To the Citizens of
Adams County.
I have just learned that there has been industriously
circulated a notice, anonymously signed “Many Citizens,” calling a public
meeting of the citizens of Adams County adverse to the election of judges by
the people, and opposed to nullification, for the purpose “of bringing out, if
reconciliation should be found impracticable, another candidate in my place,
and desiring me to attend.” Such a desire coming from friends I would
cheerfully comply with, but I can not recognize the authors of such a course as
“friends” nor can
I permit myself to be made the football of political opponents. I have
protested, and do again solemnly protest, against making my private political
or religious opinions the test of my qualification for the convention. The
former have been brought before the public without my consent or agency. They
are now branded by terms odious and unmeaning to the public ear, and party
excitement is brought to bear upon me. To the calm and deliberate expression of
the public will I will most cheerfully submit. I can not, in justice to my
friends, accept the invitation of those whom I must consider political
opponents, and the time is too short to give this notice full circulation
before the contemplated meeting. I therefore respectfully request that those of
my fellow-citizens who feel interested in this matter will assemble at the
court-house in Natchez on Friday next, at 11 o'clock, when I will candidly
express my views of the relation which the states and general government bear
to each other, and endeavor to show that the doctrines which I entertain were
not “invented by Mr. Calhoun and first propagated by Mr. Hayne,” but were
propagated by Mr. Jefferson in 1798, and have ever since been the true test of
Republican and ultra Federal doctrines, and continue to be the grand landmarks
of distinction between the advocates of a constitutional government and the
arbitrary despotism of an oligarchy.
John A. Quitman.
Monmouth, July 17th, 1832.
SOURCE: John F. H. Quitman, Life and Correspondence
of John A. Quitman, Volume 1, p. 113-4
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