TEXAS STATE LrnnAnY
'i'G
apt to suspect some rottenness in the cause they advocate & consider the advocates themselves, as base as the means they employ. A striking instance of the profligate habit of asserting things as facts which have no foundation in truth, is exhibited in the endeav- ors of the federal party, to depriYe the Republicans of the influence of Mr. Jefferson's name in support of the State Rights doctrines. With a recklessness of facts, they boldly assert that this great apostle of liberty, never contemplated in his Kentucky resolutions any such op- position to federal usurpation, as State interposition. Although he has expressly declared that ,~:hen the Constitution is violated, each State has the right to judge of the mode & measure of redress, & that for unauthorized acts of Congress. Nullification is the rightful remedy, yet ne,·crtheless they endeavor to prove that all this meant nothing more than remonstrance; petition, supplication ·& the like; but a more impudent & at the same time imbecile assault upon com- mon sense could scarcely be perpetrated by the hardiest vindicator of error that ever perverted truth for the worst of party purposes. How- ever audacious such conduct may seem, there is yet nothing in it sur- prising. When we consider the character of a majority of the partizan writers in the federal ranks, & the nature of the cause which they advocate, None but a slavish or selfish mind will take side with the oppressors of his State; and those who are driven either by their fears, or the hope of favor, to wield -their pens against their country's rights mu$t necessarily rml into the disgusting and e:ontemptiblc vices of hypocrisy & falsehood. When did the federalists ever evince by their conduct or policy, an elevated principle or patriotic purpose-& when did they ever hesitate in the employment. of the worst of means, to accomplish their selfish ends? They have ever kept an eye single to their own interest, & never to their country's. Their struggles have ever hePn for power, 11(\t for good- their strifes, for personal aggran- dizement, not for the public weal. We are then never surprised at any of their measures, however adrnrse to the rights & prosperity of their 8tatc; nor at nny of their assertions, however insulting to com- mon sense, & hostile to veracity. And of :i\[r. J effcrson, especially, tlH'y can nerer surprise u~ by any thing they can say, except by ex- pressing admiration of his principles & g~atitude for his ser,ices. We are only surprised that they clo not deny to him the authorship of the Declaration of lmlepend<.'JH•e; & bolrlly :-wear that he was the friend of consolidation & Bloody Bills-th?t he was one of the opposers of the last war, who rejoiced at the triumphs of the enemy; & indeed that he was the mo,·er of ercry measure of the tory _party, & the father of all their doctrines. Why do they not tlo this? vVhy do they stop short in their work of miHepresentation? To r10 all this would re- quire no greater auclarity than they han· ('\'Pi' shewn themselves ca- pable of exercising,-it woulcl be going !):1ly one step further than they have alr<.'ady gone, in 8/:5erting- that he never <.'ntertained those principles of 1·e:-i~tance to t_H:mny C-011telllle l for b_v the Democrats of _/!l8. & the Sta tr Hight:: repnlilican/: of ; 2.-, & /3;3. \\'hether nulli- liration is a /:ilfr & :-0111111 dni-trin<.', i:- n11r· question- whether l\f r . .Trffrr~o11 hrlcl that dodrill<'. i/: quilt> :111otht'r matter, With rc-gard to the formc•r. thl're ma,· nos:;ibly 1•xi:-t · ::umr honest tliYersity of opiuion: hut to di~1111tP tl;P 1;,ttrr, to clcn~· thnt the sage of ?.fonticcllo
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