November 1809
To the Honourable the Congress of the United states---
We the Delegates of the People, of the several settlements of the District East of Pearl river, in the Mississippi Territory, in Convention assembled, most humbly, and respectfully beg leave to approach you august body, with our earnest petitions in behalf of ourselves and of the good People of the said District.
That we should in this manner presume to address you, we hope you will find some apology in our situation.--Detached from all other American settlements, we cannot flatter ourselves, that our case is known to any member of the National Legislature: and the scattered state of our own settlements rendered it desirable that you should be made acquainted with the Public wants and feelings, by a Public body, chosen freely by the People.--As such We entreat you Honourable house to receive assurances of our homage for the Laws of our country, and our most solemn and earnest disavowal of every intention, or desire to set up, countenance, or support any claim to any of the Lands of this country but such as is acknowledged and confirmed by the Laws of the United States.
The Yazoo speculation is scarcely known among us. many of our People, it is true, have settled on Public Lands:--but they did it innocently.--They flocked in crowds to the country:--and when they came here,--Public Lands were not ready for sale, and there were few private tracts which they could procure.
They have Petitioned, and they now wait with humble expectation that they many be permitted to have a preference in purchasing the Lands which they have improved. And we humbly pray in their behalf, that the peculiar hardships of our situation may be taken into view:--that it may be recollected, that we are obliged as firmly and faithfully, as if we were Spanish Subjects, to pay taxes towards the support of the Spanish Government: and that such indulgence may be given to persons who have been, or who may become entitled to pre-emption rights, as will allow them a little time to recover from the effects of foreign oppression.
Representatives of the American People! We have Petitioned for a Government.--At present we have only the name of one. We know nothing of our Executive Officers:--we know nothing of our Delegates in Congress.--They know nothing of us. We covet not the honour of being a part of a State on the Mississippi.--A change of names will not bring us nearer to the seat of Government;--it will not bring our Public Officers nearer to us:--it will not give to the Mississippi Legislature any greater knowledge of us,--any greater sympathy with us,--any greater zeal for our security, for our interests, or for our rights.
The great principle on which we pray for a Division of the Mississippi Territory, presents itself to the mind, at the moment that the eye is turned towards a map of the United States.--Can any possible reason exist why a state should be created in this part of you dominions, so disproportioned in Size, to every other state on the American Continent?--Is the mind of man more vigorous,--is the human intellect more comprehensive in these southern climes,--that a perfect administration of government can be exercised over so immense a tract of county, when such minute divisions have been found expedient in the north?--A municipal Government (if we may use that term in contradistinction a federative Government whose concern is principally with foreign relations)--A municipal government to be wise, and effective,--to be really able to afford protection to property,--to preserve the peace, and keep the wicked in awe, must be circumscribed within moderate limits. Subordinate Officers, will be lax, and feeble in the discharge of their duty:--the Laws will be inoperative, and the people in their personal capacities, in defence of themselves and of their property, and to supply the defects of their Government, will be compelled to take the Law into their own hands, and under pretence, and probably with the real wish of regulating society, will in fact establish anarchy.
Even the Legislative body itself, will be enfeebled by the extent of Territory which it will represent.--Where a compact population exists; there will be something like common principles,--common feelings, and a common soul, directing and animating the choice of representatives, and eventually controuling and regulating the proceedings of the Legislative body. But where the Body politic is too widely extended,--where the constituent principles of power consist of distinct and insulated communities;--the Legislative Assembly,--the constituted body itself,--will partake of the weakness, and discordance of the elements out of which it is composed:--public justice,--the public good will be over looked in a contest for Local advantages:--public spirit will be frittered down into anxiety for some partial object, to which the struggles of a hamlet only have given a momentary importance, and the Legislature of the state, instead of the welfare of their country, are in danger of becoming a mere band of partizans, struggling, perhaps, for their personal emolument merely, but labouring at best for nothing more than some paltry advantage to their respective sections of the republic.
We have too much respect for our rulers, and for ourselves, to say that such is a picture of the Legislature of the Mississippi Territory:--but such we feelingly forbode must be a picture of a future of Legislature of the Mississippi State with its present territorial boundaries.
But it is not only future evils that we dread. We feel present grievances. We have frequent collisions with the Indians and Spaniards. We not only pay taxes to the Spanish Government, but our runaway negroes find protection under it. It would be unreasonable, indeed, to expect from a Governor residing on the Mississippi a steady and prompt attention to our interests, whilst he cannot know when they are violated, or an adequate protection against the arbitrary and oppressive conduct of foreign powers, holding provinces in our neighbourhood, or against the plundering spirit of the savages, or the artful machinations or daring outrages of the worthless & proscribed citizens of other states,--whilst the chief magistrate is remote from us, and unconnected with us, and a stranger to our sorrows, and of our sufferings.
There is a consideration which we believe to be of national importance, to which we beg leave to press the attention of your Honourable body:--it is the policy of fostering, and we would almost say, forcing the population of a country which opens a more extendedly exposed frontier than any part of the United States. Georgia on the east,--the Mississippi on the West, and Tenessee on the north, present a circuitous frontier, which would receive protection from a strong settlement between Georgia and the Mississippi;--and the natural consequence would be, that the Indian nations themselves, would be obliged to adopt civilized habits, or to abandon their country: and not a doubt can be entertained but that in a few Years, a chain of settlements extending thro the country, now an almost unexplored wilderness, would connect together the state of new-hampshire and the Territory of Orleans.
Representatives of America! Give us a Government of our own: and you will give us respectability; you will give us population: you will give us strength.--Nor ought we to leave out of our calculations the probability of our obtaining possession of West Florida, which is too poor, and too thinly Peopled, and too much broken into settlements totally unconnected with each other, to form a Territorial District by itself,--and would most inconveniently add to the extent of the projected state of Mississippi, already too unwieldy for the purposes of good Government. One half of West Florida naturally belongs t the District East of Pearl river, and can never conveniently be united with any other Territory.
A regard to the improvement of the Public finances, we humbly conceive strongly recommends an attention to our Petitions for a new Territorial District.--It would scarcely be believed in any other part of America, that the best Lands on the tide water within 40 miles of the bay of Mobile, can be purchased at the rate of Two dollars per acre: yet such is the truth, and such may we not say, is the natural consequence of the degraded situation of the Mobile county?--
And what will be the additional expence of a new Territorial Government?--Trifling indeed, when it is considered that a fourth Judge of the Mississippi Territory has been appointed for this district,--that a fifth must be appointed for the county of Madison, and 800 or a thousand dollars a year, are expended on a mail in Order to keep up an artificial connection between the Mobile and the Mississippi.
We fear that you Honourable body will too justly conceive, that we trespass too much upon your indulgence: but we trust that it will be some apology---that we are an unrepresented portion of the American nation.--In this way therefore we are compelled to make known to the National council, our grievances, and our wants: and we petition, we entreat, we pray that they may meet with your paternal attention, and that you will at once give us a Government adapted to our situation, and deliver us from the heavy burthen of foreign oppression.--We pay to the Spanish Monarchy, Twenty four per centum on our active capital.--We cultivate crops calculated for Exportation, and we import some of the main necessaries of life, as well as foreign manufactures.--We pay on what we sell, 12 percentum, and on the proceeds of our sales, another 12 percentum before we can bring them home. Hence we often pay for the flour of Kentucky and Pennsylvania, four times the price that is paid by our fellow citizens at Natchez,--but neither they, nor their delegate know any thing of this,--and it is to you, and not to them, that we look for relief.--Are we Americans or Spaniards!--No: you do not:--we will not believe it--we will not indulge the idea that you are aware that we pay taxes to an European Monarchy.--We have seen,--we have read,--we have admired,--we have been enraptured with your discussions, your discourses,--your reports,--your resolves,--all breathing the spirit of independence,--of patriotism, and of indignant scorn at foreign oppression;--and we will not believe that you will coolly, passively, and complacently look on, and see a member of the great American body politic, trampled in the dust!--It has been done,--and it is done:--but you do not know it.--and because you do not know it, even the tawny Indian himself, has thought his nation superior to the American Republic,--and the Creeks, and their Big warrior have felt themselves secure in interrupting, in seizing, in confiscating cargoes, peaceably and harmlessly proceedind from the people of Tennessee to your oppressed and suffering citizens on the Mobile.
--We do not ask for your relief:--for we know it will be granted. We confide in it,--we anticipate it,--we rejoice in its consequences, and even now we are thankful for it.
Court of Washington County, Nov 11th, 1809
Signed by:
John Johnston President of the Convshon
Jn Caller Representative from the Fork Settlement
Francis Stringer Represent of the St Stephens District
Wm McGrew Representative of Tallow District
Wm D Felps Representative of the Pasegola District