Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-05-08
GBe aaiIg Spy,
MONDAY, MAY 8, 1854.
r.. niri.en OF worce..er, C0un.y.


position now, that we did when the matter
was first agitated. Whenever the people of
the towns in that section of the County de-
eide in favor of new County, then, though
we should much regret such determination
on theirpart, we should have no word to say
against it. 1t is tho only democratic way in
which such question can be settled. and the
people of those towns, being the parties most
interested, should be presumed to know what
is best for their own good and should be per-
rnitted to act accordingly, without hindrance
from any quarter.
A petition in favor of the division was pre-
scented to the last legislature, signed by seren
hundred and .titty-t,oo, and remonstrance
against the prayer ofthe petitioners signed by
four thousGnd and SIXTY persons was also pre-
sented but Notwithstanding the very great pre-
ponderance of the opposition as indicated by
these facts, majority of the committee re-
ported in favor of the division. We believe
we assert only that which every candid and un-
.preiudiced mind will admit, when we say
q
Massachusetts, Legislature ever bore upon the
face of it propositions SO utterly hostile to the
principles of true republicanism, or so COM
pletcly set at defiance all the ideas of popular
sovereignty upon which the people are accus-
toned to act. Though the remonstrants.
against division, from the towns to be set off
were nearly six to one against the petitioners
for the contemplated change, that committee
have had the brazen impudence to assert that
the majority are not capable of judging what
is best for them.
We copy below a few brief extracts from
that report, the merits of which is said to be-
long to VIM. AspinwaH. of Brookline, that the
people of those towns, who have not yet Pc
rused it, may see specimen of the pettifog-
ging insolence by which their wishes were
attempted to be set aside, by Boston influence,
at the dictation of few disconnected spirits
in single town in the north part of the
county. The report says:
The remonstrants urged the committee,
in case they should report bill, to incorporate
IN IL prorision for submitting ii for adoption
or rejection, to the suffages of the ooters of the
to,eas to be included ,citin the limits Of the
county. But there seem to the committee
grave objections to such course, independent
of the constitutional objection existing in
many minds, to making the validity Of a law
depend upon the Judgment or will Of any
other body, organized or unorganized, than
the legislature
The unfairness of this report is sufficiently
indicated in the above. Having before them
the evidence that the people dill not desire a
change, in the shape of remonstrance from
nearly a majority Of all the voters in the towns
proposed to be set off, the committee did not
intend that the people shold have any choice
in the matter. They knew if that was per-
mitted the bill would be killed at once, and SO
they attempt, by course Of special pleading,
to induce the Legislature to act the part of
despot, and compel division of the county,
against the remonstrance of the people.
This portion of their report is worthy Of es-
pecial notice, and we commend its insulting,
domineering, despotic language to the careful
perasal Of our fellow citizens, not only in the
northern towns, but elsewhere. The report
says:
" In the first place, if they ethe committee)
mad 6stseUed that the question tcds one iohich
should depend for its decision upon the toshes of
the majority Of uoters ,0ithin the aeo county,
they would have considered it superAuous to
have gone into an extended examination of
evidence for and against the proposition, after
they had found 1860, or not very far from
majority of the voters within these towns, OPP
posed to the creation of a new county, and
only TAB, or scarcely one sixth of that number,
petitioned in favor of it. But the committee
were convinced that the creation Of new
county soGs an act of government, Of the pro-
priety of which the legislature ,cas peculiarly
The Judge, and which, it was bound to perform,
whenever it was satisfied that the necessities
either Of the present, or of the future, called
for it and that II 4ods such an act as should
asrer be astoaced to depend for its force upon the
soish,s prejudices Of those soto, after all, are
iHcapacitdted By their very position from seeing
the question in all its bearings"
fthis is not very cool method of telling a
majority of the people in twenty towns Of
Massachusetts,, that they are not capable Of
judging what is best for them, then we are
not able to comprehend the meaning of Ian
guage. One would almost suppose, from
this, that the code Napoleon was about to be
set up in Massachusetts, and that the sover-
eighty of the people might be put down by
the ukase of a legislative committee, or the
demands Of knot of spectators.
But this is not all that the committee have
TO say on this subject The people should
hear the whole story, insolent and offensive as