From the Commercial Intelligencer.
POLITICS FOR PLAIN DEMOCRATS.
INCONSISTENCY OF PRESIDENT JACKSON.
It is not our purpose to speak uncharitably of the aged man who presides over the republic. The writer is himself a "Jackson man;" and though constrained to oppose the dreadful abuses of the administration, will not deny his real merits, nor attempt to diminish any claims he may have upon the affections of the people. He addresses himself particularly to those who have voted for Jackson. They cannot vote for him again, and there is, or ought to be, no feeling to dissuade them from the stern and patriotic task of probing the wounds of the republic. Where we can be silent we will; but when censure is merited, we will remember that we owe to our country a duty more solemn and sacred than any which can be due to an individual.
One great source of existing evils is the absence of all confidence in the administration. Many causes have combined to produce this result. The first and greatest is the violation, by the administration, of every pledge and every principle on which it was elected.
The administration now presiding over the country, is not the one elevated by the people, its principles are not those which they sustained; and its members were not, and never were honored with their confidence.
It may be remembered that Jackson is the only candidate who ever descended to win support by giving pledges and making promises, and the only one whose pledges and promises were violated.
We will proceed to designate what those promises were, and how they were violated.
Among other virtuous positions assumed by him previous to the election, was a decided opposition to every thing calculated to increase the dangerous power of the executive. For this purpose he was favourable to surrounding the President with every check, to lessen his patronage, and even to confine him to a term of four years. In his first message he recommended a change of the Constitution by which the presidential term would be thus altered.—Yet hefranked a letter to a Pennsylvania Senator, desiring him to procure a second nomination; he effected his object; he hastened into the field and, by dint of ardent electioneering, was elected.
In the celebrated letter of General Jackson to the Tennessee Legislature, written before his election, and teeming with pledges, all of which have been violated; he said "If important appointments continue to devolve upon the Representatives in Congress, it requires no depth of thought to be convinced that corruption will become the order of the day; and that under the garb of conscientious sacrifices to establish precedents for the public good, evils of serious importance to the freedom and prosperity of the republic may arise. It is through this channel that the people may expect to be attacked in their constitutional sovereignty, and where tyranny may be apprehended to spring up in some favourable emergency."
Yet since Jackson's election, more appointments have been made from the two Houses of Congress than took place under all the other Presidents since the formation of the Constitution. Fifteen have been appointed from the Senate and twenty-six from the House, making a total of forty-one!
One of the prominent principles recognized and urged in the election of Jackson was official reform. The people were determined to secure the purity of the elective franchise from the dangers of official interference. Jackson stood before them pledged to sustain that reform, and in his inaugural address, thus solemnly repeated the obligation:—"Conspicuous among the objects of reform will be my efforts to prevent the patronage of the General Government being brought to bear on popular sentiment in reference to political questions."
Yet since his election the number of national officers have been increased to an enormous army of forty thousand men, generally chosen from among the most violent partisans; and instead of being "prevented from bringing the patronage of the General Government to bear on popular sentiment," they are encouraged so to do, by every species of corruption, and punished for political inactivity by proscription and dismissal. Never were the office-holders ofany government so active as ours now are. They, indeed, form the leaders and active members of the administration party, and not only engross the political power of the country, but use it for the most corrupt purposes, and in the most ruinous manner.
We will defer to future numbers an exposition of his flagrant departure from the principles on which he was elected by his violation of State rights in the Proclamation and Force Bill; by his derilection from a strict construction of the constitution in the protest and other acts and documents; by his forgetfulness of the jealousy with which the executive should be regarded, as exhibited in every act of his administration.
So incessantly variable and widely inconsistent have been the acts, opinions and principles of Gen. Jackson, at different times, that it is impossible for any man, whatever his party or principles, to sustain him consistently, or with confidence.
Is he a democrat? Jackson has not only violated every principle of democracy, but has dismissed every democrat in his cabinet to make room for acknowledged and ardent federalists.
Is he a federalist? Jackson has denounced them with a bitterness almost unequalled, and was favorable to hanging them during the last war.
Is he a nullifier? Jackson has, in his proclamation, avowed the broadest doctrines of the rankest school of consolidation.
Is he a consolidationist? Jackson has, in explicit terms, approved the wildest doctrines of Nullification, as expounded by Hayne and Hamilton.
Is he an anti-Bank man? Jackson has admitted the constitutionality and expediency of a Bank, and is now doing all in his power to erect the most corrupt banking system under heaven, by means of numberless subsidized state banks.
Is he favourable to a Bank? Jackson has shaken the Government to its foundation, violated the constitution, and impoverished the people, in opposing the Bank, and now swears that no bank shall be incorporated.
Is he favourable to Internal Improvements by the National Government? Jackson has vetoed several bills on the express ground of opposition to the principle.
Is he opposed to Internal Improvements? Jackson has also signed a number of bills recognizing the doctrine in its fullest sense.
Is he favourable to a division of "the spoils?" Jackson haS condemned it in the most indignant terms.
Is he opposed to it? Jackson has practised it an hundred fold more than any of his predecessors.
Is he favourable to the appointment of Congressmen? Jackson stands pledged before heaven and earth against it.
Is he opposed to it? Jackson has practised, and is practising it to an unprecedented extent.
