the federalists. In vain are you told that you owe your prosperity to your own industry, and to the blessings of Providence. To the latter, doubtless, you are primarily indebted. You owe to it, among other benefits, the Constitution you enjoy, and the wise administration of it by virtuous men as its instruments. You are likewise indebted to your own industry. But has not your industry found aliment and incitement in the salutary operation of your government-in the preservation of order at home-in the cultivation of peace abroad-in the invigoration of confidence in pecuniary dealings-in the increased energies of credit and commerce-in the extension of enterprise, ever incident to a good government, well administered? Remember what your situation was immediately before the establishment of the present Constitution. Were you then deficient in industry more than now? If not, why were you not equally prosperous? Plainly, because your industry had not at that time the vivifying influences of an efficient and well conducted government.

There is one more particular in the address which we cannot pass over in silence, though, to avoid being tedious, we must do little more than mention it. It is a comparison between the administration of the former and present governors of this State, on the point of economy, accompanied with the observation, that the former had shown an anxious solicitude to exempt you from taxation.

The answer to this is, that under the administration of Mr. Clinton, the State possessed large resources, which were the substitute for taxation-the duties of impost, the proceeds of confiscated property, and immense tracts of new land, which, if they had been providently disposed of, would have long deferred the necessity of taxation. That this was not done, Mr. Clinton, as one of the commissioners of the land office, is in a principal degree responsible.

Under the administration of Mr. Jay, the natural increase of the State has unavoidably augmented the expense of the govern ment, and the appropriations of large sums, in most of which all parties have concurred, to a variety of objects of public utility and necessity, have so far diminished the funds of the State, as in the opinion of all parties to have required a resort to taxes.

The principal of these objects have been: 1. The erection of fortifications, and the purchase of cannon, arms, and other warlike implements for the purpose of defence. 2. The building and maintenance of the State prisons, in the laudable experiment of an amelioration of our penal code. 3. The purchase from Indians of lands which, though resold, have not yet been productive of revenue. 4. The payment of dower to the widows of persons whose estates have been confiscated. 5. Large appropriations. for the benefit of common schools, roads, and bridges. 6. The erection of an arsenal and public offices in the city of Albany.

Hence it is evident that the difference which has been remarked to you in respect to taxation, has proceeded from a difference of circumstances, not from the superior providence or economy of the former, or from the improvidence or profusion of the existing administration. Our opponents may be challenged to bring home to Mr. Jay the proofs of prodigality, and they may be told that the purity and integrity of his conduct in relation to the public property, have never for a moment been drawn into question.

We forbear to canvass minutely the personalities in which our adversaries have indulged. "Tis enough for us, that they acknowledge our candidate to possess the good qualities which we have ascribed to him. If he has inherited a large estate, 'tis certainly no crime.

'Tis to his honor that his benevolence is as large as his estate. Let his numerous tenants be his witnesses :-attached as they are to him, not by the ties of dependence (for the greater part of them hold their lands in fee simple and upon easy rents), but by the ties of affection, by those gentle and precious cords which link gratitude to kindness. Let the many indigent and distressed who have been gladdened by the benign influence of his bounty, be his witnesses. And let every reflecting man well consider, whether the people are likely to suffer because the ample fortune of a virtuous and generous Chief Magistrate places him beyond the temptation of a job, for the accumulation of wealth.

We shall not inquire how ample may be the domains, how productive the revenues, how numerous the dependents of Mr.

Clinton, nor how his ample domains may have been acquired. "Tis enough for us to say, that if Mr Van Rensselaer is rich, Mr. Clinton is not poor, and that it is at least as innocent in the former to have been born to opulence, as in the latter to have attained to it by means of the advantages of the first office of the State, long, very long enjoyed, for three years at least too long, because, by an unlawful tenure contrary to a known majority of suffrages.

We shall not examine how likely it is that a man considerably past the meridian of life, and debilitated by infirmities of body, will be a more useful and efficient governor, and more independent of the aid of friends and relations, than a man of acknowledged good sense, of mature years, in the full vigor of life, and in the full energy of his faculties.

We shall not discuss how far it is probable that the radical antipathy of Mr. Clinton to the vital parts of our National Constitution, has given way to the little formal amendments which have since been adopted. We are glad to be assured that it has. It gives us pleasure to see proselytes to the truth; nor shall we be over curious to inquire how men get right if we can but discover that they are right. If happily the possession of the power of our once detested government, shall be a talisman to work the conversion of all its enemies, we shall be ready to rejoice that good has come out of evil.

But we dare not too far indulge this pleasing hope. We know that the adverse party has its Dantons, its Robespierres, as well as its Brissots, and its Rolands; and we look forward to the time when the sects of the former will endeavor to confound the latter and their adherents, together with the federalists, in promiscuous ruin.

In regard to these sects, which compose the pith and essence of the anti-federal party, we believe it to be true that the contest between us, is indeed a war of principles, a war between tyranny and liberty, but not between monarchy and republicanism. It is a contest between the tyranny of Jacobinism, which confounds and levels every thing, and the mild reign of rational liberty, which rests on the basis of an efficient and well balanced

government, and through the medium of stable laws, shelters and protects the life, the reputation, the civil and religious rights of every member of the community.

'Tis against these sects that all good men should form an indissoluble league. To resist and frustrate their machinations is alike essential to every prudent and faithful administration of our government, whoever may be the depositories of the power.

EXAMINATION OF JEFFERSON'S MESSAGE TO CON GRESS OF DECEMBER 7, 1801.

NO I.

December 17, 1801.

Instead of delivering a speech to the Houses of Congress, at the opening of the present session, the President has thought fit to transmit a Message. Whether this has proceeded from pride or from humility, from a temperate love of reform, or from a wild spirit of innovation, is submitted to the conjectures of the curious. A single observation shall be indulged since all agree, that he is unlike his predecessors in essential points, it is a mark of consistency to differ from them in matters of form.

Whoever considers the temper of the day, must be satisfied that this Message is likely to add much to the popularity of our chief magistrate. It conforms, as far as would be toler ated at this early stage of our progress in political perfection, to the bewitching tenets of that illuminated doctrine, which promises man, ere long, an emancipation from the burdens and restraints of government; giving a foretaste of that pure felicity which the apostles of this doctrine have predicted. After having, with infinite pains and assiduity, formed the public taste for this species of fare, it is certainly right, in those whom the

people have chosen for their caterers, to be attentive to the gratification of that taste. And should the viands, which they may offer, prove baneful poisons instead of wholesome aliments, the justification is both plain and easy-Good patriots must at all events please the people. But those whose patriotism is of the old school, who differ so widely from the disciples of the new creed, that they would rather risk incurring the displeasure of the people by speaking unpalatable truths, than betray their interest by fostering their prejudices, will never be deterred by an impure tide of popular opinion from honestly pointing out the mistakes or the faults of weak or wicked men, who may have been selected as guardians of the public weal.

The Message of the President, by whatever motives it may have been dictated, is a performance which ought to alarm all who are anxious for the safety of our government, for the respectability and welfare of our nation. It makes, or aims at making, a most prodigal sacrifice of constitutional energy, of sound principle, and of public interest, to the popularity of one

man.

The first thing in it, which excites our surprise, is the very extraordinary position, that though Tripoli had declared war in form against the United States, and had enforced it by actual hostility, yet that there was not power, for want of the sanction of Congress, to capture and detain her cruisers with their crews.

When the newspapers informed us that one of these cruisers, after being subdued in a bloody confiict, had been liberated and permitted quietly to return home, the imagination was perplexed to divine the reason. The conjecture naturally was, that pursuing a policy too refined perhaps for barbarians, it was intended, by that measure, to give the enemy a strong impression of our magnanimity and humanity. No one dreamt of a scruple as to the right to seize and detain the armed vessel of an open and avowed foe, vanquished in battle. The enigma is now solv. ed, and we are presented with one of the most singular paradoxes ever advanced by a man claiming the character of a statesman. When analyzed, it amounts to nothing less than this, that between two nations there may exist a state of complete war on the one side-of peace on the other.