22 February 1856
COMMUNICATED.
To the Editor of the Alexandria Gazette:
In your paper today, I find the following item of news: "An attempt was made last week, in the House of Representatives, to elect a chaplain, but without success. Various candidates for the office were proposed, and among them Mr. Jones, of Tennessee, nominated Elder Robert C. Leachman, of Prince William county, Va., who, he said, was a hard shell Baptist in religion, and a Democrat in politics."Lest it should be supposed by my friends abroad, that I was among the flock of hungry cormorants that have been hanging about the Capitol and haunting the members at their lodgings, since the first Monday in December, I desire to say, that I was no candidate for the office, and that the nomination was made without my consent or knowledge. I desire to say, farther, that if elected I would not serve, for the reason, first, that Congress has no constitutional authority for creating such an office, and, of course, none for robbing the people's treasury to support it. 2d, I could not be induced to leave the flock of God, over which the Holy Ghost has made me overseer, and hire myself out, Balaam like, to divine for money. I look upon the whole thing as a desecration of the ministerial office, a shameful and unlawful waste of the people's money, and a capital burlesque upon religion, as taught in the Bible; and if Congress design perpetuating such sacrilege and extravagance, they will have to employ some other agent than me. I cast no reflections upon friend Jones, who put me in nomination, knowing, as I do, that he is as much opposed to the whole system as
ROBERT C. LEACHMAN
Bristoe, Pr. Wm. Co., Va., Feb. 19, 1856
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