Editorial in the New York Evening Post

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Embargo.—The eight years of Mr. Jeffersons administration are about to expire. He came to the presidency, by affecting to rely upon the intelligence of the people. He endeavours to retain their good opinion, by keeping then in darkness! He affected to wish for what his friend Tom Paine would call an age of reasonpolitical reason, and he demands a blind confidence! Unable to justify his measures, he asks of the nation to be governed by an implicit faith in the propriety of an Act, which ruins many, and distresses all! “A republican government should have no secrets,” was once his doctrine. The people shall know nothing is now his practice. The miserable wretch who is led to the gibbet is permitted to know his crime—but the nation is to be led hoodwinked to its destruction. When the sufferers—the unhappy victims ask, and it is impossible for them to avoid asking, why is this vial of wrath poured upon us, “He is a Tory—under British influence”—”settle your accounts and be ruined” is the reply. Yes, it requires all the confidence—all the faith, of which a stupid party bigotry is capable to approve of this terrible desolation.—The justification of this dreadful butchery of the political body, requires indeed the sacrifice of all the pride, and all the liberty, and all the good sense of the nation.

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