# LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. % I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.^- > ) > ,> ^ >:> ^ >;> ,) > ^ i^ > > l^ > ) f3 >^ .0 > -^ -> .'^ >>2>^^Sirm>x> 3^ :-:> J> >-■•> 1 _ >> 3i> :x2> ^^:>^ M5? -flp 1) -"--^ y ^^^^^T - ^ -^ > B 5)r-''| 3Bi^ J>'^ 3 ->)?>V2 3P» J^":>.2 <.,)- ■^ ■■^■>- > --j:^ >i*.1 131^^ 30>>. > :rv')'> ^ -TJi^O'O^^i ijip^.L ^;^^^ 31^ -^^^--^^ ^yi^^— ^ i^ ■■■* > .'^ ' -^i!^H 1^ ■■ ' > )f"^'' >j >-ii© J- 53 ^' -^^ >1023 W' • > 3'^:>, '3)3S>>'i3' »': :.>> ' '-^ ~iiii--13i ^ V-*>_^'^ i»- r]L>y^ J0 !^ 37^ iJ !► -2J»,>> ^ Z '^^m 'r3>-':>\ ml ^' -^i^^^ :>^ m^ fclTfT^* .'^^ j>^l^ ','' -^^^ ^=^-~»:> ;>!»_. ;>^^^ :> ;•> or 3' > o)>:> :> ^^>^^:R|x ^^;^ ^^^ £^.y^^ k^il SECOND ADDRESS CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF FAUQUIER, PEOPLE OF THAT COUNTY, ARMY BILL. WASHINGTON: PRINTED AT THE MADISONIAN OFFICE. 1840. Second address CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF FAUQUIER, TO THE PEOPLE OF THAT COUNTY, ON THE ARMY BILL. / / WASHINGTON : PRINTED AT THE MADISONIAN OFFICE. 1840. INTRODUCTION The following pages were written before the President's letter to Mr. Cary anp others, of Elizabeth City county, was seen by us. We little thought, when we penn- ed them, that they would bring us into direct collision with the President of the United States. The position is one which we as httle desired as expected. As, however, we have made no statement which we are not AviUing to stand by — asserted no fact which we are not prepared to prove, and were willing that our arguments should be submitted to a candid public for what they are worth— we do not feel called on to alter, nor have we altered, a syllable of what we had Avritten : Nor are we deterred from giving our lucubrations to our fellow-citizens, as we originally designed, by the fearful odds which we now have to encounter. We are advocating, as we conscientiously believe, the cause of truth and of our country. Our early education taught us to believe that truth is great, and will, in the end, prevail ; and it may be possible that the arrows of truth, shot from our feeble bow, may pierce the armour Avith which his official station has clothed him. You are aware, fellow-citizens of Fauquier, that, at a meeting of a portion of those of you Avho entertain the opinion that Mr. Van Buren ought not to be re-elected to the high office -^^hich he fills, Ave Avere appointed a Central Corresponding Committee for this our native county. This selection A^as more on account of our residence at the seat of Justice than, any merit of ours. It is knoAvn to you, also, that, Avith a single ex- ception, and that a reluctant and temporary one, none of us have sought office at the hands of either the government or people. AVe have been content to toil in the sta- tion in which Fortune has placed us, and earn our bread by the sweat of our broAv — leaving it to others to tread the thorny paths of politics. In accepting the appoint- ment of your Central Corresponding Committee, Ave Avere actuated by the con- viction that the good of our country required a change of rulers ; and, in discharge of the duties Avhich you imposed upon us, it has been our sole aim to place ac- curate information in the hands of the People. We confidently challenge the production of a single instance in Avhich Ave have done otherAvise. In the course of our examination of the measures of the ruling party, the so-called plan for organizing the militia fell in our AA'ay; and, being struck Avith the ncAv and extraordinary principles which it proposed to introduce — the injustice Avhich it threatened, in the form of a cap- itation tax — the military rigor Avith Avhich it proposed to visit the militia-man — the un- blushing violations of the Constitution Avhich it proposed — and, above all, the standing army Avhich lay at the bottom — Ave deemed it proper to call your attention to it. In- stead of doing this by an anonymous publication, or in terms of obloquy and vitupera- tion, Avhich unhappily characterize, for the most part, the political discussions of the party in power, from the dirty sheet of a A'illage newspaper to the President himself, as his letter proves, we determined to address you in our own proper names — holding ourselves responsible for the truth and fairness of our statements, and clothing them in language Avhich might have been addressed personally to the individual to whom it Avas applied Avithout a departure from the rules of decorum deemed indispensable be- tAveen gentlemen. We thought it not improbable that Ave might call doAvn upon our heads some of those shoAvers of filth which daily i^sue from the administration press. We steeled ourselves against the indiction by bracing our nerves to bear it in silence. To tlie Van Buren leaders of our own countv avc threAv down the gauntlet, and said, "If any man of our own county, of responsible character, Avill, under h's own hand, deny any of the facts Avhich Ave allege in this or any other communication Avhich Ave may venture to make, Ave pledge ourselves to meet hmi before the People, at such time and place as he may select, and either maintain our position or take the consequences of defeat." Our address was published in May — our s^love lies untouched. Or, shall Ave say, it has been taken up by the President? We cannot hope that any thing Avhich Ave have said has been deemed of importance enoujjh to discompose his Avell- balanced mind or ruffle his imperturbable temper, and cause him to run the risk of for- feiting his title to the appellation of a Avell-bred gentleman, by the use of the vulgar IV terras in which he has spoken of those who have criticised his plan for a militia army. We found ourselves, nevertheless, in the same category with other unnamed persons to whom that language applies. Even we, humble as we are, have ventured to lay before our fcUoAv-citizens our objections to his plan, and " subscribe our names to the statements" which we made. To use his own courtly language, we were " so igno- rant"' ourselves, or counted so largely on ''the ignorance of others," as to suppose it possible that Mr. Poinsett meant what he said when he declared it to be his purpose to accomplish his scheme "without taxing the Treasury too heavily," and commenced his plan of the details bv saying, '' It should be provided" that every man of the militia should furnish himself with arms ; and when, too, he proposed no other means for the accomplishment of that indispensable requisite. We were Avicked enough, when con- sidering the subject in this aspect, to point out the inequality and injustice of the tax thus "proposed" to be levied on men instead of property; and, what seems to have been still more offensive, we were wicked enough to express the suspicion that it was in reality no part of the plan to arm the whole body of thr militia, but the real purpose was to arm and pay a body of volunteers — and to argue that it would be. in substance and effect, a standing army. We were unlucky enough, also, in transcribing from his message his recommendation of the plan, to omit three words — which omission, we will show, did not, as the President has said, ''■falsify the true meaning" of the message. We did, it is true, endeavor to make amends for the accident by hastening to prepare a table of errata, in which this and other errors of about equal Aveight were pointed out, and appended it to every copy of our address which we sent to a distance, and a large number of those which we circulated in our own county. We have been twitted, too, by our Van Buren neighbors, with the President's onslaught upon our address. To remain silent, and suppress our intended second address, would give edge to their sar casms and Aveight to their statements. On the other hand, to take to ourselves any of the remarks of die President, and stand to our arms Avhen he is in the field, might, we are perfectly conscious, subject us to ihe imputation of vanity and presumption. We find ourselves, then, in a dilemma, and must extricate ourselves as Avell as we may. We have determined, for the reasons already given, to take the latter horn ; and pray you to bear in mind that although we were "volunteers" in this matter, yet it is by a most unexpected turn in the tide of battle that we are brought front to front with the President. We threw down the gauntlet to our equals — none of them have ventured to take it up. To inspire anew their lagging zeal, revive their drooping courage, and aid their small shot and birding-pieces with the heavy ordnance of the palace, the Pre- sident has opened his artillery. The battle must have Avaxed sore against the Philis- tines when their commander-in-chief found it necessary to quit his eminence and min- gle in the fray whh the rank and file. He must have felt himself in extremity, indeed, when, instead of firing fair round shot, he has charged his piece Avith such missiles as he has sent amongst us. Taking ourselves to be a portion of the "citizens Avho have subscribed their names to statements," of Avhom the President speaks so harshly and unbecomingly too — as the society in Avhich Ave have been bred has taught us to think— Ave Avill again remark that Ave invited those Avho controverted our statements to put their denial in writ- ing, and point to the specific fact denied. The President has animadverted on one only of our facts; Ave have a right to insist, therefore, that all the others are ad- mitted. We gave, in an abridged form, the several sections of Avhich Mr. Poinsett's details were composed — some of them Ave gave Avord for word — Ave assume that Ave have been accurate in this. We stated that the Secretary of War had, in his Report to the President, set forth the heads of a certain scheme for organizing the militia, Avhich Ave quoted. The accuracy of our quotation not having been questioned, we as- sume that it is admitted. We gave, too, an extract from the President's Message, . Avhich, as Ave contended, endorsed the Secretary's plan. In this it is said Ave have offended ; and, in the strong, not to say discourteous language of the President, Ave at- tempted to prove "an unfounded assumption by the publication of a garbled extract from that document, Avith its true meaning/«/.5?^'«Z by the strppression of a material part." We Avill remark, en passant, that as Ave had taken upon ourselves the respon- sibility of attaching our names to the publication, and issued it amongst our neighbors and acquaintances, some of whom eat the bread of the President, Avhilst others are his "sink or swim" advocates — Avhere the means of instant correction Avere in the hands of every body, as the omission Avas of three words only, and it Avas the only inaccuracy complained of— a little of that charity which he so largely bespeaks for his own con- duct and motives might have induced him to suppose that it was accidental, and that his sense of decorum would have led him to use less offensive terms than " .s'»y;p/-6'ss" and "g-rt/'i/e'' and '■'■falsifijy The same charge was made against us by his organ, the Globe, and in the same style ; whence we infer, that it is to gratify hift palate as well as to indulge their ow)i natural propensities that the conductors of that print fill its columns with ribaldry and abuse. But let that pass. Our extract is in these words: ''The present condition of the defences of our prin- cipal seaports and navy-yards, as represented by the accompanying report of the Se- cretary of War, calls for the early and serious attention of Congress ; and, as connecting itself intimately with this subject, I cannot recommend too strongly the plan submitted by that officer for the organization of the militia of the United States." The true Mes- sage reads thus : " The present condition of the defences of our principal sea-ports and navy-yards, as represented by the accompanying report of the Secretary of War, calls for the early and serious attention of Congress ; and, as connecting itself intimately with this subject, I cannot recommend too strongly to your consideratiov* the plan of that officer for the organization of the militia of the United States." The sentence Avhich precedes this in the Message, relates to the graduation law, that which follows it to the Florida war, and there is not another sentence or word in the Message which relates to the Secretary's plan for organizing the militia; so that the charge o[ garb- ling, suppressing, and falsifying, rests on the omission of the words, "to your con- sideration:" and the diff*erence complained of is, that of strongly recomniendina- a plan to an individual and strongly recommending it to his consideration. According to Webster, the word '■^recommend'''' means " to praise to another — to offer or commend to another''s notice, or kindness by favorable representations — to make acceptable — to commit vntk prayers.'''' Let us take the sentence as the President penned it, and substitute for the word " recommend'''' any of the significations of that word above-men- tioned : I cannot too strongly praise to your consideration the plan, &c. I cannot too strongly, by favorable representations, commend to the notice, or kindness, of your consideration, the plan, &c. I cannot too strongly make acceptable to your consideration the plan, &c. I cannot too strongly commit with prayers to your consideration the plan, &c. Now, strike out the words, "■to your consideration,^^ and insert the words, " to you,'^ and tell us the difference which would be thereby eff'ected in the meaning of the sen- tence ! And yet it is upon this different mode of expressing the same idea that the President has venturned to charge us with the intentional suppression of the words, "to your consideration." Suppose a man to be afflicted with a sore disease, and some doctor, in whom he ha^ not entire confidence, should prescribe a remedy : — the family physician is called in analyzes the compound, and finds it to be a deadly poison? Instead of exposing the empirick, he says to his patient, " I cannot too strongly recommend to your considera- tion the potion of that gentleman." His patient takes it, and dies. Is the pliysician not a murderer? If the plan of the Secretary he as deleterious as the People have pronounced it to be, the President may take his choice between the alternatives which he presents to the citizens who have subscribed their names to statements which he calls absurd and preposterous, and either confess his own ignorance and unfitness for his high oflfice, or his having presumed on the ignorance of others. Again: It is only by virtue of an express provision of the Constitution that the Pre- sident can meddle with the deliberations of Congress, and exert the influence of his office in originating laws : and he does this upon his responsibility for the necessity and expediency of the measures which he recommends to the consideration of Con- gress. Article 2, section 3 of that instrument declares that "he shall, from time to time, give to Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.^'' When- ever, therefore, in the performance of his constitutional duty, the President recom- mends a measure to the consideration of Congress, it is because he judges it "neces- sary and expedient." And, if he did not think the plan of the Secretary necessary and expedient, he violated his oath of office when he " strongly recommended to their con- sideration the plan of that officer." It is upon this miserable quibble, founded upon * From the President's letter to the honorable Rice Garland, it is clear that the words " to your consideration," constitute the omission which he says falsified the true meaning of his mes- sage. No others were, in p jint of fact, omitted by any of the " citizens who signed their names to statements," &c. VI an accidental omission, which did not change in the slightest degree the sense of the extract — a quibble which would cast ridicule upon the lowest pettifogger — one Avhich we would not have condescended to notice had it come from any other quarter — that the President of the United States has stepped out of his way to write and publish to the American People — of a portion of that People who had calmly and respectfully canvassed his measures — such language as the following: " We have been compelled to see, not, I should think, without shame and mortification on the part of every ingen- uous mind, whatever may be its poetical preferences, the names of respectable citizens subscribed to statements that I had, in my annual Message, expressed my approbation of a plan, which not only never had been submitted to me, but was not even matured until more than three months after the Message was sent to Congress : and an attempt to prove the unfounded assertion by the publication of a garbled extract from that do- cument, with its true meaning falsifie'd by the suppression of a material part." We will not follow his example by characterizing his conduct in terms which it would war- rant. No. We belong to a different school of manners as Avell as morals from that in which he has taken his degrees, and will not stoop to bandy epithets with Martin Van Buren, President of the United States. Let us look a little into the President's logic : He says that his Message was gar- bled and a part suppressed, and thereby its true meaning was falsified. We have seen that the only words omitted are, ''to your, consideration." Now, give to these words all the force which even the imagination can impart to them, and how do they alter the meaning of the sentence ? In no possible Avay but as qualifying his recommenda- tion. They bear upon the question oi degree— force — earnestness j or, at most, upon the question of recovmi emulation or no recommendation, and not upon the question, what did he recommend '? The only question on which the message was ever quoted is, whether or no the President endorsed, the plan recommended by the Secretary in his November report, of Avhich he spoke in his Message; and the words, "to your con- sideration" bear upon that question only. Yet the President complains that, by their suppression, we have so falsified his meaning as to make him recommend a thing Avhich did not exist until more than three months afterwards, and thus would make the word^, "to your consideration," mean the thing recommended ! Admirable logi- cian. We argued that he Avas connusant of the details reported on 20th March, not froiiL the premises of the President, but from the fact that.the Secretary had said, in bis Report, that he Avas then prepared to submit a i>lan of them to him. And so Ave argue noAv: and you may judge noAA^ as you judged then, AA^iether the argument is AA'eak or forcible. In the polite language of the vocabulary of the palace, Ave have also been charged with betraying ignorance ourselves, or presuming upon the ignorance of others, in our commentaries upon tl)e first section of the proposed plan, Avhich, in express terms, requires the mihtia to furnisli their OAA'n arms. We have anticipated this, and all the other grounds taken by the President, in our address; and if you will honor us so far as to read it, Ave shall, Ave trust, satisfactorily sustain the position which we originally took on that point. We AAnll now ask attention to the statements of His Excellency, and endeaA'or to show how far he has subjected himself to the charge of a departure from truth, and presuming upon the ignorance or subserviency of his supporters. Before, hoAvever, we enter upon this inquiry, Ave Avill premise that his Virginia correspondents put to liim a very plain and direct question, Avhich not only admitted of, but required a cate- gorical ansAver. "Do you approve of Mr. Poinsett's scheme for the organization of the militia ?" Now, if ever a question was framed Avhich admitted of a simple an- swer, yea or nay, this is that question. The plan had been the subject of discussion in tlie ncAvspapers and in Congress, from the middle of February until late in June. Surely if he did not understand it when he recommended it to Congress— it ever he can understand it, and ever will make up his mind upon it before the bill is offered for hi« signature— he must have done so by the 31st July, the date of his letter. Yet, in- stead of giving a direct negative or affirmative, liefleAV off to the plans of Knox and Jefferson, arid Harrison and Jackson, and having mystified his correspondents through tAvo columns of the Enquirer, he leaves them to coUect his opinion from the beginning, or the middle, or the end, or from their OAvn imaginations. He has said enough, hoAV- ever, to show that he neither disapproves of, or means to abandon the measure. We have not space to enter upon an analysis of this part of his letter, but Ave beg such of you as peruse our address, to collate it with the facts Avhich Ave adduce. We return to his statements AAath regard to the mis-called Mr. Poinsett's plan. To enable you to understand and apply the language of Mr. Poinsett, in his letter 1 Vll to Mr. Ritchie, and that of the President, in his letter under review, it is necessary that you should bear in mind that there are three documents in relation to this subject: First', the Report of the Secretary of War, dated 30th November, 1839, and address- ed to the President of the United States— (not to Congress, nor to either House, nor to any Committee of Congress: prepared by the Secretary of War, strictly in his re- lation as the head of a Department, to his Executive chief:) appended by the Presi- dent to his annual Message of the 2d December last, and so transmitted by him, the President, direct to Congress. Secondly, the details of the plan, of which the Report contains the heads, and Avhich the Report informs us were matured and ready to be submitted to the President on the 30th November, 1839. And, third- ly, "the plan reported to Congress" by the Secretary, in obedience to the resolu- tion of the House of Representatives of 9th March, 1S40. The critical reader will re- mark that, by grammatical construction, the language of both the Secretary and the President * refers to the latter plan only ; and it is only by confining it to that plan that the President can escape from having uttered a plain and palpable untruth. He says that the plan of which he speaks, "not only never had been submitted to me, but was not even matured until more than three months after the message had been sent to Congress." Now, if a plan which was drawn out in detail, and prepared to be submitted to him, was matured Avhen it was so drawn out and prepared, then the plan which he recommended to the consideration of Congress was matured as early as 30th November, 1839. It would be most extraordinary if it were otherwise. The Secre- tary had been laboring upon it from early in March to the last of November — had he accomplished nothing but a sketch of the outline ? His Report contains the heads, a table of contents, an abridgment, an index. Did ever a man abridge a bock before it was written 1 Is the table of contents, or the chapter, the book, or the index, first com- posed 1 A man may sketch an outline for his own use, and, in filling up, he will find occasion to enlarge, retrench, and obliterate ; buc who ever gave a mere outline as the result of his labors, when called on to perform such a task as that imposed upon the Secretary by the resolution of the Senate and the request of the Chairman of the Committee of the House, in March, 1839 ? Mr. Benton's resolution required " Re- ports on the military and naval defences of the country, shewing. First, the fortifica- tions, or other permanent defences, commenced, completed, projected, or deemed ne- cessary ;" and proceeds with the same minuteness of specification throughout, and concludes by asking that the reports should communicate "any other information or suggestions which the President may deem necessary to, be communicated to Con- gress, in order to exhibit a full view of what is necessary to be done, and the probable cost thereof, to place the United States in a proper state of defence, by land and wa- ter, and on each of the four great lines of defence which her frontiers present." Mr. Poinsett says, in his letter to Mr. Ritchie, that immediately after the passage of the act which placed ten millions of money at the disposal of the President, to enable him to meet and repel any hostile movements on the North-eastern frontier, with militia — an act which, he says, '' defined (that as) the description of force to which the de- fence of the country was to be trusted in the event of Avar — the Committee on the Mi- litia, of the House of Representatives, required me to prepare a plan for the better or- ganization of the militia of the United States." And did he, in the performance of this duty, furnish nothing but the sketch of an outline ? It was possible that the Se- cretary might not be able to accomplish more; but, had that been the case, he would have said so, and either acknowledged his inability to perform his allotted task, or asked for more time. How did he perform a similar task imposed upon him by Sena- tor Linn's resolution of October ]4th, 1837? By reporting a matured plan, with all its details. It is for the very purpose of furnishing a matured plan, and drawing up details, that these refciences arc made to the heads of departments. They bear the s.ame relations to the committees which call on them, as the committees do to the House ; and when was it that a committee reported the outline of a bill, leaving all the details to be supplied by the House 1 Why, then, it may be asked, did he not fur- nish the details in his Report of November, 1S39 ? Simply because it was no part of his plan that they should be submitted to Congress. He reserved them for the Presi- dent. But it is not at all necessary to go into this reasoning ; nor would Ave have de- tained you Avith it if Ave were opposed to a less formidable adversary. The Secretary himself^ furnishes direct and positive proof that the Avhole plan, details, and all, AA-^ere ma- * The one in his letter to Mr. RitchiO; and the other in his letter to Mr. Gary and others. Vlll tured on the 30th day of November, 1839, and gives the reason why the details were kept back. After going through the heads, he says, " Bui the details had better be left to regulation,^, plan of which I am prepared to submit to you The difference between this language and that used in reference to the call from the Senate, is very striking. After giving an account of the condition of our defences, (and a woful account it is) and furnishing in part the information required by the re- solution of the Senate, he says : " In a report preparing, in reply to a resolution of the Senate calling for information on this subject, I shall enter into all the details connected with it." He was not prepared to submit a plan of those details. No, they were preparing — not yet matured — but he teas prepared to submit a plan of the details " for organizing the militia :" that plan toas matured. Now, the President may take his choice ; he may say that the plan which he avers was not matured until more than three months after this report was, as the Secretary calls it in his letter to Mr. Ritchie, "the plan reported to Congress," and not the plan mentioned in the November report. Or he may say that it was the last named plan. If the former, then, were we to borrow our language from his vocabulary, we should say that he may have told the truth in words, but has practised a deception on his readers. If the latter, Ave have disproved his assertion by the report of his own Sec- retary, sanctioned by himself. We doubt not but that he meant to take shelter under the first position. " The plan reported to Congress" Avas not entirely matured when the November report was made. The plan of the details which Avas prepared for the priA'ate eye of the President, required to be a little softened before it was communicated to Con- gress. We can see Avhere a limb or tAvo Avere pruned a little. The number of dis- tricts Avas increased from eight to ten, and their limits reduced. Mr. Rives had com- mented on the Avord "stationed," in the heads, and shoAvn that it gave the President poAver to march the militia of Maine to Florida and " station" them there. This po- tent Avord was pruned aAvay, and the poAver of the President limited to calling them out to any place AAathin their respective districts. These and others Avhich may have been necessary, required the plan to be recast, the labor of Avhich employed a portion of the ten days Avhich elapsed betAveen the call of the House and the report of 20th March. And this explains the AA'hole matter. After discussing the question, Avhether the militia can "Constitutionally" be called into the service of the United States for '' training,''^ and telling us, " Nor is it be- lieved that they Avould in general he properly instructed and disciplined, unless they are called out and received into the service of the United States,'''' and instead of giv- ing to the proposition the decided negative Avhich the Constitution has given it, put- ting us off with "it AA^ould seem to be a necessary inference'''' that the poAver to pre- scribe the discipline, does not carry the power to call out the militia and receive them into the service of the United States for training, and finally reserving the decision of the question " until it becomes necessary to act officially in the matter," the President says, "Mr. Poinsett seems to have been more sensibly impressed Avith this obstacle than his predecessors," &c. A greater error is not to be found in the letter, nor even in the lauded reports of the committees of the tAvo Houses, than this assertion. In the 17th section of " the plan reported to Congress," it is proposed — " That the President of the Unitrd States, be authorized to call forth and assem- ble such munbers of the active force of the militia, at such places Avithin their respect- ive districts, and at such times, not exceedmg tAvice, nor days in the same year, as he may deem necessary ; and during such period, including the time Avhen going to, and returning from, the place of rendezvous, they shall be deemed in the service of the United States, and be subject to such regulations as the President may think proper to adopt fur their instruction, discipline, and improvement in military knoAA- ledge." In this single section, two most important provisions of the Constitution are violated. First, that Avhich reserves to the States the power to train the militia; and secondly, that Avhich confers on Congress, not the President, the poAver to prescribe the disci- pline, or in the language of the section, the "regulations for their instruction, disci- pline, and improvement in military knoAvledge." The Secretary's attention Avas called to the first by the chairman of the committee of the House, and in ansAver to an objec- tion not raised by his OAvn sensibility to constitutional difficulties, but by others, he proposes to accomplish his purpose of placing the active and reserved corps under the command of the President, by a device equally unconstitutional, to Avit ; by procuring the assent of the States ; as if the assent of a State Legislature could engraft a new provision on the Constitution, and transfer to the President a poAver expressly reserved IX to the States ! So much for the Secretary's sensibility to Constitutional difficulties! We have not space to transcribe from the plans of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Munroe, and Jackson, extracts to show that neither of them ever contemplated this violation of the rights of the Slates. Gereral Harrison, in his report of 9th January, 1818, says: '" Congress having power to provide for governing the militia only when they are in the service of the United States, and the authority of trai7iing them, be- longing to the State Governments, the committee have not deemed it proper that Congress should prescribe the time to be devoted to training, or the manner in which that object shall be best effected. It is the duty of the State Legislatures to enact the necessary laws for that purpose. The Committee deem it a sufficient exercise of the power to provide for disciplining the militia, to direct the appointment of the necessary officers, to prescribe their duties, and to provide a system of discipline, comprehending the camp duties, instruction, field exercise, and field service of the militia." So exclusively does he deem " the authority of training" to pertain to the States that he thought it necessary to amend the constitution in order to give to Congress a power to train them " concurrently^^ with the States — and yet the President says that Mr. Poinsett evinced greater sensibility to constitutional difficulties than •' his predecessors !"* The President says : '' It is but lately that my attention has been particularly drawn to this subject." How far back the word '' lately" may carry him according to his version of it, we will not undertake to say ; but this we do say, that his attention was most particularly drawn to this subject as far back as the 5th of December, 1837 ; that as early as that day he originated and recommended the leading and unconstitutional features of the plan, and both he and his organ, the Globe, have from that day down to the Message of 24th December last, and to the time of the retreat which was sound- ed by Mr. Ritchie, pressed it upon Congress and the nation; and for proof \ye refer to his messages and articles published in the Globe, which we have commented on in our address. The president says : " some surprise has been expressed, and doubts appear to be entertained of the correctness of his (ihe Secretary's) declaration that the plan was not seen by me, or submitted to my consideration before it was communicated to Con- gress. Those who take this view of the subject, entirely overlook the fact that such is almost invariably the case on all similar occasions ; aud that in replying to calls made 7ipon them by either branch of the legislature, the heads of departments act for Congress and 710 1 for the Preside7it j except on occasions ichere his acts are brought into quest io7i" From the nature of things, it is not to be expected that we should have it in our power to disprove this statement. Whether the Secretary submitted all his reports, and if not all, which of them, is a question which it is difficult for any save themselves to answer. The duty of both requires that it should be done. The President, accor- ding to his own doctrine, has the power to control the Secretary in all things, and as the price of that power he is, in the language of his predecessor, bound " to ovei^see''' and " is responsible'''' for all his official acts ; "the entire action of the executive depart- ment," as the Protest hath it. Now it is a rule of law, as well as reason, that every public officer is presumed to do his duty until the contrary appears, so that the burthen of proof lies upon the President. This presents us in a strange attitude; the Presi- dent declaring that he does not do his duty, and we maintainmg that he does ; for we shall prove, difficult as it may appear, that the Secretary does submit his reports to the President, although they are prepared in obedience to calls made upon him by one of the branches of the legislature, and do not relate to '' occasions where his (the Presi- dent's) acts are brought in question." The first call that was made by " either branch of the legislature," on the present Secretary, that we have met with, was by a resokition of the Senate, introduced by Mr. Linn on the 14th of October, 1837, at the extra session. That call was directly -on the Secretary, and in no respect related to occasions where the President's "acts were brought in question." The Secretary responded to this call on the 30th Decem- ber, 1837, the regular session. His report in answer to this call, Avas not only sub rnitted to the President before it was sent to the Senate, but whilst it was in prepara- tion; and this is proven by the President's own message, sent to Congress on the 5th. December preceding, twenty-five days before the report. In that message the Presi- ♦ We have gone more fully into this part of the subiect in our review of the reports of the com- mittees. It became necessary to advert to it again wnen we are examining into the correctness 'Oi the President's '• statements." dent speaks of the report as one which will be submitted, and of its contents, as known to and approved by him. Near the close of the session of 1838, the chairman of the committee on the militia, of the House of Representatives, made another call oii tlie Secretary, which did not relate to "occasions" where the President's " acts were in question;" that is to say, he was called on to prepare a plan for a new organization of the militia. The Secre- tary responded to this call, not by a report to the House never shown to the President, but to the President himself, and through him to both Houses, and neither made any other reply to this call, nor ever intended to make any other. He was a third time called upon by the resolution of the House of Piepresentatives of the 9th March last, to which he replied l)y a report to that House. Whether that report was shown to the Presi- dent before it was sent in, is the question at issue. We have said that the Secretary never made any other reply to the call of the committee on the militia through their chairman, than that contained in his report to the President, and did not intend to make any other. His annual report, which gave the heads of his plan for organizing the militia, the thing called for by the committee, was made to the President, on the 30th November, 1839. Owing to the failure of the House of Representatives to elect a Speaker, the President's Message was not sent to Congress until the 24th Decem- ber following, and with that message he transmitted the Secretary's report. The sub- ject Avas referred, in due course, to the committees of the two Houses. The commit- tee of the Senate held it under consideration until the day of June, when they reported, and no other information was given to the Senate touching the plan for or- ganizing the militia, than thafcontained in the Secretary's report to the President. The committee of the House had the subject before them from the time of its reference to the 9th day of March, three months and nine days after the Secretary had said that he was prepared to submit a plan of the details to the President; and during this pe- riod not one word of information was communicated by the Secretary, either to the House of Representatives or the committee on the militia, in reply to the call made upon him at the close of the former session, save that contained in his report to the President. We have shown that the Secretary had matured his plan at least as early as the 30th of November. On the*9th March, the house passed a resolution calling for the details. On the 20th he furnished them. W^hy were they not communicated sooner? Why wait for another call, if, as the President has said, " it was almost invariably the case in replying to calls made upon them by either braacli of the legislature, that the heads of departments act for Congress and not for the President ?" The report of 30th November answers these questions, and disproves the President's assertion. That re- port, made to the President, contains all the information which the Secretary designed for Congress touching this matter. It set forth the heads of his plan, and said : " The manner of enrollment, the number of days of service, and the rate of compensation, ought to be fixed bv laAv" — in other words, by Congress — ''but the details had better be sub- ject-to regulation" — in other words, left to the President — and concludes, "apian of which I am prepared to submit to you." As he did not intend tliat Congress should be troubled with the details, he did not communicate them to Congress ; asiie proposed that every thing necessary to embody, govern, command and discipline this army of 200,000 men, should be left to the Presi- dent, he reserved his plan of the details necessary to carry out this ''notable" scheme for the private eve of the President. That the plan of the details "reported to Congress" was not reported in obedience to the call of the previous session, is proven also by the letter accompanying that plan. That letter commences thus: "Su-, in compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives, of the 9th instant, ' that the Secretary of War be requestedto communicate his plan in detail for the organization of the militia of the United States,' I have the honor to submit the following report." So far, then, from its being true that it is ''almost invariably the case" that the Secretary replies to a call from " either branch of the legislature" without submitting his report to the President, "except only on occasions Avhere his acts are brought in question," the contrary prac- tice prevails, as it most unquestionably should. That replies to calls for information on mere matters of detail, or for information which can only be obtained at the public offices, made and replied to during the session, are not in all cases submitted to the President, we believe ; but that reports on great national interests, for the prepara- tion of which time is given from session to session, are prepared without the participa- tion of the President, and communicated to Congress Avithout being ever shown to him, would prove a degree of delinquency in both the Secretary and the President, which of itself would justify their dismissal from office. But that the President should undertake to give his higlf sanction and his strong recommendation to plans thuspre- XI pared and reported, is not to be believed. The President, then, in the passage of his letter which we have quoted, has committed a gross error. Not in mis-quoting a sentence, by leaving out three words which do not affect the sense, which might have happened by his own inadvertence, the carelessness of a copyist, or an error of the press, but in the assertion of a fad. Not in the narration of a fact communicated to him by another, which might have been misconceived, but in a fact which rested in. and is asserted upon, his own knowledge. Not in an unimportant collateral matter. bict upon the very question at issue. He is contradicted, not by the mouth of a wit- ness, who may have forgotten or be mistaken, or testify falsely, but by the record. Not by a musty record of ancient times, but by his own record, of no older date than his own three years' reign, commencing with it and running through it, down to the 20tli day of March, 1840. Not in a single instance, but in every instance in regard to which we have any evidence save his own assertion. If he vouches his Secretary, we have shown in another place that his recollection has misled him also, not only in regard to this matter, but a:nother of equal importance. If we were to follow the ex- ample set us by his Excellency, and indulge in language personally offensive, we might say that charity herself Avould be unable to attribute his error to mistake. We should say, it "is not without shame and mortification on the part of every ingenuous mind, whatever may be its political prepossessions, that we see the name of the President of the United States subscribed to such statements:" that we see him descend from the lofty station to which an abused people have elevated him, mingle in the discussions which the question of his re-election has given rise to, indulge in language towards citizens whom he admits to be respectable, which would not be tolerated in the ordi- nary intercourse of gentlemen, and attempt to justify his departure from truth and good breeding by a wretched quibble. Instead of answering promptly and unequivocally a few plain questions, which required no time for consideration, and the answers to which could have been comprised in half a dozen sentences, he has "for political and personal purposes" filled more than four columns of a newspaper with electioneering stuff, and availed himself of an "unfounded" pretext to delay his answer and withhold it from the newspapers, for near two months, to the end that it should go uncontradict- ed into an adjoining State in the crisis of an election, which, if it go against him, is decisive of his fate.* "Our chief regret on witnessing such degrading exhibitions, arises from the consideration of the opinion which foreigners, who have not the same reason to respect our political institutions that we have, are likely to form of the charac- ter of our people, when they see that the most conspicuous man among us can pro- mise himself any advantage from attempts to delude his fellow citizens, by means of such monstrous conduct. This regret is, however, we confess, materially diminished by the conviction that the people will, in the sequel, as they have heretofore done, con- vince those who attempt in this manner to operate upon their credulity, of the folly of -seeking to accomplish in this country, political objects by such discreditable means." The President is very indignant at the suspicion that his militia scheme is a stand- ing army in disguise. It is this, we doubt not, that has destroyed the equilibrium which he generally preserves so admirably, ruffled his almost imperturbable temper, and irritated his " not over sensitive" nerves. We are not surprised at it. Nothing dis- concerts a juggler so much as to expose his tricks. If the imputation were so "pre- posterous," and such "a monstrous absurdity" as he Avould make the nation believe it to be, it would not have inflicted such a galling wound. His theatrical starts and star- ing eyes would not be played off before the people, at the apparition of a raw head and bloodr bones of the nursery. Nor would he, we are persuaded, have run the hazard of forfeiting his title to the reputation of a gentleman, by applying to citizens Avhom he admits to be respectable, and who are as yet, thank God, as free to criticise his measures as he is to animadvert upon their criticisms, language so unbecoming his own high station, if he did not feel it necessary to Avithdraw public attention from his niilitia bill and give it a different direction. He makes strong protestations against the imputation, and is profuse in professions of attachment to the Constitution. His Sec- retary, too, in his letter to Mr. Ritchie, demands our confidence in the purity of his own and the President's intentions. We have had enough of professions. Genera). Jackson condemned the practice of bringing the patronage of the Government in con- flict with the freedom of elections. Mr. Van Buren professed to carry out his princi- ples ; yet we have seen the head of the Post Office Department quit his station to devote * The letter of Mr. Gary and others, is dated 12th June ; the President's answer the 31st Jkly : pubHshcd in the Enquirer' 7th August. North Carohna election commenced latter part of July, and runs through nearly half of August; occurring principally on l3th, xu himself to a newspaper, the declared object of which is to promote the re-election of his former master. We have seen him promise the future patronage of the Government to those who would aid in its ciiculation, and attract subscribers by teUing them that they could, through the agency of the deputy post masters, transmit their subscriptions to him free of charge ; and we state upon undoubted authority, that a post master in the little county of Prince William, is not ashamed to boast, that he had distributed one hundred copies of that paper to persons not subscribers. Professions and pro- testations are too cheap and threadbare a commodity to barter our liberty for. When Cromwell at the head of an armed force dispersed the members of the British Parliament, he protested that "he had come for the purpose of doing Avhat grieved him to the very soul, and what he had earnestly with tears besought the Lord not to impose upon him, but there was a necessity in order to the glory of God and the good of the nation." When Napoleon with his grenadiers drove the members of the Council of five hun- idred from the Hall, he professed to act in the name of liberty and equality. To their demands of confidence we answer, ''pardon us gentlemen," confidence should be a plant of slow growth in a republican soil; it is not confidence in rulers, but jealousy, ,and ever watchful vigilance, that Liberty exacts of her votaries as the price of the blessings which she bestows. August 12th, 1840. SECOND ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF FAUaUIER COUNTY. The new, unexpected, and extraordinary ground assumed by many (not aU) of the advocates for the re-election of Mr. Van Buren in regard to his participation in the plan for a standing army, in the face of evidence which would have appalled any but a "sink or swim" advocate, makes it necessary for us again to present ourselves to your notice. We say "present " not "intrude," for upon a question which concerns, so vitally, not only the present generation, but the remotest posterity, every man is a party and has a right to be heard by those who are to pass upon it for weal or for wo. We now, as on a former occasion, prefer addressing you in our own proper names rather than anonymously. We are under the most solemn conviction that the perma- nency, if not the very existence, of our free institutions, depends upon the success of the efforts now being made to arrest the career of the party which has so long enjoyed, and shamelessly abused, the confidence of the People. Such a cause needs not the aid of misrepresentation. If the People will open their eyes and their understandings to behold and appreciate the truth it is enough. As we feel conscious that our object is virtuous and patriotic, and mean to wield no weapons but truth and reason, we deem it proper to vouch, with our own names, the facts which we assert, and are willing to stand or fall in the esteem of our neighbors by the title which we shall maintain to candor and fair dealing. In our former address to you on this subject we said " we shall not be drawn aside by the assaults of anonymous Avriters, or hireling editors, nor do we intend to make a crusade through the State ; but we do say that if any man of our own county, of re- spectable character, Avill, under his own hand, deny any of the facts which we allege in this, or any other communication which Ave may venture to make, we pledge our- selves to meet him before the People at such time and place as he may select, and either maintain our position or take the consequences of defeat." We have the grati- fication to find that no one has ventured to take up the gauntlet; whatever may have been said in conversation or in public addresses no man has ventured to point out a single error in fact, no one has ventured to question the accuracy of our deductions, or the justness of our remarks, in the mode Avhich we invited. That mode was fair and equal. What we said was in print with our names attached. We asked that he who accepted our challenge should put his acceptance in the same form, and point to the specific fact which he objected to. This was the only mode to bring us to a fair issue. Words are fleeting, may be misunderstood or forgotten ; ingenuity may explain them away ; prevarication may deny them : but when they are put upon paper, there they stand, veracious and abiding witnesses. From their testimony there is no retreat ; they must be manfully met, or disgracefully abandoned. Having pla(?ed ourselves in this attitude, we say it was but fair to demand of our opposers that they should place themselves in the same, or admit the truth and justice of what we have said. They have chosen the latter. We say then to our fellow citizens who have honored us so far as to peruse o ur former address, that every word of it is substantially admitted by the leaders of the opposite party. The great trlobe itself has been able to point out no error but the accidental omission of a few words Avhich does not alter the sense, and has quietly permitted its promised refutation to fade from the memory of its readers. If, fellow citizens, any sworn advocate of the administration should corner one of you and say, or in a stump sppcch venture to declare, that our assumption of admitted accuracy is unwarranted, we beg you to remind him that the field is yet open to him, and say to him that he also was, and is invited, to bring his objections to our test, put it down in writing, put his name to it, and appoint a time and place to discuss it before the People. So far from refuting the objections, urged by ourselves and others, to this grand scheme for a standing army, the managers of the Administration party in Vir- ginia have made what we shall show to be a vain attempt to clear the President's skirts of it, and concentrate the public reprobation on the head of his Secretary. This at- tempt is as extraordinary as it will prove to be vain and futile. The youngest amongst us who is old enough to go to the polls is old enough to remember the language of the predecessor of the President when he assumed the poAver to control the discretion of all executive officers. Upon that occasion he said, and it is Avritten in your books, '' By the Constitution the executive poAver is vested in a President of the United States Among the duties imposed upon him, and which he is sworn to perform, is that of ' taking care that the laws be faithfully executed :' being thus made responsible for the entire action of the E.rectitive Department^ it was but reasonable that the power of appointing, overseeing, and controlling, those who execute the laws, a power, in its nature, executive, should remain in his hands." Now there -u as something of the characteristic gallantry of the old soldier in this. It is said to be a practice in some of the schools in Great Britain in which the sprigs of nobility are educated, to associate Avith those Avliose skins are too delicate for the birch what are called "whipping boys." By the way, the wrong part of speech is used in the definition, for whenever a lordling commits a fault these poor fellows are flogged for it. But General Jackson Avas Avilling, not only to take his own share of the flogging, but all which the nation was disposed to inflict, reserving to himself, how- ever, the power to flog those Avho Avere placed under him.* We had a right to expect equal gallantry from Mr. Van Buren. His pledge "to folloAv in the footsteps of his predecessor " and " carry out the principles cf his administration " cannot be forgotten by any one Avho is at all conversant Avith public affairs. His participation in the meas- ures, and his concurrence in the doctrines, of the administration, of Avhich he formed a prominent and most efficient member gave occasion for liis proudest boast in his in- augural address. Upon that occasion he said, " In receiving from the People the same trtast tAvice confided to my illustrious predecessor, and Avhich he has discharged so faithfully and so Avell, I knoAV I cannot expect to perform the arduous task Avith equal ability and success. Biit united as I have been in his counsels, a daily Avitness of his exclusive and unsurpassed devotion to his country's Avelfare, agreeing with him in sentiments, Av-hich his countrymen have Avarmly supported, and permitted to partake largely of his confidence, I may hope that someAvhat of the same cheering approba- tion Avill be found to attend on my path." The duty of "overseeing," and the " responsibility for the entire action of the Executive Department,'''' Avere the price of a great, not to say alarming, extension of executive poAver — no less than to control the discretion of every subordinate officer of the Government, and to remove them hoAvever honest, hoAvever capable, if their views of their duty differed from those of the President, and thus to convert them from Avhat they Avere theretofore esteemed — s;ervants of the people bound to obey the law, into servants of the President bound to execute his Avill. The poAver of removal for incapacity or unfaithfulness conferred upon tlie President in the best days of the Republic, and by the purest patriots, is not to be found in the Constitution. Neither the framers of that instrument nor the People Avho ratified it, had any idea that they were making their President, like the Monarch of England, the sole fountain of honor, sole arbiter betAveen the People and the rest of their public servants. No such grant, Ave repeat, is to be found in the Constitution, and those illus- trious men Avhose cotemporaneous exposition is looked upon as part of the Constitu- tion itself, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, in the Avork to which they gave their joint sanction, quietefl the fears so justly entertained of an overshadoAving Executive, by informing the People that " the consent of the Senate Avould be necessary to displace, as Avell as to appoint :'"-\ and thus explained, and understood, the Constitution was rat- ified by the People. Under the guidance of some evil genius the first named gentleman led the assault by Avhich this barrier Avas broken doAvn, and the others foUoAved. It Avould seem that the men of that day, dazzled by the virtues of Washington, thought the Executive the safest depository of power ; they treated Avith scorn and derision the apprehension that, in after times, a President might be found Avho Avould use for sinister purposes a poAver bestowed upon him lor the good of the People. The Avarn- ings of caution, the forebodings of jealous republicans, Avere unheeded ; and, fatally for the peace and Avelfare of our country, the poAver Avas recognized as belonging to the President under the Constitution.^ I^or nearly forty years it slumbered in com- parative repose, Avhen it Avas aAvakened into fearful energy by the Lion of the West, and Avielded Avith his wonted daring. So faithful has his successor been to his promise to tread in his footsteps, so far, at least, as the exercise of this power is concerned, that that Avhich, by the doctors of 179 — , Avas intended "for an extreme medicine has be- come our daily food." When this tremendous engine Avas first placed in the hands of * Vide protest sent to the Senate April 17th, 1834. t Vide Federalist No. 77. t The concession to the Executive of the power of removal from office was carried, by Mr. Madison, in the House of Representatives, by a considerable majority. It passed the Senate by the casting vote of John Adams, their Vice President. the Executive, the fears of the People were quieted by the reflection that their Wash- ington was to wield it ; when it was used to give a still wider sweep to Executive power they were again lulled into security by the assurance that the President would '^ oversee ," and vfais ^^responsible for the entire action of the Executive Depart- ment.'''' These assurances were disseminated by the Administration press, and execu- • live partisans, all over the Union. In spite of the arguments and remonstrances of the opposition, this doctrine became the doctrine of the party llien comprising a large majority of the People; and now, that a measure concocted at the War office, under the very nose of the President, of unmixed evil to the People, and boundless increase to the enormous mass of executive power already accumulated, has called forth exe- crations deep and loud, these very presses, and these very partizans, tell us that the President's skirts are clear of this sin ; that it is the measure of the Secretary of War, and the President is not responsible for it. When a great increase to executive power is desired, those men, with democracy on their lips, and devotion to power in iheir hearts, cry out "the President is responsible and ought to have the power:" Avhen that responsibility presses, it is thrown upon a subordinate, who is prevailed upon to become the scape-goat on whose head are placed the sins of his party.* Will you, fellow citizens, suffer yourselves to become the dupes oi such a shallow artifice ? Ei- ther take from the President the power which be has assumed, or hold him to the responsibility which it involves. This you can do at the ballot boxes, where, alone, your power can be felt. Do it now, for when the President shall have surrounded his throne with two hundred thousand Pretorian guards, and left the militia an unin- structed, unarmed, and unorganized, " mass," your efforts will be impotent. Hold Mr. Van Buren, we again say, to his responsibility ; the measure is his, upon his OAvn prin- ciples ; and we have greatly deceived ourselves if, before we quit the subject, we do not prove that it is his in point of fact. Before, however, we pass to that branch of the subject, we request you lo bear in mind that the attempt to throw the odium of this measure on Mr. Poinsett, gives us one advantage of no little importance. It is an open confession of its damning character. Fellow citizens, we undertake to bring the scheme, the details of which were com- municated to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, accompanied by a letter of explanation from the Secretary of War, dated March 20th, 1S40, home to his Excel- lency Martin Van Buren, President of the United States. We undertake to prove that he first conceived it, and that his chivalrous Secretary has been nothing more than an accoucheur. That it was sustained and lauded by his supporters, until the people condemned it ; and we aver that it has not even yet been denounced by a sin- gle member of Congress or leading administration press. Some, indeed, have uttered faint murmurs o{ dissent, whilst others, including the Globe, the known organ of the President, and the familiar of his palace, have lauded and defended it against the at- tacks of the Whigs. And finally, we Avill show that the scheme indicated by the heads contained in the Secretary's report to the President, dated 30th November, 1839, and communicated by the latter to Congress on the 24th of December following, endorsed ly his strong recommendation, iu every essential particidar in which it varies from the details communicated by the Secretary to the Speaker of the House of Repre- sentatives is worse than those details. The only testimony which furnishes a shadow of ground for the attempt to screen the President, is the letter of the Secretary of War to Thomas Ritchie, Esq. Secre- tary of the Central Van Buren Committee. We know Mr. Poinsett only as late Min- ister to Mexico, and present Secretary of War. We are willing to accord to him every title to credence which can rightfully be claimed by any gentleman circumstan- ced as he is, but no more. As a public servant, we shall scan his conduct with free- dom, but Avith the courtesy which is due to his station and to the rank he holds in so- c-ety. He has voluntarily presented himself as a witness before the American people, on a question in which their vital concerns are deeply involved; as a portion of that * Leviticus, chapter xvi. verse 21, " And Aaron shall lay both his hantl.s upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgres- sions in all their sins, putting tht^m upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. " 22. And the goat shall hear upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited, and he shall let go the goat into the wilderness." Q.uery. Has Mr. Poinsett been sent into the wilderness, or does.he yet sit by the flesh-pots of Egypt -J people, we claim, and mean to exercise the right of subjecting his testimony to all just criticism; and if we find him involved in self-contradiction, we shall insist on all its legitimate consequences. Before we examine the tenor of his letter, we beg to call your attention to the position of the Avitness and the character of his evidence. Mr. Poinsett is a prominent member of the dominant party. He at least is responsi- ble for a measure Avhich has excited universal odium. It is he who stigmatized the whole body of the militia as an incumbrance, and the officers as a set of ignoramus'. He never can hope for promotion at the hands of a people whom he has insulted, and proposed to make the slaves of the President. As a politician his days are numbered, when Mr. Van Buren and the party which sustains him shall fall from their high estate. His only hope is in the success of that party. He, therefore, above all men. has a deep stake in the question on Avhich he is called to testify. We object to him, then, in limine as an interested witness. We object still more strongly to the exparte charac- ter of his testimony. Fellow citizens, suppose one of you to be engaged in a law suit with a company of traders. Suppose the controversy mainly to turn on a particular fact. Suppose one of the company to write to a witness and say, " if this thing be as our adversary repre- sents it, and as circumstances prove it to be, we are undone. You are the only man that can save us. Come, now, my good friend, give, us a lift. We want your affida- vit. We do not wish you to testify directly to the point one way or the other, we know you will not say the thing that is not. but you can give us something to hang an argu- ment upon ; you are not sworn to tell the whole truth ; nor will you be bothered with questions by the other party. Say just as much for us as you can, with a safe conscience, and if you know any thing that will make against us, why you can just — leave it out." Would you be willing that your cause should be decided upon testimony thus obtain- ed, let the witness stand as high as ho might 1 And if you would not consent to the reading of such an e.rparte affidavit of a disinterested person, what would you say to evidence thus procured from one of the firm ? To enable you to judge how far our supposititious case applies to the testimony on which alone you are asked for a verdict of acquittal for Mr. Van Buren, let us turn to the history of the correspondence alluded to, and the circumstances which called it forth. You are already apprised that the heads of a scheme for embodying a military force, similar in many respects to that given in detail by the Secretary, were reported by him to the President on the 30th November, ] 839, and strongly recommended to the con- sideration of Congress by him in his message of 24th December following. In the month of February last, Mr. Rives, in a published letter, amongst other reasons why he could not support the re-election of Mr. Van Buren, mentioned this scheme for a military force. He spoke of it as it was presented by the heads set forth in the report of 30th November, and urged various strong objections to it. The campaign thus opened by Mr. Rives was followed up by Col. Campbell, son of that Col. Campbell who with Shelby led the militia at the battle of King's Mountain, and overthrew the Tories of that day. After these attacks, and in the midst of the excitement of the spring elections, Mr. Poinsett's details were communicated to Congress. This communica- tion placed the measure fully betore the people in all its deformity, and greatlv added to the excitement. The administration party every Avhere declared that it lost them thousands of votes. So sensitive was the editor of the Enquirer on this point, that he did not publish these details in that paper. He published only the recommendatory letter, so that instead of enabling his readers to judge for themselves by giving them the thing itself, he put them off with the praises of its projector. His omission was noticed by the opposition journals; still he would not publish ''the details." They taunted him with his fears ; still he was silent. Some gentlemen in Richmond re- quested him to publish those frightful details, and offered to pay for them as an adver- tisement; he refused. At length his friends, seeing that his refusal Avas doing as much harm as the hateful details themselves could possibly do, advised him to publish them. He promised to do so; but paper after paper issued, and no details appeared. In the mean time he put forth an ominous feeler: "what Hie asks) would the Whigs say if Mr. Poinsett should take the responsibility on himself."* Seeing that his party would * We have not the Enquirer before us, and mean only to give our recollection of the substance of the article. gladly avail themselves of even this subterfuge, he next assures them that Mr. Poin- sett will take the responsibility, and then comes the correspondence, tw^o letters -of which are published. How many more passed Ave are left to conjecture. But further, the Hon. Secretary, if we understand the force of language, is involved in a self-contradiction ; and it is proper as well to enable you to appreciate his testimony as to vindicate our own accuracy, that we should point it out. We said in our formre ad- dress, that according to the details of his plan " the militia of western Virginia may be ordered to the banks of the Delaware or shores of the Chesapeake ; those of Maine to Vermont ; the men of Pittsburg to the banks of the Hudson ; those of North Carolina to the swamps of Florida; the mountaineers of Tennessee to New Orleans ; Kentucky to Indiana, and Ohio to Wisconsin, and vice versa.''' This feature of the scheme staggered even the committee of the House of Repre- sentatives, to which it Avas referred ; and in a letter from the chairman to the Secre- tary of the 6th April, 1840, he asks, ''are we to understand that the President is em- powered to call out the Avhole force of any one of the districts at the same time, and at any point Avhich he may designate?" ToAvhich the Secretary replied on the 8th, that " the plan contemplated that the power of the President to call out the militia, should, be restricted to assembling the militia of each State within its own territorial limits."* In his letter to Mr. Ritchie he says that, according to his plan ''the militia mustered for training, to be assembled in the neighborhood of depots of arms, to be established for the purpose, each battalion within its own State, and as nearly as practicable in the centre of its district,'^ If this be true, then Ave were in error when Ave said, " the militia of Avestern Virginia, may be marched to the banks of the Delaware." We maintain, however, that we were right, and the Secretary plainly and palpably wrong ; and for proof we appeal to the very 14th and 17th sections, to which his attention was specially called by the let- ter of the chairman of the committee. The 14th section is in these AA'ords : " That for the greater convenience of instruction and discipline of the active and sedentary force, the territory of the United States shall be divided into ten districts, which, until otherwise- directed by law, shall be composed as follows : 1st district. Maine, New Hampshire Vermont, •I 2d district. Massachusetts Rhode Island Connecticut tts, ) 9;200 men. 9,600 men, 3d district. f New York, 18,000 men. 4th district. New Jersey, t Pennsylvania, J .'jTn district. Delaware, Maryland, Dist. Columbia, , Virginia, J ;, > 6tii district. North Carolina,! South Carolina, ! Georgia, [ Florida, J 13,200 men, 10,400 men 10,000 men. Alabama, 1 Mississippi, [ Louisiana, j Tennessee, J rkansas, 1 lissouri, > .wa, ) Arkansas, Mi Iowa entucky, 1 inois, > diana, ) Kentucky, Illi Indi 7th dlstrict. 8th district. 9th district. 10th district. Ohio, ) Michigan, > Wisconsin, ) 8,800 men. 2,000 mcB!.. 7,400 mezE. 9,200 men; * Vide Doc. Rep. Ne. 585, p. 24—25, The 17lh section is in these words : " That the President of the United States be authorized to call forth and assemble such num- bers of the active force of the militia, at such -places within their respective districts, and at such times, not exceeding twice, nor days in the same year, as he may deem necessary, and during such period, including the time when going to and returning from the place of rendezvous, they shall be deemed in the seivice of the United States, and subject to such regulations as the President may think proper to adopt for their instruction, discipline, and improrement in mili- tary knowledge." Now, if the words, " such places within their respective districts^^' mean '' such places within their respective States, ^^ then we admit that the power of the President to call forth and assemble the active force, '■ is restricted to assembling the militia of each State within its own territorial limits." But so long as the word "districts" means " districts," and not " States," and so long as Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, and Virginia, form one of the ten '' districts" into which the territory of the United States is to be divided, we shall insist that the power of the President to call out this militia '^was not restricted to assembling the militia of each State within its own territorial limits," and that " the militia of western Virginia may be ordered to the banks of the Delaware and shores of the Chesapeake," &c, ^'for instr^iction, dis- cipline, and improvement in military knowledge.'''' The Secretary, in his explanatory letter addressed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, says : " Soldiers must be taught their duties in garrison and in the field in marching and encamping, in the police and military administration of an army. The instruction so essential, and without which it is impossible to form the soldier, canriot be given in a day's training by officers nearly as ignorant of these branches of service as the men themselves — I speak of the generality of the officers. It must be irnparted by veteran and skilful officers in garrison and in camp to men and officers alike." How can this be done if " each battalion is assembled within its own State, and as nearly as practicable in the centre of its district?" In the heads set forth in his November report, he says : " They are to be so drilled and stationed as to be ready to take their place in the ranks in defending the country, whenever callud upon to oppose the enemy or repel the invader." Will this be effect- ed by culling out the battalions at the centre of their own districts, and mustering there for ten or even thirty days in the year? We will here take occasion to mention another equally extraordinary attempt to es- cape from the consequences of the proposal to invest the President with this unconsti- tutional power. The sage chairman in the letter already quoted, says : " The interpretation of ' the territory of the United States,' is by some understood to mean the public lands and the District of Columbia, and cannot embrace the limits of the several States, unless there be a misconstruction of the letter of the Constitution, which declares ' a well regulated militia as being necessarv to the security of a free State.' " Now, here is a gentle hint to the Secretary that he may get out of the scrape by say- ing, that he rneant to divide " the public lands and the District of Columbia" into ten military districts, for the convenience of instructing his active and sedentary force in military knowledge ; that of these ten districts, thus carved out of " the public lands and the District of Columbia," Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, should be squeezed into the District of Columbia, and form one from which should be obtained 20,800 men, active and sedentary; leaving the unsold and unsettled public lands to be cut up into the remaining nine districts, into which the other twenty-three States and three Ter- ritories should be squeezed, and furnish the remaining 179,200 actives and sedeutaries. To this sage suggestion the Secretary gravely replies, that the words "territory of the ^ United States," as used by him, did not mean the public lands and poor persecuted Dis- trict of Columbia, but "the area embraced by the geographical boundaries of the whole confederacy." Reader, we are not jesting nor exaggerating. If you doubt ourword, read the letters ; they cover only three pages of the documentreferred to. Whether the Secretary has done better for himself than the friendly chairman wished to do for him, admits of question.* * In Knickerbocker's history of New York, we read of a tavern-keeper who persuaded his guest that he had conjured a quart of wine into a pint decanter, and charged him accordingly. The chairman's estimate of the Secretary's powers of condensation, vastly exceeded the conju- ration of our Boniface. Seriously, what shall we think of the chairman's estimate of the pliancy of the Secretary, and the gullibility of the people when he ventured on this suggestion. We return from this digression to the correspondence. Before we proceed to its examination, it is proper that we should understand the real question at issue. That question is not whether Mr. Van Buren had any hand in drawing up the paper which, -was transmitted by the Secretary to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, de- signated by the Secretary as "the plan reported to Congress," or ever saw it; but whether Mr. Van Buren at any time before or after it was transmitted, approved of all or any of tlie monstrous principles which it involves ; and if not all, what did he approve and what disapprove? It will be observed that ample time was given for the expression of this approval or disapproval. The details were called for by a resolution of the House on the 9th March ; they were communicated on the 20th ; were publish- ed in the newspapers ; amongst others, in the Globe, (Avhich we presume ?\lr. Van Buren reads ;) were noticed in the journal of the House, a copy of which is daily put in his hands ; produced the excitement already mentioned, and, as his friends said, lost the Virginia election. Mr. Ritchie's feeler was not published until day of May,* and Mr. Poinsett's letter was not written until the 5th, nor published until the 12th day of June. During this interval, the Secretary and the President were inhabitants of the same city, sat at the same counqil board, and if we are correctly informed were, and continue to be, on terms of peculiar intimacy and friendship. Knowing as we do the real question at issue, and the ample power of the witness to speak directly to that question, let us see what he has said : " The President concurred with me in opinion, with regard to the importance of re- organizing the militia at this time ; but had no agency in preparing the plan reported to Congress, and no previous knoAvledge of its details. It was prepared as has already been stated, at the request of a commiltee of the House of Representatives expressed at the close of the last session, and reported to this Congress upon a call of the House, made directly upon the Secretary of War, and as is usual in all such cases, sent to that body without being previously submitted to the President; he, therefore, had nothing to do with ity The remainder of his letter is a defence of the scheme. Not one word, is to be found which warrants the inference that Mr. Van Buren did not, when he com- posed his message of December last, and when Mr. Poinsett's letter to Mr. Ritchie was written, approve of the plan, details and all. The language of the Secretary is very guarded. He had in his report of the 30th November, 1S39, furnished the Presi- dent with the heads of his plan, and further said that he had the details prepared and ready to submit to him. He further suggested, and the President warmly seconded the suggestion, that the '^details" necessary to give body and limbs to the gorgon, with a few exceptions, should not be submitted to Congress, but left to the President. Congress, after about ten weeks of consideration, expressed some curiosity to see the details, and on the 9lh March called for them. The Secretary responded to the call on the 20th, taking eleven days to prepare his answer. Now, it is to be remarked, that he cautiously refers to " the plan reported to Congress," as the one in which the Presi- dent had no agency in preparing. '• //," he says, (that is, " the plan reported to Con- gress") ''was sent to that body without being previously submitted to the President; he, therefore, had nothing to do with it.''' The Secretary furtlier informs us, that this was done because the call was made directly upon the Secretary of Vv'ar, and it is usual '-in all such cases" not to submit the reply to the President. We shall show that this is an error, and produce both the Secretary and the President as witnesses to prove it. We shall also show, that so far from the statement that the President con- curred with the Secretary in opinion, with regard to the importance of re-organizing the militia, that the President led the way, and was the first to suggest the most ob- jectionable features in the ''plan reported to Congress;" and we will also show other striking inaccuracies in the Secretary's letter. If the people of the United State*, upon the trial of this great question, enjoyed the ri^ht which the law secures to parties to the most trivial controversy, we would put to this witness a i^w interrogatories, which would point his attention to the real question .at issue, and we doubt not that his answers would shift the burden from his own shoul- ders, on which his chivalrous devotion has placed it, to that of his leader and com- mander, the President. At least, he would have to take his full share of it. But as we have not the benefit of a cross-examination, we must resort to circumstances, from which inferences may be rationally drawn, and such direct proofs as we may be able ♦ We have not the No. of the Enquirer by us, nor have we access to a file of that paper. We know, however, the feeler was in an Enquirer pubhshed during the month of May. We think, the latter part of May. to find touching the fact to which this witness has not testified, to wit: the Presi- dent's approval of the principles of the Secretari/s plan. The first circumstance to which we invite attention, is that the skilful secretary of the Central Van Buren Committee, when professing a desire to know Mr. Van Bu- ren's views on this important matter, one which threatened to defeat his election, in- stead of applying to Mr. Van Buren himself, applied to his Secretary. Why was this done ? Surely Mr. Van Buren, although filling the exalted station of President of this great Republic, would not have refused to answer a civil question from a brother democrat. Especially when an answer, in the way his brother democrat wished him to answer, would contribute greatly to keep him in his high office. ' Why not, then, put the ques- tion plump and flat to the President himself — Do you now, or did you ever approve of this plan? If nay, please point out the ditlerence between the heads which you so strongly recommended and these details? Why interrogate the man wnen the mas- ter was at hand? A great deal had been said about Gen. Harrison getting his friend Gwinn, who is not half as good a writer as himself, to answer one, out of a thousand letters. Why place Mr. Van Buren in the same predicament? No other answer can be given, than that Mr. Van Buren could not with truth give such a reply as would satisfy the people of the United States, and would not tie his hands upon a measure which he has pressed upon Congress at every regular session since his election.* We are told by the Secretary that Congress, " shortly before the close of the last session ('38 — 9) expressed an opinion that the country was exposed to the hazard of being involved in war," and reposed "a trust and confidence in the President, unpa- ralleled in the history of our Republic," — that the militia Avas first to be looked to as the means of meeting the war if it should come, and that " the committee on the militia of the House ol Representatives required him, through their chairman, to pre- pare a plan for the better organizajion of the militia of the United States." He also tells u? in his annual report of November last, that at '' the close of the last session," the President felt "solicitude on the subject of the defences of the country on our maritime frontier." It appears, also, from the proceedings of the Senate, that on the 2d March a resolution was adopted on motion of Mr. Benton, requesting the President "to cause to be laid before the Senate, at the commencement of the next session, reports upon the military and naval defences of the country." His attention is pointed to the " fortifications, their armament," &c. &c. &c. information as to all which is asked, " with any other information or suggestions which the Presi- dent may deem necessary to communicate to Congress, in order to exhibit a full view of what is necessary to be done, and the probable cost thereof, to place the United States in a proper state of defence, by land and water, and on each of the four great lines of defence which her frontiers present." We are further told by the Secretary in his letter, that ''no sooner had Congress adjourned, than the 'Pri'sident sensible of the responsibilities imposed uponhimhy this act, and anxious alike to justify the confidence of Congress and discharge his duty to the nation, called upon the War and Navy Departments to furnish him with state- ments showing the condition of the defences of the country," — that "called by the voice of Congress to defend the country," "it became the duty of the Executive to seek to or2:anize and render efficient the only means of defence at hand," the militia. The faithful Secretary labored upon his part of the task from early in March to the last of November. Did he, during this interval, have no conversation with the Presi- dent about the organization of '' the onlv means of defence at hand? Did he remain silent upon this important topic at all the cabinet meetings, and dinner and evening parties at which they met? Did the President's solicitude and sensibility of the re- sponsibilities imposed upon him all evaporate ? Did he forget, all of a sudden, that it was his duty to oversee, and that he was responsible for the entire action of the Exe- cutive Department ? Did his duties cease when he called upon the War and Navy Departments to furnish statements ? And was it thus that he sought to repay the ''trust and confidence, unparalled in the history of our republic," reposed in him by Congress ? * Since tlio aliovc was writtrn, the President's answer to the interrogatories propounded by Messrs. Gary and otliers, has lieen published, it fully sustains our argument. If it had been diftercnl, it would have come too late. After the answer of his Secretary had failed to satisfy the people, and his election wa^ jeoparded by the mt asure, it would be quite too late to clear his skirts of it by a mere denial, contradicted as it would be by circumstances amounting to full proof. But he has done no such thinjr. When, on the 30th November, the Secretary's Report was placed in his hands, giv- ing the heads of a plan which he intended in his Message '• strongly" to recommend to Congress— and informing him that the details were all drawn out, ready to be sub- mitted to him— did he permit this Report to lie on his table from the 30th November to 24th December. Avithout inspecting the details of the novel and monstrous system which he was about to give his sanction to, when half an hour's reading would put him in full possession of them ? If these questions are answered in a way to relieve Mr. Van Buren from participa- tion in the Secretary's plan, he is totally unfit for his office. But they cannot be so answered. No man who has five grains of understanding, and one grain of candor, will so answer them. This notable plan was attacked, in February, by Mr. Rives, subsequently by Col. Campbell, and others, and threatened disaster to the party. After all this, the details were called for by Congress, and would, of course, be published. If the paper contain- ing them was not si^own to the President before it was sent to Congress, it could only have been because he knew enough about them before. And here we Avill remark, that the reason given by the Secretary for sending in his Report to Congress without previously submitting it to the President, is not true in point of fact: and we prove our assertion by his own letter. In that production, he says, that '-immediately after the passage of that act, (meaning that which conferred such extraordinary powers on the President) the Committee on the Militia of the House of Representatives required me, through their Chairman, to prepare a plan for the better organization of the militia of the United States." Now, he responded to that call by a Report to the President, and never intended to answer in any other way— and never would but for the resolu- tion of the House, passed more than three months after his Report. So far from re- porting his details, in pursuance of the call of the Chairman of the Committee, he, in his Report to the President, proposed that Congress should have nothing to do with them, but that they should be "left to regulation;" in other words, to Executive legislation. We will detain you with one or two other instances of presumptive evidence. So much of the President's Message as related to this subject, was referred to the Standing Committees on the Militia, in both Houses. They did not report until long after the commotion which we have alluded to, and after the notable attempt of Mr. Ritchie to cover the President's retreat. No. We are mistakeii— we do the President injustice. He never has retreated ; and, if we are to judge of him by his perseverance and success in carrying his Sub-treasury scheme, he never Avill abandon this measure. These reports, we say, were made after it was fully shewn that the proposed organiza- tion of the militia, or, rather, plan for a standing army, was doing great injury to the party, and when it was manifest that, in Virginia, if not in the vv^hole Union, their suc- cess would be greatly advanced by satisfactory proof that the President disapproved of it. Something like such proof would have been afforded if these Committees had condemned the scheme in decided terms, and any of those members who are known to possess the confidence of the President had risen in their places and declared that the President had not given it his sanction. Nothing, certainly would have been easier than for the President to have furnished this proof. The slightest hint, the slightest whisper would have been sufficient. We aver, most confidently, that there is not one word in these reports, nor was one word uttered by any member of Congress, from which the slightest inference can be drawn, that this scheme had not the sanction of the President. So far from it, the reports consist principally of disjointed recitals of former plans for organizing the militia, feeble attacks upon General Harrison, and lame apologies for Mr. Poinsett and his plan. Not one word of condemnation of the out- rageous violations of the Constitution in proposing to call the militia into tlie service of the United States, and place them under the command of the President and the offi- cers of the regular armyfor Iraininz ; and, instead of training them under the author- ity of the States, "according to the discipline prescribed by Congress," training them under the authority of the United States, according to the discipline prescribed by the President. Nothing of the anomaly of trainiuir the militia by substitute. Nothing of the obvious design to embody two hundred thousand mercenaries, and place them under the command of the President. Again. If the doctrine of Gen. Jackson is to be reversed— if, instead of the President being responsible for the entire action of the Executive Department, the maxim of the British government is to be substituted, that the king can do no wrong, but the minis- ter must answer, even with his head, why is the offi^nding and responsible minister retained in office? Why docs he yet retain the confidence which he has so grossly 10 abused ? Why does he yet sit at the council-board? Why does he yet wield the military arm of the nation ? Why is he yet the inmate of the palace, and the bosom- friend of the President? Why does he yet clothe himself "in purple and fine linen," at the expense of the people whom he would make slaves? We will answer these questions by furnishing direct proof that the scheme is all the President's — that it is the offspring of his teeming brain, and that the Secretary has not even borne the part of wet-nurse. To enable us to see the points of resemblance between the plan called Mr. Poin- sett's and that originated by Mr. Van Buren, and to appreciate the objections to both, it is necessary to have definite notions of a standing army and miliiia, as those terms apply to our peculiar political system. By a standing army, as contradistinguished from our militia, we understand a per- manent body of men, armed and equipped for war, instructed in military tactics, sub- dued by discipline to implicit obedience, the sole duty of a soldier — paid by the gov- ernment of the United States, and commanded by the President. There is another characteristic of an army, which must be borne in mind. Where voluntary enlistment is resorted to, the ranks are filled with the idle and the profligate — men who have no ties to society; without property, without families, and careless for the future, they love only the hand that feeds them, and fear nothing but their commanders. Such are the instruments by which the monarchies and despotisms of the old world are sustained — such the means by Avhich the millions of human beings who crouch at the frown and tremble under the lash of the despots of Europe, Asia and Africa, are kept in subjec tion. Organization, military skill, arms, treasure, on the side of the despot — on that of the slaves, countless numbers, indeed, but nothing more. Unarmed, destitute of mili- tary knowledge, without organization, and without money, resistance would but add to their calamities. Little wonder, then, that they bow the neck to the yoke, and thank God and their king that they are permitted to live. A late traveller, our fellow-citizen, Stephens, gives a conversation with an Arab, one of the subjects of the Pacha of Egypt, which throws more light upon this subject than a thousand disquisitions. The Arabs are a brave and martial race of men. Under the successors of Mahomet, they conquered Egypt, but are now held in subjection by the Turks, who constitute a very .small portion of the population. The Pacha has, however, a powerful standing army, composed in part of Arabs, but subdued by discipline to implicit obedience. Speaking of the tyranny of the government, and the hopeless condition of the people, oui Arab- said — ''If one-fourth of them (the Arabs of Egypt) owned a musket, one charge of pow- der, and one ball, before morning there would not be a Turk in Egypt."* For want of even tiiese, the Arab is. a slave, and the Turk a inaster. The population of Russia exceeds fifty millions — her army amounts to about one- Diilhon — and this mighty mass of human beings obey the will of one man. With a; vastly inferior force. Great Britain holds in subjection one hundred millions of Asia- tics, and extends her giant limbs into the lour quarters of the globe. Such are the na- ture and effects of standing armies. As, from the nature and present condition of the human race, no nation can enjoy uninterrupted peace, a military force, of some description, is indispensable; and the wisdom of patriots and statesmen has been taxed to devise one Avhich will be sufficient' for defence and without danger to liberty. The wise and patriotic framers of our State and Federal Constitutions have hit upon the happy medium, which, if it be not de- parted from, will, as long as we are a united people, with our peculiarly favorable geo- graphical position, secure to us and our latest posterity the blessings of liberty and peace. This happy medium gives to the General Government a moderate permanent force, sufficient to garrison our forts, and form a nucleus for an army adequate to the emer- gencies of war, and places the chief reliance for the enforcement of the laAvs, the pre- servation of order, and resistance to the first burst of war, upon the militia, and gives that militia to the States. Its officers are to be appointed by the States — it is to be trained under the authority of the States — and neither the President, nor Congress, nor any officer of the General Government, has an iota of power over it, save only in time of actual tnro.5?o», rebellion, or resistance to the laws. For the sake of uniformity, Congress prescribes the discipline in which they are to be instructed. The militia are not to be used as the means of conquest, but defence only — not to invade others, but drive the invader from our own borders. * Stephen's Travels, vol. 1, p. 138. 11 Instead of being composed of the idle and dissolute, men upon whom society has no ties, the ranks are filled by substantial citizens; instead of being reduced to that abject obedience which is the chief merit of a mere soldier, the men are subject to no more restraint than is sufficient for a moderate degree of instruction ; war is not their trade ; after a brief parade, sufficient to keep alive a military spirit, and give some notion of the first rudiments of tactics, they return to their ordinary employment and the bosom of their families. Those who have hitherto turned their attention to this subject, differ in the degree of instruction and discipline which it is necessary to im- part to the militia. Military men (as might be expected) have favored a hi"-h stand- ard, but none, save Mr. Van Buren, have ever dreamed of changing the essential character of the militia. No one but he has proposed to leave the great body of our citizens an unorganized, uninstructed, and unarmed, mass, and substitute a body of volunteers which must, and will, be drawn from the dregs of the People. He alone has dared to propose to take the militia from the States and transfer them to the United States, in other words, to himself; and by "thoroughly drilling them" by his officers teach them 'Hhe duty of obedience,^'' as that duty is understood by military men.* So long as the system, so wisely framed by our ancestors, shall be left untouched ; so long as our reliance shall be on the citizen soldier, and that citizen soldier shall belong to the States, and the power of the General Government and the elective monarch afits head, shall be limited to such a regular force as we have described, the President may seize the public treasure, with it he may corrupt the nation, but if there be wisdom and honesty enough left to withhold from him a strong military force he never can conquer our liberties. Let us return to Mr. Van Buren and see how far his plans for a " militia force" quadrates with the genius of our institutions, the Constitution of the United States, and the safety and preservation of our liberties. Mr. Van Buren first met the Congress of the United States at the special session of 1837. That session was called for the single purpose of passing the sub-Treasury bill. His message is. therefore, principally occupied with that and kindred subjects. During that session, however, the Senate, on motion of Mr. Linn, adopted a resolu- tion calling on the Secretary of War (not the President) for information to be o-iveu to the Senate, early at the next session, in regard to the defence and protection ol" the western frontier, &c. &c. On the 30th December following, the Secretary responded to this call, not by a report to the Senate never communicated to the President as he says in his letter to Mr. Ritchie was the practice in all such cases ; for we learn from the message of the President that he had, as in duty bound, superintended the Secre- tary when he was preparing his reply to the call of the Senate. In that messao-e, which preceded the Secretary's report by twenty-five days, he speaks of the report as one which '^will 6e" submitted, and recommends the plan for defending the western frontier as one which may be advantageously adopted "as a general arrangement of the whole militia of the United States." In that report the Secretary (after stating, in detail, tlie military works and re^i-ular troops necessary for the defence of the western frontier) says : '• I would recommend as an important auxiliary to this system of defence, the organization of a sufficient ♦ If any doubt remained of Mr. Van Buren's views on this point it would be removed by his late letter to Mr. Gary and others. In that letter he says " Nor is it believed that thev would in {reneral, be properly instructed and disciplined, unie.ss they are called out and received into the service of the United States ;" whether this can be done without vio!atin;^f the Constitution he thinks doubtful. " It is (says he) but lately that my attention has been particularly drawn to this subject; and as there is no doubt that the jrreat men to whom I have alluded (Jcilerson and Jackson, &c.") contemplated an organization of the militia, and provisions for its better instruc- tion, embracing, substantially, the principles contained in Mr. Poinsett's plan, (an assertion which we utterly deny and will disprove,) it becomes me in the face of so mucii authority to hes- itate before I pronounce definitively upon its constitutionality. I shall, I am confident, in the opinion of all candiil minds, best perform my duty by refraining to do so until it becomes necessary to act officially in the matter. In the mean time I stiall content myjelf with saying that the in- clination of my mind is that the desired measure cannot be safely accomplished in the (brm pro- posed under the Federal Constitution as it now stands." Now if there be a pro[)osItion which admits of neither doubt nor hesi'ancy, it is that the power to train and command the militia is reserved to the States by the Federal Constitution as it now stands, and that they can only be called out by Contrress and placed in the seivice of the United States, and, I)y con.seiiuence, under the command of t^c President, in the three specified cases to execute the laws, suppress insurrec- tion, and repel invasion. Upon this vital provision of the federal compact, one without which the Stales would soon cease to exist, even in name, tlie President hesitates and doubts, and re- serves himself until it shall become necessary to act officially ! 12 -volunteer force, to be raised in each of the frontier States ; the men to be mustered into service for a certain term of time, the officers to be appointed according to their State laws, and to be instructed a certain number of days iii each year by the regular officers of the United States army, at the posts within the States, and to receive pay during that period. In this manner a sufficient corps of officers may be created, and a. body of volunteers be at hand to march to the succor of the border settlers, and yepel the invaders, whenever they are called upon by the proper authority." This plan of the Secretary's was a bona Jide scheme for the defence of the western fron- tier. He proposed forts and garrisons, and a kind of minute men to be raised in the frontier States as an auxiliary force. The only difference between them and the troops in garrison was the mode of appointing the officers, and the period of service ; one being on constant duty, whilst the others, although "mustered into service" were only put •on acutual duty occasionally, as the exigencies of the country might require. They Tvere soldiers, as contradistinguished from militia, and, therefore properly placed under the command of the officers of the regular army. The word militia is not to be found in the report. There was, therefore, no violation of the Constitution intended or com- mitted. But if it be insisted that from the mode of appointing the officers it should be ■viewed as a militia force, still there was no violation of the Constitution, because they ■were " mustered into service," not for the mere purposes of " drill," but to repel appre- hended invasion from the Indians. It was then, we say, a bona, fide plan for defend- ing the western frontier, and neither was intended to be, nor could be, used as a mask for a standing army, under the pretence of organizing the militia. It is to the Presi- dent that we are indebted for the proposal to engraft this plan upon the militia, and make it coextensive with the United States. His sagacious eye saw, at a glance, how ea.sy it would be, unperceived by the People, to build up a standing army of mercena- ries on the small foundation of the Secretary's plan. In his message, which, as we laave said, preceded this report by twenty-five days, having called the attention of Con- gress to the subject of the militia he says: " The provision of the Constitution that renders it necessary to adopt a Uniform system of organization for the militia through- out the United Stales, presents an insurmountable obstacle to an efficient arrange- ment by the classification heretofore proposed, and I invite your attention to the plan which will he snbmitied, by the' Secretary of War, for the organization of volunteer >C0Tj)s, and the instruction of militia officers, as more simple and practicable, if not •equally advantageous as a general arrangement of the whole militia of the United States." Adopt this recommendation, take the plan of the Secretary for raising volun- teers, and mustering them into the service of the United States, substitute it for " the 'Classification heretofore proposed "* '' as a general arrangement for the whole mili- £m of the United States " and you have the substance of the plan for organizing the militia, miscalled Mr. Poinsett's, with most of its objectionable details. Instead of snaking the citizen the defender of his own hearth, and protector of hi.s own liberties, the great body of the People are to be left an unorganized mass. " The classification heretofore proposed" is to be yielded, and the defence of the country is to be entrusted to volunteers mqstcred into the service of the United States in time of peace and quiei, thereby subjected to the rules and articles of war, paid by the United States, "withdrawn from the States and placed under the command of the President, and such officers of the regular army as he may put over them. The plan certainly deserves the praise of simplicity and efficiency, Avliich he bestows upon it. Nothing is more simple than to enlist "volunteers" and make soldiers of them by the drill sergeant; nothing more efficient than trained bands of mercenaries. On the 28th of November, 183S. a year after the President's suggestion, the Secre- tary made his second annual report. It is addressed to the President, and, like the other, liad doubtless, been prepared under bis supervision. He again recommends th& plan of frontier defence contained in his former report, and, for the first time, uses the word " militia" in connexion with that plan, and adopts the President's suggestion of extending it "so as to embrace the whole militia of the United States." It is then that he first intimates that " the whole militia of the United States will be found loo unwieldy a body to be successfully organized at once by any plan that can be devised, und for some time to come ;"t thus reiterating the President's objection to the effi- * He is still opposed to the plan of " classification," and, of course, adheres to his volunteers. ^See his late letter.) t The President, in his Ijitc letter, adheres to this feature also ; he thinks the militia too nu- merous, and is in favor of training two hundred thousand, and leaving the mass to train them- ^selves. 13 ciency of an '• arrangement by the classification heretofore proposed." He proposes to begin by " enrolling twenty thousand men, taken from among the inhabitants and set- tlers of the frontier, and the country around the permanent stations in the interior," and " if it work well " extend it " so as to embrace the whole militia of the United States." We give the entire passage. " I have seen no reason to change my views as to the proper organization of the militia or volunteer iorc*:, to serve as auxiliaries to the system proposed for the defence of the maritime and inland frontier. It would, doubtless, be desirable to adopt some uniform system of organization, which would render effective the whole militia of the United States ; but no plan has yet been suggested that can be carried into effect throughout the whole of our extensive country. That which appears to present the greatest advantages, and has been frequently pressed upon the attention of Congress by my predecessors in office, appears to me to be only applicable to the thickly-settled portions of our country ; for, if it were attempted to divide the militia into classes, in some parts of our Southern country, and on our borders, where their services are most likely to be required, it would be found difficult to assemble a single company of the junior class within a space of one hundred miles. It is to be feared that the whole militia of the United States will be found too unwieldy a body to be successfully or- ganized at once by any plan that can b i devised — and for some time to come. It had better be left to the direction of the several States, adopting only a uniform armament and uniform drill, until a system be introduced on the frontiers tohich may be gra- dually extended over the whole country. A commencement may be made by enroll- ing twenty thousand men, taken from among the inhabitants and settlers of the frontier and the country around the permanent stations in the interior. Six conse- cutive days in the year would be sufficient for their drill, provided the commissioned and non-commissioned officers be assembled at the nearest military post for the term of thirty days in the year. During the time the privates and officers are in service, they should receive the pay and rations of soldiers and officers of the army of the same grade respectively. These forces will not be withdrawn from the States where they are raised, and may be called into service by the Governor, upon the requisition of the President. In this manner would be formed a well-disciplined body of militia, capa- ble of acting as an auxiliary force both to the regulars stationed in the four points above desiguated, and to the garrisons stationed in th^ maritime and frontier fortresses, and a system commenced, which, if it xoork well, may gradually be extended so as to embrace the whole militia of the United States.'''' In his annual Message of the 4th December, 1838, which was accompanied by the above Report, the President says, ''I would again call to your notice the subjects con- nected with, and essential to, the military defences of the country, which were sub- mitted to you at the last session, but Avhich were not acted upon, as is supposed, for want of time. The most important of them is the organization of the militia on the maritime and inland frontiers. This measure is deemed important, as it is believed that it will furnish an effective volunteer force in aid of the regular army, and may form the basis of a general system of organization for the entire militia of the United States.''"' Congress still manifested no disposition to give to the President this entering wedge to an army of volunteers as a substitute for the militia. As the session drew to a close, we learn from the Secretary's last Report that the President felt " solicitude" on the subject, and the military gentlemen of the two Houses were set in motion. Colonel Benton introduced his resolution in the Senate, and the Militia Committee of the House, through their Chairman, requested the Secretary to go to work on a plan for organizing the militia. Impatient of the delay which had already taken place, and strong in the certainty of the passage of the Sub-Treasury bill, which would give him the command of the purse of the nation, a bolder line of tactics was adopted, and, in- stead of commencing with enrolling twenty thousand men on the frontiers, and gradu- ally extending the system to the " entire militia of the United States," the whole plan is brought out at once, and Congress is asked, by the President, to authorize the rais- ing of two hundred thousand ''recruits," (we use the language of the Report) and to "J?.r by law" the " manner of enrollment, the number of days of service, and the rate of compensation," and leave the details to " regulation," that is, to be "fixed" by the President!!! This demand is referred to the appropriate Committees, and, after a lapse of three months, a plan of the ''details" which the President proposed to reserve for himself, is called for and communicated to the House. These details carry out the very plan suggested by the President as far back as December, 1837, and the natioa is*, told by his supporters that he is not responsible for them I ! I 14 If there be any remaining doubt of the identity of the plan first [recommended by the President, in 1837, again piessed upon Congress, in 1838, with that the heads of which are set forth in the Report of the Secretary of War, of 30th December, 1839, and a third time strongly recommended by the President on 24th December of that year, an article which appeared in the Globe of the 2nd January, 1840, must remove that doubt. That familiar of the palace, and organ of the President, recognised his old acquaintance at the first glance. The faithful editors had, as in duty bound, given the weight of their endorsement to the President's recommendations of 1837 and 1838; and, speaking of the plan set forth in the Secretary's Report of November, 1839, then recently sent to Congress, with the President's "strong" recommendation, they say : *' This document does the author much credit. It recommends a new organization of the militia, and adopts the plan of classification which we lotig since urged upon Con- gress.'''' It was new, indeed, to our militia system, but an old acquaintance and friend of the Globe. Having traced this scheme to the President himself, it cannot be necessary to dwell' on the remaining propositions which Ave have undertaken to make good. We will, however, redeem our pledge. We said we would prove that it was sustained and lauded by his supporters, until the People condemned it. Now for the proof. The last Report of the Secretary of War was transmitted to Congress by the President, on the 24th December, 1839. A synopsis of the proposed plan for organizing the militia was published in the New York Journal of Commerce, with strong commendations. This article was republished in the Globe of the 2nd January, 1840, accompanied by the following editorial, part of which we have already quoted : " The Report of the Secretary of War. — This document does the author much credit. It recommends a new organization of the militia, and adopts the plan of classi- fication, which we long since urged upon the attention of Congress. The United States to be divided into eight military districts — each district to have an active force of 12,500, and an equal number of reserve — the total making 25,000. These troops to be thoroughly drilled, and continue eight years in service— four in the active ser- vice, and four in the reserve: at the expiration of eight years to be exempted from military duly, except in cases of invasion or imminent peril. One-fourth of the ac- tive to pass annually into the reserve, and new recrtiits to supply their places — one- fourth to retire annually from service. This corps is to be embodied as the national guard, and receive pay, and will constitute one-seventh of the militia of the United States. The other six-sevenths will have no military duty to perform, only to be mus- tered at long and stated intervals." Mr. Rives attacked the scheme in February. He was assailed in the Richmond Enquirer by a writer who is known to fill a public office in Washington. The denun- ciation of this measure by the Whigs, was every wiiere, by the Van Buren party^ called a " humbug,"— their objections to the novel and alarming features of the scheme were stigmatized as shameless attempts to deceive the people. At length Mr. Poin- sett's details were published — they Avere exposed, as we have already said, by Col. Campbell. In the Globe of the 27th April, that gentleman was assailed in the usual style of that print. The article commences thu? : " The Militia Bill. — A recent letter from John Campbell, late Treasurer of the United States, (out of whom the Whigs, strangely, as it seems to us, vet suppose that something can be made) contains an allusion to that measure strikingly illustrative of the shameful uses which have been made of the subject in the recent elections in Vir- ginia, and of the scandalous attempts to deceive the People." This was more than a month after Mr. Poinsett's details were sent to Congress. On the 1st May, another editorial article, filling more than a column, is devoted to a- defence of the plan ; and others of similar character may be found in the same print. One is republished in the Enquirer of May 8th— the editor had not then conceived the necessity of a retreat. It begins thus : " We would call a,ttention to the following extract from the address of the Demo- cratic Committee for the County of Columbia, in Ohio. The extract has particular reference to the outcry of the Feds against the military scheme of the Secretary of War- plainly showing it to be another attempt on their part to delude the people by a senseless clamor.'''' ' The extract to which the^ttention of the readers of the Globe is called, begins thus *« Another subject which demands our notice, and which, for the last six months.. 15 Las been the theme of Federal denunciation and patriotic horror, arises out of the pro- position of the Secretary of War, Mr. Poinsett, that Congress should provide for the more effectual organization of the militia." It then goes on to defend it. The following endorsement of the bill is taken from a New Orleans Van Buren paper, the " New Orleans Times :" " Standing Army. — We are convinced that nothing could so much endear the Ad- ministration of Mr. Van Buren to the people of Louisiana as the project of the Secre- tary of War to classily and organize the militia of the whole Union, after an effective and uniform plan ; and nothing could render the British Whigs so odious as their fool- ish attempts to misrepresent it, and convert it into a scheme for raising a standing- army. The British Whig newspapers arc so much degraded in the public eye, that the accusation would not be believed even if it were true." Another: '■ The Standing Army. — The foolish Whigs will never have done with their hum- hugs, even after the Avoful experience they have had of their inevitable tendency to recoil upon themselves. They are now making a labored effort to turn Mr. Poinsett's able and effective plan of organizing the militia of the United States into a scheme for raising a standing army of two hundred thousand men. The people of Louisiana will spurn this attempt to misrepresent a judicious organization of the militia. They. knoiL- what the common militia is, and they know what it ought to be. But we shaU show, in due time, that Mr. Harrision supported a much more objectionable plan of mihtia organization than that of Mr. Poinsett." The Van Buren paper recently established in our own village, followed the lead of the Globe. Various articles may be referred to in proof of this. We will select two from that paper of 9th May, before the retreat was sounded. On the 1st page, we find a long article in defence of Mr. Poinsett's plan, republished from the " Valley Star." Its title is, " The great Whig Humbug about the Standing Army exploded," — and proceeds — " Ever since the appearance of Mr. Rives' letter, avowing his determination to sus- tain Gen. Harrison for the Presidency, the whole .land has been ringing with the cry of a "standing armv." Whig orators and Whig electioneerers have been traversing the country in all directions, coJling upon the people to oppose the re-election of Mr, Van Buren. The recommendation of the President and the Secretary of War, urgino- upon Congress the reorganization of the militia, has been declared to be most mon- strous — a gross attack upon the liberties of the People." Then follows an attempt to defend the measure. Fearful that this precious morceau should escape the attention of his readers, the editor of the Jeffersonian thus calls at- tention to it : " On the first page, the reader will find an able refutation of the Federal slander of a ' standing army.' We have understood that in this, as well as in many other coun- ties of the State, this contemptible misrepresentation was effectively used to prejudice the people." * Thpse are but samples of the support which the party press gave to this measure. A volume might be filled by similar extracts from papers published all over the Union. The leaders of the party manfully supported Mr. Poinsett and his details. We speak of those of our own county from personal knowledge. One gentleman, who is amongst the most active, and nearly connected with a leading politician in another State,t upon being asked, by a Whig, how he liked Mr. Poinsett's details, replied emphatically, " I endorse them — I am willing to live under them— fight under them— die under them." V The Van Buren elector for this district openly defended them, one and all, and de- voted more than an hoar of his public speech, at the Fauquier June court, to their de- fence. Upon the publication of our first address, there was a regimental muster at Warren- ton, our county town. In the early part of the day, the active men of the party were * The reader cannot but be struck with the disregard of ordinary decency in the language em- ployed by these prints. •t He is the brother of the Van Buren candidate for Governor of North Carolina. 10 profuse in their promises of a reply to us, until a sagacious gentleman, from the lower end of the county, said, "Gentlemen, that will not do. The people won't take this bill : your best plan is to deny that Mr. Van Buren had any hand in it ;" and proposed that some of the most prominent should Avrite, and procure a disavowal from under the President's own hand. They would not venture upon so decisive a step ; but gave the order, " To the right about." They had the good fortune to find, by that evening's mail, that the editor of the Enquirer had given the same cue. The gentleman alluded to, has a right to share the credit of the measure. * But, fellow-citizens, will you, who have hitherto honestly supported the party, '' turn about, and wheel about, and twist about," at the word of command ? We sub- mit, for your serious consideration and candid reply, another question, and that is, whether you believe that this measure would iiave been abandoned it the people could have been pe-suaded that the opposition of the Whigs was all humbug, and ''another attempt on their part to delude the people by a senseless clamor," as the JefFersonian would fain have persuaded them. It is not abandoned; and, as sure as Mr. Van Bu- rpn is re-elected, it will be revived. If Mr. Van Buren intended to abandon this important feature of his policy, and de- prive himself and tlie party for which he is bound to labor as well as for himself, of the means of perpetuating their power, which this measure will afford, there would be no want of proofs the most ample, of such an intention. Thousands of his zealous parti- zans have visited and conversed with him during the late protracted session of Con- gress ; they must have fully informed him of the effect which his recommendation of this measure was likely to produce on the pending canvass. Those conversations, as well as his extensive correspondence, afforded him opportunities without number to disavoAV the measure ; or if he could not do that with truth, as we have shown he could not, at least profess so much deference to public opinion as to yield for once to the wishes of the people. Yet no letter .writer, no party editor, no stump speaker, has dared to utter any thing of the kind as coming from the President. On the contrary, we know of one at least, of those, Avho, if elected, is pledged to vote for Mr. Van Bu- ren, who always has been, and still is, the open advocate of the militia bill. Wewell remember his words : '• There are some of its provisions," said he, '' of which I do not approve ; but I do not consider it liable to the objections Avhich have been made to it." What the provisions were Avhich he did not approve of, he did not specify, but went on to answer as far as he could, the objections of the Whigs. Essays by party wri- ters, palliating the measure and denying its tendency to the establishment of a stand- ing army, may be found in the columns of the Richmond Enquirer, subsequent to the retreat of its editor. The movement of that gentleman himself, was far from being unequivocal. His letter to the Secretary calls for an explanation and defence of the measure, as well as for information of the President's knowledge of the " plan reported to Congress.'''' The Secretary goes into an elaborate defence of his plan, adhering to it throughout ; and the editor expresses his entire satisfaction with the letter, leaving us in doubt whether his satisfaction arose from the exoneration of the President, or his conviction of the wisdom of the plan by the arguments of the Secretary. If the Presi- dent meant to yield this measure to the people, why did he not cause his majority in both Houses of Congress unequivocally to repudiate it. So far from doing this, he has, through the reports of those committees, expressly reserved the measure for fu- ture action, and by his servant, the Secretary of War, made a direct appeal to the peo- ple at the polls. t We Avill begin with the report of the committee of the Senate ; but before proceed- ing to examine it, we will call your attention to a striking fact in connection with it. Some time after this report was made, Senator Roane moved to print 20,000 extra co- pies of it, for the purpose of disseminating it among the people. The subject of the report was Mr. Poinsett's militia bill; in treating of it the committee comment upon the reports of Genenals Knox and Plarrison. Mr. Webster said he had no objection to Mr. Roane's motion, provided the reports of Generals Knox and Harrison, and Mr. Poin- sett's plan, were printed along with the report of the committee, so that the people, having both the text nnd commentary, might judge whether the commentary dealt * We submit to our sagacious friend, who is in earnest in the opinion that this plan for a mili- tia army is indefensible, whether he now thinks that Mr. Van Buren " had no hand in itl" + In his late letter he endorses those reports, approves of their >icws, and calls them " able re- ports." 17 fairly with the text. Mr. Roane objected, aad after a long debate Mr. Webster's pro- posal was rejected by a party vote. It was not to save the dear people's money that this was done, for Mr. Clay of Alabama, chairman of the committee, and author of their report, concluded his speech against printing them together, with a motion to print them separately, satisfied if the Van Buren members could send his report to the elect, unincumbered by the troublesome information which Mr. Poinsett's details would afford, and the contradiction which the reports of Harrison and Knox would give to his commentary. Here is a practical illustration of the extent to which their leaders think the democracy capable of judging for themselves. The report of the committee of the House, carried the tactics of the party a step far- ther, and misquoted the President's message. It represents the President's message as having only recommended the "subject" of the militia to the consideration of Con- gress, whereas, he, as our extract from his message shows, strongly recomme^jded to their consideration the "plan" of the Secretary. And these are the men who sing the cuckoo song, "the people are capable of self-government !" Which party desires that the people should exercise that high function understandingly, the above proceedings of the Senate may serve to shoAV. To proceed : The subject was before that committee from early in the session to the 3d of June, when the report Avas made. We have carefully examined that report, and have been, unable to find a word, a single word, which condemns or reproves, or dissents from the novel, dangerous, and unconstitutional features of the plan. It commences by saying that the committee thought proper to examine the subject, " in reference to the pow- ers of Congress." This examination would have brought directly under review the constitutional objections made by the Whigs, and afforded an opportunity, nay called for, an unequivocal expression of the opinion of the committee on those features of the plan. They content themselves, however, with giving extracts from the Constitution containing six lines, and hurry to the second branch of inquiry which they propose to themselves, to wit : "the various plans which have been proposed, and such measures as have been adopted and matured at dilTerent periods since the adoption of the Consti- tution." In the progress of this review of the various plans and measures which have been proposed and adopted, the plan of the Secretary is occasionally brought into compari- son, and always with a preference for that plan. Far the greater part of the report is occupied in attempts to prove its title to preference over the plans of Gen. Harrison ; and so far from condemning the proposal of the Secretary, to place the militia under the command of the officers of the regular army, it expressly approves the device stated by the Secretary in his letter to the chairman of the committee of the House, to obvi- ate the constitutional difficulty which was raised to this feature of the original scheme ; a device equally unconstitutional with that which it is proposed to substitute. The original plan proposed that this should be done by the power of " regulation" to be con- fided to the President. The details sent to Congress, proposed '• that it should be done by act of Congress," and the report informs us (vide p. 5) that in the communication alluded to, (the letter) and doubtless with a view to obviate all constitutional objec- tions, the Secretary speaks of his purpose " to apply to the States to place by law their contingents at the disposition of the General Government, for a period of not more than thirty days of every year, for the purpose of being trained in conjunction with regular troops, and by veteran officers ;" and with this device the committee seem perfectly satisfied.* The committee of the other house were equally satisfied with this succedaneum. Now, lellow citizens of the militia, do you think it would much ameliorate your con- * The President, in his late letter, adverts to this device. He says, " Mr. Poinsett seems to have been more sensibly impressed with th's obstacle than his predecessors, [a statement entirely without foundation, for so great an obstacle did iiis predecessors consider tlie Constitution, that not one of them ever proposed to call out the militia into the service of the United Slates for training ; they all explicitly acknowledged that the Constitution not only denied that power to Congress, but reserved it expressly to the States, as we shall show in the sequel] and endeavors to overcome it by placing his chief reliance on volunteers, and where drafts are necessary he propo- ses that they should be made by the States themselves. But can the constitutional objection be thus avoided ■? Can Congress ajjpropriate money for objects to which their authority does not extend V These questions he leaves others to answer, reserving his own " until it becomes ne- cessary to act officially in the matter." 18 dilion, when taken from your homes and marched to the shores of the Cliesapeake, or the banks of the Delaware, and placed under the iron sway of those despisers of the militia, the officers of the regular army, that you had marched in obedience to the com- mand of the State, rather than tlie United States '? Would it be a consoling rellection. when placed in solitary confinement, chained to a cannon ball, or mounted upon a fence rail with muskets tied to your feet, that the authority of your own State, to whose guardianship tiie Constitution framed by your fathers confided you, had sub- jected you to the pain and humiliation ? Thai instead of placing you under state offi- cers, your neighbors and friends, and protecting you with a parent's care, it had renoun- ced the trust, and handed you over to the tender mercies of a court martial composed of strangers, selected and controlled by men familiar only with the rigor of mditary discipline, and taught to look upon human suUering with indiilerence 7 p*' The proposed substitute is not only a cruel mockery, but it is as gross a violation of the Constitutionas that in lieu of which it is proposed. The Government of the United States is the creature of the ( Jonstitution. No department or officer of it, can exercise any au- thority which is not derived from that instrument. No additional power can be conferred upon It, but by an amendment of the Constitution in the mode prescribed. And if any State can be found base enough to abandon the i)rotection of its citrzens, by transferirng to the General Government a power not only not granted to it, but expressly reserved to the States, as the training of the militia and the appointment of militia officers, the de- reliction of duty can only be accomplished by a violation of the federal compact. Yet we learn from the report that it was contemplated, and is still designed, to bring the power and influence of the President to bear upon the State Legislatures, to accom- plish this very purpose ; and that " it is not probable that this co-operation will be withheld by any State. Shallow as this device is, it is to be resorted to only ''in the event of its becoming ne- cessary to resort to draughts in order to fill the ranks of the active class of the militia.'"* If the "ranks" can be " filled" with volunteers, they are the President's '• troops,''' as the Globe calls them. The Secretary says, he is " led to believe, from the character of our fellow citizens, and from circumstances which have come to his knowledge, that it will scarcely be necessary to resort to militia draughts in order to fill the ranks of the active corps,"t in which case it will not be necessary " to apply to the States to place by law their contingents at the disposal of the General Governnient." And this army of 100,000 men in "active service," to be re-enforced by 25,000 as "a reserve," annually increasing until the whole shall amount to 200,000, placed "at the disposition of the Ge- neral Government" by act of Congress, without the agency of the States, paid by the General Government and commanded by the President, he calls militia ! ! Militia ! ! Was ever the common sense of mankind so insulted? And the Senate committee think it " obviates all constitutional objections !" Call it by its true name, a standing army of mercenary soldiers, and it does no violence to the Constitution. The /wwier of Congress to raise and erjuip armies, is without limit. For ourselves, we are "led to believe" that these volunteers will require a bounty, as well as pay, and that the iojmfy will be levied upon the militia. To return: If any doubt yet remains that the committee of the Senate looked upon this measure as one that was to be again brought forward, the following sentence must remove it : " With so many instances of fruitless attempts to change our militia system before them, your committee are not prepared to adopt the plan recommended by the Secre- tary of War, nor to make any other material change in the organization of the militia AT PRESENT." No, uot ijet cxactly jn-epared to meet the people with this plan enact- ed into a law. It would be rather hazardous " at present." But let Mr. Van Buren be re-elected ; let the efforts of the Whigs to arrest the career of despotism and ruin be overcome ; let the party be firmly seated in power ; and the committee will doubtless be then ;>/7?/>rtref/ to "adopt the plan recommended by the Secretary," or any other which is equally full of promise of the means of perpetuating that power.J Let us return from the report of the committee of the Senate to that of its twin bro- ther, the report of the committee of the House. We shall find the family resemblance so strong, that we shall have no difficulty in assigninij them a common paternity. The last named report commences with commendations of Mr. Poinsett's plan. It tells us in the very first sentence, " that on due consideration of the subject committed to them, they find it to correspond in its essential particulars, with the plans and sug- * Letter to chairman of com. H. R. April 8th, 1840. t Idem. t See Note A, at the cndof the Address. 19 gestions recommended to Congress by General Washington, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madi- son, and General Jackson, and to differ in some of its details only, from those hereto- fore presented by the former Secretaries of War, General Knox, James Barbour, and Lewis Cass." An assertion which we shall show is entirely without foundation. Like its relative, it gives a garbled and unfair account of the measures adopted, and plans proposed, by others, with which Mr. Poinsett's compares advantageously, as the committee think, and that gentleman is lauded for his courage and chivalry. As the members of this committee have to meet the people at the polls, an ordeal which Hon. Senators have not to pass, they venture in a sort of under tone lo express their belief, that the powers necessary to produce an efficient militia, "are divided be- tween the General Government and the States," and that "nothing can be done effec- tually by Congress, unless the foundation of it shall be laid by the previous action of the States," and ask to be '' discharged from the further consideration of the subject." Like their brethren of the Senate, they express their satisfaction with the Secreta- ry's explanation of the " doubts entertained by the committee, in regard to the consti- tutionality of some of its provisions, by declaring that the department contemplated asking the consent of the States, if it should become necessary, to call for drafts of the militia to fill the ranks of the class to be engaged in training, and to place its chief reliance on volunteer companies.''''* Now, here is not only a direct approval of the leading features of the scheme, to wit : the substitution of volunteers collected from the rabble of the cities in place of the militia — the mercenary hireling for the citizen soldier — but an equally clear intimation that the subject is not dropped but postponed, to the end that the President may in- duce his servile tools in the State Legislatures to lead the way, as was done on another memorable occasion. But what places the fact beyond all doubt, is, that in this very letter of the Secretary, which was so satisfactory to both committees, and which no man who will give his understanding fair play can doubt, was approved by the Presi- dent, he expressly refers the matter to the people at the polls. Hear what he says, and we beseech you, give it a full and impartial consideration : " Aware, however, of the importance and comprehensiveness of this subject, together Avith many of the difficul- ties which surround it,t it is by no means my desire to precipitate the action of Con- gress upon a question of such magnitude and consequence." (It is indeed a subject of immeasurable magnitude and most portentous consequences.) " Subsequent re- flection and discussion have but strengthened my conviction of the propriety, practica- bility, and expediency of the proposed plan in its essential features, which I am per- suaded have but to be examined, with a candid mind and patriotic feelings, to secure general approbation. But these very considerations make it but the more imperative that it should receive the fullest and most mature consideration, even should this have the effect of preventing final action upon it at the present session of Congress. It is perhaps, universally proper, that questions involving in a high degree the great inte- rests of the people, should be subjected to popular, as well as legislative investigation . An ordeal to which the system proposed will be most cheerfully submitted." Here then is an open, avowed, and distinct appeal to the people at the polls. Mr. Van Buren has now a majority in both Houses of Congress ; the events of the last session prove that they are ready to go all lengths with him. They have passed his Sub-Treasury bill after it has been repeatedly condemned by the people. If the members of Congress who represented districts which at the last spring elections con- demned the measure, by electing Whigs, had voted according to the opinions of their constituents, thus made known at the polls, it would have been lost. Five-sixths of the members from New Jersey, who were regularly returned, and whose political opin- ions accorded with the majority of the people of that State, manifested by their elec- tions of the members of the State Legislature, were lawlessly ejected, and their seats given to others [who, even if they had a lean majority at the Congression- al election, a fact not inquired into by the House, misrepresented the present opinions of their constituents] in order to pass that measure. Five members from Vir- ginia voted for it, who represented districts which at the last spring elections gave ma- jorities against the Administration. The same thing existed with regard to other States. And if this measure, again and again condemned by the people, was carried ♦ Rep. p. 2. + Not the least of these was the alleged " Whig humbugs," in opposing it. 20 in spite of them, can any man who will allow himself to think, doubt, if after this so- lemn appeal to the people on this militia bill, admitted to be of " such magnitude and consequence," that it should be "subjected to popular as well as legislative investi- gation," its originator and patron, who has thrice recommended it to Congress, should be re-elected, it will be abandoned ? If there be any such, we can only deplore his blindness, for we know of no healing unction that will make the scales fall from his eyes.* We proceed to redeem the remaining portion of our pledge, to wit: "That the scheme indicated by the heads, contained in the Secretary's report to the President, dated 30lh November, 1839, and communicated by the latter to Conoress, on the 20th December following, endorsed by his strong recommendation, in every essential par- ticular in which it varies from the details communicated by the Secretary to the Speaker of the House of Representatives is worse than those details.^'' Those por- tentous heads are exhibited in the following extract from the Secretary's report : "It is proposed to divide the United States into eight m?7r7ary districts, and to organize the militia in each district*, so as to have a body of tAvelve thousand five hun- dred men in active service, and another of equal number as a reserve. This would give an armed militia force of two hundred thousand men, so drilled and stationed, as to be ready to take their place in the ranks in defence of the country, whenever called upon to oppose the enemy or repel the invader. The age of the recruit to be from twenty to thirty -seven ; the whole term of service to be eight years ; four years in the first class, and four in the reserve; one-fourth part (twenty-five thousand men) to leave the service every year, passing, at the conclusion of the first term, into the re- serve, and exempted from ordinary military duty altogether at the end of the second term. In this manner twenty-five thousand men will be discharged from militia duty every year, and twenty-five thousand Iresh recruits be received into the service. It will be sufficient for all useful purposes, that the remainder of the militia, under cer- tain regulations provided for their government, be enrolled and mustered at long and stated intervals ; for, in due process of time, nearly the whole mass of the militia will pass the first and second classes, and be eilher members of*the active corps or of the reserve, or counted among the exempts, who will be liable to be called upon only in periods of invasion or imminent peril. The manner of enrolment, the number of days of service, and the rate of compensation, ought to be fixed by law ; but the details had better be subject to regulation — a plan of which I am prepared to submit to you." We will first note the points in which they agree. The heads propose a force of two hundred thousand men ; so do the details : the heads propose that it shall be divided into distinct corps, one " active," the other " reserve ;" so do the details : the heads propose that the age of the " recruit" shall be from twenty to thirty -seven ; so do the details: the heads propose that the whole term of service shall be eight years, four in the first class, and four in the reserve ; so do the details : the heads propose that one-fourth, twenty-five thousand men, leave tlie service every year, first passing into the reserve, and at the end of the second term to be exempt from ordinary militia duty ; so do the details: the heads propose that the remainder of the militia shall be mustered at long intervals ; so do the details. According to the heads this army is to be in the pay of the United States ; so say the details also. We ob- jected to the details because the militia was to be called into the service of the United States for "drill," and placed under the command of the President. If the heads do not propose this they do worse. They propose a body of twelve thousand five hundred men from each district " m active service ;" that the term of " service be four years in the first class, and four in the reserve ;" one-fourth part to leave the ''sen-ice;" * The President's late letter removes all doul)t upon this subject. He thinks a new organiza- tion of the militia is necessary; objects to the plan of classification ; is in favor, of course, of vo- lunteers ; thinks that they ought to be in the pay of the United States, and called out and placed in the service of the United States for training, as the only means of imparting proper " instruc- tion and discipline," and consequently be under his command ; hesitates about the constitution- ality of the measure, but reserves himself until he shall be called on to act officially. The com- mittee of the House propose to wait until the States can be put in motion. The committee of the Senate are not " prepared at present" to act; and Mr. Poinsett appeals to the people at the polls ! ! With these facts before him, can any man, not blinded by intolerable prejudice or hur- ried on by passion, doubt that this measure will be again brought forward if Mr. Van Burcn is re-elected 1 21 and " twenty-five thousand fresh recruits to be received into service." Into whose ser- vice we demand ? Into the service of the United State?, without all doubt. Once in the service of the United States, and they are, by the Constitution and present laws, under the command of the President and such officers of the regular army as he may select, of senior grade to the militia officers on duty, at any place at which the militia may be " stationed." In the service of the United States for what? Either as regular troops, or militia for "drill." If as the former, the Constitution is not vio- lated, but it is a standing army in name as well as effi^ct. If as militia for drill, then the Constitution is violated, because it authorizes the militia to be called into the ser- vice of the United States, only "to execute the laws of the Union, repel invasion, and suppress insurrection." Take either horn of the dilemma : if the first, tlien the heads are worse than the details ; if the latter, they agree in this particular also. We objected to the details because they subject the militia, in time of peace, to the rules and articles of war. So soon as the militia are •' in the service of the United States " they are ipso facto, by the existing law, under the rules and articles of war. The heads and details agree then in this also. We objected to the details because the United States is divided into ten districts, and the militia are called out by districts and not by States. In this the heads are worse than the details; for they propose to divide the United States into eight dis- tricts, and call out the militia by districts, and not by States. " It is proposed to di- vide the United States (say the' heads) into eight military districts, and to organize the militia in each district so as to have a body of twelve thousand five hundred men in active service, and an equal number as a reserve." We objected to the details because, as a part of the district system, the militia might be marched from anv one State to another in the same district. In this respect the heads are worse than'the details, by lessening the number and enlarging the bounds of the district. But they are worse still. The heads " would give an armed militia force . of two hundred thousand men, so drilled and stationed as to be ready to take their place in the ranks in defence of the country, whenever called upon to oppose the ene- my, or repel the invader." So that he who commands this body of two hundred thousand men may " station " them wherever he thinks they could most readily " take their place in the ranks in defence of the country ;" consequently, the militia of Maine, instead of stopping at Vermont, may be marched to New Orleans, and '' stationed " there. Where, we demand, will be the "station" of the militia of western Virginia, wes- tern Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Missouri ? Does any man believe that we are in danger of invasion from Canada, or that a fleet of armed ships will ascend the Mississippi and Ohio? Let every man answer for himself the ques- tion, where would he be " stationed " so as to be " ready to take his place in the raiiks in defence of the country xohenever called on to oppose the enemy or repel the in- vader." If he can persuade himself that his station will be in the centre of the bounds of his own " battallion," it is well ; that is, provided always, he can persuade his commander-in-chief, the President, to be of the same opinion. If not, he may, perchance, be " stationed " at the mouth of the Columbia river, or the Sabine, at NeAV Orleans, in the swamps of Florida, or on the St. Johns. We objected to the details because they proposed to establish a body of volunteers, necessarily composed of the rabble of the cities, for the citizen soldier of the militia. The head's are silent upon this topic, but Mr. Van Buren is the last man who can be benefitted by that silence. The volunteer system is all his own. But we have another objection to these heads which cast all that we have said of them, and the details, also, into the shade. We ask attention, earnest attention, we beg, we entreat, a candid and unbiassed consideration of the last sentence of our extract. After sketching the great outline of his gigantic scheme, how much of it do you suppose the President proposed to refer to Congress ? Hear the report which ac- companied his message, listen to the " plan " of the Secretary so strongly recommended by the President. " The manner of enrolment^ the number of days of service, and the rate of compensation, ous[ht to be fixed hij law ; but the details had better be subject to regulation, a plan of wliich I am prepared to submit to vou !" AH but the manner of enrolment, the number of days of service, and the rate of compensation, to be left to " regulation ! !" What is this regulation that is to bear so important a part in the formation, government, and command, of this military force 3 22 of two hundred thousand men ? It is not law but something else ; three things only are to be ''fixed by law" all the rest are to be ^'subject to regulation." What, then, we again ask, is '■ regulation," as contradistinguished from " law ?" One at all conversant with the course of Congressional legislation, and the business of the great departments of the Government, would laugh at our apparent ignorance in asking this question. He would answer at once, "law," in this case means an act of Congress; "regulation" means such rules and regulations as the head of the War Department may, under the control of the President, from lime to time, adopt and promulgate. A sort of Execu- tive legislation very convenient in smaU matters which cannot be foreseen and pro- vided for by Congress. Fellow citizens, you have a pretty striking example of the exercise of this same Executive legislation "called regulation" in the rules prescribed by the President, to those who are now taking the census. Congress, by law, directed the census to be taken. The censiis which the Constitution makes it the duty of Congress to take is nothing more than an enumeration of the inhabitants of the coun- try. But Congress, thinking it a good opportunity to procure statistical facts, author- ized the President to " regulate " that matter. To what extent he thinks this power of " regulation" reaches, all of us know, who have been applied to by the agents of the marshals. What the purpose is for which our wives are commanded to parade their ducks and chickens, we may know when the alleged bargain between the north- ern man with southern principles and tlie nuUifiers shall be carried into execution. We trust, however, that the People will forbid the bans, and prevent the marriage, from whose fruitful bed the collector of the taxes, in our housewife thrift, is expected to spring. Having ascertained, both theoretically and practically, the meaning of this term, '•regulation," let us revert to the ends to be accomplished by it. It is, in the language of the '' heads," to fix " the details" of the plan of the Secretary. What he understood by his '' plan of the details," which he was prepared to submit to the President, we may form some notion of, from the "plan which he reported to Congress,"when, contrary to the recommendation of the President, that body ventured to call for them. Every thing to be there found, except " the manner of enrollment, the number of days of ser- vice, and the rate of compensation," and any other " details" which the President might deem proper, were, by the original scheme, to be left to his "regulation." Was there ever such a demand made bv the Chief Magistrate of a free people upon an indepen- dent Legislature? Its parallel can only be found in the commands of a Roman Empe- ror to a servile Senate, when it suited the policy of the usurper to retain that once au- gust body as a pageant to amuse the people. He, " the President," was to "regulate" the manner in which arms were to be provided. He might, as the "plan reported to Congress" "proposes," enforce the obsolete law of 1792, and then the militia would have to purchase their own arms and equipments. He might so " regulate" the mat- ter as to relieve the dear people from the trouble of bearing arms, and the eypense of purchasing them, and furnish his " volunteers" with arms from the public arsenals, which the Secretary and the Committees of Congress tell us was the real plan, and thus have no armed men in the nation but his |own " thoroughly drilled troops." It was for him to fix, by " regulation," the time and place, when and where, these '' troops" should rendezvous. It was for him to say whether they should be "called into service" by battalions, and so get rid of the colonels and generals, or by platoons,^ and rid himself of all the " ignorant" ofiicers. It was for him to say by what code of laws they should be governed, and by what system of tactics they should be taught— under what penalty the drafted man should appear at the rendezvous, or find a substi- stitute — how long he should be imprisoned if he was unable to pay the fine — by whom the fine should be collected and the imprisonment enforced — who should be his judges, and who should be competent witnesses against him. It rested with him to declare, as he has done, that the honor and life of a free citizen may be sworn away by the cook of the prosecutor, or his own servant, be he white or black, bond or free.* In * We state, upon the authority of an intelligent gentleman of this county, of the "Van Buren party, who attended the meeting at Brentsville, that Senator Grundy, in his speech on that occa- sion, justified the decision of the naval court martial and the President, in Lieut. Hooe's case. He said that negro testimony was legal evidence in the case, and that no lawyer would venture to contradict him. He said that the Common Law jroverned the case — that that lavv knew no dis- tinctions founded on difference of color. He said this in the presence of Col. John Gibson, the lead^ ■ ing Democrat of Prince William, and an elector on the Van Buren ticket — in the presence of Inman Horner, Esq., of Fauquier, another elector — of the members of the bar of Prince William, 23 short, had the "details" been left to ''regulation," as was proposed by the plan of his Secretary, which he " strongly" recommended to Congress, he would have been mas- ter of the lives of these two hundred thousand men, and they would have been in a state of more abject vassalage to him than the meanest soldier of the British army is to his monarch when he speaks of him as " the king, my master." Ever since the expulsion of the Stuarts, what is called the '■'■mnfiny billP is annu- ally passed by Parliament. This bill regulates the government and discipline of the army, and prescribes the rules and articles of Avar. Without it, the army cannot be kept together an hour. So that, instead of entrusting the king with the power to fix these important ''details," by "regulation," he has only a lease, from year to year, for the array itself. And, in this democracy of ours, the President demands of Congress to place under his command a permanent force of two hundred thousand men, to sub- ject the male population, between the ages of twenty and thirty -seven, to conscription to fill the ranks, and to provide, by law, for '' the manner of enrollment, the number of days of service, and the rate of compensation," and leave the rest to him ! ! ! He is now master of the public purse — his hitherto irresistible patronage is to be increased by a large addition to the already appalling list of public officers, who hold their ap- pointments from him, and at his pleasure, aad by the power which the Sub-Treasury law will give him over the banks, and, through them and the collection of the revenue, over the entire money concerns of the nation — the whole treasure of the nation is in the keeping of officers, who, according to the doctrine of the party , sanctioned, as they contend, by the people, are subject to his orders, and responsible only to him — men who accept office, with the avowal that their oath of office means that they are not to perform their duties according to the best of their own skill and judgment and the laws of the land, but according to the orders of the President. If, under the domination of the men in power, the country could ever again become prosperous — if our broken-down commerce should be restored, and the revenue once more be sufficient to meet the extravagence of the government and leave a surplus — if thai surplus should, as under the former administration, amount to forty millions of dollars — if the leaders of the party should be more successful than hitherto (as they doubtless would be) in their eiforts to prevent its distribution amongst the States — what a spectacle should we exhibit! Two hundred thousand men, "embodied as a national guard, thoroughly drilled," and commanded by the President; the number kept up by draft; all "the details," all the laws for their discipline and government, and the enforcement of the " draft," subject to the "regulation" of the President, who has in his coffers, over and above the ordinary expenses of the government, forty mil- lions of dollars — hard dollars — to pay and subsist his " troops!" Nothing is wanted to realize the picture but the enactment of the heads recommended by the President, and a return to prosperity in our business, which is so confidently predicted as a con- sequence of the Sub-Treasury. And this is democracy !! ! Gracious God ! ! Demo- cracy !! How long, fellow-citizens, will you suffer yourselves to be deceived by names ? How long will you lend your ears to the lying and flattering tongues of demagogues, and close up the avenues of your understanding by prejudice ? How long will you set allegiance to party above allegiance to the institutions of your country ? — turn a deaf ear to the warning of the sober-minded, and heed only the insidious tlatterings of those who are fattening upon your substance? !s this great people to add another to the long list of nations which have forged their own chains, and worshipped Tyranny in the garb of Liberty ? We have said that the plan of the President — for it is unjust to call it Mr. Poin- sett's — will fill the ranks with men without property, with no common interest with the community— who will love only the hand that feeds them, and fear only their com- mander. Stupidity itself cannot be persuaded to believe that the present volunteer companies will enlist into this service. They are composed of the sons of substantial farmers, students, young professional men, merchants and their assistants, and the in- dustrious mechanics of the towns. No man can believe that such men, however ready and members of the bar of this county, holoncringto the Van Buren party — and was not contra- dicted ! ! If the Common Law, unmo >^'^^ ^^ ^- a)>a5^-:)' >» 5 3 ?^; ^^1^1 „ ::>-C- lJ> J3».>o^3>>. -^-:>:>:i2 J> >, V..r> .>2>>J J> J);: ,^., ^"5 :.>ir -^,'^cmr-sx:*- ^^>I^1>°^ ?^»3^ 'TB*>"^'-*- - <^ ii^m '^y:;^^ ^^J >)5> . 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