Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1845-05-24

;,,os against the Alien and Sedton Laws the other
.he childish witness Of fathers persecution and
the companion Of his fight fifty years ago) to
this country persecution which he had provoked
by maintaining TOO boldly liz too. boldly it can
b, mantained) the cause Of Popular Right and
the Freedom Of the Press; beginning our career in
politics under the Presidency Of Mfr. JEFFERSON,
and graduating, IL we may The expression, I'M
der that Of Mr.. MADISON, we have been Of course
always stanch opponents Of the old Federal party
and its doctrines This we have been, whether UNI
DIR their original name, loftily and fairly-upon
honest and patriotic, if somewhat arbitrary no.
tions--the Federasts strove to establish, by idsc,
Government too strong; whether, abandoning
the name, that they might far exceed the acts Of
Federalism, they took, under Gen, JAcKsoN--ccr-
tainly the most arbitrary man that this country mas
av.. ooa-bat sncc6sSful
under whose cover tlay can do, scithout or against
Law, all, and much more than ALL which the Fede-
ralists at the very worst never thought of doing,
cept openly and in legal form.
We have lately taken some pains TO show that,
in society Of popular constitution and temper, they
who aim at the establishment Of tyranny must ever,
Of necessity, fail, until they learn the wit to take
popular names TO charm the unsnspecting peo
pie with the idea Of a still greater and competer
possession of power than that which they already
enjoy, and lure them on, by false though specious
arguments, to pull down the laws and authorities,
that they themselves, the perverters may reign in
their stead.
:" So spake the false Archangel, and infusd
g Bad influence into tn unwary breast
g OF his associate"
All rejecting men have marked instance after in
stance in which, under theory Of the EXTREMIST Re-
publicansm, this pseudo-democracy has continually
done things which, for their utter contempt Of all
civil freedom, the Federalism Of HAMLToN, JAY,
MARSHALL, and the first ADAMS, would have bushed
or famed up with indignation. We need scarcely
recall the than Kingly assumption, by General
JACKSON, to execute or not TO execute laws accord
ing as he Judged them constitutional his strange
and daring mode of strangling in their passage le-
gislative acts, which he could in no other manner
defeat by pocketing and keeping them his violent
and illegal steps in the Removal Of the Deposites,
the first overt act Of that long and vindctive war
which he was suffered to wage against the United
States Bank-an institution at least legal, founded
constitutional by the very party in whose name
he set the whole Executive power and all his own
boundless personal influence to pull il down his
srest asscssP4, by has Protest the Senate, de-
molsh the Legislative rights and independence; his
overthrow of the concurrent power of the Senate
in appointments, by continuing in employment off,
GERS whose nomination that body had refused to
confirm; the direct Of the Veto as substantive
power over Legislation the open appropriation
(now passed into settled right of all public pa
tronage as the party and personal spoil of those in
power, instead Of regarding il in lis true light Of
trust to be dispensed with view TO the public
service alone. All these were, and are, usurpafons
which Federalism never, in its utmost arrogance,
could have imagined for Federalism as we have
said, never proposed to act but through the laws
and, since such laws could not be enacted except
by those whom the people were to elect, Federal
ism-Old Federalism-meant only, after all, to gov
the people through laws Of the peoples making.
And what, in reality, were those laws, whose
unpopularity broke down the old Federal party
Two only of those laws-perhaps we might say
single one, the Sediton Law--drew down upon it
political ruin then, and popular Reproduction ever
since. The Alien Law alone-pointed at non-natu-
rallied disturbers who, driven from Europe for their
revolutionary doings, were making themselves
amends for their disappointment there by trying to
subvert the free government of the land that had
lent them refuge-could have excited but little
public outcry, the conduct Of those men justifyng
almost any severity Of legislation. Laws of an
analogous character now exist on the statute books
of several States-South Carolina, Virginia, and
Louisiana, for examples to coored freemen'' Of
this and Of other countries.
BESIDES these two acts, Legislative ones, be il
remarkedD the only two offences charged against
Tue federalsts were, the chartering Of United
0'aes Dank in 1871 the suppression or the Whs-
Key insurrection in 1893; the refusal to lei the
French ambassador, GENET, hector our Govern
nent and set up Jacobin societies All over the coun.
try the determined refusal to abandon our ,v;se
and right neutrality between France and Enr,.,a.
Jays treaty the little standing Armv. r,;ssJ
when France threatened us with war h.c.,sa IA
chose to stand neutral; and the limited Nav sr.o,
ed Tor protecting our commerce and renell;no
national insults. Now, all these facts either ,;,,e
itself has indicated right, or the RepubI.
can party has since adopted them. That partv
chartered new United States Bank in 1916: the
bioodless vigor used in suppressing the Whskey-
boys is now sanctioned by every body, and by
Jackson-men more deerminedly than by any other
men the treatment of GENET and of the haurl,t,,