentive observer, that the value of the public lands in Maine, if left entire, and at the disposal of the State, will advance beyond all former example in a very short space. Nova-Scotia and New-Brunswick can never be successful competitors with Maine in the manufacture of any kind of lumber. The numerous foreign vessels, now in our ports waiting for cargoes, exhibit proof of this position. But let the lands be divided into squares as contemplated by the act of separation and their value is at once betrayed, unless a profligate administration in Maine, when separated, should seize upon the whole with a high hand, and turn them to the best advantage for the state. This might induce a quarrel but the condition of the possessor would be the least troublesome. some.

It is of the first importance both to Massachusetts and Maine; that if ever a separation should take place, the only suitable time will be, when a considerable portion of men of integrity in Maine are favourably disposed to the measure. Otherwise there will be no safety to either. To this it may be said that the people of Maine send unprincipled men to the Legislature in considerable numbers, and that to such they put their trust, and ought therefore to be ruled by them. This, when a question of public property is to be entrusted to the discussion and decision of such men, is a weak argument, and dangerous in its consequences.

If it should be enquired how the Legislature shall know when, if ever, a safe period for separation should arrive? The answer is, by the characters of the movers. The memorial presented to the Legislature by the Separation-members from Maine at the last session, contains evidence as plenary as the Brunswick report that the authors are not to be trusted for good faith or veracity. That memorial is grossly untrue. All their publications on the subject are calculated to blind and deceive the credulous and weak, and to rouse the spirits of the vicious. The time has not arrived when Maine can be separated with safety to either section of the Commonwealth. Why should it ever be separated? The smaller the state the more easily is it moved by faction, and the less safe are the great institutions on which the improvement and the morals of society depend.

The Hon. Judge Winder must have been the reasoner who brought the Brunswick convention to understand matters. The Hon. Mr. Holmes and John Davis and W. P. Preble Esquires must have lighted up their spunk at the learned Judge's tinder box. Their answer to the protest of the minority is masterly. It is well these three gentlemen heard the Judge before they wrote their answer, and it must be highly gratifying to the friends of the great work of separation, to observe how highly this polished work of theirs approves the profound doctrines of the honourable Judge.

"O learned Judge whose eloquence can move
Tag, rag and bobtail loudly to approve"!