Even Mr. Roe lays claim to the same spirit of discernment, tho' his title to that claim might be questionable on another ground. He is readily led into a conclusion that Mr. Wilkins must have visited the Northern towns to procure Mr. Cowen's nomination; when it happens that the committees in those towns had been chosen before his name had been mentioned in them as a candidate, and before he had consented to be considered one. Mr. Roe had much better have satisfied himself by consulting the northern delegation on this subject. He is remarkably alert to detect a fraud where there is none, but is willing to take any thing upon tick which accommodates his good friend the Citizen. He certifies that he could not be deceived by the poor stories of Palmer and Bunce;—But believing the public to be greater numbsculls than himself, imagines that he can trick them into a belief, that the gentlemen who composed the northern delegation (among whom are many of the most respectable names in the county) are the mere creatures of another's will. It is perhaps fortunate that this man is an exception to the general law of nature, that like produces like, or he might have made tools of the whole county convention.
Who then was defrauded?—The Molts are by no means willing to admit that this was the case with them. The Citizen cannot produce even one poor certificate from any one of the county convention, that they were deceived or misled—neither Mr. Deake nor judge Child were of the committee, and if they had been, they are both so good as to tell us they were not gulled in that instance at least. John R. Mott, one of the delegation from the town of Saratoga, according to his own certificate had gone to New-York and sent Mr Olmstead who, with Mr. Cowen's consent (for it must have been by his consent that he acted as a substitute) sat in convention, and voted for Mr. Young. Thus ingeniously does the citizen rummage the chain of cause and effect, to eke out his favorite conclusion.
But stop, I confess I had like to have forgotten the certificate of Dr. Child (Increase W. Child) a son of judge Child, one of the most distinguished among the dramatis personæ who figure in the book!—He does go the length of saying, that he voted on the strength of Mr. Bunce's representation. Voted for whom? For Mr. Cowen? O no.—But he voted for a committee, who were to meet a committee, to make out the county nomination!—And shocking to relate, poor Dr. Child was galled into a vote for three of the most respectable men in the town of Milton!!—viz: Daniel Couch jun. Esq. Joel Keeler Esq. late a member of the legislature, and Thomas Palmer Esq!!!—It is derogatory to no man in that town, to say that a more respectable delegation could not have been procured. And what is more shameful still, one of those gentlemen, viz: Daniel Couch jun Esq. whom the Doctor had thus honestly sent to vote for Mr. Cowen, actually deceived his constituent, and voted for Mr. Young!!!!—Doctor Guild's certificate is very happily illustrated by the burlesque syllogism; that Moses was the meekest man:—Solomon was the wisest man;—And therefore St. Paul was ship wrecked. The conclusion of a fraudulent nomination, follows about as direct upon Dr. Child's premises, as the shipwreck of St. Paul did upon the meekness of Moses or the wisdom of Solomon. We should be almost led to suspect from this specimen, that the Doctor is a greater infant in politics, than in dissection.
This famous pamphleteer is by no means more fortunate, when he approaches the topic of the McBain meeting. The materials of which this meeting was composed are now known as far as the book, which has kindly given their names to the public. It consisted of one first judge. One Sheriff and one Clerk, appointed under the administration of Samuel Young Esq.—George Palmer Esq. Master in Chancery, As't. Justice, Justice of the peace, Post Master, &c, and whom the book holds out as the expectant of the Surrogates office—Roe deputy Sheriff and ci-devant constable—James Mutt—James Thompson Esq. who had kindly volunteered, as early as the 1st of April, to take the interests of the county under his charge as public prosecutor and States evidence—Alpheus Goodrich Esq. his partner—Doctor Nathan Thompson his brother—Mr Elias Benedict his client;—the one willing to receive, and the other to pay in certificates of the most current stamp—A justice or justices from Ballston, who knew their political God-father—Dr. Samuel Pitkin, who acted as minister plenipotentiary from Milton to Saratoga, making thirteen, who it is admitted, were from all the different towns enumerated in the caption of the meeting viz: Ballston, Stillwater, Galway, Saratoga, Greenfield and Milton. Add to these some others of minor note, and you make, as the Citizen would have it, the number of 21 or more. The Citizen too tells us he was there; but whether in the character of —— —— or —— we are left to grope in the gloom of conjecture.
Such was the formidable Areopagus convened to purify the body politic; to correct the poor misguided county convention;—and guard the people against being their own worst enemies; such was the assembly presented to the public as a numerous and respectable meeting from 6 towns out of 14 (judge Child and Dr. Thompson kindly representing the towns of Greenfield and Galway.)
No sooner had this numerous meeting assembled, than it was tho't necessary to divide them into the proper committees;—This being more genteel and parliamentary than to act in a body;—Accordingly Stillwell, Thompson and Palmer were created a committee to draw up the proceedings of the meeting; Child and Stillwell, a committee of Logic and Rhetoric, to call on absent friends and get them to consent that he should resign. Mott and Child acted as a committee of vigilance to pick up and report scraps of conversations and letters from Mr. Gowen after the meeting was over. Mott, Thompson, Kasson, Stillwell, Roe, &c acted as a committee to report to the county, the fraud which had deprived Mr Young of his undoubted right to go to the Legislature, whether the people were willing or not. Mr. Elias Benedict to draw up the proceedings of Mr. Wilkins and possibly to enforce the statute for the suppression of Vice and Immorality;—and committee of the whole to tell the county they had been there; and do away the strange reports which had gone abroad, that they were a little self-created body, without precedent, authority or premises, resembling what saucy people would call a faction.
All might yet have gone well, had not Stillwell been such a miserable slouch at telling a story. It appears that Stillwell and Palmer had written a history of the meeting for publication, in which Mr. Cowen tells the meeting, "that they must be responsible if they act without his absolute resignation." See p. 24 and 5. This presumptuous act throws the Citizen into a whirlwind of passion; and he falls a cursing like a very drab, at Palmer, Bunce and Cowen, apparently not believing that his friend Stillwell would ever have told so dangerous a truth. He calls it a farrago of nonsense, after having before asserted that Palmer as Secretary had nothing to do with it; that it belonged exclusively to the committee of publication; and then recollecting that Palmer and Stillwell were a majority of that committee, and consequently the proper authority, he takes another leap, and says, that the rough draft of the proceedings were given to James Thompson Esq for wham he claims the copy right.
Now altho' Thompson is unwilling to be outdone in telling a story, and tho' he had peaceable and quiet possession according to the book of the consciences of Stillwell and Child, instead of telling the public that Mr. Cowen had resigned, he says something which to be sure would look "like that," as the citizen says, upon the first impression; but which on being critically examined, contradicts the fact on the face of it. Even the compound of jargon and inconsistency drawn up by Thompson, and published in page 16 of the book, could not be tortured into an unconditional resignation. Mr. Cowen is there made to say, not that he resigned nomination;—But that for reasons there enumerated, "it was his personal wish to resign his own nomination &c. and he submitted to the decision of the meeting, the question whether it would be most expedient to act on his resignation which he now made (which must refer to the personal wish before expressed, for no other resignation is pretended) if the meeting should judge a postponement impracticable, or to postpone acting until he could have time to communicate to some of the particular friends of his nomination (beside those who were present at the meeting) his reasons for resigning, and procure their concurrence before hand &c."
Mr Cowen thus makes the concurrence of his friends before hand a condition precedent;—but the meeting disregard it—reject the condition, and gravely resolve to accept a resignation, which had not yet been tendered to them. Such is the rickety production which came straggling before the public in search of the Secretary, who had refused it the sanction of his name. In order to remedy this evil, and "throw it into form" as the citizen would say, his name gives place to that of Thompson and Stillwell, who it is agreed are larger men than the Secretary,[10] and must therefore carry greater weight. Even the certificate which follows, signed by nearly the whole of the meeting, after going on to say that Mr. Cowen openly and publicly resigned, immediately defeats itself by referring back to, and adopting the statement drawn up by Thompson as a candid, fair and faithful statement of facts;—and it is evident that such part of the certificate as overshoots the premises upon which it is professedly founded, must mean nothing more than to give a construction advocated by the Citizen, and which they esteem so necessary for their defence. The certificate of Peters, Stewart and How, shew the miserable shifts to which the Citizen and his friends were driven in order to bear themselves out in their conduct. They are perhaps excusable so long as they keep to the question of construction; but when they tax the zeal of their friends with certificates and declarations so far beyond what they themselves are willing to say—nay, which actually contradict the certificates and declarations that precede them, one is almost induced to overlook the difficulties of their defence, and to suspect the moral honesty—not of these men; but of those who have drawn them into this singular situation.
After all this round of certifying and reasoning, the shoe still continues to pinch, and the first Judge again appears before the public to help the defect. Altho' he signed Thompson's statement in which he is careful to make use of the language employed by it, and the epithet personal when he speaks of Mr. Cowen's language, yet when he afterwards hears of a distinction between personally and absolutely he seems almost struck dumb with astonishment, and says he had never heard of the distinction before. Now altho' the public will make all rational allowance for the judge's want of distinction where Mr. Thompson is concerned, yet I suspect they could hardly account for his present lack of apprehension, unless he took that statement upon tick, and signed without reading it.