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stated in the examination of several of the prisoners taken in the recent mise rable affair at Chepachet, that they said they had been stimulated to go and take part in the affair by the persuasions and taunts of the "girls." We are glad to find that they at least in Rhode Island are not unworthy of their mothers of old, however little credit their lovers may have done to the memory of the men of the past. It is only a pity that they did not go themselves instead of some of those they sent.

Mr. Dorr has little else of history associated with his name than that of his recent honorable though unsuccessful attempt. He was born in the year 1805, at Providence, his family being one of the most wealthy and "aristocratic " of the place. His father, Sullivan Dorr, has for many years been an extensive manufacturer, his mills being situated chiefly, we believe, in the town of Woonsocket. He received the rudiments of his education at Exeter Academy,* in the State of New Hampshire, and graduated at Harvard College in 1823; and after studying law in the office of the present Vice-Chancellor M'Coun, in the city of New York, was admitted to the bar in the year 1827. He has since pursued the practice of his profession in Providence, though we believe with but little zeal or interest in it; his tastes having inclined him much more to the cultivation of literary habits and enjoyments, and to the high and noble fascination of politics-studied in the light of the great principles of that political philosophy which is founded on the basis of the equal rights of all humanity, and in reference to the great aim of ameliorating and elevating the condition of the vast suffering and degraded mass of mankind. The associations and prejudices of his earlier years made him at that time a Federalist. But at about the year 1837, the independent action of his own manly

intelligence, aided by the generous bent of his popular sympathies, brought him out to a decided adhesion to the Democratic side of the great division of parties; in which faith he has ever since been earnest, unwavering, and active. The chief object to which he devoted himself from the outset of his political life, was that of overthrowing the antiquated and absurd anomaly of a government under which the people of that state were living-its Royal Charter; founded on no basis of popular adoption; which blended into one confused mass of legislative omnipotence, many of those different functions of gov ernment which all liberal and philosophical constitutions are careful to distribute and to surround with checks and limitations; which established an apportionment of representation at utter variance with the present numerical distribution of the population; and under the operation of which, not only was the elective franchise confined to about one-third of the resident white American citizens in the State, by means of a real estate qualification coupled with a primogeniture privilege, but also various other laws and practices existed, involving the most odious and disgraceful discrimination between the favored dignity and respectability of this dominant minority caste, and the presumed inferiority of the other two-thirds in personal worth and civil rights. Such was the character-indisputable, undisputed, in its broad facts-of the gov ernment for which Mr. Dorr was earnestly bent on substituting a constitution, in harmony with the enlarged political science of the age, and with the free institutions working with entire success and excellence in nearly every other State in the Union. He was a member of the Assembly in the years 1834-5-6-7, laboring zealously toward this end. With what chance of success in obtaining anything from the

The following anecdote is related of Mr. Dorr's childhood, which we insert as illustrative of the character which years have only served to mature. In his whole walk and aim of life, Mr. Dorr is no less just and generous, no less warm in his sympathy with the rights of humble and hard-toiling poverty, as a man, than he was as a boy. In the award of some prizes at a Sunday School, we believe, the master hesitated between two boys whose claims were so evenly balanced that he was at a loss to decide between them ;-the one was a rich man's son, and the other of a poor mechanic. "Give it to him," was the answer of the former boy, who was young Dorr; "he has the best right, as I have nothing else to do than to study as much as I please, while he has to work hard a good deal of his time beside."

voluntary concession of the dominant caste, may be judged from the fact that the highest vote he could get for an extension of the suffrage was seven. A few years before, the efforts of Mr. Dutee J. Pearce, in the same body, had obtained the votes of three. Mr. Dorr made an effort to organize a separate party for the promotion of the object in view, under the name of the Constitutional Party; but in the midst of the violent excitements of the general political contest of that period, it was impossible to maintain the cohesion of any distinct party organization; and he found himself after two or three years compelled to abandon it-though he continued unremitting in his own zeal and personal labors in the same cause. We need not repeat here the narrative of the recent effort, at the head of which he stood, in its public aspect. Mr. Dorr's individual part in it may be briefly related. Though he had long been the head and heart of the Suffrage Party in the State, yet so far was he from pushing himself forward for the post of distinction and honor under the constitution, as Governor, that he consented to accept it only after it had been offered in vain to several other of the prominent individuals of the party. And when he accepted it, it was with the mutual interchange of the pledge between himself and the leading members who pressed it upon him, that they should faithfully in all events stand by each other, and the principle and cause to which they committed themselves. That pledge has been as honorably redeemed on the one side, by Mr. Dorr, as it has been shamefully broken and betraved on the other.

The ground on which he stood in that capacity should be distinctly understood by all who would pass a judgment on his conduct. It was this:

1. He assumed the right of the people, as a fundamental principle of American political law, to establish a constitution for their own self-government, in the mode regulated by their own wise discretion, and without regard to the pleasure or displeasure of the authorities existing under the forms of government which it is proposed to su persede. If this principle is wrong, then almost every existing constitution of this Union ought to be re-writtenthe Declaration of Independence cancelled-and the Revolution itself rolled back again, to the point at which the

consent of the British Crown and the British Parliament might be obtained, to the initiatory steps for the organization of the new and independent government, which our fathers believed they had the right, as they had the determination, to establish. If this principle is wrong, then ought an expurgating pen to be passed through the writings of many of the most revered sages of political science, to whom we are wont to look for authority and guidance, including even some who have never been charged with too strong a leaning to popular ideas and sympathies-such as a Marshall, a Jay, a Wilson, a Jefferson, a Madison, a Rawle; and even from all future impressions of the Farewell Address of the Father of his Country, ought to be erased such a heresy as this, that "the basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and alter their constitution of government."

2. The constitution proposed to the people by a publicly and freely elected convention, was adopted by a large majority of the resident white male American citizens above the age of twenty-one. This fact was declared by the convention on the strength of the returns by the officers who conducted the voting, accompanied by the original ballots, with the names of the voters inscribed. The Charter Legislature was invited to investigate the genuineness and truth of this expression of the will of the people; which they refused to do, on the ground of the illegality of the whole proceeding-that is to say, because it was a spontaneous movement of the people themselves, and not founded on the authority of the Charter government. Mr. Dorr and the Suffrage Party, therefore, having fairly satisfied themselves of this fundamental fact of the popular majority, having offered to the other party the means of scrutiny into its genuineness, and being repulsed on the ground of the denial of the principle of their movement-the principle above stated-assumed, most rightfully, that the constitution was now the true fundamental organic law of the State; abrogating and superseding the old charter, which rested on no other sovereignty than that by which it was originally granted, which had been confirmed in no other mode by the people of Rhode Island than by passive submission.

3. The election prescribed by this constitution for the first organization of its machinery having been held, and Mr. Dorr having been elected Governor, he regarded himself, as most unanswerably he was, by perfect right, and the highest legitimacy, as the Governor of the State-bound by his oath, and by the most sacred of duties to a people and to a principle, to uphold the constitution, and to carry it into practical operation. The Constitutional Legislature which assembled on the third day of May, adjourned, after taking the proper initiatory steps to organize the new government, leaving on the Executive the responsibility and duty of sustaining it against all attacks that might be directed against it.

Such was the ground on which he stood. A great principle-a noble cause -himself a brave and resolute man, though at the same time mild, amiable, and humane; but the people of Rhode Island proved themselves unworthy of their principle, their cause and their leader. They have allowed themselves to be cowed and prostrated and bullied into submission, by the energy, activity, and resources of the minority in possession of the acting machinery of the old government, aided by the moral influence of the promised intervention of the Federal Government. Their leader has been at his post. He has twice summoned them to be true to themselves and to him. Though deserted by them, at the moment of crisis, on the first occasion, and overpowered by a combination of circumstances, he did not abandon their cause, but withdrew to organize other preparations for another attempt. He again afforded them a second opportunity, again raising the standard of the constitution, and summoning them to rally around it. They again proved faithless to it and to him. Full half of those who called the constitution into living being by their votes, ought to have gone up, armed or unarmed, to that call. They did not come and he had no greater reliable force at Chepachet than about 300 men, against whom a well-armed and supplied force of ten times their number were advancing, confident in their own strength, and in the manifest weakness and disorganization of their enemy. Thus situated, Governor Dorr had done all his duty. The people interested led in theirs. To engage in a battle

of desperation-to sacrifice the gallant few who might be willing to stand by him to that extremity, and to shed the blood of an equal number of their assailants—would have been as wicked as insane. He therefore, as any honorable, brave, and conscientious man must have done, dismissed them and withdrew again. The future course he may contemplate we have, at the date of this article, no means of knowing; but have no hesitation in declaring our confidence that it will exhibit nothing inconsistent with the simply true and just view of his character we have here presented. Perhaps (though it might by many be deemed an act of Quixotic heroism) he may be restrained from going back in person to Providence only by the martial law still most shamefully prevailing there, and the probability he would encounter of personal outrage, even if not of murder. Perhaps he may yet contemplate an appeal to the next Congress, to test the comparative legality of the two governments, the de facto government within the State, and the de jure government in exile from it. From the firmness and perseverance by which he is in a remarkable manner characterized, we should not be surprised if such should prove his purpose-even though under the circumstances it could not now but be vain and futile. But wherever he may be, whatever he may meditate, we are abundantly confident that he will neither by act or word disgrace his own past honorable career, nor discredit the eulogy which a simple sense of justice renders not less freely to adversity and defeat, than it would have done to prosperity and triumph.

Mr. Dorr has undoubtedly committed some mistakes, which it is easy now to scan and criticize by the light of the event. But if he did not take possession of the public buildings on the 3d of May, it was because his own views were overruled by the leading members of the Legislature then assembled. If he went on to Washington to endeavor to relieve his party from the depressing moral influence exerted against them by the Federal Government, it was because he was so urged by his supporters, and requested by the vote of a large public meeting, that he felt compliance to be necessary in order to satisfy them and secure their support. And if he returned to

the abortive attempt at Chepachetthough contrary to the counsels of some of his best friends out of the State -it was because he received from great numbers of his friends within it, both by letter and by personal visits, assurances of preparation and resolution, on the part of the people, which the result has proved utterly deceptive. If he has overrated the spirit of his own party and underrated that of his opponents, it is a mistake of judgment for which he has to pay in failure. His motives, however, have been as pure and high as his cause has been just and righteous; and for the devoted selfsacrifice with which he has given himself to it, at the cost of every personal interest and association of his ownpersevering in opposition to the strongest family influences, and in contempt of munificent offers made to induce him to withdraw from the State-he deserves, as he will not fail to receive, the gratitude of the people of his own State and the admiration of those of every other. And whatever measure of extension of suffrage Rhode Island is now about to receive as a boon from the sovereign grace of her rulers, in

stead of taking it by her own voluntary action, as her just and natural right, she will owe to him. For without him and what he has done, even this imperfect and deceptive concession involved in the late call of a Convention by the Charter Assembly would never have been obtained.

One other event in Mr. Dorr's political life claims a brief allusion. When a member of the Assembly in 1836, he introduced and carried through a very important bill of bank reform, which so far curtailed the powers of those institutions-especially the right of priority they before enjoyed in the collection of their debts over other creditors—that it made him an object of great outcry and odium on the part of the managers and special friends of those institutions. A year, however, had scarcely elapsed before the good effects of the measure were realized by the experience of 1837, when nearly the whole mass of property in the State would have passed at once into their hands, but for the operation of this law, for which he was then well repaid by a general sentiment of public gratitude.

CLAY IN THE FIELD AGAIN!

YES, and we are right glad of it. We hate ingratitude-we despise meanness-we scorn trickery-and these things are scarcely less disagreeable and offensive when we meet them in foe than in friend. In proportion, therefore, to the disgust with which we witnessed Mr. Clay's treatment by his party, at the time of their last Presidential nomination, is the gratification-ves, sincerely and truly, the real gratification-with which we now witness the more grateful justice which they do to him, the better credit they do to themselves, in again adopting him as their candidate and their chief. He is the best stone they have got, and though their builders and cunning architects rejected him before, they are now fain to pick him up again, in the hope, zealous however vain, of success in the object of making him the key of the corner.

Clay is a fine fellow, and our Whig readers, and those who do not and will

not read us because they are Whigs, are welcome to all the benefit of the admission. We have always had a considerable penchant to coquet a little with Clay. He is so bold, he is so brave, and in the political mêlée he rides thundering along at the head of his host, in the van of the strife, so gallantly, and with so "haught a crest." Like the panache of Henry IV., wherever the fight is hottest and the blows heaviest, there streams its white flutter as the signal to his friends of the point of pressure, and the direction to which they should follow. He is a man, every inch of him-worth fighting, worth beating. And when we hear and see in all directions the evidence of Clay in the Field Again, we repeat, as heartily as any of his own friends, that we are right glad of it!

"Give us light!" was the prayer of Ajax. Let us but see our foe, and not be compelled, while ourselves the aim of a thousand shafts, to deal about us,

abandon all idea of its repetition. We shall hear no more of consciencekeeping committees. There will be no refusals to answer for fear of selfcrimination, when bold Harry Clay is under examination before the country. His hand will be spread out fair and open, and there will be no "knave" in reserve, hid under his sleeve. He will sail under no false colors, but, nailing his true and long-borne flag to his mast, he will point manfully to the inscription on it, under which he will sink or swim-" A National BankLand Distribution—and the Highest Tariff that can be got!"

We hope that Mr. Clay will not refuse himself to the wishes of his friends. It may, indeed, be unkind of them-cruel-unmerciful-so soon after he has at last attained that haven of repose for which, as he has often assured the Senate and the country, he has so long been sighing, to force him forth again from the cool "shades of Ashland," to mingle again in the midst of the hot and dusty din of politics. It may be a hard and reluctant sacrifice of all his plans and desires, just at the very moment of first fruition, to yield to this unexpected, this unwelcome call from his party. Yet we appeal, and we are sure the appeal will not be in vain, to Mr. Clay's patriotism not to shrink from this sacrifice. In the name of both of the two great parties we call upon him for his consent to run again as a Presidential candidate

in the dark, wild and random blows, which encounter no palpable and vulnerable enemy on whom to tell. So it was with us during the last Presidential contest. Laying aside their own proper and veteran leader, who was himself something, and whose name meant something, they seemed by the act almost expressly to disclaim responsibility as a party for the positive and tangible principles and plans of which he might be taken as the representative. They took up candidates whose "availability" consisted chiefly in the fact that they were not thus identified with any one distinct set of political opinions, the fact to which their success was mainly due. It was in vain that we might argue against a national bank, and impute to them the design of reviving the dead policy of such an institution,-in a section of the Union possessing a climate uncongenial to that idea, we are met by vehement protestations that the imputation is a falsehood and a calumny; as it was declared by no less eminent a person than General Harrison's Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Badger, in a public address to a State Convention in North Carolina. It was in vain that we might impute to them a probability of the revival of a high-tariff policy, when their candidate for the Vice-Presidency was a man who had stood next door to Mr.Calhoun himself in the day of Nullification. How could even the charge of an intended distribution of the proceeds of the public lands be sustained in all parts of the country, in the face of Harrison's letter, pledging himself emphatically against a disturbance of the Compromise Act?-evident as it was that without the revenue derived from that source the rate of duties of that act could not support the government; so that the promised maintenance of that measure necessarily involved the retention of the land fund. And where could we lay our fingers on the real responsible opinions of a party, which at the south, and at particular quarters of the north, was able to exhibit the most satisfactory evi- In his present position Mr. Clay dences of diametrically opposite sen- reaps at least a full and fine triumph timents on such a subject as that of over his party, by which he was so Abolition? But now all this is shamefully treated in the last election changed. They have reaped the bit--even though that may be all he will ter fruits of the former policy, as developed by time and Providence out of its very success; and they wisely

for the sake of the Whigs, as the easiest candidate for them to rally under again-for our own sake, as the easiest to beat. When Mr. Pickwick fell through the ice, he kindly yielded to Mr. Winkle's entreaties, who, without venturing from the shore to his aid, implored him to keep himself up "for his sake." We must frankly confess that we do not intend to help him much, yet we can conscientiously assure Mr. Clay that we are truly anxious that he should be the Whig candidate in the coming campaign, for our sake, if not for his own.

reap from his present nomination. The prodigal children have returned home, with tears of repentance-the deserters

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