Let the Republicans wait patiently till the 3d of March-If the spirit of faction shall then, by its opposition to the voice of the majority of the people and the States, put the Constitution afloat, God send them safe out of the storm they may raise. "The Maryland delegation have to account to their country for the shocking state of things. Baer, Thomas, Dennis and Craik, will, I trust, be remembered by their constituents and by the country." The good soul of a writer, whilst endeavouring to rouse a spirit of indignation, by venting menaces the most awful, and denunciations the most solemn and personal, crocodile-like, to gull the people, conjures the editor to repress the spirit of anger, which he was hoping he had already conjured up in the mob. About this goodly work the editor goes! and how? Why in the next page he publishes another letter, from the same correspondent, no doubt, containing predictions direful of what the Federalists would do, and a string of accusations, wherein as a truth, it is asserted, that "certain members of the Legislature, whose names are in possession of the editor of the Aurora," are continually closeted with the British Chargé des Affaires. Whether these members be Democrats or Republicans, he saith not, but sounds the tocsin by saying that "the people had best be prepared for the worst." The alarmists have been systematic in the work. At a meeting of them in Philadelphia some weeks since, it was threatened, nor has the menace been recalled, that they would march to Washington, and settle the election with the bayonet! The same menaces were thrown out in a toast and sung at a republican festival at Petersburg, when the Governor himself made one of the party, and they have been repeated at a number of other meetings held pretendedly to celebrate the election of Mr. Jeffer son, son, before he was ever chosen! but in reality to stir up the mad spirits of the nation to action. The Washington Federalist has noticed those repeated menaces in its last number, and in exhibiting the superior physical strength of the Federalists, in an extremity which their opponents are so ready in inviting (but in which they will take care to leave their dupes only to act). The Federalists are charged with threatening war; and those observations of an individual editor, are termed a manifesto of the party for war. Bella borrida bella!!! But let them denominate the piece either a manifesto or a declaration of war, they may thank themselves for it; and let the consequences be what they may, the guilt will lie at their own doors, as being the aggressors, and bringing forward the lex talionis of the Federalists. How far, however, this Federal Editor has exceeded the example set him by the democratie Printers, the public will be able to judge, by giving it a place below. WASHINGTON, FEB. 16. It appears by one of the letters from Washington, that the lobby of the chamber of the House of Representatives was cleared in consequence of the threats of some violent person who had been stationed there. This circumstance, connected with the diabolical fabrication "that the people of Philadelphia had seized upon the public arms," indicates a design in some deluded persons to intimidate the Representatives of the nation. The same spirit, if not the same individuals, dictated the violent publications which appeared some time since, intended to overawe the majority of the Senate of Pennsylvania. If the Representatives of the people are thus to be forced into measures contrary to their judgments and their consciences, there is an end end to the government, an end to liberty in this country where such violence is allowed, there can be no security for the property-no safety for the lives of the citizens. The measures, which must be reprobated by the honest and the good of both parties, (and of such is the great body of the American people composed) should no longer be tolerated. It is the duty of the civil officers of the national and of the states governments to prevent the repetition of them. NEW-YORK, FEB. 20. In our paper of Monday last, we gave a statement, from the National Intelligencer, of the individual votes of the members of the House of Representatives; which, from more recent information, appears to be materially incorrect. A letter from a member of Congress, received yesterday by a gentleman in this city, enables us to give the following accurate statement: * One member from Georgia dead. Thus although Mr. Jefferson has eight votes, Mr. Burr six, yet the majority of the members prefer Mr. Burr. Yesterday afternoon a salute of sixteen guns was fired on the battery, by the Artillery Company, under the command of Capt. Ten Eyck, in consequence of the election of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency of the United States. JEFFERSON's CHARACTER. THIS man's character has been well illustrated by Mr. WILLIAM SMITH, now (in 1801) American Ambassador in Portugal. A writer under the signature of Hampden, in the Richmond paper, after asserting the exclusivé right of Virginia to fill the office of President, called the attention of the citizens of that state to the illustrious Thomas Jefferson, as the fittest character in the Union to fill the President's chair, and proceeded to enumerate the various pretensions of that gentleman. In answer to Hampden, Mr. SMITH published a pamphlet, from which the following extracts are made. "But we should incur no danger in yielding to his claim in the fullest extent, because it must be obvious to men of the smallest experience in public life, that of all beings, a philosopher makes the worst politician; that if any one circumstance more than another could disqualify Mr. Jefferson for the Presidency, it would be the charge of his being a philosopher. Not believing him to possess any more than the mask of philosophy, my objection to his election would certainly not rest on that ground; but as there may be some, who, having read his works superficially, may have been deceived deceived by that character, which is sometimes acquired, because no one has been at the trouble to scrutinize and strip it of its borrowed garb, to them I repeat that, admitting him to be a most learned philosopher, such a character alone creates his disqualification for the Presidency. "In turning over the page of history, we find it teeming with evidences of the ignorance and mismanagement of philosophical politicians. The great Locke was employed to frame a constitution for Carolina; but it abounded so much with regulations inapplicable to the state of things for which it was designed, so full of theoretic whimsies, that it was soon thrown aside. Condorcet, a particular friend of our American philosopher, was a great French philosopher; his constitution, proposed in 1793, contains more absurdities than were ever before piled up in any system of government; it was so radically defective, that its operation was never even attempted; * Condorcet's political follies, and the wretched termination of his career, are well known; he had philosophy enough to know how to raise a storm, but not enough to avert its effects. The affairs of France have since been more ably conducted (except during the short aristocracy of Robespierre) by men who are good politicians, but, fortunately for France, not philosophers. *Hear what Boissy d'Anglas says of the constitution of Condorcet, a brother labourer in philosophy and politics of Thomas Jefferson:"meditated amidst intrigue and ambition, conceived in the bosom of vice, that constitution is nothing more than the concentration of all the elements of disorder, and the organization of anarchy What indeed must we think of a constitution, which organizes the partial insurrection of powers, independent of the constituted authorities, and legalizes the reign of plunder and terror." Compare this, Americans, with the principles and practice of the democratic societies, and the other supporters of Thomas Jefferson !! VOL. XII. "RITTEN |