POLITICAL SKETCHES

OF

EIGHT YEARS IN WASHINGTON;

IN FOUR PARTS,

WITH ANNOTATIONS TO EACH.

ALSO

A GENERAL APPENDIX; AN ALPHABETICAL INDEX;

AND

A SERIES OF CHARTS,

GIVING A COMPARATIVE SYNOPSIS OF THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE SEVERAL

STATES, AND THE UNITED STATES.

BY ROBERT MAYO, M.D.

Author of an Inaugural Thesis on the Sensorium, University of Pennsylvania, 1808;
Compiler of an Epitome of Ancient Geography, with Maps, for the use of Seminaries, Phila-
delphia, 1814; and a New System of Mythology, with plates, Philadelphia, 1819; Compiler
of the Pension Laws, with opinions of Attorneys-General of the United States, and Analyti-
cal Tables, by desire of the Secretary of War for the use of the Pension Office, Washington,
D. C. 1832, &c. &c.

BALTIMORE:

PUBLISHED BY FIELDING LUCAS, JR.; GARRET ANDERSON, WASHINGTON;

R. J. SMITH, RICHMOND; CAREY, HART & CO., DESILVER, THOMAS & Co.

AND J. DOBSON, PHILADELPHIA; G. & C. CARVILL & CO. AND COLLINS,

KEESE & CO. NEW YORK; C. C. LITTLE & CO. AND HILLIARD, GRAY &

CO. BOSTON.

1839.

ENTERED according to the Act of Congress, on the twenty-seventh day of December, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight, by ROBERT Mayo, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Columbia.

JOHN D. TOY, PRINTER.

P R E F A СЕ.

FROM a transient glance at the panorama of political events that have crowded the canvass within the last eight or ten years, it has at length become apparent to every eye that those great operatives TIME and EXPERIENCE are bringing all their resources to bear on the fate of our once promising constitutions of government; the one aiming its withering powers at their destruction, the other exerting its conservative faculties to cure the diseases which have at the same time been gradually undermining them.

In this political portraiture, the recent demonstrations of the federal Executive upon the government of the state of Pennsylvania stands in bold relief, and deserves the close inspection of every American citizen, as well as the serious deliberations of every statesman. To aid them in making out a more digested and methodical sketch of the materials which compose this section of the general scheme, I have thrown together in a Postscript to Part the First of this work, the principal facts with appropriate reflections from the columns of distinguished editors and other unquestionable authorities. For a more ample review of our whole political canvass with the diversified commentaries connected with the present important epoch in the history of free government, I would commend the historian to an examination of the leading journals of either political party, as the best sources of a correct narrative of the varying phases and incidents of American history, except where the facts are incontrovertibly established by public records, official reports, and congressional proceedings.

In the following work I have proposed to myself the lighter task of bringing the prominent features of these materials together in such connection of affinity which cause and effect have appeared to my mind to point out, in order to demonstrate their practical bearing upon the durability of our institutions. And I am truly grieved, as an American citizen, to say, that in looking deeper than the mere surface of the recent