Alexandria daily gazette, commercial & political. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1808-1812, 1809-02-16

selves and to the people uiStiHStiy ~ aJ
this doctrine, at once novel and pernlclo'uS.
An administration may become corrupt,
but the people will remain pure. we are
therefore constrained with great respect, to
express eur mingled regret and astonlsh-
nlent, that your honor should seem to doubt
the capacity of the people to. decide on
questions involving their unaliedable rights.
Your honor is pleased to ask " if citizens
in the street-in town meetings-in multi
tudinous assemblies, pressed with deep per-
sonal interests, arc capable Of deciding on
GREAT. complicated and constitutional ques-
ton. ~ and to observe that from thence
our peril.
Nav we be permitted to ask, who shall
decide when the public functionaries abuse
their trust? We need not inform your ho-
nor, that the meetings to which you allude,
have been attended by men second to none
in the u. S. for their legal and political
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS their love of order-and
for their patriotism many of whom have
grown grey in the public service and conf
dence-many of them now holding high =
important Offices in the state: and that these
meetings have been conducted with great
order and decorum.
Can such assemblies of tie citizens me-
rit censure in a republican government! But
YOU will please to permit US to remark, that
your anmadversion upon these meetings,
appears the more extraordinary, because in
another part of your communication, your
honor is pleased to observe, "that 1t had
been the arduous task of our rulers to col
lect the diversified sentiments OF their con-
stituents. and to .assinilate and concentrate
them as far as possible to an according sys-
tenn, predicsted upon the prevailing opini-
on"--a measure indeed very proper, but
which could only be efectual, by the free
interchange Of opinion, and those very
meetings Of the citizens, from which your
honor seems afterwards to apprehend SO
much danger, your honor may be assured
that we 'squestion not the sincerity of the
opinion" which you have been pleased to
intimate, of the incapacity of the people.
but you will permit us to declare, that upon
their knowledge of their. rights and duties,
and their 6rmness & perseverance in main
tanning them, our hope is placed. They
will ultimately form Just decision. Hence
our ark-not 6 our peril"
We begleave to observe, that those rights
which the people have not chosen to part
with, should be exercised by them with dc
Iicacy-only in times of great danger-nct
with abstraction and confusion" not to
oppose the laws, but to prevent acts being
respected as laws, which are unwarranted
by The commission given to their rulers.
On such occasions, passive submission
would on the part Of the people, be breach
of their allegiance, and on our part, treaeh-
cry and perjury. For the pc ople are bound
by their allegiance, and We are additionally
bound by our oaths to support the constitu-
ton OF the state-and we are responsible to
the people, and to our God, for the faithful
execution Of the trust.
But your honor is pleased to observe,
that " the union have their favorite projects
states, towns & individuals have theirs"
and to enquire whether "thus Earring with
augmented resentments, we are to rush to-
gether in ruinous collisions"
Can it be necessary 70 remind your honor
that The osressor Is responsible for all the
Consequences which you have been pleased
so pathetically to describe? That the people
have not sent us here to surrender their
rights, but to maintain and defend them
asd, that we have no authority to dispense
with the duties thus solemnly imposed
Your honor has described "the calamities
which introduced our federal constitution"
with great truth. "Our government was
humbicd and neficient-ourunio thread
our gulated and unprotect-
ed-our revenue nothing--our faith perfly
Our ereditbankruptcy-ou privations the
want OF every thing individuals were eln~