Phenix gazette. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1825-1833, 1825-02-03


their right to do so-that the same Court has
assumed jurisdiction in "a case of law and e.
putty, arising under the constitution and alaw
of the United States" to which Virginia was
party-that Congress and the President have
claimed Alright, under the specific authority
"to lay'and collect taxes, &c. to pay the debts
and provide for the common defence and &C.
neral welare"-to appropriate money, to what.
ever will, in their opinion, promote the public
good-and, above all, that very many Of the
ablest supporters ofthe present administration,
have claimed for the General Government,
right to construct all such roads and canals, as
may be necessary to give full and complete
effect, to its powers III relation to the mail, the
commerce ofthe States, and the defence Of
the nation against hostile invasion.
The Enquirer will admit, that in the exhi'
bition, of the grounds, on which the Govern
ment at Washington has been charged with
having become "splendid and overshadow'
ing" we have presented no overdrawn pic
ture of the system of politics, prevailing at
Richmond. And we hope, before we have
done, to convince our readers, that in repre-
senting this system, to have been "taken
partly from the mere experimental history OF
the country, and partly from the teeming fan
cies ofspeculatve politicians, we have been
guilty of no great and crying injustice
Whoever is at all conversant with the ear
ly history of our country, cannot fail to recol-
lect the different feelings, with which, the
present constitution was contemplated, at its
adoption, by different descriptions OF politl'
clans. Some, it filed with the most fearful APP
prehensions for the rights of the States and
the Liberties of the people-while others con-
sidered it, as containing the seeds of inevitable
and premature decay. These different feel
ings gave, as might be expected, different di-
rections to the politics of those, who respec-
lively entertained them; and while some
sought, by forced construction perhaps, to
give an undue enlargement to the actual pow
ers of the government, others, on the contra
~, endeavored to reduce those powers to a
scale, wholly untitled to the objects, tor
which they had been created. Fortunately
for the country, the natural progress OF events
and the successful operation of the constitu-
ton, had the effect of dissipating every feari
and we may consider the close of the late war,
as the period, at which, public opinion, en-
Gghtened by the experience of four different
administrations, had settled down on the true
policy of the country, and on the only legiti-
mate rule of constitutional construction. To
this period, therefore, in our humble opinions,
should resort be had, for testing the policy of
the present, as well as Of every future admit
nistration-for determining not only what the
government ought to do, but also, what it has
right to do. Whoever goes beyond this Pc
Rod, will find himself involved in the mazes of
party, wandering by the feeble and glimmer-
ing light of theory, rather than in the full
blaze of sober and settled experience, and
ending in point very wide Of that, which the
good sense and matured reflections of his con-
temporaries have already attained.
1t is because the Richmond politicians have,
in our opinions, pursued this course-because
rejecting the principles, which had, at one
time, received even the sanction Of their APP
probation, they have raked up the early but
subsequently abandoned theories Of distin-
guished statesmen, and given to them, shape
and an extension, of which their original pro-
iectors never dreamed-that We have charac-
terised their system, as "taken partly from
the mere experimental history of the country,
and partly from the teeming fancies Of specu-
lative politicians" That very rule OF constr
tutional construction, for instance, on the per-
version of which, rests the standard of poIti-
cal orthodoxy, now established in Richmond,
and to which, an undue influence is attempt
ed to be given, by identifying it exclusively
with the popular proceedings Of '9sand '99,
originated, in fact, as early as the year l79l.-
Mr. Madison suggested it in his celebrated
speech in Congress during that year, on the
bank question; and Mr.. Jefferson sustained it,
with his usual ability, in an argument on the
same subject prepared for the cabinet, Of
which he was member. That the rule was
then rejected, after long and dispassionate
investigation, by the sound and unerring
judgment of General Washington, might well
excite doubt as to its correctness. But the
subsequent abandonment of it, in practice,
both by Mr. Jefferson and Mr.. Madison, and
the, at least, passive sanction Of that abandon
ment by Virginia herself, must necessarily
consign it to that class of speculative or ex-
permental propositions, which, unrestrained
by subsequent experience, can no longer be
resorted to as tests of political orthodoxy.
That we may not be misunderstood on this
subject, nor suspected Of Misrepresentation,