had created a new organization. After formally breaking me you have been good enough lo summon me to a formal lTial, leaving the alternative with myself to choose the tribunal before whom I would be tried, whether before your own body, before whom I had already been condemned, or before my peers in convention. Reason, it would seem, would direct the latter alternative. I at all times hold myself answerable and amenable as a public officer to my peers, and lo none other. I acknowledge the receipt of the charges and specifications preferred against me by your body, and feel able and willing in convention to plead lo them. Reserving to myself in the mean time the privilege of laking all legal exceptions. I demand of your president as a right, the names of all the members present on the ninth instant, with the proper certificate, com- mencing with the first of the present month, and up to the present date inclusive. And all the members now present are notified, to appear at the town of Washington, as witnesses, on the first day of i\farch next, for by your own acts and the proof of your own body, I hope to be able to exculpate myself before a Liberal and unbiassed body from all the charges preferred against me. It would appear that some jurisdictions are not represented, others have two and some long since precluded by law seem to hold on, and form a part of your body. I think it would be well to examine these things, as circumstances may render its investigation necessary. I would give your body this friendly advice, that notwith- standing you are the representatives of the people, they have given you the limit, over which they will not permit you lo pass, and any thing done by your body calculated to bring about disorganization, or not warranted by the organic law, will be viewed and considered as an outrage for which you will be held amenable. What I have done, however had you may vi~w it, has been done for the best of reasons, and from the purest motives. I care not for popularity, and seek alone the public good. And if the course I have persued, so condemned by you, should bring down the odium and conlempl of the whole community, and at the same time be the means of saving the character, the credit, and finally redeem the country, I say lo you, in the sincerity of truth, that it is a sacrifice I willingly make at the shrine of the public good. Henry Smith, Governor [January 13, 1836]
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