Instead of atoning by a mild, moderate and conciliatory course of conduct, for the injuries attempted, not only against an individual, but the public, in endeavoring to put down and destroy a free press; the project is set on foot of introducing and palming upon the county another press;—a child of their own;—a copartner in all their labors, their joys and sorrows. It is however, one thing to introduce a press, and another to get the people to support it. While a few malicious imps, hungering for revenge, were "grinning horrible a ghastly smile, to hear their famine should be filled;" the people in a number of different towns assembled, and freely expressed their sentiments on the fatal tendency of such measures; and animadverted with freedom and spirit on the motives which prompted them;—for which the book printed by the printer of their paper, stigmatizes them with the epithet of miscreants; and treats the whole of their labors as mere cant and slang; I suppose it must mean compared with its own dignified and masterly pages. The majesty of the people is truly a monstrous Deity in the eye of venal and sell-created consequence. It is merely for repeating some of the sentiments expressed at these meetings, that the editor of the Journal is assailed as the arch-disturber of our political repose.
The Citizen, in one place storms furiously at the allegation, that the Albany committee had advised them to remove their press. That committee was appointed to inquire into the difficulties which agitated the republican family in this county, and devise if possible the means of removing them. Thompson as chief cook of his own party, appeared before them, with the book in his hand and Judge Child at his elbow as usual; and I do believe the citizen from my very soul, when he says they gave him no such advice. The committee were composed of sensible men; and after listening to his incoherent display of folly and nonsense on that occasion, it would be literally casting pearl before swine, to have given them any advice on the subject.
Having established and considered some extraneous facts, for which I am aware certain gentlemen will not thank me especially as it may disorder the thread of their own reasoning a little; I shall now proceed briefly to consider the charge of FRAUD, FALSEHOOD, DUPLICITY and CORRUPTION, as it appears in the book itself, on their own proof, independent of the foregoing memorandums, leaving the memory of Mr. Young's colleagues and others at full leisure to be refreshed by them.
That charge it will be recollected, is the turning point of the controversy;—the vox et preterea nihil, which boils, and foams, and wheels thro' the book, like a torrent thro' the Augean stable, collecting in its course accretions of foulness and impurity. For this purpose, Mr. Bunce and Mr. Palmer are represented as a political Archimedes, controlling at their will the destinies of the county;—dictating the number and sort and deliberations of the county delegates, prostrating the Speaker of the house of assembly; and dealing havoc, spoil and ruin around them. Mr. Cowen is represented as their associate, aiming at his own elevation thro' the lowest arts of cunning and duplicity. But fortunately for the cause of common sense, the touch-stone of these mighty maggots of the brain are the facts on which they are founded. And here let us for a moment take them as they stand among the certificate gentry, and examine their actual bearings;—in doing which I shall still have occasion to mention names, who, if they have finally not much cause for self gratulation, must thank their good friend the Citizen for bringing them before the public.
The Motts[9] say, that on or about the 21st of March, Mr. Cowen told them that Young was becoming unpopular;—that he had behaved haughtily and disrespectfully towards his colleagues; and that a few days before, he had been informed of this fact by several gentlemen to whom they were referred. Now it will be recollected that Mr. Cowen and John R. Mott were two of the delegates from Saratoga, and as such mutually bound to discuss with freedom the allegation for and against Mr Young, or any other person who would be a candidate before the general committee; and Mr. Cowen at this time at least, had no reason to doubt the truth of what Young's colleagues had asserted. He also mentioned it to James Mott, who was spoken of as a substitute in the event of his brother's absence. It seems he also conversed freely with these men on the subject of his having consented to be considered a candidate, and (so James Mott says) examined the probability of his success, by calculating the favorable state of the delegation. But it seems that communications to these leaky gentlemen on the subject of candidates are not to be made under any circumstances with impunity; and Mr. Cowen is to be censured as criminal for giving that information, which it would have been criminal to withhold. The only way to make his act in this respect criminal is by saying, "he ought to have known that Young's colleagues had lied." But it will be recollected that this was impossible, for the public did not know them then as well as it does now; nor had Mr. Cowen yet seen their certificate which is herewith published, by which they acknowledge what the book is so anxious for Mr. Cowen to have assumed. He did afterwards see it, and then (so say the certificates) bore public testimony to his opinion of the merits of Mr. Young, as well as afterwards by letter to judge Child.
Thus does the charge of duplicity, made against Mr. Cowen, resolve itself into a base attempt to fix upon him, what so snugly suits the shoulders of others. It seems he finally bestows that justice upon a political adversary, which the baseness and treachery of his colleagues and pretended friends had withheld. Am I acting the part of an accuser towards those men? No. They have accused themselves. Why are they again before the public? Had they hopes of skulking into obscurity among the motley multitude of certificates which throng the folio of the book? or have they like one of the moral personages in Hudibras, "catch'd the itch on purpose to be scratch'd?" It now requires an eye less keen than that of a ministering spirit to pierce the cob web veil which shields them from detection.
But in the process of this investigation, we are led to the consideration of a subject "too awful for irony." The interested certificates of these men are ushered to a Christian public, and a higher sanction demanded for them, by the author, than he is willing to allow to facts attested under the solemnity of an oath. One could hardly have anticipated this atheistical appeal to the credulity of the public, even tho' human nature were as vile and monstrous in others, as it appears to be in that author. But perhaps there was a necessity for it, in order to preserve the dark uniformity of his production. If, as has been asserted more than one of his prominent certifiers (among whom I would by no means rank these men) are themselves atheists, what could he swear them upon?—Upon the evangelists think you?—He might as well swear them on Payn's age of reason, or his own vile book itself. Where they "believe that their miserable bodies must take eternal refuge in the grave, and the last puff of their nostrils will send their souls to annihilation, they laugh at the solemnity of an oath and tell you that the grave into which they sink as a log, forms an intrenchment against the throne of God, and the vengeance of exasperated justice!" Such is the character which the writer fixes upon himself.—Such is the character which several of his disciples sustain in public.
True, the falsity of an extra-judicial oath, carries with it no temporal punishment; but the moral obligation remains to give it validity. That eternal reward or punishment which the Citizen has taken so much pains to blot out from the mind of his readers, will still continue the delight and terror of the Christian, the eternal fountain of his hopes and fears;—with him a sufficient motive to truth, without the artificial and imperfect aid of national law. The affidavits of four or five credible witnesses were already before the public, that Mr. Young's Colleagues did make a charge against him; but it seems that every moral sanction must be trampled upon or trifled with by the Citizen, to secure a triumph for his false and infidel principles. He skips, like a grasshopper, over facts and premises and propositions, and perches upon his pitiful assertions, which he wishes the public to pervert into conclusions. Why did he not give these affidavits lo the public?—He cannot surely complain that he forgot them, for they appear to haunt his guilty imagination through the whole of his progress; nor can he complain of wanting room. But the answer is easy. He knew it would make his bait so very bad that even his own gulls would not nibble.—
He was afraid of injuring his credit as an author even among his own sort—for these affidavits prove conclusively and indubitably, that not one jot nor tittle more was uttered against Mr. Young, than what emanated from his own colleagues, in the course of the winter of 1814 and 1815.
It is still more remarkable so far forth as the charge of fraud is concerned, with what logical precision the Citizen pursues his inquiry.—One is naturally led to expect from his positive rant, nothing short of point blank demonstration at least, that the fraud, (which if there was any originated with Mr. Young's colleagues) had produced the desired effect. That the attempt to cheat the people out of this mammoth legislator,—this sine qua non to their political salvation, should have at least produced some influence with the men upon whom it was exerted. Is there no lost and wandering sheep ready to return to the fold, and certify the delusions practised upon him by these wolves in sheeps clothing? Even Mr. Thompson, whose attention is apt to be otherwise directed, the moment he falls in conversation with Palmer and Bunce, scents out the fraud with all the instinctive keenness of a blood hound—Mr. Kasson on the same track, hardly the length of a nose behind, and unwilling to be outdone in sagacity, echoes the howlings of his leader. Judge Stillwell, tho' it seems the dullest of the pack, follows hard and completes the choir; or in other words Thompson and Kasson make a certificate that they were not deceived, and Stillwell endorses to give it a proper currency.