To the freeholders of Louisa County
[Signed William Shelton, March 3d, 1808.]
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To the Freeholders of Louisa County.
AT a time when Virginia has nothing left her but the name of a republic, and her citizens nothing but the shadow of liberty, I come forward, fellow citizens, to assist, with your approbation, in redressing the grievances of the people, and restoring them, once more, to their lost liberty and happiness.
A few years ago, you were possessed of the unlimited enjoyment of every blessing which could flow from a government instituted for the good of man, and not the emolument of those who rule us. Since that period, we have been receding from our liberty, with a rapidity, unexampled in the annals of any free nation. The republicks of Greece and Rome, among the ancients, and those of England, Holland and France, among the moderns, after having maintained their liberties and glory for many years, submitted to a despotism more grievous than the first. Virginia is a component part of the only republic, of which the world can boast, and in which liberty is left an assylum. It is now necessary for you to determine whether your country, the last refuge of liberty, so lately rescued from British tyranny by the patriotsm of your fathers, shall fall a sacrifice to domestic traitors, and offer one more additional proof of the assertion of despots, that a republic is incapable either of protecting its citizens, or of a long duration.
The great apostle of liberty who now presides over the union, predicted many years ago, that the people of his native state would be reduced to their present deplorable situation. He then said, "our rulers will become corrupt, and our people careless. From the conclusion of this war, we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support; they will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. The shackles which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of the war, will remain on us long; will be made heavier and heavier till our rights revive or expire in a convulsion."* Those who were intrusted with the guardianship of our country and the preservation of our liberties, have conspired together to devise schemes to defraud us of our property, distress us with taxes and other burthensome impositions, and usurp to themselves all sovereign power and dominion. The great body of the people have been sacrificed in their liberty and property, to promote the power and wealth of an aristocracy which has been reared up on the ruins of those GREAT RIGHTS, for the achievement of which, your revolutionary ancestors expended so much blood and treasure.
The great causes which have brought upon us the evils and oppressions under which we labor, are the defects of our state constitution, the depravity and corruption of the leaders of our state legislature, the banking system unequal and partial taxation, the iniquity and bad policy of our laws, princely revenues & salaries attached to trifling offices, and the fraudulent administration of justice in some of our courts.
All political writers have declared that liberty cannot be long preserved in any government unless the legislative, executive and judicial functions be confided to separate bodies of magistracy, who shall not exercise the powers of more than one department at the same time. The constitution itself admits this great truth, but is deficient in not having provided a barrier between these several powers. The government which unites in the same hands any two of these powers, is declared to be despotic, and to possess less liberty than even a monarchy.† We have officers holding judicial commissions, exercising extensive judicial powers and deciding most of the cases in law and equity which can arise in our state, who, notwithstanding, are eligible to the legislature, where they not only do all the business of legislation, but elect all the executive officers of state, and fill up all vacancies that occur in any branch of the government: by which means, they unite in their own hands, the power of making laws, the power of judging them and the power of executing them. The concentration of these three powers in the hands of the same set of men is the definition of despotism.‡ The experience of all ages proves that the most virtuous men are prone to abuse power when they possess it too much or too long. If the people then have been injured by the exercise of the powers which they granted to their rulers for their safety, the fault is rather in the constitution itself than in those who administer the government; for any other men, if they were possessed of the same arbitrary powers, would make the same arbitrary use of it which our present rulers have done. We need not then be surprised that all our laws are calculated to enrich and aggrandize a few at the expence of the many, and have been made an engine of fraud and oppression, instead of justice and protection.
Our constitution is capitally defective in violating the right of suffrage, held sacred in every other state which retains its liberty, and in prostrating the only principle by which a republic can possibly subsist; that the will of the majority should rule the whole.--All the lower counties are small, the upper counties are large and populous. Yet a lower county having but one hundred voters, sc?as delegates to the assembly as an upper county does possessing a thousand. Whereby, one hundred citizens residing in one part of the state have as much influence in the government as a thousand have in another.
But there is a large portion of our citizens who pay taxes and bear arms in defence of their country who are excluded from any share in the government. Upon the whole, I believe I should be pretty correct in saying that one third of the inhabitants of Virginia give laws to all the rest. Hence, the laws have been made to answer the purposes of a growing aristocracy, who are acquiring princely fortunes by the ruin of the people. The constitution was intended to prescribe bounds to the authority of our rulers, and protect the people against the inc?oachments of power. But this principle has been strangely perverted. It has been converted into the use of binding the people fast in slavery and protecting the frauds and usurpations practised upon us by the bank and all the hoard of oppressors. When the public voice called for a convention to reform the constitution, correct abuses, heal the wounds of liberty and restore her blessings to the people, those who have excluded the people from their just influence in the government and almost from any share of liberty property, refuse to give up the exorbitant power which they have got by fraud, and are determined to rule the people CONTRARY TO THEIR WILL. They tell us that the constitution needs to amendment; that, even if it has defects, it would be rash to give up a certainty for an uncertainty; that it carried us through the revolutionary war, and has conducted us so far on in the road to happiness. I ask what kind of a certainty it is, they would advise us not to give up? It is not the certainty of equal rights equally protected by the laws, nor equal taxation and representation. It is the certainty of keeping our masters, riveting the chains of slavery and bending your necks to the galling yoke of an unfeeling aristocracy. I prefer any kind of uncertainty to a constitution which is certainly conducting us to the loss of our liberties, and reducing us once more to the wretched condition of other nations. I perfer the uncertainty which would certainly terminate in the triumph of liberty and prostration of tyranny. This is what they dread, and what, under specions pretences, they seek so much to avoid. But it was not the constitution that carried us through the war. It was the spirit of liberty, the spirit of the people and the patriotism of their public servants that obtained such glorious triumphs for liberty and gave victory and independence to America. What if the constitution has performed all the mighty deeds which are unjustly ascribed to it? If it be entitled to the credit of delivering us from a foreign yoke and a foreign master, it has subjected us to a domestic yoke, much more grievous, and to thousands of masters instead of one.--Some admit the constitution to be materially defective, but oppose the calling of a convention on the pretence, that no time is suitable for carrying it into execution. The fact is, that no time suits them for parting with their exorbitant and oppressive power. They know, that the moment a convention is called, their power will be clipt, and the people restored to their rights. The constitution is the real source from which all our evils have flowed. Let us cut it down, lop off the luxuriant branches of tyranny which have grown from it, and build up a new one, founded on the eternal sacred RIGHTS OF MAN.
The collected wisdom of the United States, {Omitted text, 2w} employed in framing the federal constitution, which nevertheless, was found so defective, that it has received various and important amendments at different periods. But the constitution of Virginia, made at a time of public danger and distress, by the ordinary legislature, of little experience in making constitutions, done too in the greatest precipitation, has been found so perfect a model of government that its friends could never find any room for improvement!! The various amendments made to the federal constitution have produced no danger or disturbance; but the greatest public benefits have been the result. Why is there so much dread entertained at the prospect of amending the state constitution? The people do not fear it, for they know that no change can make it worse. It is dreaded by those only who are fearful that the people will be restored to their rights, and themselves reduced to the condition of other citizens.
The iniquity & bad policy of our laws is another great source of ruin & oppression. Most of our laws are made for the sole purpose of making a few men rich at the expence of the community. The interest of the great body of the people is seldom or never consulted. I do not mean to impugn the motives of the principal part of our representatives; but much I fear, that the leading men, who consult the good of individuals more than they do the public good, have led the assembly into the passage of laws, fatal to our liberty, & destructive to our property. The limits of this address will not permit me to mention more than one of these. The law which incorporated a banking company, I shall select as an example. This was a scheme of speculation and fraud, which it contrivers pretended was to increase the circulation of money, promote honest commerce and agriculture, enhance the price of our produce and property, and facilitate the payment of debts. But, alas! you too well know the sad reverse, and that you were deceived and your interests betrayed. I will venture to say that no Bank that ever was or ever will be established, can benefit any but those who own or have access to its coffers. They will make lordly estates, by depressing the price of every thing you have to sell. Before the Bank went into operation the people were free from debt, and in prosperous circumstances. Produce and property sold higher then than it had ever done before, or ever will again during the continuance of the Bank. While the people remained in these circumstances, there was nothing for lawyers, clerks and sheriffs to do. These were on the point of being reduced to the necessity of a more honest way of living, when the legislature, taking their case into consideration and them under its protection, and jealous, as it were, of the people's happiness, opened by this bold deep laid plot, a new and extensive field of speculation. The people calculating upon the same or greater prices for their produce, which the contrivers of the Bank induced them to expect, went on to purchase property at a high rate, and to improve their farms at a great expence. The property which they then purchased, will not sell now for half its cost, nor can they get half the price for their produce which they could then obtain.--The consequence is, that the people have been precipitated from the summit of prosperity to the deepest abyss of wretchedness and distress. Their property has been daily selling for but a small part of its value, and those who were so unlucky as to encumber their lands, are reduced to the sad necessity of turning themselves and their families out of doors, and {Omitted text, 1w} from the country whose liberty, they or their fathers once {Omitted text, 6w} behind.§ {Omitted text, 2w} men are called upon, not for the purpose of receiving their property, or retribution for their injuries, but to aid once more, in defending a country, which has deprived them of their rights, liberties and property, and all that could have interested them in its defence.
When the monied speculators and the children of the Bank shall have defrauded us of all our property, according to law, should there be a remnant of liberty left, what is to prevent them from also seizing on that? Some other insidious law could be made for that purpose. The federal conspiracy, during the administration of John Adams, foolishly thought to wrest the people's liberty from them by force. There is an arristocratic conspiracy in Virginia, who have learnt to be wise, from the federal disappointment. These know that a free people seldom lose their liberties suddenly or by open violence. Their minds and their morals must first be prepared for the change, and their slavery may be accomplished by fraud and treachery, when force would not succeed. A happy prosperous people are fit subjects for a free government only. Therefore, when it is contemplated to change a free government for a despotic one, the first step towards it is, to abase the conditions and corrupt the morals of the people. If the people be overwhelmed with ruin and wretchedness, and find no relief from their government, whose object is to enslave them, they sink under the load, and their liberties expire with the loss of their pro{Begin deleted text}s{End deleted text}per{Begin inserted text}
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The manner in which the bank operates most oppressively on us, is, that the country people, who are the main stay and support of the country, can obtain no credit there for small sums to pay their debts and give them a chance to dispose of their property, but speculators and sharpers can {Omitted text, 1w} from twenty to a hundred thousand {Omitted text, 1w} at common interest
* Jefferson's Notes on Virg. p 171-2.
† Montesq. sp. laws vol. 1.p. {Omitted text, 1w} --9, & Jefferson's Notes p. 126.
§ Nos patriam fugimus, et duleia linquimus area—Virgil.
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which they land out to distressed people at five or six per cent a month, or purchase up our property at their own price. The bank holds all the money; those only who have access there, can draw it out, and they deal it out to us upon the most advantageous terms to themselves. Before all the money was monopolized by the bank, we all had an equal chance to obtain it: but the case is far different now.--The greatest hardship is, that the people are compelled to be the means of their own destruction. The state owns one half of the bank shares; consequently the people are taxed to pay for them. Half of the money in the bank then belongs to the people. Yet they can obtain no credit there for their own money, which is drawn from them by taxes to furnish sharpers and shavers with the means of speculating on them. Of all villainous stratagems, contrived to defraud mankind of their rights, this is the most bare faced and odious. In order to bring into operation this grand scheme of fraud, our poor constitution was trampled under foot, for it expressly prohibits the assembly from granting exclusive rights and previleges to any man or set of men. If the Bank do not possess exclusive rights and previleges, I am ignorant of what is meant by these words. Our assembly, by pursuing such conduct as this, and making laws to suit individuals instead of their constituents, have become a public curse instead of a public good. If even a well constituted government, administered by virtuous men, has been considered in no better light than as a necessary evil, how great a grievance does the government become, when, instead of protecting the people in the enjoyment of their rights, it is perverted to their injury and oppression? The banking institution is incompatible with, and subversive of the principles of a real republic and congenial with the spirit of monarchies & aristocracies only, whose avowed principle is to make the people slaves to the king & nobility. Perhaps this is one of the expedients intended to transform our republic into an aristocracy.
The taxes fall upon the people in a very unequal and partial manner. The farmer and planter are almost exclusively burthened with the support of government. The wealthy share-holder pays no tax on his Bank Stock, although he issues paper and draws an interest on three times the amount of his capital. The man who employs a hundred thousand dollars in speculation or trade contributes nothing towards the support of the government which has shewn him so many and such great marks of its favour. Every citizen ought to pay in proportion to his income, no matter what his profession or trade might be. A celebrated writer says that "equality should be promoted in a republic by laying the duties on the rich, and affording ease to the poor." Whereby the taxes would fall upon the superfluities of the rich instead of the necessities of the poor.¶ Why should any particular species of property be exclusively subject to taxation? The poor farmer pays a tax on his land and the beasts of his plow, while other men possessing immense wealth, pay nothing, because they employ their money in other pursuits Why is the cultivator of the earth compelled to bear all the burthens of a government which affords him so little protection? Every other class of men live upon his labours; he is the most useful and necessary man in society, yet he is less encouraged, less protected, and his interest less considered than any other class of men. It would seem that the agricultural part of the people are considered as asses or other beasts of burthen created by providence to undergo all privations and support all hardships in the service of the rest of mankind. All the share which the poor people have in the government, is to bear the burthens, pay the taxes and obey their superiors. All places of honour, power and profit are claimed and occupied by the wealthy aristocracy, whilst the pretensions of a poor man, whatever might be his talents and integrity, would be treated with contempt. In a pure democratic government, talents and integrity alone, entitle their possessor to honor and preferment: but wealth and family connections constitute the high road to all places of power and profit in Virginia. From this it would appear that the God of nature has denied talents to those whom he has not given wealth, or that none but the wealthy are fit to be trusted with power. It is indeed doubtful whether the people owe any obedience to the government, under which they have no rights, and from which they experience nothing but fraud and injustice. Protection and obedience ought to go together, and the first should precede the last. But many of our laws are evidently made with a view to protect scoundrels in their wrongs, not the people in their rights.
Our taxes are not only unequally and partially imposed, but they are much too high. A great part of the money, after it is collected from the people, is retained by the sheriffs for the purposes of speculation; and in many instances it has been entirely lost to the public. A saving of nearly 300,000 dollars might be made from clerks fees alone. A thousand dollars would be sufficient compensation to a clerk for his services. Instead of which the clerks get a princely income of from three to five thousand dollars. It is computed that the clerks fees throughout the state are worth 330,000 dollars, and that 90,000 is enough to compensate all of them for their services. It would be well for the people to enquire why such princely revenues are attached to such paltry offices. I have only adduced this as one example to shew how the people's money is squandered away. There are thousands of ways by which they are impoverished and defrauded, which the limits of this address will not permit me to notice.
To aid in putting a stop to the encroachments of power, and arrest the progress of fraud and usurpation; to aid in obtaining a better constitution, better laws and better rulers to govern us, are the motives which have induced me to offer my services to you at the approaching election. These are the principles which animated our revolutionary fathers who fought under the banners and fell in the battles of liberty. If these principles be still dear to you as they were to your fathers, I trust you will assist me in restoring the GREAT RIGHTS for which they fought and bled, and which they left you as an inheritance. I shall endeavour to merit your confidence, and if you shall think proper to make me your public servant, YOUR WILL SHALL BE DONE.
WILLIAM SHELTON.
March 3d, 1808.
{Begin handwritten}Charles Attkifson Esquire{End handwritten}
{Begin handwritten}182/12{End handwritten}
¶ Montesq. sp. laws vol. 1. p. 55 & 56.
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