Memoir of John Howe Peyton / in sketches by his contemporaries, together with some of his public and private letters, etc., also a sketch of Ann M. Peyton

by Unknown

MR. PEYTON'S LETTER CONSENTING TO RUN FOR THE SENATE. HIS POLITICAL SENTIMENTS.

To the voters of the Senatorial district composed of the counties of Rockbridge and Augusta.

Fellow-Citizens:

Having authorized my name to be placed before you as a candidate to represent you in the Senate of Virginia, I deem it a duty I owe alike to you and myself to make a plain and distinct avowal of my political sentiments.

Though it is true that a member of the Senate of Virginia, has little to do with Federal politics, and may not during his whole term of service be called upon to express a single opinion upon them, yet, in a representative republic it is not only proper that the political sentiments of a candidate should be distinctly understood, but it is equally proper that he should possess political sentiments congenial with those of his constituents.

Under this impression, the following brief statement is made.

I came into public life about the period of the election of James Madison as President of the United States.[4] I served as a member of the House of Delegates of Virginia the two sessions of 1808-9, 1809-10. I was a friend to the election of Mr. Madison and a warm and zealous advocate of the measures of his administration.

Among the measures to which I gave my hearty support was the establishment of the late Bank of the United States. Since that period I have not mingled in politics. As a citizen, however, I approved generally of the administration of James Monroe, and was opposed to the election of his successor, John Quincy Adams.

I advocated the election of Andrew Jackson, and supported most of the measures of his administration during his first term. I also voted reluctantly for his re-election, I disapproved of his veto to the bill to recharter the Bank of the United States, and the ad captandum arguments used by him to justify the measure. I attributed the act then, however, more to the feelings created by the particular time when Congress passed the bill—it being just previous to his second election, than to any settled hostility on his part to a United States Bank.

Shortly after his re-election, he commenced a train of measures to which I was utterly opposed; measures of a novel and alarming character, and which in their origin and subsequent developments, brought distress and embarrassment upon the banks, upon the country at large, and especially upon all our great commercial interests. I allude to his wild, violent and undigested schemes of finance—commencing with his pet Bank system and ending with his order in council, the Specie circular.

This warfare upon the Bank of the United States, the currency and the commerce of the nation, reduced us in 1837 to the degradation of witnessing a general suspension of specie payments by the banks.

These acts connected with the corrupting system of party discipline introduced by that administration with the view of compelling private judgement to succumb to the behests of party, completely separated me from the administration of Andrew Jackson.

His successor who pledged himself in advance "to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor," and who has gone a bowshot beyond him in obstinately pressing upon a free and intelligent people; his thrice rejected scheme of a sub-treasury—to him and his measures I have always been strenuously opposed.

Upon those subjects which fall more legitimately within the scope of the duties of a Virginia State Senator—in advancing and promoting the great cause of internal improvement, and in the diffusion of light and knowledge among our people, and in the general objects of legislation, my interest is identified with yours.

Finally, occupying the relation I now do, fellow citizens, towards you, by no procurement of my own, but having been pressed into it by the solicitation of friends, I have thought it right thus briefly, but at the same time explicitly, to state my political views. I have felt this duty the more imperative—because having been once a supporter of General Jackson's administration, and no public occasion having since occurred, except at the polls, to make my subsequent opinions known were I silent some might cast their votes in this election under a misapprehension of my sentiments. Whilst, then, I would regard an election to the Senate of Virginia as a flattering proof of your confidence—I could not but regard that confidence misplaced and valueless, were it bestowed by the people without knowing where and how I stand.

JOHN H. PEYTON.

[Spectator, May 9, 1859.]

He was duly elected and took his seat at the next session of the Senate.