The Alexandria herald. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1811-1826, 1813-08-18
For the .dterandria Herald.
TO JOSIAH QUINCY, ESQ.

You have made yourself so conspicu.
Gus by the violence of your language, and
the Recommendations you have publicly held
out to induce compliance with the views
and wishes OF the party you adhere 10, that
you must have tacitly consented TO become
responsible for their arguments-Befor
go into them however permit me to re-
call some ofthc circumstances which, be-
heVe, induce your state and yourself to en-
bark In the very hazardous enterprise of
creating that distress within the union
which you have failed in bringing TO bear
upon 1t from without. You arc now, sir,
underwriting 10 detach the state OF Louisi-
ana from the union, and have put your
namc TO the report of committee of the
Massachusetts legislature, assigning rca-
sons why the law which receives that state
into the union is an usurpation of power in
congress, who, you say, have authority 10
admit states which might be created with
in the boundaries of the original thirteen
states, but have no power to admit OF any
addition to the empire. The work is pal
pabiy yours, and as it goes to attack the sta
billty of the republic, any citizen (if the
term does not shock you) has a right to re-
ply to 1t. 1t is so very rare FOR committees
or individuals to oppose ascessions to their
own wealth or Importance that we arc i'm
PEELED to look for some very uncommon
motive when the instance occurs. If that
motive is, as you are weak enough 10 allow,
to prevent participation of rights and pri-
yiieges you leave us at loss which mos;
TO detcst the sordidness which suggests
such motive or the impudence which I'M
putes 1t to the founders of our constitution.
A very common education would have
taught you that to admit participation in
rights and privileges was the principle
and practice of the wiscst and greatest ma
tons OF antiquity, and no reason can be as
signed why America should not, in com
mon policy, follow the eXample-that your
state sets very high value upon its own
share OF the common rights and privileges
need not be disputed that they have car
Tled this attachment TO a very criminal
length Iii their efforts to exclude from the
general benefit some who had the nisfor-
tune to trace their claim to it from an ori-
gin among themselves, their modern histo-
ry, with which you are perfectly well &C
quainted, establishes beyond a doubt Un-
fortunately however for them the private ef-
fort is still more detesta5le than their pre-.
sent public one, and in the one case the
robbery Of an estate, with embezzlemen,
anu forgery ofreCorGs 10 COpCeal the crime
j. can be imputed to Massachusetts, as a state
acting by its public dignitaries, we have {
consolation in their public effort that the
records they quarrel with can neither be
altered, embezzled, or erased. will now
sir, proceed to examine the public record:
which share these rights and privileges
with the Massachusetts, & prove, tho no;
believe to your satisfaction, tf:s! their Who'll,
tenor is the reverse OF what Won assert
that the admission Of what vow stranceI;
call foreign territory mas contemplated by
the trainers of the constitution. and, tha
they have adapted their language to theii
ideas, and, that with the exception Of tht
Massachusetts, the entire world neither car
or will putany other constructionuponi it
need not go farther back for the idea of a.
empire than to your own father. In