The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1829-02-18
.Mr. .4aans's Reply to the preceding Leits

snFs s1GNHtS ) INeDty u Htc PItCeu@tS Ht'tSf'
WAsnISeroN, Both Dec. 1923.
To NIessrs FL G. Otis, and others:
GenHemen-I have received your letter
of the 26th nit. and recognizing among the
signatures to it, names of persons for whom
long and on my part uninterrupted friend
ship. has survived all the bitterness of politi-
cal dissension, it would have afforded me
pleasure 20 answer with explicitness and
candor not only those persons. but each and
every one of you, upon the only questions IN
relation to the subject matter OF your letter,
which as men or as citizens can acknoWl-
edge your right to ask; namely whether
the interrogation was himself one of the per-
sons, intended by me in the extract which
you have given, from statement authorlz-
ed by NE and published in the National In
telligencer of 2Ist Oct. last
Had you or either of You thought proper
to ask me this question, it would have been
more satisfactory to me to receive the m
quiry separately from each individual, than
arrayed in solid phalanx. each responsible
not only for himself but for all the others.
The reasons for this must he so obvious to
persons Of your intelligence, that trust you
will spare me the pain of detailing them.
But, Gentlemen, this is not all. You I'M
dertake your inquisition, not in your own
names alone but as the representatives OF
a great and powerful party, dis5ersed
throughout the States of Massachusetts and
Maine. A party commanding, at the time
TO which your inquiries refer, devoted
majority in the Legislature of the then
United Commonwealth; and even now, if
Judged of by the character of its volunteer
delegation, Of great influence and respec-
liability.
l cannot recognize you, on this occasion,
as the representatives of that party, for two
reasons--first, because you have neither pro-
duced your credentials for presenting your
selves as their champions, nor assigned
satisfactory reasons for presenting your
selves without them. But secondly, and
chiefly, because your Introduction of that
party into this question is entirely gratuit-
Gus. Your solemn declaration that you DO
not know that the federal or any other par
ty, at the time to which my statement refers,
intended to produce the dissolution Of the
Union, and the formation of new confed-
eracy, does not take the issue, which your
own statement of my charge las you are
pleased TO consider itl had rendered. The
statement authorized by me, spoke, not
of the federal party, but Of certain leaders of
that party. In my own letters to the
Members of Congress, who did me the hon
or at that agonizing crisis to our National
Union, of soliciting my confidential opinions
upon measures under elaboration, | ex-
pressly acquitted the great body of the fed
eral party, not only Of participating in the
secret designs of those leaders, but even OF
being privy to, or believing in. their exist
ence. now cheerfully repeat that declar-
ton. Iwell know that the party were not
prepared for that convulsion, to which the
measures and designs Of their leaders were
instigating them; and my extreme anxiety
for the substitution of nonintercourse for the
embargo arose from the imminent danger,
that the continuance and enforcement of
this latter measure would promote the views
of those leaders, by goading a majority of
the people and Of the legislature to the pitch
of physical resistance, by State authority
against the execution of the laws of the
Union; the only effectual means by which
the Union could be dissolved. Your mod
esty has prompted you to disciaim the char
acter of leaders of the federal party at that
time. fl am to consider this as more than
a mere disavowa Of form, / must say that
the charge, which lament too see has ex-
cited so much Of your sensibility, had no
reference 10 any Of on.
Your avowed object is controversy. You
call for a precise state Of facts and evil
denne not affecting, SO far as you know,
any one Of yon, but TO enable you fairly to
meet and 70 answer il.
And you demand.
4, Wko aTe the persons ,leeignaiei az