Mobile daily commercial register and patriot., 1841-05-17

DEMOCRATIC MEETIsG-MR. SHIELDs- The Democratic meeting Saturday night was ful. y attended. The large concourse of people was drawn together, partly by the reputation of the speaker who was expected to address the meeting, but mainly we believe, by the common feeling of po- pular dsplcasure the first fruits of the exercise of power by administration, SO redundant in pro- misses of different things. We were gratifed to per- cciye the faces ofa good many intelligent whigs in the crowd, who for two hours and upwards that Mr. Shields spoke, were evidently deeply interested in the speaker, however they assened to the political doctrines and truths which fell from his lips.
 Col. w. R. Hallett called to preside as chair man and John Bragg, to act as secretary. At about 8o'clock, Mir. Shields rose and delivered speech, which desire to speak of without prejudice or flat tery. To say that we pleased simply. would not do justice to the truth ofthe impression left upon our own mind after having attentively caught every word of h. the estimate set upon by every demo- crat we have heard express an opinion of it, nor to the merits of the speaker. We were not only gra- tifed, but instructed, aud the latter is high praise of the generality of stump speeches, It clear and forcibe exposition of the several political ques- tions embraced wthin tho course of argument which he intended to pursue, often illustrated with bursts of eloquence, which drew from his hearers the audi. be evidences of grati6ed conviction. We have not time space here to do justice to the effort in gs ing even the skeleton of his argument.
 He spoke first of the impolicy of the call for an session of Congress, for seat in which he had been called upon by his political friends to canvass, There was nothing in the state of the country appa- the pubic eye to justify the trouble and pense the people of extra session of the Lcgs- atures of the several States, the moral evil of the premature engenderng of renewed party acerba-
 ton, whom after the intense excitement of the Presi- dential campaign, the country needed repose. No man could tell for what the President had called Con- gress together at so unreasonable period, and SO great expense of treasure and inconvenience, and moral and political evil to the people. There was war--np danger of sudden iavasion-nothing in the state of the Treasury, no great emergency ofany to justify the President in interfering with the meet ings of Congress at periods prescribed by the stitution. Knowing nothing, said Mir, Shields, of the true reasons for this unwise and precpitate measure, these were left to eosjsctwe-and as the
 
 he proceeded to inquire what had been the former measures of the whig party (so called) the best method of ascertaining what they proposed to do. He also denounced the system of keeping the people in the dark as to what was proposed to be done by these public servants iu this call for extra ses- sion.
 The most prominent whig and federal scheme, was Mir. Clay's "Land Bil," which he forcibly descrih. ed as bill to tax the people for the foolish purpose of dividing the fund raised among the States-a splendid bait to the states gded at the expense of the peoples pockets--a bill, the direct object of which would be-by dverting the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, from their legitimate object of ap propriaon to the support of the General Government to distribute among the IStates--to create the ne- cessity for increased taxation for the support of the government, and as that tax would be imposed in the shape of duties on Imports, the inevitable effect was to increase the tarf-that it was "tarff in dis guise," measure, which if successful would force Congress to remodel the turii, at the expiration of the compromise act, next year, at high rate of duties-and thereby renew and perpetuate sys- ten which the South had long felt as grieyious and grinding, and borne patiently under the implied pledge ofthe compromise act, that at its expiration the principle of projection would be abandoned,
 MT, Shields then went to the next darling Federal scheme of National Bank, denying the power of Congress to charter one, Hc appealed to and prov- ed from history, that it had never answered the pur- poses claimed by its advocates, that it was useless for those objects, as t mischsvous an engine of political power and corruption, and in its influences upon the stability of the standard value of currency, the value of property, the morals, happiness and prosperity of the psople, He spoke of Gen, Jack sons sagacity (and here he eoquent) in discov- ering the rot,enness of the late National Bank, in the operations of that very stExchange Committee" by whose agency, the recent developments made at Philadelphia prove the Bank to have been finally r- ined. He showed how the Bank waged battle with | the Government and the people, contracting and ex- banding its issues, making money plenty and scarce, brbins and opfressngs the community ,and