cation long before Judge White was interested in the subject. Another, and the last charge we shall notice, is that which relates to the conduct of the President during his late visit to Tennessee. During that visit he has been abused and misrepresented in the most wanton and shameful manner. He declared that private business of importance had brought him home to Tennessee-to that home which in his absence had been consumed by the devouring flames-to that home, where laid interred his once loved and much calumniated companion-to that home, where his own grave had been opened, with strict injunction that no matter in what land he might breathe his last, that here, beneath the sod of Tennessee, so often protected by his valor, and identified with him in so many of the illustrious and glorious achievements of his life, his mortal remains should be deposited. But to such a home, so endeared, and to such a State, so honored, he is not permitted to come without his motives and purposes being slandered and misrepresented! We cannot take time to enumerate all that has been said. Suffice it to say, that it is charged upon him, in passing through some of the congressional districts, he spoke unfavorably of their representatives in Congress. We have no doubt that he did, and have as little doubt that he ought to have done so. Shall members of Congress, on the floor of debate, or amongst their constituents denounce Andrew Jackson as a tyrant and dictator-as an elective monarch and a conspirator against public liberty, and then complain that Andrew Jackson has the spirit and the nerve to fling back the tide of reproach upon themselves? No man at all acquainted with his character ever expected the contrary. But it is said that on certain occasions he has denounced Judge White! And has not Judge White as often denounced Gen. Jackson? If the latter ever said of the former, that he was leagued with the Federalists, has not Judge White insinuated that Jackson was a wolf in sheep's clothing and a conspirator against the liberty of the people? We do not pretend to adjust the account nor strike the balance on the score of hard words, between these distinguished individuals, for we have not the information enabling us to be precise as to what they have said, or which resorted first to the use of opprobrious epithets. But we assure you, fellow-citizens, from what we have

heard and from what we know of the equally irascible temper of both, that honors are very likely to be easy on that score.

We submit no apology to the community, for this frequency of reference to Gen. Jackson-to his principles and measures, and to the gross and frequent injustice that has been done to him by the various factions now composing the opposition to his administration. The last victory of Democracy was achieved in his person, and the Republican party stood united and concentrated on him when Judge White, Gen. Harrison, and Mr. Webster took the field as Presidential candidates. No one of them, nor all combined, have any chance of success, but by effecting divisions and schisms in our ranks. This can never be done so effectually as by destroying the great and deserved popularity of Gen. Jackson with the Republican party. That being accomplished, his measures and principles of policy fall with him, and with their overthrow, Mr. Van Buren's must follow of course. Hence it is, that in every attack the opposition have closely identified Gen. Jackson with Mr. Van Buren, and thus rendered the defence of the one essentially the vindication of the other.

We now wish to bring this address to a close. In making this appeal, we have nothing to accomplish but what we sincerely believe is equally desired by a vast number of the friends of Judge White, tow it: the preservation of the sound principles of our government. We are solemnly convinced, that such preservation requires us forthwith to give up the support of Judge White, and to unite with our Republican brethren of other States in the support of Mr. Van Buren, and thereby enable the people to make choice of the next President, instead of the House of Representatives. In this, we know a large portion of our fellow-citizens may differ from us in opinion. We, therefore, earnestly desire your attention to another view of the Presidential subject, which we believe you ought to take. If you are determined to cast the vote of Tennessee to Judge White, and to risk the consequences which we have attempted to portray, what course do you intend to take when, after all your exertions, he may have to be surrendered? no election is made by the people, and the candidates shall go before the House, and if Judge White (being one of them) shall

If

LETTER OF AARON V. BROWN,

To his Constituents of the Tenth Congressional District of the State of Tennessee, September, 1842.

GENTLEMEN: Never, in the course of many years of public life, have I so much desired to return to the bosom of a generous and noble-hearted constituency, to see you face to face, and to commune freely with you on the present state of our public affairs. But I find that I can have no such high gratification. Those who now rule the destinies of this country, seem to have resolved that the sovereign remedy for existing evils is perpetual legislation-so nearly perpetual, that they do not leave, between one session and another, sufficient time to the Representative (if he attend at all to his private concerns) to return to his district, and inhale fresh inspirations of wisdom and virtue from his constituency. The perplexing question is often asked, what the people of this country have gained by the Whig triumphs of 1840? Whatever of difficulty the dominant party may find in answering this question, one thing is certain, that they have kept Congress so long in session, that every one of them who are members of it, have been able to draw from the public treasury at the rate of eight dollars per day for every day since the 4th of March, 1841. This certainly is something to them, whatever it may be to the people. Never, in the annals of any country, so far as legislation was concerned, did a party have so full and so fair a chance to accomplish some great and striking advancement of the public

good. They came into power on the 4th of March, 1841, flushed with victory, and proudly boasting of an immense majority in both branches of the National Legislature. They elected their own presiding officers-appointed their own committees. They decreed in caucus what particular subjects should be acted on, and what should be excluded. They established their own rules, breaking down all the ancient safeguards of legislation. They suppressed everything like freedom of debate, by placing the infamous gag on their opponents, thereby silencing all opposition to their proceedings. In fine, they did what they pleased, when they pleased, and as they pleased. I do not mean at this point to discuss the measures of the called session: that belongs to another part of my letter. I am now dealing with narrative, not with commentary.

During the early portion of their career, all was peace and harmony in their party. I mean all that met, or was intended "to meet the public eye," was such. At length, however, the foul demon of discord appeared amongst their ranks. I say • appeared, for I do not doubt he had always been there. How could any man doubt it? Their unnatural combinations, their strange and contemptible devices, and all the vile and corrupting means by which they achieved their victory, clearly show that they were "possessed of a demon" from the beginning. In overthrowing the sub-treasury, and undoing, in hot and inconsiderate haste, many things which had been done by Jackson and Van Buren, all were perfectly united. Mr. Clay in the Senate, and Mr. Adams in the House, actuated by all the feelings of revenge which frequent discomfiture could inspire, led on in this inglorious work of destruction. But when they came to build up for themselves and their party those institutions and measures which were to be substituted for those which they had destroyed, all became discord and confusion. Mr. Clay wanted a bank for individual speculation. President Tyler would have none which was not purely national and public in its functions, and strictly guarded against local discounts. The former looking more to the interest of his partisans, the latter to that of the nation, their differences became irreconcilable. The consequence was, the two vetoes on both the bank bills. The President stood on his conscience and the

Constitution; Mr. Clay on his bank; whilst the cabinet, (except Mr. Webster,) thinking, no doubt, that it was all nonsense to be talking about conscience and the Constitution at such a party crisis as that, suddenly threw up their commissions, and retired from the public service. At this trying period in their history, some few of the Whig party conducted themselves with a show of reasonable moderation. They seemed to have some respect for the sacred obligations of the President's oath; and however much they differed with him in opinion, in his construction of the Constitution, they could not censure that regard for moral obligation which the President had so fully evinced on the occasion. But the Clay portion of the party scoffed at all this, as hypocritical and idle. They denounced him as a traitor; the vile wretch at the other end of the avenue; the perjured miscreant; besides many other terms of wanton and unmerited reproach. The great dictator to his party, and the would-havebeen dictator to John Tyler, raved and roared like a lion deprived of his prey. In his rage and fury, he seized on the great conservative power of the Constitutton, and vainly endeavored to tear it out from that consecrated instrument. I say vainly endeavored, although this war on the veto power is not yet terminated it is yet raging; and we have witnessed, at the present session, the strange and appalling spectacle of Mr. Clay, in the Senate, endeavoring to pull down this, the noblest pillar in the Constitution; whilst Mr. Adams, in the House, was taking the most effectual means to overthrow the whole Constitution and the Union together.

Such was the actual condition of the Whig party at the close of the ever-memorable called session of 1841. I speak not yet of their measures-their tendency to prostrate all the best interests of the country-nor of the highly censurable, not to say flagitious, means by which they were carried through Congress. I have another time and place for all this. My purpose is next to call your attention to the extraordinary condition of parties at the commencement of the present session of Congress-the regular one under the Constitution. Warned by their failure to do anything valuable or useful to the country at the preceding session, and alarmed at the indignant murmurs of the people, the Clay portion of the Whig