Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1848-07-01


How any thing but enemies TO the Constitution,
most conservative feature in our Government" the
upholders of Annexations, of Presidential Vars and
Tariffs, of Executive Constitution-makin OF exc
cutions OF Mexicans for treason arrests OF Ameri-
can private citizens (as in the Trst CASEY without
law or warrant, and hundred other strange usurp-
atoms, declare, with indignant vehemence. (their
lberty-oving souls all in fame, that the support
ers OF the. Washington Administration were Fede-
ralists, bloody and black ? Well so they were
federalists, sure enough but, under Gen. WASH
INoToN, what was that! The friends and follow
ers of the best of cizen-rulers the partners of his
labors, the agents of his patriotic designs the men,
in short, to whom, next after their mighty leader
himself, this country stands most indebted. Alas
it has repaid them with little but concep-
tons and the obloquy Of demagogues
Let il be remarked that these, including General
Washington, were the Hamiltonian Federalists-
those Of whom Hamilton was one, with whom he
was in Office. He was not member of the Adams
Administration, and was far from being favorite
with its head. And, now that we have seen the
virtues of Federalism during this period, let next
survey its crimes or faults and particularly the
measures by which it proved its desire for Arbitrary
Government.
The first Of these was the enormty of chartering
National Bank: thing utterly unconstitutional,
no doubt, and anti-republican although the first
national banks that ever existed set up in re-
| publics-those of Venice and Amsterdam. But if
chartering such thing in 1871 rendered those who
| did il Federasts, what was the old Republican
party in 1916, when it chartered the United States
Bank, against the strenuous opposition Of the Fed
eralists, who were denounced for opposing it?
What was it fifteen years later, when, under the
Administration of Gen. JACKSON, Bank of fifty
millions of capital proposed with the States by
| the Constitution forbidden from issuing bills of
credit) for stockholders! Or what, in 1882, when
Gen. Jackson mysterously said, in his veto upon
the renewal of the Bank Charter, that if Congress
had consulted him (innuendo that it should always
do that he could have furnished the plan of const-
tutional Bank !! So far, then, as Banks are con-
cerned, Mr.. MADISON, the head Of the Republican,
and Gen. JACKSON, the inventor of the Locofoco
party, were as rank Federalists as ALEXANDER
HAMILTON himself.
But the two main acts-both now universally
recognised as highly right and wise-which were
by demagogism and faction Tor we should rather
say Jacobinism) turned against the policy Of Gen.
WASHINGTON, and shook his popularity, were the
British treaty called Jays, and his steady refusal
to yield either to the French party among ourselves
to the insufferable acts and intrgues of French
agents to force us to abandon our Neutrality and
side with that nation in her effort to revolutonize
not only all Europe, but this country. For even
this country was then not free enough for her in
sane visions of Liberty, or for those of our own
Democracy, whose leaders organized French Clubs
all over the United States, raised alarms against
Monarchy and Aristocracy, abused the people Tex
cited and therefore credulous) with the pretence
that WASHINGTON aimed at throne, his supporters
at titles Of nobility, and finally, to get into power
themselves, employed all those Infamous calumnies
of Calender and other foreign adventnrers and hire
lings, which presently, when JOHN ADAMS "a man
less temperate and less caniious) came to the Pre-
sidency, tempted him and his worried supporters
to resort TO laws Of repression, 1.-THE Alien and Sc
dton laws,) which, however bad the men and the
practices provoking them, this country world not
stand, and ought not to have stood. These laws
Jas the Democratic journal which we have quoted
confesses and the Union along with it, by adop-
tion) were the only real crimes OF even the John
Adams Federalism and now we solemnly ask
whether The spirit IN which they mere done was
one oha more arbitrary than that which Mr..
Polk, Gen. Cass, and an their wur-orators and
presses haze displayed, IN attempting by TIE obi
Gus cryef" Moral Treason !" Mericaa Wigs"
and all that, TO sOe infs silence au public opinion
and even all Congressional discussion, and By
terror TO snRs that condemnation phich they
could not escape u either the citizen or The isgis-
lator sas aiiosced 10 speak out?
Whatever il is governmental and party crime
to attempt by law, it is greater crime to do with
out even that sanction. Both the John Adams and
the Polk acts aimed At putting down the Liberty Of
the Press but the former, by express exception,
summed to interfere with the freedom of legislative
debate, while the latter struck directly a, it. The
Fedora! law was directed against the bad the Lo-
cosoco punishment against the good. That was
meant to defend the legal and right acts Of the Gov
eminent from seditious SANDERS this to shield the
ssurpations Of the President from truthful and ne
cessary exposure. Which, then, Of these was the