The native American., 1838-10-20

Every dav affords us additional and strong rea-
sons to congratulate ourselves and our fellow
countrymen on the stand we have taken. We
are it is true still but handful. But that hand
full is closely knit in its principles, in its ardent
and absorbing devotion to regulated liberty, i'll its
determination to resist the encroachments Of for
eign misrule, in its purposes to afford one bright
spot in the annals of this country into which the
fatally disorganizing spirit of foreign immigration
shall not inrude. We will still 60 Oh to do our
duty, to hold up to our countrymen from time to
time, picture, true and faithful picture of the
monstrous enormities, daily practced among u.s.,
which are bringing our boasted and cherished in
stitutions into merited opprobrum and reproach.
We have been censured by the ignorant and by
the unprincipled, and we have hitherto disregard
ed them. Efforts have been industriously made
to enlist against US the great political parties by
which our land has been distracted. We are held
UP on the one side aristocrats, federaists, TO-
ries;-on the other hand as embodying the very
essence of Loco-f focoism, Juchson- Fan -Burenism
and consoHaationists. We are neither the one
nor the other. We 90 for the couatry-for its
institutions-for our birth-right. Let who will
be President, so long as he does not assail the
ground we take as party we stand aloof. We
interfere with neither the outs nor the ans. But
let him or his party assa us, and whether it be
Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, William Henry
Harrison, or Daniel Webster we say to him,
beware! you touch upon holy things, you would
despoil us ofhopes consecrated in our hearts, and
upon that ground, and that only we declare against
you.
We appeal to the reason Of our feow-citizens.
We ask them soberly and nationally to consider
to what their invitation indiscriminate and unlim
tied to the foreigner, TO make this land his home,
inevitably tends. 1t is not from the foreigner
alone in the mutitudes in which they may come,
or the talent, capacity and mental resources they
may bring with them, that we fear disaster, and
those mighty evils to our political economy, of
which we begin to have forctaste, but it
is the corrupting influence which they have, and
do now continually exercise over our own citizens
that fills us with the severest dread And not
only is it this corrupton but it is that loathsome
diminution ofndependent feeling and action which
we see daily exhibited around us, against which
we would raise warning cry. We ask you to look
to your neighbor, nay look into your own bosom,
and see if there is not there almost conviction
that we are right; fear Of examining this sub
ject of Native Americansm, lest you too should
.JoJ ~, -. &c do mot in
conscience believe that the principles processes
are true, patriotic, hallowed by every motive
which can attach man to his native land, and yet
you stop short. Why? What is this phantom, this
mapproachable and inexplicable something which
holds you back from the investigation of these
principles, and from an ardent embrace of that
which you feel and know is as precious as life,
your native land! Nay, start not, you must come
to it-you cannot shut your eyes to the trnth.
You see before you the alienation of foreigners,
the scowl of distrust or hate, or the lip of scorn,
on faces you have long been accustomed to greet
with friendly familiarity. We tell you, you have
degenerated, you no longer free, you no longer
dare to feel, think, and act as a freeman. The
unseen deleterious and destructive influence of for.
eign power is already at work within you, and you
dare not continue what God and nature have made
YOU, Native American. This influence follows
you every where, and although your heart sinks
within you, and you cannot, for very shame cry
out with him to whom you have sold your birth
right "down with them, down with them,'' you
still stand idly, and listen with composed lip
and quailing eye to the Kissing OF the vlpers
who have been warmed in the bosom OF youl
counrymen You see the unbaptsed alien TAX
ing the lead in all your political associations pre-
scribing to you rules Of action, threatening you
with his influence, and you cringe and fawn ane
kiss the foot that thus treads you in the dust. We
call upon you to awake,-to be men,-to be fre
men.