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The Garland Forgery

The Garland Forgery image
Parent Issue
Day
23
Month
December
Year
1844
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The Detroit Liberty Committee notices in the Detroit Advertiser of 16th inst. nn article purporting to reply to the Committees' statement of facts respecting this forgery. The statement was made in compliance with the Advertiser's own repeated demand for investigation. It was courteous n language and respectful in style, and waspolitely sent for publicalion to the paper which had courted the investigation. Refused there, it was then published in the Signal of Liberty, and thenoe copied into the Free Press of the Editor's own free will, without suggestion of the Committee or any member, and as an avowed reprint.With untruth palpable ns discourtesy gross, the Advertiser calis the statement "Mr. Stewart's expose," and mentions the .committee throughout but as "Mr. Stewart's Committee." It alsoaversthat "the exposé is at length published in the appropriate and congenial columns of the Free Press," wholly omitting to inform the Public that the insertion was an avowed copy and that it was first printed in the Committee's proper orgañ. Un thecontrary, it leaves its readers to draw the unavoidable infereïice, that the committee lias used the Free Press, and it only, as its organ. This unfair abuse of public confidence, and the facilities of the Pres is evidently for the purpose of keeping alive Whig prejudices against the Liberty party, by a continued rhangingof "the coalüion," so echoed during the late contest, and which had for its only basis just such suppression of truth as is now again manifested. The committee much mistakes the intelligence and feeling of its fellow citizens, i f a signal rebuke does not await all interpositions between the people and truth, Avhether arising from actual misstatement of fact - or from its twin brother - suppression.The puerilcjibe of the Committee's being under the control of any member, is too insignifïcant for notice. It shows enough of bad temper - bad taste - and bad cause - to win for for its hapless users but public pity. The committee will not aggravate the punishment inflicted by such exciting tormentors. Nor-would the Committee deern this or any part of the Advertiser's article deserving even this passing notice, didMt not feel that explanation is due to a passage in its own statement, not expressed with sufficient accuracy and fullness. - The passage is this:"We believe the Detroit Advertiser or leading whigs can, if they please, name its actual parents. It iscertain that they - and so far as is known, they only have made enquiry into the fact. Will they disclose the result and all they know?" Instead of answering this simple question, the Advertiser pounces upon the mode of expression, and avoids the issue by alledging "that the Birney men have done nothing" to ferret out the forgery,- that the Whigs have - and calis upon "the public to judge, who is most likely to be found in fault in the end," and then - vouchsafes not another word. The Editors of the Advertiser are lawyers, and to them this quibbleupon words, in avoidance of an ugly answer to an awkward question, may be convenient and professional. But a plain citizen is not used to the deal ing of law Courts. He expects a manly answer to a plain question.That the Birney men have done nothng is falsified by the very statement ommented upon. The Mass of important acts there collected, shows industrious in'estigation, and materially narrows the question of authorship. But there was a limit to enquiry impossible to the committee. lts members never saw the orignal forgery - never received it- never heard of it, lili it became public. They could not therefore trace the matter to its source. But they did not track it up Channel for a certain distance: there they found the Advertiser in the middle of this channel, blocking up the road to further enquiry, they showed the document in the hands of the Advertiser, and there it may rest as long as suits the Advertiser's taste. If it prefers the odium of silence to an honest avowal, it is not for the committee to quarrel with its unenviable task. Ih this silence, however,was a barrier impassible by the committee. The Advertiser enjoyéd all the advantage6 of enquiry denied to the Committce. It saw: it ho34:-4t handled: it used the document.- The type, the execution, and the paper of the forgery were before its eyes, It knew how it got the forgery: the person from whom - and the place whoro it was delivered. To trace it to lts fountain were easy. Nay it, or its friends actiially sent Mr. Smart to Pontiac on the subject. Says the Advertiser's "private and confidential" letter to the Boston Atlas, and which "private end confidential" communication the general reprobation of unprincipled forgery obliged the Atlas to publnh to the worló.- "A gentleman hae been dispatched north,to nscertain thefacts, if possible." Long before the Committee saw this letter, thcy had charged the fact, that the inquiry alluded to had been made. It was in referenceto this enquiry that the Irnguape, which has been quibbled oveT, was used. The two passages in the Commitiecs statement, i. e. the one in refcrcncc to Mr. Stewarte enquiry -umi that which a'leclgea that lbo whigsalone had made certain enquiñes - should be taken in connection: they refer to one and the same matter. The lalter passage means thus: that tiie whigs alone, l.aving the power (o make certain enquiñes, dkl niake them!- not that thf y alone (os etated by the Advertiser) made all the enquiñes, and the Liberty men none. Indeed it was obvious by the very statement itseif that the Committee had inade diligent and fruitful enquiry: and it was also notorious thnt Mr. Biiney was engaged in a similar efibrt. That the Committee did not expresa this meaning in clear, and technical language of special plending precisión and adequate to the test of every bair splitting but prying crilicism, must be attribuled to two tacts - the incompetence or garelessness of the committee - and that it. wrote for the honest sense of a candid people, and not for the Court or pettifogger.

Article

Subjects
Signal of Liberty
Old News