and indirect practices, of every description, have an inevitable tendency, both to deteriorate the general intellect, and to corrupt the public virtue. The present being the first election to the national councils, which shall have taken place in our country, it ought to be distinguished by peculiar purity. Without presuming farther on your indulgence, I may be permitted to conclude these observations with acknowledging that I am conscious of being endowed by nature with gifts inferior to those of other men; and that I have not cultivated with the requisite assiduity those which have been conferred; and far from repining I shall sincerely rejoice on every occasion when my country shall have it in her power to command the abilities of men more capable than myself to serve her.

City of Detroit, July 22, 1819.

A. B. WOODWARD.

ADDRESS

TO THE ELECTORS OF THE TERRITORY OF MICHIGAN.

Fellow Citizens:-A confident hope was for a long time entertained that nothing in addition to my original address, in July last, would be requisite from me, in relation to the election. Circumstances have since occurred which will render a concise explanation on my part indispensably necessary, in order to place the election on its primitive and correct ground.

Nothing can be more certain, and to a simple and uncontaminated mind, more immediately obvious, than that when so great a privilege is given to a people as that of choosing one of their own body to represent them, it ought to be exercised with singleness and purity of heart, unawed by power, unmoved by flatteries, unintangled by intrigues, and with a sole and direct view to the public good and to that alone.

The dark and malignant passions of human nature are, however, always active, and the corrupt and intriguing practices which defile the purity of elections in some portions of the States, have, with a fatal rapidity, been already transferred to the virgin bosom of this Territory.

The first manifestation of this corrupt and intriguing disposition was exhibited in the appearance of an insiduous and calumniatory production, veiled under the imposing aspect of impartiality, and bearing the signature of "An Elector."

In this effusion, the writer, after the cunning use of a flattering pencil,

portrays what he deems the dark side, in relation to three citizens who were under public view in the present election.

The friends of the Hon. William Woodbridge have repelled his attack in their own mode.

A principal accusation which the writer makes in relation to myself, is that I hold an erroneous doctrine, or adopt an erroneous practice on the subject of the premises. He does not assert, and I presume none could be so absurd as to assert, that I maintain the promises of an individual not to be obligatory on himself, or that the promise of the public is not binding upon the public. What I have contended for is that those who are intrusted with the public interests ought not to make any private promise respecting them, and that if a person be entrapped into any promise contrary to the public good, his obligation to the public is always stronger than his obligation to the individual, and his indiscreet and improper promise must yield to his superior duties. I extend this doctrine even to the right of suffrage. It is entrusted to the individual for the public good. He is to be a free agent until he delivers in his ballot, and he ought not to be entrapped or fettered with any other ties than those alone which he is under to the public.

A second objection is that I have not been sufficiently liberal to our public institutions. I have never seen a community possessed with as much public spirit as this. I aspire not to be the first in this honorable contest for liberality, but am fully persuaded I am not the last. The fact is, that many of us have gone far beyond our means, and that we ought now to limit our exertions. Many of us have subscriptions out, which we find it inconvenient to meet. At an early period I expended more to obtain the funds with which the present penitentiary has been built than was either then, or would be now proper, on my part.

It is said I am eccentric. This is a fault, and it is a small one. I must diligently labor to correct it. But what is not a little remarkable, there are many persons in the community who are supposed to be as much so as myself, and he who is reputed to be the author of this anonymous detraction stands himself at the head of the list.

Lastly, it is urged that if I should be elected to represent this Territory in Congress I should propose singular and inconsistent measures to relieve the country from its embarassments. As none of these measures are pretended to be designated, the reader is made no wiser than if the writer had been silent. His malevolence alone betrays itself, and no reasons are afforded by which to enlighten the public judgment.

The third citizen is depicted only as wanting the necessary talents.

The writer concludes his effusion by solemnly calling the public mind to

the importance of the occasion, and leads his reader to believe that on a diligent inquiry, a citizen might be found who would unite all the good qualities of the three citizens who were before in the public view, and at the same time be free from all their alleged defects.

Accordingly the public expectation was not a little excited, and waited with no small impatience, to learn who this paragon of excellence, before unfound and unthought of, could be.

After this suspicious and mysterious annunciation, the enigma appears to be at length solved, by an address in a handbill, with a real signature; and that signature is, JOHN R. WILLIAMS.

Standing, therefore, before the public, with uplifted hands, immaculate, unstained, spotless, undefiled; the sole herald of his own incomparable merits; those who are charmed with such a singular concentration of talents, modesty, patriotism, and virtue, will of course desire to invest him with the dignity of a delegate.

There are mortifications which he who presents himself at an election must expect to undergo; but I confess it is one beyond the ordinary degree of intensity, that I should be accused, in this particular manner, of inferior patriotism, of eccentricity, of defective morality, and subordinate liberality, by this particular gentleman, or by any of those who profess themselves as friends.

It is with painful regret that I find myself compelled to notice with disapprobation the proceedings of the friends of the Hon. William Woodbridge. The public have never been apprised in any authentic and explicit manner, whether, if elected to the office of delegate, he expects to retain the offices of Secretary of the Territory and Collector of the port of Detroit.

This they have a right to know, because, on the supposition that all those situations are compatible, it would still remain for them to say whether it is reasonable that so many offices of such grade, should be accumulated upon one person.

It is also their right and their interest, to know, if the executive commissions are to be resigned, at what time the resignations are to be made. If made after an acceptance of the office of delegate, such as setting out on the journey to the seat of government, in consequence of the election and the certificate, and thus becoming entitled to the pay of one day, for the first twenty miles, or after any other adequate and unequivocal act of acceptance, the seat may be rendered vacant, and the Territory be deprived of the services of a delegate for a session, and be put to the trouble of a new election.

The mode of supporting the pretentions, equivocal as they are thus ren

dered, appears not less exceptionable, and has a tendency to subvert the freedom of elections.

A few of his connections, some gentlemen of the bar, and one or two others, led into the combination, assemble, as is stated to me, at the house of the sheriff of the county of Wayne, and there undertake, privately, secretly, and without any knowledge of mine, without any friend of mine being apprised of it, to determine the question, which pretentions, those of himself or me, supposing both equally valid, are most likely to be supported. After this surreptitious seizure of such a question and so partial a mode of deciding it, they announce a public meeting, restricted to those who will be favorable to his election, and excluding others. Here is raised a pompous address, one is entangled after another, the signatures of the electors are even obtained, though the law evidently contemplates that they should remain free until the day of election. In this machinery the votes of the whole county of Wayne and of the adjoining counties of Monroe and Macomb, as well as of Michilimackinac, are confidently demanded for William Woodbridge. If this mode of conducting elections is to obtain, the great body of the people may as well be deprived of their right of suffrage. They may accept a dictation from a set of intriguers, at the seat of government, and this may be received as an expression of the public sentiment, for the whole Territory. It will certainly become a subject of infinite regret, if, throughout our whole country, not a single election is ever to be permitted to be made by the people.

The other candidates deemed this mode of proceeding so subversive of the freedom of elections, that of the friends of a particular candidate attempting to dictate to the community, that they joined in a body to oppose it, although I was alone intended to be the victim of this intrigue. and could alone suffer from it. What they have done may be sufficient to check so daring an assumption for the present, and as it relates to themselves.

As it relates to myself, I thought further explanation requisite. I deem every elector residing within the Territory entitled to a free exercise of his own judgment on the question, who shall represent him? and that, indifferently, whether he resides at the seat of the Territorial government or at a distance from it. This right of suffrage he is bound to exercise conscientiously and independently, and the friends of no particular candidate, and especially such persons as have been the principal agents on this occasion, have any right to attempt to dictate between the candidates, either to near or to distant electors, much less to the whole body of them. It is too late to prevent this artifice from having its effect at Michilimackinac. But I trust it will be entirely inoperative in the other parts of the Territory. Those

who deem any of the other candidates best qualified for the office of delegate ought still to give them their suffrages, uninfluenced by the dictation of Mr. Woodbridge's friends. I have no doubt they will do so. Those who have not been sufficiently apprised of the hypocritical and hollow hearted subterfuge regarding the pretentions of Mr. Woodbridge and myself as equally valid, I trust will be put upon their guard. Such as may have originally intended to favor me with their suffrages I trust will do so still, though my inducements to wish it may have been diminished. If inconveniences result from the crooked and insidious mode in which this opposition to me has been raised by the partisans of Mr. Woodbridge, it will be better to suffer such inconveniences for a time, than tamely, and on the very first trial, to surrender the right of free election.

I have deemed it my duty to lay open the true state of the present question before the electors of the counties of Monroe and Macomb, as well as the more remote ones of the county of Wayne, in time for the present election.

A free election* the people are entitled to have; a free and fair choice among those presented to their attention, it is both their right and their duty to make. If that choice, freely and fairly made, be in my favor, I hold myself bound to obey the public wishes; if fairly and freely made in favor of another, it will still afford me great pleasure to concede to him so well merited a preeminence.

Calumny and intrigue in a large, and in a republican community, can never be attended with any other than temporary effects, and there is ever among such a people, a redeeming spirit, which only requires to be awakened to a correct view of their public rights, in order to produce those results which will, at once, fortify their liberties and advance their happiness. A. B. WOODWARD.

Detroit, August 30th, 1819.

RELATIVE TO THE COMPENSATION OF JUSTICES

(Without date.)

The Honorable A. B. Woodward as a committee appointed to bring in a bill extending the jurisdiction of Justices of the Peace,

Present.

Mr. McDougall has the honor to salute Judge Woodward and to assure him respectfully that notwithstanding some hints which have dropped from him.

*This was the first election of a delegate to Congress, and William Woodbridge was chosen.-C. M. B.