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T H E 
 
 RUIN OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 
 
 Reports of the Covode and other Committees. 
 
 The Missouri compact was a parole of honor 
 given by the. slave States to obtain an exten- 
 sion of the limits of the slave institution beyond 
 those originally assigned to it by the ordinan ■•.. 
 of 178? — the hpa\» arlnj-.tprl Koforo and under 
 the Constitution. The boundaries first and 
 last established were meant to confine that 
 fatal disease to all free institutions in a sort of 
 quarantine, to prevent its spread, so that the 
 sanitary principles, the growth of the Revolu- 
 tion, embodied in the Constitution of the con- 
 federated Republic, might gradually work out 
 its eradication. 
 
 The violation of that compromise was a re- 
 pudiation of the good faith which had marked all 
 previous mutual arrangements among the States 
 of the Confederacy. It renounced the honest 
 patriotism which was the cement of the Gov- 
 ernment, with the design of supplanting it by 
 those mercenary, self-arrogating principles, out 
 of which combinations grow, establishiug the 
 rule of the few over the many. 
 
 This great change in the morale of the Dem- 
 ocratic party was effected by Mr. Calhoun, who 
 contrived to make slavery its most influential 
 element, while he reversed its direction. Mr. 
 Jefferson's impulse gave a tendency towards a 
 gradual deliverance of the country from slavery, 
 as threatening the overthrow of all its free in- 
 stitutions — as pregnant with insurrections, civil 
 war, and ruin of republican government. Mr. 
 Calhoun controverts Jefferson's principles — de- 
 nounces as "folly and delusion'" his belief, once 
 almost universal in the South, that "slavery 
 was a fapral awl j'olitical evil" — and asserts, 
 " it *b the most safe and stable basis for free 
 in.it itui i ..•-- {n the world." 
 
 This new doctrine Mr. Calhonn has inculca- 
 ted successfully on those owning both the soil 
 and slaves in the South. The high prices of 
 the staples whetting avarice, and the monop- 
 oly of wealth, thus created, rousing the political 
 ambition in a sectional oligarchy arrogant in 
 controlling all the slave States by combination, 
 has resolved all the politics of that region into 
 Mr. Calhoun's one absorbing idea — the enslave- 
 ment of tho laboring masses, as essential to 
 
 their power and the safety of the governing 
 class. The octroi of the National Govern- 
 ment for many years has opened up new pros- 
 pects to them in conquests abroad, as conse- 
 quent on the triumph ot Hi. :. j ropKot'a prinri- 
 ples, and, like the followers of Mahomet, they 
 make the propagation of slavery a part of their 
 morale or religion, as well as the basis of what 
 they call free institutions. It is politic in them 
 to assume that to be true democracy which 
 transfers the sovereignty of the nation to a 
 combination of slaveholders, and slaveholding 
 to be moral, as performing a duty to God. 
 
 Long-indulged selfishness, looking through 
 tho distorted eyes of intense avarice and ambi- 
 tion, will not bear the sight of anything repug- 
 nant to its enjoyments. The political rights of 
 citizens, as well as the natural rights of man, 
 have no toleration from those who hold power 
 and are educated as oppressors. The lash, the 
 torture, the domestic prison-house, the horrible 
 piracy of the slave trade, conjoined with fili- 
 bustering upon feeble neighboring Republics, 
 to immolate and drive one tribe of victims from 
 their homes, to cram them with multitudes of a 
 still more helpless race, must all conspire to 
 maintain the slavery-extension system, crown 
 it with conquests, and make it flourish as a 
 growing empire, like that of the early Sultans. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun's insane ambition has inspired 
 his maddened followers to look towards this 
 sort of glory. He was certainly a man of auda- 
 cious intellect. He found our great Western 
 Republic under tho full headway of the revo- 
 lutionary forces impelling our free institutions, 
 " on the full tide of successful experiment." The 
 land of the free was inscribed on its flag. He 
 had the hardihood, on getting command at the 
 helm, to reverse the machinery, and dash back- 
 ward on the danger from which we had es- 
 caped ; and he hoisted the black flag, when all 
 civilized nations had declared themselves its 
 enemy. Our country has felt a revulsion on 
 being thrown back in its course, but it will not 
 suffer from the shock more than the giant ship, 
 the Great Eastern, from a sudden reverse of its 
 engines. It will soon resume its easy forward 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE. PRICK $1.60 PER HUNDRED. 
 
movement, under the direction of that power, 
 the popular will, which the interest and intelli- 
 gence of all contribute to enforce and make 
 authoritative. 
 
 No man was more highly gifted than Mr. 
 Calhoun to disturb the regular action of free 
 government. His mind was a sort of perpetual 
 motion, driving skilfully, and always against 
 the natural tendency of the masses. At one 
 time, his ambition addressed itself to command 
 the influence of the wealthy classes of the 
 North. It was then he employed the pen of 
 his friend, Mr. McDuffie, to give his high-toned 
 aristocratic doctrine in his essays, signed " One 
 of the People." Then he was for a bank and 
 high protective tariff. Then, through the in- 
 fluence and on the motion of Mr. McDuffie, the 
 Legislature passed its self-denying ordinance, 
 declaring, that although protective duties were 
 mischievous to the South, yet,. as they promoted 
 the general welfare in creating manufactures, 
 its patriotism would bear the local burden. 
 The North did not rown.nl tbia dishuerested- 
 ness by making Mr. Calhoun President, and 
 then suddenly the tariff was denounced by him 
 and his friends as a flagrant breach of the 
 Constitution, and Mr. Preston put forth the 
 nullification manifesto, a paper prepared by Mr. 
 Calhoun with the most elaborate skill. Then 
 followed the rally of the Southern delegations 
 in Congress at the Jefferson birthday dinner, 
 1830, to band them together for secession, when 
 President Jackson, who was invited to counte- 
 nance it, covered the conspirators with dismay 
 by the stern rebuke, which silenced the hilarity 
 of the table, " The Federal Union, it must 
 
 BE PRESERVED." 
 
 Next came the nullification ordinance of 
 South Carolina, closely followed up by the 
 proclamation and the force bill of Gen. Jack- 
 son, from which Mr. Calhoun and his chiefs 
 escaped, deserting their military array, and 
 surrendering to Mr. Clay. They submitted to 
 Mr. Clay's scheme of a tariff, as a salvo for the 
 Constitution and their pride, though more ob- 
 noxious to the principle they asserted than 
 that they proposed to resist by arms. 
 
 This terminated the war against the Union 
 on the pretext of the tariff; but Mr. Calhoun 
 kept up his war upon the Jackson administra- 
 tion under the banners of the Bank, while in- 
 sidiously preparing a more extensive combina- 
 tion to broach secession on the part of the 
 South by creating alarm for the safety of its 
 filave institution. No serious alarm could be 
 produced •, and although the irritating discus- 
 sions between the nullifiers and abolitionits in 
 Congress resulted in exciting bad feeling on ! 
 the part of the slave towards the free States, 
 no apprehension of aggression from the latter 
 could even be dissembled sufficiently to coun- 
 tenance another secession attempt. Mr. Cal 
 houn then changed his tactics, and looked to 
 aggression on the part of the South, stimulated 
 by the ambition of extending the power of its 
 
 1 
 
 institution, at the risk of collision and a breach 
 between the States. His design was assisted 
 by the defeat of Mr. Van Buren, the death of 
 Gen. Harrison, and the accession of Mr. Tyler 
 to the Presidency. Tyler was (me of the ear- 
 liest proselytes to nullification, and was classed 
 by Col. Benton among " Calhoun's Mormons." 
 On becoming Premier in Tyler's Administra- 
 tion, Calhoun became, dejuctn, President, and 
 made conquests for slavery the main purpose 
 of the Administration. 
 
 To produce combinations in favor of this 
 policy at home, his first step was to provoke 
 hostility to it abroad. He hunted up from the 
 files of the State Department an old letter of 
 Lord Aberdeen, saying something deprecating 
 the perpetuation of slavery, and he responded 
 by proclaiming the purpose of annexing Texas, 
 to give a fresh impetus to the march of slave- 
 ry. He addressed another letter to our Minis- 
 ter to France, (Mr. King, of Alabama,) avow- 
 ing the same design, to extort from that Power 
 some expression of repugnance to what he 
 knew its policy condemned. He then pushed 
 his treaty of Texan annexation into the Son- 
 ate, where it was rejected. Next, he made 
 annexation, by a bare resolution of Congress, 
 the subject of violent controversy in both 
 Houses, threatening disruption, and carried 
 it, after it was on the eve of defeat, by inducing 
 Mr. Polk, the President elect, to practice a 
 fraud on Benton and his friends, who had vo- 
 ted down the treaty, and meant to vote down 
 the resolution. The trick was thus compassed. 
 Polk pledged himself, that if Benton's [dan of 
 annexing Texas on certain conditions guard- 
 ing against the dangers of Calhoun's scheme 
 were added as an alternative to the latter, in 
 the execution of it, by the incoming President, 
 Benton's would be adopted and carried out. 
 The annexation was voted in this alternative 
 form, and Polk, who on the next day was 
 sworn in as President, violated his solemn 
 pledges, without a pretence of denial, and gave 
 effect to Calhoun The absolute sub- 
 
 serviency of Mr. Polk to Mr. Calhoun's policy 
 had been secured in advance of his elec- 
 tion. 
 
 By broaching suddenly the extension of sla- 
 very as a test question iu the nominating Con- 
 vention of the Democracy. 1 8 1 1 ; (the delegates 
 to which had been almost universally instruct- 
 ed to vote for Mr. Van Buren.) the Southern 
 members were combined, to exact a pledge 
 from him to annex Texas with that \\orr. Mr. 
 Van Buren declined, iu a letter, to adopt the 
 course prescribed, or to annex Texas without 
 reachinir it through diplomacy. This answer 
 accomplished Mr. Calhoun's design agsinBl 
 him, embodied the whole Southern delegation 
 in opposition; and this rendering his election 
 impossible, the body appointed to nominate 
 him, v : wed. Looking to this result, Mr. Cal- 
 houn, u- ih • head of Tyler's Administration, 
 had convoked a Convention gotten up by his 
 
office-holders in the different States, to meet at 
 Baltimore on the same day with the Demo- 
 cratic Convention. While, therefore, Mr. Pick- 
 ens and others of Mr. Calhoun's South Caro- 
 lina friends attended the latter, laying their 
 credentials on the table, to vote, if necessary, 
 the Tyler Convention nominated him for re- 
 election, with a view to control the nomination 
 of the Democracy. If it nomiuated any man 
 hostile to Texas and slavery extension, the 
 Democratic Southern delegates were ready to 
 declare against him, and go for Tyler, making 
 a Democratic defeat inevitable. In this state 
 of thiugs, Polk, who had declared himself for an- 
 nexation, supplanted Van Buren ; and Calhoun, 
 holding Tyler as his automaton candidate in 
 hand, was enabled to make his own bargain 
 with Polk, who was given to understand, that 
 Tyler, who would receive the vote of Calhoun's 
 party in the South, and transfer several States 
 to the Whigs, would decline in his favor, if he 
 would commit himself, secretly, to Mr. Cat 
 houn's whole eckemo of elavery extension. 
 Polk yielded ; and it was expressly but confi- 
 dentially stipulated by him, with Mr. Pickens, 
 that he (Polk) would disarm the organ estab- 
 lished by General Jackson to maintain his 
 policy, and set up one favorable to Mr. Cal- 
 houn's designs, which thenceforward became 
 common to both. The consequences began 
 immediately to reveal themselves. Tyler re- 
 signed, in i; Lvor of Polk. In advance of the 
 election, he furtively withdrew fifty thousand 
 dollars from the Treasury, and put it at the 
 disposal of prominent personages, who were in 
 the schema, to provide a new organ. Mr. Bu- 
 chanan, who was in the secret, wrote a letter 
 to Mr. Bibb, (Mr. Calhoun's accomplice for 
 years, and through his influence made Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury,] recommending the agent 
 who received the money. Mr. Polk's perfidy 
 to Colonel Benton in violating the pledge to 
 adopt his mode of annexing Texas, providing 
 preliminary conditions, was the first public 
 signal of revolt from the Democracy, and ad- 
 hesion to the iiulufiers. The next was his re- 
 fusal to appoint Flagg to the Treasury, (to 
 which he had pledged himself to General Jack- 
 son,) followed by the induction of Walker, to 
 devote its resources to the extension of slavery. 
 Then the withdrawal from Mr. Butler, of New 
 York, the overture he had made of the War 
 Department, as soon as he declared his willing- 
 ness to accept it, giving the place to Marcy, 
 the opponent of Van Buren and Wright, to 
 whose support he owed the Presidency. Soon 
 after this i .ime the repudiation of the Globe, 
 the installation of Ritchie, with Hunter, Mason, 
 and all the reBt of Tyler's and Calhoun's Vir- 
 ginia junto, drawing after them all who had 
 given evidence of alienation from the Democ- 
 racy during the Jackson and Van Buren ad- 
 ministrations. In the North, the same confi- 
 dence in malcontents prevailed. In Massa- 
 chusetts, ttie Greens, of the Fost, and Cushiug, 
 
 of Tyler corporal's guard, ruled the hour. In 
 New York, the Hunkers. In Pennsylvania, 
 Buchanan, as Premier in the Cabinet, stamp- 
 ed his sinister and oblique look on all the aims 
 of the party. In Missouri, Atchison, who ob- 
 tained his seat in the Senate from the favor of 
 Benton, was made his enemy and rival by the 
 Administration. Yet Polk was reduced to ask 
 Benton's aid to deliver them from the " master- 
 ly inactivity " into which Calhoun's policy had 
 brought their military operations in Mexico. 
 
 They tendered him the Lieutenant General- 
 ship, on the adoption of his plan of carrying on 
 the war, to the city of Mexico, and yet conclu- 
 ded by betraying him and defeating the bill for 
 his appointment in the Senate. Then the Ad- 
 ministration contrived that coalition between its 
 own Democratic partisans, the nullifiers, under 
 Atchison, and the Whigs, under Mr. Geyer, 
 (elected Senator,) which sacrificed him at 
 home. Cass and McLane, who had brooded 
 over the disaffection in the Jackson Cabinet on 
 the removal of the deposits, who had assisted 
 in the bank panic, and who aided the con- 
 spiracy to bring on the revulsion which over- 
 threw the Democratic successor of Jackson, 
 were made representative men of the new De- 
 mocracy installed by Calhoun, Tyler, and Polk, 
 after those who had rebuilt that of Jefferson, 
 under Jackson, were ostracised. And certain- 
 ly no better exemplars of the policy which was 
 to control north of Mason and Dixon's line 
 could have been found than Cass and McLane. 
 They were the high priests of that mysterious 
 influence which breeds doughfaces — a tribe 
 fattening on the spoils of Government, and 
 propagating that fear of change through which 
 many well-meaning men are often subjected to 
 the despotism of the most depraved. 
 
 The effect of the system, by which that of 
 Jackson, handed down by the revolutionary 
 stock, was superseded, is before us. The ex- 
 tension of slavery into. Texas only whetted the 
 ambition of the Southern oligarchs for the con- 
 quest of Mexico. The war was made, which 
 Mr. Calhoun's policy would have rendered term- 
 inable only by a military subjugation reducing 
 the mass of the population to the condition of 
 vassalage. That was the meaning of his " mas- 
 terly inactivity," which proposed simply a mil- 
 itary occupation commanding the country. 
 Col. Benton's plan brought the war to a close, 
 securing to the people of the portion of Mexico, 
 purchased at the cost of fifteen millions to ex- 
 tend our boundaries to the Pacific, the full en- 
 joyment of their own local laws, under which 
 the slave system was abrogated. This turned 
 the war of the nullifiers on our own Govern- 
 ment. They resolved, if California came in as 
 a free State, the slave States would go out of 
 the Union. General Taylor, who made the 
 conquests, and succeeded Polk as President, 
 (the latter being justly repudiated by all par- 
 ties,) was prepared to veto the compromise of 
 1850, which recognised the right of converting 
 
any portion of the free territory acquired of Mex- 
 j. (into slave territory. Fillmore, the Northern 
 Vice President, coming iuto power on the death 
 of Taylor, seeking a norubiation from the South, 
 sarreudere*d the position taken by his princi- 
 pal, and open'ed the way to slavery iuto the 
 free Mexican territories annexed to ours. He' 
 sunk under his submission, and President 
 Pierce succeeded, solemnly pledging himself 
 to maintain the limitations imposed by the va- 
 rious compromises against the extension of 
 slavery. Another term in the Presidency, only 
 to be Loped for by sacrificing his honor to the 
 6lave {States, was an irresistible bribe to his 
 poor ambition. Affected fear of a dissolution 
 oi' the Union was the mask of dough under 
 which he covered his treachery, and he entered 
 the race with Douglas, and endeavored to out- 
 ruu him in concessions to secure the Southern 
 phalanx. The Missouri compromise was re- 
 pealed, and the whole system designed by the 
 fathers of the Republic to resist the progress 
 of slavery, and make deliverance at some time 
 possible, was pulled down. 
 
 The political alarmists communicated their 
 panic to the Supreme Court, and the venerable 
 incumbents, apprehending that secession might 
 slip their benches from under them, concluded 
 to make them fast by reversing all former de- 
 cisions, and considering all ordinances, all 
 laws which treated slavery as a State institu- 
 tion depending on local laws, as mistakes of 
 uuenlightened generations, and entered up a 
 decree to plant it on the Constitution of the 
 United States. Fortified in that citadel by the 
 judgment of the tribunal of the last resort, no 
 law of Congress, of State or Territory, can dis- 
 turb it. it goes wherever the Constitution, the 
 supreme law, goes. Mr. Buchanan on coming 
 to the Presidency took a step beyond all his 
 predecessors, and the Supreme Court. He at- 
 tempted to drag Kansas as a State into the 
 Union with a slave Constitution, against the 
 consent ot its people, employing military force, 
 fraud, and corruption, to accomplish it, and 
 having failed, has contrived to exclude the 
 State from the right to come into the Union, 
 accorded to all others under similar circum- 
 stances. Why are not those who wield all the 
 powers of the Federal Government so abso~ 
 lately, satisfied with their triumph? Is it that 
 a sense of wrong is ever attended with an ap- 
 prehension of redress? 
 
 And what has this unsatisfactory ineffectual 
 effort to build up a system hostile to that es- 
 tablished by the fathers of the Government 
 cost the country in its moral and material in- 
 terests ? 
 
 Mr. Sherman, chairman of the Committee 
 of "Ways and Means, submitted to the House a 
 statement showing the growth of the expenses 
 and population at every census, and rate of 
 tax for each inhabitant. This, compared with 
 the increase during the present Administration, 
 shows that at the outset, 1792, our population 
 
 being in round numbers four millions, the tax 
 per head was fifty cents ; in 1830, (General 
 Jackson's term,) in a population of about 
 thirteen millions, the tax was $1.03 ; in 1840, 
 (Mr. Van Buren's term,) the population being 
 about seventeen millions, the tax was $1.41. 
 Now, (in Mr. Buchanan's time, 1858,) the in- 
 habitants estimated at twenty-eight millions, the 
 rate of tax is $3 per head. By the increase of 
 inhabitants, a little more than three-fold at the 
 Jackson period, the tax was only doubled. 
 At the Van Buren period, the inhabitants 
 being increased six-fold, the tax falls short ten 
 cents of being tripled. On the population, 
 estimated as increased seven-fold in 1858, the 
 increase of tax from the actual expenditure of 
 1857 shows an increase of tax of thirty-six- 
 fold for each person. Now, this enormous in- 
 crease in the rate of expenditure, compared 
 with that shown to mark its progress, with that 
 of the population from the beginning up to the 
 close of Van Buren's Administration, argues 
 the operation of some cause more potent than 
 the inclination of the head of the Government 
 towards extravagance and corruption. It ar- 
 gues that some prevailing passion or principle 
 influenced a powerful party in the country to 
 protect a responsible Executive in such an 
 abandonment of the economy which custom 
 had established, (under a succession of Ad- 
 ministrations and parties in the Republic,) and 
 which had concurred in making frugal expend- 
 iture a test of a faithful attention to the inter- 
 ests of the people. Nowhere was this test so 
 severely applied as in the slave States, where 
 taxation by the Federal Government had be- 
 come peculiarly obnoxious, because levied by 
 a tariff which, it was insisted, oppressed the 
 South, while it protected the North. 
 
 The extraordinary increase of taxation and 
 expenditure, out of proportion to the increase 
 of population, becomes the more extraordinary, 
 therefore, when it is considered that all the Ad- 
 ministrations under which it has grown up 
 were installed and controlled absolutely by the 
 embodied power of the parsimonious South. 
 This paradox, however, is easy of solution. 
 The negro mania, which Mr. Calhoun's inap- 
 peasable ambition laid hold of, as operating on 
 the whole nervous system of the slave States, 
 was excited every way to combine them as a 
 whole, and bring all their energies to advance 
 his schemes. The gigautic strides of the North 
 to power in wealth and population was pointed 
 at, to alarm ; its repugnance to slavery, to pro- 
 voke ; its progress in arts, literature, commerce, 
 and manufactures, to create envy; and all to 
 excite sectional ambition. To gratify it and 
 his own, Mr. Calbouu proposed to band all 
 their strength to add new empire for slavery. 
 War, to extend the area of slavery, became 
 the watchword in the South ; and the appli- 
 cation of the wealth of the North to such a 
 cause, no matter how profusely, was true econ- 
 omy for the South. The military service of 
 
Van Buren's terra was raised by the Florida 
 war, from $'21,000,000, its test in the preceding 
 term, to $47,000,000. This was to capture 
 slaves, and drive out the Seminoles, to make a 
 new slave State. As this State was withiu the 
 then existing boundary of slavery, this expendi- 
 ture could not be held to be one enlarging the 
 area of slavery ; yet it is fair to ascribe to the 
 necessities of that institution the encumbering 
 of Mr. Van Buren's Administration with an ad- 
 ditional $7,000,000 annually during his term. 
 It was, however, on the accession of Mr. Cal- 
 houu to power under Tyler, that the system 
 was organized — devotiug the treasures of the 
 nation to Southern policy, and making a slave 
 empire to encroach on free territory, and swal- 
 low the Gulf and the tropics. The annexation of 
 Texas was the first step; the war with Mexico 
 to extend the boundary of Texas, the next. 
 The naval and military service for the four 
 years of Polk's term amounted to $123,048,599. 
 Fifteen (15) millions were then paid to Mexico 
 for the region acquired by the sword. Teu 
 (10) millions more were paid to Texas, for the 
 pretended claim oho asserted over New Mexi- 
 co, which, though assented to by Northern 
 men, doubtless to disentangle it from Texas 
 and slavery, now boasts a slave code, through 
 the influence of the civil and military power 
 of the Federal Administration over that prov- 
 ince. Then followed the G xdsden treaty, pro- 
 viding $20,000,000 for Arizona— cut down in 
 the Senate to $10,000,000, lest the enormity of 
 the amount should burst the Senate's prison- 
 house, and let out the corruptions divulged in 
 secret session which procured the arrangement, 
 and lead to new corruptions. The desert, or 
 arid zone, which was looked to in the first 
 treaty as a barrier to separate the nations, 
 was acquired to draw the contemplated Pacific 
 railroad within the boundaries of Mexico, and 
 facilitate the ultimate appropriation of the 
 whole country. It would require a volume to 
 present in detail the waste of the slavery prop- 
 agandist policy, begun under Tyler, and pur- 
 Bued under Polk, Fillmore, Pierce, and Bu- 
 chanan. 
 
 In the progress of it, a Congress of our for- 
 eign ministers issued the Ostend Manifesto, 
 threatening war with Spain unless she would 
 take some hundreds of millions for Cuba. This 
 shows the spirit of the movement; and the 
 actual growth of the national expenditures 
 under its influence, from Mr. Van Buren's time 
 forward, exhibited in figures, proves how 
 steadily and rapidly it has worked. The ex- 
 penditure of our Administrations, from Wash- 
 ington to Van Buren inclusive, making about 
 half a century, according to Secretary Cobb's 
 report of February, 1858, amounts to 
 $621,262,856.53. The aggregate expenditure 
 under Tyler, Polk, Fillmore, Pierce, and 
 Buchanan, (up to 1857,) is $692,385,792.38. 
 To this add, predicated on Mr. Cobb's own 
 estimates, the one hundred and thirty mil 
 
 lions for the two last years of Mr. Buchanan's 
 term, and we have, for twenty years of the 
 slave propagandist administration of the Treas- 
 ury, an outlay of $822,385,792.38, to con- 
 trast with $621,262,856.53, for the half cen- 
 tury of expenditure under all previous Presi- 
 dents. 9 
 
 But it is not the foreign war waged to spread 
 our peculiar institution which costs most, 
 costly as military movements always are. The 
 policy which requires corruption to enlist the 
 great body of a reluctant nation to secure its 
 adoption, is still more expensive. In fact, it 
 costs more to recruit a party for slavery in the 
 North than an army. The last two years of 
 Mr. Buchanan's Administration cost more 
 than the four years of Mr. Madison, when in- 
 volved in the conflict with Great Britain, and 
 when war was blazing on the land, the lakes, 
 and ocean. 
 
 Mr. Cobb, Secretary of the Treasury, in " the 
 Statement of Expenditures from 178'J to June 
 'M)th, 1857," called for by Congress, exhibits 
 the expenditure of the last four years of Mr. 
 Madison's Administration, including the war 
 with Great Britain, to be $108,537,080.88. 
 And in the same statement, the past two 
 years of the present Administration show an 
 expenditure of $125,366,396.21. So one 
 year of peace under Mr. Buchanan cost more 
 than two years of war under Madison — 
 a war waged with the greatest military and 
 naval Power of the earth, and closed in the 
 triumph of our arms. But a scrutiny of the 
 motives and the results of the vast expendi- 
 ture involved in Mr. Buchanan's policy will 
 make the contrast between himself and the 
 illustrious President he so bitterly denounced, 
 while maintaining the conflict with Great 
 Britain, the more striking. 
 
 The very first measures of our ultra Southern 
 President and Cabinet on reaching power, and 
 without awaiting the meeting of the Congress 
 chosen by the people to form a part of the 
 Government during his term, was to march an 
 army on Kausas, under pretence of quelling a 
 rebellion in Utah. 
 
 This is the modest account given by the 
 President of war measures, begun without 
 consulting Congress, raising our military ex- 
 penditures to a higher point than during the 
 war with Great Britain : 
 
 " The people of Utah, almost exclusively, belong to this 
 church ; and believing with a fanatical Bnuil to it lie 
 ernor of the Territory by divine appointment, the] obey Ins 
 commands as if those were direct revel il 
 If, therefore, he chooses that his G*v«rnm ml shall 
 into collision with the Government ol thi 
 members of the Mormon church will ylel I 
 to his will. Unfortimat.'lv, existing la ' htUe 
 
 doubt that such is his determination. Will 
 uponaminute history of o 
 
 that all the officers of the Unitod SI il ' 
 
 tlve with the Single exceptions ol two Indian 
 found it necessary tor their per 
 from the Territory ; and there no 
 
 eminent in. Utah buHhodeepoUsnioTB g This 
 
 beiug tuo condition of aflairs in the Territory, 1 could aoj, 
 
mistake the path of duty. As Chief Magistrate, I was bormd 
 t5 restore the supremacy of the Constitution and laws within 
 its limits. In >rder to effect this purpose, I appointed a new 
 6o" L r i r ana other Federal officers for Utah, and sent 
 with them a military force for their protection, and to aid 
 as a posse cvmUatus in caso of need in the execution of the 
 laws." 
 
 "A posse comitatus to introduce Governor 
 CuLuuiings to Governor Brigham Young." 
 "What proof had the President that Young, 
 who was appointed and held as Governor and 
 Indian agent under the commission of his 
 predecessor, would not recognise a commission 
 from him appointing a successor? He did 
 not afford Young the opportunity of repulsing 
 his authority, as he did not assert that authority 
 by sending a Governor to supersede him, nor 
 did he take a step to inquire into the charges 
 made against Young by Judge Drummond, on 
 which the latter resigned — charges which 
 Young denied, begged might be investigated, 
 and which have since been disproved. The 
 army was marched in hot haste to inaugurate 
 Governor Cummings. The war is thus opened 
 by General Scott in person : 
 
 "CIRCULAR. 
 " Headquarters of the Army, May 28, 1857. 
 " T.) the Adjutant General, Quartermaster General, Commis- 
 sary General, Surgeon General, Paymaster General, and 
 Chief of Ordnance: 
 
 " Orders having been dispatched in haste for the assem- 
 blage of a body of troops at Fort Leavenworth, to march 
 thence to Utah as soon as assembled, the General-in-chief, 
 in concert with the War Department, issues the following 
 instructions : [Here follow the details of the forces, amount- 
 ing to -',600 men, and all the equipments.] 
 
 [Signed] " WLNTIELD SCOTT." 
 
 General Harney, who had gathered the main 
 force at Fort Leavenworth, receives the follow- 
 ing laconic order from 
 
 " Headquarters, New York, June 29, 1857. 
 " The Fifth Infantry is ordered to proceed immediately to 
 join you, from Jefferson Barracks, as soon as it and the 
 body of Tenth arrive. Proceed to your destination without 
 unnecessary delay." 
 
 On the next day, another letter from the 
 General-in-chief tells Gen. Harney that gen- 
 eral orders " have indicated your assignment 
 to the command of an expedition to the Utah 
 Territory ; " and adds : 
 
 " The community, and in part the civil Government of 
 Utah Territory, are in a state of substantial rebellion against 
 the laws and authority of the United States — a new civil 
 Government is about to be designated, and to be charged 
 with the establishment of law and order. Your able and 1 
 energetic aid, with thatof the troops under your command, 
 is rc.ied upon, to insure the success of his mission." 
 
 Now, with all this hurry of regiments, "dis- 
 patched in haste, for the assemblage of a 
 body of troops at Fort Leavenworth, to march | 
 
 THENCE TO UTAH AS SOON AS ASSEMBLED, there 
 
 to crush rebellion against the laws and Gov- 
 ernment of the United States," nothing was 
 accomplished for a year. 
 
 The array brought together in thirty days 
 from remote quarters of the country, and ready 
 to march in June, 1857, could only present it- 
 self and the Governor (about to be designa- 
 ted) to Brigham Young in June, 1858. Du- 
 ring the summer, fall, and winter of 1857, 
 Young was in the regular discharge of his ! 
 
 functions, under the orders of the Department 
 at Washington, and, as Indian agent, in cor- 
 respondence with Mr. Denver, Commissioner 
 of Indian Affairs. Indeed, the rebellion charged 
 upon him was founded upon acts imputed as 
 having occurred under the Administration of 
 Mr. Buchanan's predecessors, and no* thought 
 worthy of investigation by them, nor by Mr. Bu- 
 chanan himself, although invited by Governor 
 Young. The truth is, the gathering of troops in 
 such haste at Leavenworth, in Kansas, in June, 
 1857, was to frown down the Topeka Legisla- 
 ture, elected by a majority of the people of the 
 State, who, imitating the example of other Ter- 
 ritories, and taking the popular-sovereignty 
 principle of the Kansas-Nebraska act for au- 
 thority, had formed a Constitution for submis- 
 sion to Congress, and elected a Legislature to 
 give it effect. The next object of the intro- 
 duction of the army into Kansas was to coun- 
 tenance, the election of a Convention elected 
 by the pro-slavery minority, to annul this Consti- 
 tution made by the majority, and set up an- 
 other. It was proposed by the Administration 
 to submit this pro-alavery Constitution to the 
 votes of the people, and doubtless it hoped, 
 with aid of the votes of the soldiery, and the 
 control brought with the army in contracts and 
 disbursements, in frauds, bribery, and over- 
 awing at the polls, that the slave Constitution 
 could be carried ; and, at the worst, if the 
 people should rise in resistance, the army 
 could begin with rebellion in Kansas, and put 
 it down preliminary to that in Utah. 
 
 Governor Walker, sworn as a witness before 
 the Covode Committee, makes apparent the 
 motives which stayed for a year, in Kansas, 
 the troops under Harney, although under or- 
 ders of the General-in-chief to march immedi- 
 ately on Utah. Mr. Walker's testimony re- 
 veals the secret that the tactics of the Admin- 
 istration now had changed : 
 
 " This attempt to make Kansas a slave State developed 
 itself in the fall of 1S57. It first was fully developed by the 
 terrible forgeries in the pretended returns — they were not 
 legal returns — that were sent to me as Governor of the 
 Territory , and which I rejected, although that rejection gave 
 a majority of the Territorial Legislature to my political op- 
 ponents, the Republicans, at which, I am free to say, I was 
 deeply grieved. I did my best to secure a Democratic ma- 
 jority in that Legislature, and exerted m3"self most anxious- 
 ly, making stump speeches, &c. The first forgery presented 
 to me was the case at Oxford, which was a forgery upon its 
 face ; and that it was so, has since been acknowledged by 
 one of the judges whoso name purported to be signed to it. 
 In a public document, since published by him, he declares 
 that he never did affix his signature to it. In Oxford, mora 
 than sixteen hundred votes were attempted to be given in a 
 village of six houses, where there were not fifty voters ; 
 and it is now ascertained that not thirty votes were really 
 given ; the rest were all forgeries, lly rejection of that 
 return, inasmuch as it affected the two large counties of 
 Johnson and Douglas, gave a majority of the Territorial Leg- 
 islature to the Republicans. 
 
 " I was then very bitterly denounced, at which I felt pro- 
 foundly indifferent, because I thought that any man who 
 would approve or endorse such forgeries was a base and 
 dishonest man, and I preferred his censure to his approval. 
 Various personal threats were made, which I also disre- 
 garded 
 
 " The next return presented was that from McGee county, 
 where there c •: t t;nly were not twenty voters, but which 
 was returned as over twelve hundred votos, given at throe 
 
different precincts, and where it is now ascertained there 
 was bo election holden at all — not a voto given in the county. 
 These pretended returns were also rejected by me; and at 
 longth it was fully developed that, contrary to all the pledges 
 given, especially by Calhouu himself, the President of the 
 Convention, that they would submit the Constitution to the 
 vote of tin- people, another course was resolved upon. 
 
 " Finailv, a lew days Before the vote was taken upon the 
 subject, Mr. Ca.houn,the President of tho Convention, called 
 upon me, and s ibmitted substantially the programme as to 
 slavery which was subsequently adopted by the Conven- 
 tion, and asked my concurrence. He presented various 
 prospects ofthe highest place from the people of this Union 
 Ff I would concur, and assured me that that was the pro- 
 gramme ofthe Administration. I said that that was h 
 sible. and showed Mr. Calhoun this letter of Mr. Buchanan 
 to me, ofthe 12tb or July, 1857. lie said that tho Adminis- 
 tration had changed its policy." 
 
 The fact stated by Calhoun to Gov. Walker 
 is showu to be true by the concurrent testimony 
 of Secretary Cobb, Secretary Thompson, and 
 Martin, clerk of the Interior Department. Mar- 
 tin was sent out, to attend the birth of the Le- 
 comptou Constitution. Each of these witnesses 
 labored hard to conceal the truth. All three lay 
 great stress on the prominent circumstance 
 that each was urgent, as was the President, 
 for the submission of the Constitution at one 
 time, which they knew to be slave; but they 
 try to wink out of sight the important point, 
 that they suddenly changed their plan when 
 they found their schemes for carrying it by a 
 vote ofthe people would fail. They then con- 
 trived a clause to perpetuate the slavery which 
 already existed in 'Kansas; aud then they pro- 
 vided, by another clause, that no vote should 
 be given against the Constitution itself, con- 
 taining this provision, but that the suffrages 
 should be written on ballots, thus— "For the 
 Constitution' witu slavery," or, " For the 
 Constitution without slavery ; " and Mr. 
 Walker says, " those who opposed the Consti- 
 tution were not permitted to vote at all." Now, 
 as all were obliged to vote for the Constitution, 
 with its clause declaring that the slavery ex- 
 isting there should be perpetuated, and that the 
 words " without slavery " were to be construed 
 as a vote against new importations of slaves, it 
 simply amounted to a provision that Kansas 
 should be a slave State, to be stocked with 
 slaves, either by unchecked emigration, or by 
 the slower process of propagation from the 
 considerable number of slaves already there. 
 The original plan ofthe Administration was to 
 to have the State Convention make the Consti- 
 tution slave out and out, aud so have it voted 
 by the army votes at the polls, or votes under 
 the army duresse, or votes influenced by the 
 money in the hands of multitudes of con- 
 tractors and agents, whose spoil was five mil- 
 lions from the Treasury. On all these failing, 
 the Administration's prime agent, Calhoun, (a 
 name now ominous for slavery,) was prepared 
 with the triek which carried slavery in the Con- 
 stitution, by the manner in which the ballots 
 were required to be inscribed. 
 
 The Lecompton Convention, which met in 
 June, adjourned to meet again on the 19th of 
 October. The regular election of the Territorial 
 Legislature was held about this time, and the 
 
 Calhoun Convention adjourned, so as to have 
 the returns before deciding on the mode of 
 submitting the Constitution to the people. 
 The fraudulent returns created an Adminis- 
 tration Legislature, which would put the 
 local authority so completely in the hands ot 
 Calhoun as to enable it to carry the slavery 
 Constitution without difficulty, if submitted 
 through officials such a Legislature would con- 
 stitute. The forgery that carried the Legisla- 
 ture would carry the Constitution. Under 
 these circumstances, Calhoun, representing 
 the President, and Martin, who was sent by 
 Thompson and Cobb, were about to have the 
 Constitution undergo this ; But josl 
 
 at this moment, Gov. Walker declared the 
 legislative returns in favor of the President 
 fraudulent, and the Republican majority duly 
 elected. And here was the turning point. The 
 programme of the President, of which Calhoun 
 assured Walker he was duly advised, instantly 
 changed. Martin, the cautious Cabinel n rent| 
 gives this account ofthe sudden change of tho 
 lirst plan of cheating into that last adopted : 
 
 "A difficulty sprung up between G ivernor Walker 
 a portion of the Convention, within a day or two after it r- 
 assembled", and it Snally extended CD a majoi ,•>■ ol the Con 
 venlion, which really, In my' judgment, defeated the sub- 
 mission of tho Constitution In its entlretj to) te people 
 
 "ft arose ahont'certiOoates of election ol mi min-raof tho 
 Territorial Legislature from Douglas and Johi ion conn Uee. 
 it was alleged that frauds had been comtp tted at Oxford. 
 and threats of personal violence were made by Lane and 
 bis adherents against Walker and Stanton, If tliey should 
 give certificates to the Democrats claiming to bo e 
 from those counties, who had the certificate s or the judges 
 of tho election. Governor Walker and Secretary Stanton 
 published a card announcing that they had taken, or would 
 proceed to take, testimony in tho case, and If it should ap- 
 pear that fraud had been committed, certificates of election 
 should be awarded to lb.' Republicans; whereupon a HUM" 
 ilamus was issued by Judge Cat", at theinsl inceol the Dem- 
 ocrats claiming to have been elected from those counties, 
 for the purpose of enforcing their right to certificates of elec- 
 tion, and thus devolve on the Legislature, the judge of the 
 elections Of its own members, the Investigation of the ques- 
 tion of frauds at Oxford. Governor Walker declined a com- 
 pliance with the mandate of Judge Cato, and awarded cer- 
 tiorates of electiou to the Republicans. Thereupon some ol 
 the extreme anti-submission members of the Convention, 
 with the friends of the thus defeated Democratic candidal) s 
 for the Legislature, called a meeting to dene ince thfl course 
 of Governor Walker in this matter, and it was held in tho 
 hall of tho Convention, though at night after the Convention 
 had adjourned. They denounced him in totter speeches, 
 and passed resolutions ot censure upon lus conduct, without 
 identifying themselves with or endorsing the frauds, if any 
 had been practiced; taking the ground that Governor 
 Walker and Secretary Stanton wore not judges ol the oloc- 
 tipn.and had no authority of law lor going behind the re- 
 turns of the judges to Inqarle Into th • quest) f fraud in 
 
 lion of members, but, if frnr.ds had been practiced, 
 it was a question for the Legislature to Bottle. That made a 
 breach between the Governor and a large portion of the 
 Convention, which I labored in vain to prevent, and after- 
 wards to heal." 
 
 This confession being extracted from the 
 Cabinet emissary, Mr. Olin, ofthe Covode Com- 
 mittee, then inquires of him : " Do you know 
 who was the author of that provision ? (the sla- 
 very provision in the Lecompton Constitu- 
 tion?") Mr. Emissary answers, "I think I 
 drew it myself.'' Mr. Olin again asks: " Who 
 consulted you about drawing it up?" Answer : 
 " Gene al Calhoun, Rush Elmore, and Hugh 
 ' M. Moore ; I do not know whether any others ; 
 
8 
 
 we had been associated together upon the out 
 and out plan of submission ; and that Laving 
 failed, the question was, what was best to be 
 done now," &c, &c. 
 
 Now, it will be remembered that Calhoun, 
 President of the Convention, was the President's 
 representative, who first told Governor Walker 
 ef the change at the White House in regard to 
 the submission of the Constitution, after it was 
 found that the fraudulent Legislature to pass 
 upon it was unseated. And Moore, Vice Pres- 
 ident, was the man to whom the Cabinet em- 
 issary bore his letter of credit from Cobb. 
 These were the managers of the packed Con- 
 vention, and through whom it was worked like 
 a supple-jack, by the telegraphic wires from 
 Washington city. 
 
 Governor Walker deserves credit for turning 
 his back on the whole body at Lecompton en- 
 gaged in giving effect to the chicanery of the 
 President. He opeus up the view to both plans 
 in the passage already quoted, in which he says 
 that this plan to make Kansas a slave State 
 developed itself in the fall of 1857, and he fixes 
 precisely the same moment and the same cause 
 for the Administration's change of front as to 
 the mode of effecting the object, as does the 
 Cabinet emissary. It was when he declared the 
 returns counterfeit, that made an Administra- 
 tion Legislature to accomplish its designs and 
 that way to success was closed. That Calhoun, 
 the manager of the grand fraud, was the ac- 
 complice of the President in it, is put beyond 
 all doubt by the fact that he was sustained in 
 every movement he made by the President, 
 while they were in progress. That he was sus- 
 tained by him in the fraud of getting up the 
 Convention, and countenancing it when elected 
 by two thousand votes — the most of them prob- 
 ablyfraudulent — and known to be overbalanced 
 by more than ten thousand against it. That 
 he favored both plans, the first and the last 
 urged through Calhoun in that Convention, to 
 impose the slave institution upon a reluctant 
 people. That he sustained the bribery, the 
 violence, the forgery, and perjury, through 
 which Calhoun endeavored to procure a sub- 
 servient Territorial Legislature, is manifest 
 from the fact that he sustained the Lecompton 
 Constitution, the result of all these villianies, 
 recieved Calhoun with honor at Washington 
 when driven from Kansas in disgrace, and 
 gave him another office of trust when he dare 
 not return to resume that which he had aban- 
 doned. 
 
 Governor Walker sustained Calhoun in all 
 his enormities but the last; and that being the 
 one. necessary to accomplish all the rest, the 
 President turned him adrift, because he w(fnld 
 not obey his representative, Calhoun, instead 
 of the written instructions under his own hand. 
 Although Governor Walker deserves credit for 
 this defiance, there are others who deserve 
 credit for helping im to the resolution. 
 Two thousand nilitia of Kansas were em- 
 
 bodied and in arms, and had determined not to 
 allow their State to be made the victim of 
 Southern interest or ambition. These men 
 would have set up their own free-State Consti- 
 tution, voted by the great body of the people, 
 against the Lecompton slave Constitution, the 
 spawn of the vilest prostitution of popular rights. 
 They had ouly postponed taking preliminary 
 steps under their free Constitution, as Govern- 
 or Walker tells the President, under the assur 
 ances he had given that they should have a 
 fair vote to decide the fate of that to be pre- 
 pared by their pro-slavery adversaries. The 
 Governor goes on to say, in his letter to the 
 President, " their Legislature would certainly 
 have passed a complete code of laws, and could 
 have put them in practical operation by the 
 popular will in a large majority of the counties 
 of the Territory, and they will do the same 
 thing next fall, if the Constitution is not sub- 
 mitted to the people. This of course is all 
 wrong ; but it would have been done, and would 
 have united all the free-State Democrats with 
 the Republicans, and rendered a bloody col- 
 lision and a tedious and sanguinary civil war 
 inevitable, requiring the active services of 
 troops in a large majority of our counties cer- 
 tain." And it was this certainty that they 
 would do the same thing next fall, if not treated 
 fairly, which induced Governor Walker to close 
 his letter to the President by this impressive 
 warning : " It will never do to send General 
 Harney to Utah until the difficulties in Kansas 
 are settled. He is a terror to the Black Re- 
 publicans, and just the man for the occasion." 
 This shows why, under pretence of flying to 
 Utah, there was such hot haste to assemble the 
 troops to be in June at Leavenworth, to cover 
 Calhoun's election of a pro-slavery Convention ; 
 why such timely notice was given that they 
 should be detained there to help the Adminis- 
 tration in electing the Territorial Legislature 
 by being " a terror to the Black Republican " 
 voters, and afterwards the shield to protect the 
 unhallowed attempt to make them swallow the 
 Lecompton programme in the fall. The Pres- 
 ident in his private letter of July 12, 1857, ex- 
 torted by the Covode Committee from Walker, 
 answers thus : 
 
 " General Harney has been selected to command the ex- 
 pedition to Utah, but we must continue to have him with 
 you," 
 
 [This is as it was taken down from Walker's 
 reading to the Committee. The National In- 
 telligencer, which probably obtained a copy 
 from Walker himself, has it, " Contrive to liave 
 him with yo?<."] 
 
 " at least until you are out of the woods. Kansas is vastly 
 more important, at tho present moment, than Utab. The 
 pressure continues upon me without intermission. I pray 
 that Divine Providence, in which I place my trust, may 
 graciously preserve my life and health until the end of my 
 term ; but God's holy will bo dono in any event. 
 
 " With every sentiment of esteem, I remain always sin. 
 COTOly your friend, JAMES BUCHANAN." 
 
 This prayer, altogether for himself, when 
 poor Walker was not " out of the woods," but 
 
9 
 
 in the midst of its dangers, looks rather selfish 
 m the man win ...put him there. Bat the great- 
 est sinner has the greatest nee 1 . 1 , of prayers, and 
 the man needed them most who had meditated 
 and matured a policy to overthrow the principle 
 on which American liberty is founded, a pol- 
 icy which the friend he had placed in the post 
 of danger declared was leading to "a disastrous 
 revolution, a nil civil war,ichich would undoubted- 
 ly have extended to the bordering States of Iowa 
 and Missouri, and which I think would have 
 extended throughout the Union.''' The bloody 
 collision betweeu the troops and the people 
 embodied to defeat the frauds which had put 
 down their right of suffrage, and put up a 
 false Legislature, was arrested by Governor 
 Walker; and President Buchanan was obliged 
 to bring his Lecorapton bantling, disavowed by 
 four-filths of the voters at the polls, and hooted 
 by the local Legislature, into Congress for 
 adoption. Its fate in Congress is well known. 
 All the Administration could do, by corruption 
 and by party drill over its organized majority 
 in both branches, could not avail. It, was re- 
 jected for bastardy by a portion of the Demo- 
 crats and by all the Republicans in Congress. 
 
 Then the Administration produced the Eng- 
 lish bill to keep Kansas out of the Union, and 
 out of the Presidential election, the old public 
 functionary believing that his last chance for 
 n -election would be in the House of Represent- 
 atives, through division of the electoral vote, and 
 there Kansas, if admitted, would count as much 
 against him as the Empire State. The Le- 
 compton Constitution had been lost by twenty- 
 four Democrats uniting with the Republicans 
 in the vote against it. The recovery of more 
 than half these Administration recusants was 
 necessary to cover the President's retreat into 
 this English bulwark against Kansas. The 
 English bill was the measure through which 
 the President hoped to escape the odium in the 
 South of introducing Kansas as a free State du- 
 ring his first term, a thing likely to extinguish 
 the support he knew to be essential to bring 
 hi in forward for a second. He therefore, as 
 will be seen from the testimony before the 
 CoVode Committee, exerted his influence 
 through corrupt agents to operate on the mem- 
 bers of his party who deserted him on the Le- 
 compton biil, to bring them back on the Eng- 
 lish bill. 
 
 In passing the English bill, he found an 
 agent, in Cornelius Wendell, more sagacious 
 and effective and not more scrupulous than he 
 had found in General Calhoun, the President 
 of the Convention charged with the Locompton 
 measure. 
 
 Wendell's management, as exhibited by him- 
 self on oath before the Covode Committee, de- 
 serves to b(: studied by the country. It passes 
 before the eve in a sort of camera obscura, the 
 operation pt the Executive machinery on Con- 
 gress under high pressure, and directed by a 
 skilful engineer. The morals of the Adminis- 
 tratis n as well as its politics, as presented in 
 
 these behind-the-enrtain scenes, will be found 
 
 full of admonition. Wendell was a printer, and 
 seems to have studied his profession as a black 
 art, rather than one to spread light. He was 
 
 indoctrinated in fraud by the Democracy of the 
 lower Empire, which he introduced at Wash- 
 ington, on a larger scale than ever known be- 
 fore, as the system of log-rolling and bribery in 
 Congress. With unabashed frankness, an 1 .-ume- 
 thing of pride of achievement, he describes his 
 mode of managing Congress; observing a 
 delicacy in regard to the exposure of individ- 
 uals whom he seduced, that wears au air of gal- 
 lantry. 
 
 He was liberal, too. His bank accounts, 
 examined by the Committee, show a vast ex- 
 penditure. They coul 1 a da how it 
 was applied, because, as Wendell deposed, he 
 had "entered them on his book intentionally 
 in such a way that he was not able to explain 
 them." Headds: M Idi I them ae much 
 
 I COald, not only with regard to the pari 
 but as to the entire facts. I have a distinct 
 impression that the money I paid for services 
 rendered in the pa mg ■ of that bill (the 
 lish bill) exceed thiuty thousand DOLLJ 
 The chairman interrupted him. (See page 
 216.) Question: "1 believe you stated, in 
 your former testimony, that, during the pend- 
 ency of the Lecompton or English bill, you 
 had very frequent conversations with the Pres- 
 ident and the members of the Cabinet, and 
 that they did not give you any express or pos- 
 itive directions relative to the using of money 
 to carry the bill ; was not the impression made 
 on your mind, in those interviews, from all that 
 took place between you and them, that, if you 
 did use your money, you would be cared for 
 and reimbursed in (jovernment patronage? 
 Was not that impression made on your mind 
 from all the interviews between the President, 
 members of the Cabinet, and yourself?" An- 
 swer : " Yes, sir. The general idea left on my 
 mind was, that if I exerted myself in favor of 
 the passage of that bill, I would be properly 
 considered thenceforward during the term of 
 the Administration." 
 
 Mr. Wendell, in subjecting the members 
 fixed on to the views of the Administration, did 
 not offer direct bribes to them himself. He 
 selected influential agents in their own States 
 to operate on them. In Uhio, where there 
 were several whose defection on the Lecomp- 
 ton fraud was to be cured by corruption, a Mr. 
 Bean, an editor of influence in some of their 
 districts, was selected. Wendell took him in 
 baud, and Bean's testimony thus shows the 
 result : 
 
 "Question. What conversation had y odeO 
 
 at the tim»<be propoeod togivoyou $jn,ooo? 
 
 " Answer, that g I • 
 
 my Joking and plaguing him . ho pn i ■ >ed, ii 1 u 
 
 t!i^ i- intract, t<> give mo ;'. 
 
 which he mado and handed i" mo i I mc, .>r .lu- 
 ring tliv first conversation. I <; i n< m rcm< mix rwl 
 
 was. In place of telling It, li" wrote a down, wh ■■ 
 looking on. Says Ik 'Hen what I « then 
 
 wrote this : ' Ud . $6-80 , $5-00 , $-'"» .' 
 
 " The understanding was, thai ibis was $o,000 aiuccc I 
 
10 
 
 pU l <lirad4 mtUer take the $5,000 down, and not take | 
 Vhc 001 tract.' 
 . ,' r ! •' . : ' r ' WaVthis $5,000 apiece for four men ? 
 ft ;V-r I >r« A iho numhe? or men who «vere .needed 
 teJSSTiaJ.or-n*. the committee, whichever A was. 
 ' Sea n .wearB he appropriated the $5,000 to 
 bis own use. but it turned out that the mem- 
 ' bers to be converted were converted. He says, 
 ^farther examination, in answer to the ques- 
 tion "Did you know any other parties who 
 
 Bet the Lecompton bill passed? Answer. 
 "There were plenty of them.'' He mentions, 
 anion* those '-who urged members to vote for 
 that bill/' Colonel Medary, Mr Johnson, candi- 
 date for Marshal, old Colonel bawyer, J. K 
 Miller, Jndge Kennon, A. J. Dickenson also 
 candidate for United States Marshal. These 
 men were not Bean's nor Wendell's men. lhey 
 were marshalled by the Administration— one 
 being made a Governor, and others receiving 
 its patronage in other shapes. Mr. Wendell s 
 men engaged in the same business, were in- 
 aucntiaf persons connected with the press, and 
 bavin- access to the members as reporters 
 around the purlieus of the Capitol. To a Mr. 
 Walker, correspondent of the New York Ex- 
 press, he gave $2,500 ; to a Mr. Hay he gave 
 in notes some sixteen thousand dollars. He 
 was intimate and influential with the members 
 both from the States of Pennsylvania and New 
 
 Mr". Olin asks Mr. Wendell: "Was it not 
 talked over and canvassed, who was most likely 
 to be influenced?" Mr. Wendell replies: 
 "Yes, sir; I presume it was." Question: 
 " Then the money was designed for these pe- 
 culiar subjects?" Answer: " Very probably 
 it was." Question : " It strikes me that money 
 would hardly have been paid without some 
 definite object or purpose to be accomplished 
 with the money ? " Answer : " The object was 
 accomplished, and the money was paid. 
 There are about two hundred and twenty pages 
 of testimony obtained by Covooe, and all point 
 to the conclusion thus laconically given by 
 Mr. Wendell in a single .line. 
 
 The enormous receipts and expenditures of 
 Mr. Buchanan'3 Printer to the Executive De- 
 partments is a matter of wonder, compared with 
 Mr. Van Buren's time. Mr. Wendell, ^pur- 
 chaser, and at one time sole owner, of the 
 official organ, and its paymaster even after he 
 had disposed of it, upon an understanding that 
 be was to receive the Executive patronage as 
 the price for his paper and contribution to its 
 support, received, as shown by his bank ac- 
 count alone, $929,000. In answer to the ques- 
 tion, "How large were your profits on that 
 work?" (printing for the Government.) An- 
 swer : " I think I made over one hundred thou- 
 sand dollars one year." Question : " Did you 
 not, for political purposes, within the last three 
 or four years, use a much larger amount of 
 money than you used on previous occasions- 
 pome hundred thousand dollars?" Answer: 
 
 " My impression is, that it was about one hun- 
 dred and twenty-eight or one hundred and 
 thirty thousand dollars." 
 
 Mr. Alexander, a Democrat, and a printer 
 for eight or ten years employed in the Execu- 
 tive printing, in his testimony before Covode's 
 Committee, shows that now-a-days the public 
 functionaries can make the amount of printing 
 almost what they please. The enormous ag- 
 gregate, the growth of the present Presidential 
 term, sustains Mr. Alexander's statement, made 
 on oath ; and this fact makes a comparison of 
 the expenditure under Mr. Van Buren's (the 
 last really Democratic Administration) with 
 that of Mr. Buchanan's, (which it may be hoped 
 is the last of the spurious ones, assuming and 
 abusing the Democratic name,) a most impor- 
 tant means in discriminating the true from the 
 counterfeit Democracy. Economy is the great 
 test of honesty in Government, and honesty is 
 the main ingredient in Democracy rightly un- 
 derstood. It is a mere trusteeship, managing 
 the concerns of the people according to their 
 will. Now, the Government printing, which 
 the President and his partisans in Congress, 
 when controlling, may employ to enlighten the 
 public by honest official intelligence, may be 
 used to corrupt the press, the organ of public 
 opinion, by jobs and largesses. The testimony 
 before the Committee proves that Mr Buchanan 
 used it not only for this purpose, but also to 
 assist his political intrigues, by applying funds 
 obtained through contracts filching money 
 from the Treasury by false constructions of the 
 law, to keep up a third party organization to 
 defeat the will of the majority of the people by 
 distracting their votes. A look back on such 
 developments, in Covode's report, gives great 
 significance to the contrast in the amount 
 drawn from the Treasury for printing in Mr. 
 Van Buren's term and that in Mr. Buchanan's; 
 especially as there never was an imputation of 
 fraud attached to Mr. Van Buren, and it has 
 been proved on Mr. Buchanan. 
 
 The printing of Congress, including paper, 
 during the four years of Mr. Van Buren's Ad- 
 ministration, amounted to $506,284.96, which 
 is made up as follows : 
 
 Tiventy-Jifth Congress. 
 
 Senate, (Blair & Rives) 3^?>Sf 'Vt 
 
 House, (Thomas Allen) 231,017.16 
 
 Aggregate 319,605.35 
 
 Tiventy-sixtfi Congress. 
 
 Senate, (Blair & Rives). $76,ftD1.5 < J 
 
 House, (Blair & Rives) 111,078.0'.' 
 
 Aggregate 187,679.61 
 
 The printing of the Thirty-fifth Congress, in- 
 cluding paper, the first two years of Mr. Buchan- 
 an's Administration, amounts to $669,713.07, 
 which is 32 per cent, more than it amounted to 
 during the four years of Mr. Van Buren's Ad- 
 ministration. 
 
 If the printing of this (the Thirty-sixth) Con- 
 gress shall amount to as much as the Thirty- 
 
11 
 
 fifth Congress— and from present appearances I 
 it will amount to at least as much— then the 
 printing of Congress during the four years of 
 Mr. Buchanan's Administration will amount to 
 $1,336,426.14— which is double, and 64 per 
 cent, over, approaching triple, what it amounted 
 to during the four years of Mr. Van Buren s 
 Administration. 
 
 The amount paid by the Government lor 
 printing blanks, including paper, for the Post 
 Office Department, during the four years ot Mr. 
 Van Buren's Administration, is $124,899.99, 
 as appears from the Official Register of 1839 
 and 1841, showing an average expenditure of 
 $31,224.90 a year. 
 
 The amount paid by the Government for print- 
 ing blanks, including paper, for the Post Office 
 Department, to be sent to postmasters, during 
 the two first years of Mr. Buchanan's Admin- 
 istration, as is shown by the testimony of Mr. 
 Offutt, of the Sixth Auditor's office, and Mr. 
 Heart, Superintendent of Public Printing, is 
 $146,475.67, which is at the rate of $73,237.83 
 a year, which is double as much, and 34 per 
 cent, more than was paid a year during Mr. 
 Van Buren's Administration. 
 
 The $31,224.9!) a year expended under Mr. 
 Van Buren's Administration includes the 
 amount paid for printing blanks used in the 
 General Post Office Department, as well as 
 those sent out to postmasters, to be used by 
 them. The $73,237.83 expended by Mr. Bu- 
 chanan's Administration a year does not in- 
 clude the blanks used in the General Post 
 Office, but only those sent to postmasters. We 
 have no means of ascertaining the amount 
 paid for blanks used in the General Post 
 Office, nor in any of the other Executive De- 
 partments of the Government, during Mr. Bu- 
 chanan's Administration. 
 
 The testimony of Mr. Alexander (for nine 
 or ten years a contractor for printing under 
 the Departments) explains how this extraordi- 
 nary increase has grown up under a profligate 
 Administration. Mr. Alexander replies to a 
 question, "What is the probable amount of 
 printing?" Answer: "They can make it 
 almost any amount they please; it depends 
 entirely upon the Department. They can cut 
 out an order at any time they think proper, 
 and say that the exigencies of the Department 
 or the good of the public interest requires that 
 certain binding or printiug should be done, 
 and it is ordered to be done." 
 
 The question was, " whether you know what 
 the printing and binding of the different De- 
 partments have amounted to a year, during Mr. 
 Buchanan's Administration?" Answer: "J 
 cannot say that I have examined, critically, to 
 ascertain the amount; but I should think 
 the binding, to the best of my knowledge, 
 would amount to $100,000 any how. I 
 speak of all the Departments." Question : 
 " Is the printing as large an item as the bind- 
 ing?" Answer: "O! the printing is a much 
 larger item." To another question he replies : 
 
 " The printing is a much larger item than the 
 binding, and the Departments can make it 
 almost as profitable as they please." 
 
 Congress, to prevent the growth of this great 
 abuse, exacted that the Executive Departments 
 should contract for the binding only with prac- 
 tical bookbinders ; but this was disregarded by 
 the Departments. A leading and very honest 
 bookbinder appealed to the President. lie 
 pretended to refer it for the opinion of the 
 Attorney General. The bookbinder followed it. 
 The Attorney General said the President had 
 not referred it. On examining the papers, they 
 were endorsed by the President, referred to the 
 Attorney General, but not for his opinion. The 
 bookbinder told this to the President ; he ex- 
 pressed surprise ; told him to go to the Attor- 
 ney General, and tell him to give you his opin- 
 ion in reference to the law. Tell him I say 
 so. The Attorney responds to the suitor: 
 " You know, Mr. Pettiboue, I cannot give you 
 the opinion unless the request is made in 
 writing ;" but, he added, " I will see the Presi- 
 dent to dav, and will ask him about it." The 
 honest mechanic calls again on the Attorney 
 General, Judge Black. "He had seen the 
 President, and" he declined interfering." Mr. 
 Pettibone again approaches the President, and 
 said : " Mr. President, did I understand you 
 aright? You assured me I should have the 
 opinion of the Attorney General upon a cer- 
 tain law ; now Judge Black informs me that 
 
 you decline allowing him to give an opinion. 
 The President replies : " He informed you cor- 
 rectly ; I do decline." . 
 
 Thus our high dignitaries, sworn to admin- 
 ister the law, violate it so grossly that they 
 dare not put on paper a pretext for their con- 
 duct. They are too high for the law, yet stoop 
 to mean double-dealing, to evade the just claim 
 of an honest citizen, and, to escape responsi- 
 bility, refuse to give an official form to the 
 transaction. The one hundred thousand dol- 
 lars per annum went to Wendell's corruption 
 fund of millions. According to law, it ought to 
 have gone to practical mechanics of the book- 
 binding craft, some of whom offered to do it 
 for one-third of the price given to Wendell, 
 and were recommended' for it by an honesty 
 and responsibility vouched for before the Com- 
 mittee by some of the most respectable men of 
 the city. From this it will be seen, that the 
 mode of supply was in keeping with the motives 
 that guided the application of public money. 
 
 But Mr. Wendell's was open and round 
 dealing, on his principles, with members of 
 Congress, and decent and polite, too. That 
 of the Administration was full of duplicity and 
 cunning, overbearing and unjust, then truck- 
 ling and yielding and corrupt throughout. 
 Alf this is displayed in the case of Mr. Cox, 
 of Ohio, casually brought to light by the Co- 
 vode Committee in looking into the man- 
 agement of the English bill. Mr. Cox was 
 among the first in the House to break ground 
 against the Lecompton Constitution. The wrath 
 
 I 
 
12 
 
 of the Executive at once made him an example 
 of its vengeance. Mr. Miller, of Columbus, his 
 special friend, had received the lucrative post 
 office of the city, to reward him and his friend 
 Cox for zealous service in that hard-fought 
 district, ousting its Republican Representative 
 from Congress. The refusal of Cox to sanction 
 the Lecompton frauds was instantly followed 
 by the dismission of his friend Miller from the 
 post office, the place that marked him with 
 Administration confidence, and made him its 
 leader at the capital of the State. And what 
 made it worse, Medary, who was unfriendly to 
 both Cox and Miller, was made Postmaster. 
 This. fixed Cox as a Douglas partisan and de- 
 fier of the Administration. But when the 
 English bill was put forward to exclude Kan- 
 sas, it was found that Cox's vote was necessary 
 to carry it. General Wilson, a Democrat, and 
 son-in-law to Medary, of the Ohio Statesman, 
 was solicited, by the then Postmaster General 
 Brown, to see Cox to get his vote. The wit- 
 ness, Wilson, says : 
 
 " Governor Brown wished me to call upon the member of 
 Congress from my district, Mr. Cox, and say to him that he 
 would be very glad if he would vote for the English bill 
 He told me to press it upon him, and desired me to 
 say further to him, that if he would vote for the English bill 
 he would bo received into high favor with the Post Office 
 Department, and bygones would be bygones. 
 " Question. Proceed, if you please ; what else occurred? 
 " Answer. I called upon Mr. Cox, and told him what had 
 been said by the Postmaster General. 
 " Question. What was his reply to it? 
 " Answer. Mr. Cox said he had not made up his mind 
 upon the subject, but he would make up his mind, and no 
 doubt it would he all right. That was all ho said, 'i got no 
 satisfactii « from Mr. Cox. Mr. Cox and myself were not on 
 the best terms, growing out of the removal-of Mr. Cox's 
 friend, Mr. Miller, from the post office, and the puttiug in of 
 my lather in-law, (Colonel Medary.") 
 
 How cunning in that celebrated intriguer, 
 Postmaster General Brown, (Aaron Vicarious, 
 as Benton called him,) to send, as the peace- 
 maker, the son-in-law of the man put in the 
 post office, (the Headsman of the Statesman,) 
 for the express purpose of arming him to de- 
 stroy Cox in his district ! But this was not all. 
 Medary was himself called to Washington, to 
 brandish his battle-axe in the eyes of poor Cox. 
 He had returned from his Governorship to 
 Minnesota, where he had been employed in 
 making a Legislature on the pattern of the Le- 
 compton Convention, and returning two false 
 Senators to Congress. He had sold out the 
 Statesman on taking the Minnesota Governor- 
 ship, but being called to Washington to scare 
 Cox, and being appointed Postmaster at Co- 
 lumbus, he resolved to buy, or make a feint 
 of buying back, that party engine of torture. 
 The Committee interrogated him about this, 
 and he answered : 
 
 " It is probable that a great deal of the stories going about 
 grew out of this matter, (his buying the Statesman,) or 
 something of the kind; hut it had nothing to do with buviue 
 members of Congress, but was meant to excoriate some of 
 them I did not want to buy them, but I wanted ' to put 
 them through,' as the saying is." 
 
 ' There was a strong application made to me buy out the 
 Ohio Statesman again. During the pendency of the matter 
 (English bill,) I went home, and made inquirv to see whether 
 I could buy it or not ; but 1 could not. But that had nothing 
 to do with influencing members of Congress, but to excori- 
 ate those we did not think inclined to keep in the ranks." 
 
 In answer to another interrogatory about this 
 preparation to start papers in Ohio for the Ad- 
 ministration, against the recreant members, he 
 adds : I 
 
 Cox was still in doubt, when Medary left to 
 get ready his machine to " put him through," 
 as well as the rest of his Ohio confreres. Cox 
 held out to the very eve of the vote. He con- 
 sulted his friends, who called a meeting of 
 the Douglas leaders. One of them, a witness 
 before the Committee, (a Mr. Geiger,) after 
 stating that Cox had written to them's, letter of 
 two sheets against the bill, adds, " he desired 
 to ascertain whether, if he breasted the cur- 
 rent, we would stand by him. We consulted a 
 long while about the matter, but finally tele- 
 graphed to Mr. Cox to vote against the Eng- 
 lish bill, and go no further than to take Mr. 
 Quitman's amendment. That telegraphic dis- 
 patch was signed by the whole of u§. Mr. Cox 
 telegraphed in reply, that night, <I breathe 
 easier— Douglas will break ground against it 
 to-morrow ; break ground, or come out against 
 it rough shod, or something of that kind.' " 
 Well, the morrow came, and Mr. Cox voted for 
 the English bill. 
 
 The mystery is unravelled by the testimony 
 taken before the Committee. Dickerson, the 
 candidate for Marshal, went to Cox while he 
 was threatened with defeat by Medary and the 
 Administration power in his district on one 
 hand, and coaxed by Postmaster General 
 Brown on the other. And Dickerson (as Bean 
 swears) "told me himself that he helped to 
 manage the matter with Mr. Cox ; " and how, 
 will be seen from results. General Geiger,' 
 one of the leaders whom he consulted about 
 his course, afterwards upbraided him for his 
 defiance of his constituents' instructions ; when, 
 to conciliate him, Cox proposed to give him an 
 appointment to go to New Mexico, to adjust 
 some two hundred and fifty or three hundred 
 thousand dollars worth of Government claims ; 
 told him he had met the President and one of 
 his Cabinet, who " congratulated him on hav- 
 ing voted in that way," (for the English bill,) 
 saying, "they thought it had saved the country 
 and party." Then Mr. Buchanan said " there 
 were probably some vacancies in the Interior 
 Department, and if he had any friends, there 
 might be some places for them." After this, he 
 proposed the commission to New Mexico to 
 settle claims amounting to two hundred and 
 fifty or three hundred thousand dollars. He 
 replied, ' I would look rather scaly in going 
 back home after taking the office under James 
 Buchanan, after the manner in which I had 
 spoken of him, publicly, and the opinion that I 
 had of him.' General Geiger adds, < I told Mr. 
 Cox I was very much obliged to him for his 
 kindness in offering me the place ; and as he 
 had been so courteous, I wanted to give him a 
 little advice, that whatever patronage he had to 
 dispense, he should hold in his own fist until 
 after the election in the fall, and not have 
 
13 
 
 any appointment until after he had gone 
 thro ugh the contest, because he would in all 
 probability be the nominee of the party, and it 
 would weaken his standing very much. He 
 would be charged with being bought" 
 
 Mr. Cox acted upon the suggestion of this 
 sagacious Democrat, who spurned the share 
 offered him in the spoils. Lie kept the re-ap- 
 pointment of his friend Miller back, until after 
 his re-election in October. Then, the whole 
 arrangement that brought Cox over to the bill, 
 to defraud Kansas of her place in the Union, 
 was revealed. Oregon, with a little more than 
 half her population, was made a State, to bring 
 General Lane into the Senate ; but Kansas 
 was kept out, that she might have no voice 
 there or in the choice of President. She was 
 compelled to receive Medary as Governor, he 
 resigning the post office at Columbus to Cox's 
 friend, MiU, r, and giving his consent that his 
 enemy, Miller, with whom he made friends, 
 might buy a partnership in his old paper, the 
 Statesman, have his good will in it, without 
 which Milhr said it would be worthless ; and 
 there was a promise that six thousand dollars 
 worth of patronage should follow the paper, it 
 being "stipulated that it should give an ac- 
 ceptable support to the Administration." This 
 capitulation was in writing, and signed by 
 Medary and Cox. Miller says, in his testimony, 
 trying to cover up this bargain, that Medary 
 threw this in "after we had settled our diffi- 
 culties, and shaken hands upon it, and felt 
 pretty good," &c. The Committee could not 
 got at the paper signed by Cox and Medary, 
 but Mr. Smith says the promise was not made 
 good about the six thousand dollars, and makes 
 it very clear that, in his opinion, it was with- 
 held because he, the partner with Miller, and the 
 editor, would not give the " acceptable support." 
 
 It seems, from testimony before the Covode 
 Committee, that the President was extremely 
 sensitive to attack on his Kansas policy and 
 Lecompton frauds, in such leading papers as 
 the Statesman, in Columbus, and Forney's 
 Press, in Philadelphia. The editor of the 
 Statesman refused his support to those frauds, 
 and lost the §11,000 bid; Mr. Forney de- 
 nounced these frauds in his paper, and, soon 
 after, the Attorney General, (Black,) through 
 Mr. Webster, a lawyer of standing in Philadel- 
 phia, proposed to buy off Forney's opposition. 
 Webster, a stroug Administration man, had 
 been solicitous to have Forney in favor with 
 the Administration, and wrote so to the Presi- 
 dent's intimate friend, Attorney General Black. 
 On this hint, Black posts off this note: 
 
 " December 18, 1 so 7. 
 
 " Mr Dear Sir : There is no deQuilc uor iudclluite ar- 
 rangement made of the aflair to which you refer. If you 
 desire to Jo your highly- valued friend a great service, you 
 should come here immediately. I have long desired to see 
 you. Please to" come, if you won't come, say so by tele- 
 graph. Y< in-, ever, J. S. BLACK." 
 
 This was a very cunning letter, and Web- 
 ster came. Webster gives this account of the 
 interview to the Committee : 
 
 " I came on here, and we had a long conversation upon 
 the subject. He stated to me that it was evident that Col. 
 Forney's course would ultimately laud hitu with the Oppo- 
 sition unless it was stopped, and predicted that Ins bones 
 
 u M whiten on the shore of Black Republicanism, along 
 
 with the bones of Wilmut. Jle was very desirous, indeed, 
 that i '"I. Forney should gi\ In ins newspaper 
 
 that be meant to remain with the Democratic party. Ho 
 gald he wanted a paragraph no larger than tie- palm of my 
 band, in which Col. Forney should aimpl) Bay, that while 
 this question had arisen, and was a BeriouB one, it was one, 
 nevertheless, to be settled within tie- 1 • -m- '•- -it it- org 
 lion ; that a was a t.nr subject tor difference, but not for 
 opposition ; aiei he would abide by th • decision of the Dem- 
 ocratic party upon that subject. 
 
 might become known. I asked aim,. ' What thaaf * Woll, 
 
 i, i wa than to do whatever was in his 
 
 power in aid ol Col. Forney's paper. I asked, what - 
 
 the jiost office blanks f He sal i thai Ool Forney, with tins 
 
 assurance, could have the printing of tin-in. This contract 
 
 was valued by Ool. Forney's friends at about 189400. I 
 
 Judge Black what portion of the printing of the post 
 
 i in- given to him. II.- .- i.'i, tin- whole 
 
 of it. I then remarket, ' \\Y1I, now, are \ on able, it 
 
 tins thing is accomplished, to fulfil what you promise f Will 
 
 there be no disapj tmont about Itf' lb- gave me to 
 
 understand that ho, of course, would not hold such a con- 
 versation with me, without it was in bis i>ower to lullii all 
 he did promise." 
 
 The witness gives this as the result of the 
 proposition : 
 
 "Col. Forney indignantly refused to comply with Judgo 
 Black's wishes, and was very emphatic in expressing his 
 refusal." 
 
 This was the second attempt of the President 
 to disarm Forney, whose position in Philadel- 
 phia he feared. Wendell gives the facts thus to 
 Covode's Committee, touching the President's 
 first effort to relieve himself of Forney's ap- 
 prehended opposition : 
 
 " Question. Did you not carry a large sum of money, for 
 a considerable length of time, to givo to Col. Forney, in the 
 eventof his accepting the place abroad? K so, state how 
 much, and for what length of time you carried it. 
 
 " Answer. I carried $10,1)00, for the pur]K>so of giving it 
 to hint, for some three weeks — nineteen days, if my mem- 
 ory serves me, I think it was. 
 
 " Question. By whose authority or instructions? 
 
 " Answer. Well, sir, it might bo said to bo by the Presi- 
 dent's. 
 
 " Mr. Winslow. Give us facts, now. 
 
 " By the Chairman : 
 
 " Question. You will state the facts, if you please. 
 
 "Answer. Tho President was desirous to have Mr. 
 Forney go abroad, and tendered hiin, as I understood from 
 him, either the Liverpool consulate, or the Berlin or Vienna 
 mission, one of the two. In a conversation as to amount of 
 compensation he would receive if he went abroad, the sug- 
 gestion was made that he might participate in the public 
 printing. And, alter several conversations, it w.us agreed 
 that he-should have a certain amount of the printing, which 
 should make his salary equal to $'20,000 or $25,000 per 
 annum. Tins difference, over what ins salary would be, 
 was to be (laid from the public printing. Mr. Forney de- 
 clined at lirst, ami, anions other reasons, stated his inabil- 
 ity, m a financial point of view, to leave. I finally agreed 
 to raise $10,000 in advance lor him, and did raise it ; and, 
 as I stated before, I carried the money for nineteen days, 
 until he at last totally refused to go." 
 
 It appears that Wendell was indeed the 
 purse bearer of the President, for, in answer to 
 another question, " Were you authorized to 
 guarauty, or did you do so on your own re- 
 sponsibility, that the amount of his pay should 
 be |20,000 or $25,000 ? " he answered, " I was 
 in a measure authorized to make an arrange- 
 ment to pay him some sum out of the proceeds 
 of the public printing.'' 
 
 "Question. Authorized by whom? 
 
 "Answer. By the President." 
 
 It is important to remark the consequence 
 of this mode, adopted by the President of 
 
14 
 
 taking money from the proceeds of contracts, 
 by arrangement with contractors, and apply- 
 ing it to his own private purposes. It is seen 
 already, from the testimouy of Mr. Alexander, 
 who had been printer for some years to the 
 Executive Departments, that they could make 
 the printing amount to what they pleased, and 
 that, under their construction of the law, it 
 yielded 50 per cent, net profit ; and of this 
 profit, the President and his subalterns took 
 the lion's share. In an instance given by 
 Wendell, he being the manager, the profits, at 
 43 per cent., amounted to $15,105.26 ; and of 
 this, under instructions, he gave $9,707.28 to 
 the Pennsylvanian, and $5,400 to the Phil- 
 adelphia Argus. Here, under the shadow of a 
 contract with an individual, yielding $15,000 
 beyond the sum for which the work was exe- 
 cuted, this sum was literally embezzled for 
 personal uses designated by the President. 
 When the President, through his Secretaries, 
 makes contracts without letting to the lowest 
 bidder, or, where so let, they assume, as .they 
 often do, to set the lowest bid aside, and give 
 it to a favorite at a higher bid, they can make 
 this disposable profit what they please, ascer- 
 taining what the work will cost, and then add- 
 ing to the contract such an extra profit as will 
 satisfy the contractor, and leave the requisite 
 surplus for their own purposes. But, in the 
 case of the post office blanks, the price of 
 printing being fixed by law, (one dollar per 
 one thousand sheets,) fraud was connived 
 at, or rather perpetrated, by our public " func- 
 tionarief/' old and young, to give the Ex- 
 ecutive a large electioneering fund. There 
 happens to be no composition or setting up 
 type necessary in these blanks, a few inches in 
 size. A form is cast, which is in fact but one 
 type, and is always kept ready by the printers 
 of these blanks, among his materials, ready to 
 go to press. Mr. Rives, being sworn, deposed 
 before the Committee, that when this work was 
 done by him, he never charged for composi- 
 tion, because there was none, but only for 
 press-work and paper. But the present Ad- 
 ministration assumed that, every time blanks 
 were ordered and sheets were struck, though no 
 types were actually set up, it must be presumed ; 
 and so they called for blanks three or six times 
 a day, or oftener, just as they desired to augment 
 the surplus fund they derived from the con- 
 tractor for the blanks. Since Mr. King's ex- 
 posure of the fraud through the Senate's Com- 
 mittee, the abuse has been abated, and the 
 printing of the post office blanks is now done 
 by contract at a deduction of 94^ per cent., or 
 for 5| cents on the dollar of the late prices for 
 Executive printing. For what purposes this 
 easy-gotten money was sometimes disbursed, I 
 
 through Mr. Buchanan's purse-bearer, Wen- 
 dell, will be seen from the replies of Mr. 
 Megargee to interrogatories before Mr. King's 
 Committee : 
 
 " Question. Did you receive any money for political pur- 
 poses in Pennsylvania or Now Jersey from Mr. Wendell? 
 
 " Witness. Am I really compelled to answer such ques- 
 tions? 
 
 " Mr. Kennedy. I think it is within tho scope of the in- 
 quiry. 
 
 " The Committee thought the question was a proper one, 
 and that it should be answered. 
 
 " Answer. I did, sir, receive money, at various times, for 
 political purposes. 
 
 " Question. Were those moneys expended for the promo- 
 tion of the interests of the Democratic party ? 
 
 " Answer. Not all of them. Some of it was used for a 
 third party, which was organized to divert votes from what 
 was known as the ' People's party ' with us. The ' People's 
 party ' was in opposition to tho Democratic party. We did 
 not know there the party organized as the ' Republican 
 party.' The opposition to the Democratic party was called 
 1 the People's party ; ' and to divert votes from that party, 
 the third party was organized. The object was to divide 
 the ' People's party.' 
 
 " Question. Was such a third party organized? 
 
 " Answer. Yes, sir. 
 
 " Question. Did you believe that was necessary to the suc- 
 cess of the Democratic party ? 
 
 " Answer. We certainly did, or we should not have given 
 them the money. 
 
 " Question. What was that third party called ? 
 
 "Answer. The straight American party; the 'straight- 
 outs.' 
 
 "Question. You speak both of Pennsylvania and New 
 Jersey ? 
 
 " Answer. Yes, sir. 
 
 " Question. And of those States only? 
 
 " Answer. Yes, sir ; of those only." 
 
 * Here we see Mr. Buchanan repeating the 
 game played in making him President. 
 Money was used, on the eve of the Presiden- 
 tial election, to keep up the organization of the 
 Fillmore straight-out Americans in Philadel- 
 phia, to prevent 'them from uniting their 
 strength with the party of freedom, to which 
 they were drawn by principle. Heartless 
 leaders were hired to urge the party discipline 
 on the Americans, to defeat their wishes, and 
 make that man President whom they most ab- 
 horred. And so we find this system of cor- 
 ruption and intrigue strenuously pursued 
 under Mr. Buchanan as a policy. Mr. King's 
 report from the Senate Committee thus groups 
 the facts given in proof of this policy : 
 
 " Besides these largo sums paid by the printer who exe- 
 cuted the printing, as bonus for the contracts, large sums 
 were paid out of the printing money to be expended in elec- 
 tions to iniluence their results. Mr. Wendell testifies that 
 ho contributed, directly or indirectly, 5100,000 during the 
 four years ; and Mr. Wendell, during the lour years ending 
 March, 1859, executed tho public printing. He contributei 
 for different Congressional districts in Pennsylvania, for the 
 elections — in Colonel Florence's district, $2,200 ; in J. Glan- 
 cy Jones's district, SI, 000, but Jones was defeated ; in Mill- 
 ward's district, $500. He also contributed ia Whito's, Ri- 
 ley's, and Landy's districts. Mr. Wendell testifies that it 
 was known to the Executive Departments that he was a con- 
 tributing agent ; that the President was cognizant of the 
 fact that he was spending money liberally, though he never 
 mentioned to him the exact amount in any particular dis- 
 trict. He said he had on his books an item of SI ,500 which 
 ho contributed in New York ; that he went up the river, and 
 contributed, among others, in Mr. Nevins's district ; that he 
 
 ■fjpsr^j^jj * Megargee shows how the American vote of Pennsylvania was dissipated to relieve Buchanan of their op- 
 lySs5?E position in the State election of 1856. Lalferty, a member of the Democratic Executive Committee, andfriend 
 of Buchanan, most reluctantly proves that more than 5,000 forged naturalization papers were used to carry the State in 
 that election lor Buchanan. His plurality was 2,200. The foreign vote on forged papers gave him the Slate vote and the 
 Presidency. His friend, the Collector of Philadelphia, it is proved, sent oil' a trunk full of these forgeries for use in the ul- 
 terior, and others were scut under the frank of Senator Bigler. — See Covode's Report, pages 391 to 403. 
 
10 
 
 also contributed in Now Jarscy, and some small amounts in 
 Maryland. And Mr. Wendell tcstili 'S that, without this 
 public printing, ho would nut have been able to make the 
 contributions he did." 
 
 While this plan of operations was in progress, 
 pending the elections, Wendell was in. constant 
 consultation with the President, the latter read- 
 ins his letters from the several districts to Wen- 
 dell, and Wendell those received by him. This 
 passage in Wendell's testimouy, referring to 
 one occasion, displays the intin "*e relations 
 between them : 
 
 '■ Question. Do you recollect, on the occasion of your go- 
 ing to see the i'. ident, whether it was voluntary, 01 
 you sent fi ir '( 
 
 " Answer. I was not sent for. I was up almost 
 with litters. 1 had a pri tty extensive correspond' ace, 1 
 would read to him extracts from mj letters and wh i1 
 I had from different parte ol tho country where elections 
 wore about com og off. Thu conversations would bo of a 
 friendly, political charact ir. 
 
 " Question did not t ike these letters in 
 
 your hands. What wa th occasion of these letters being 
 alluded to, and the c i yo i ? 
 
 "Answer. to show what tho prospects wero. 
 
 They were lctti i ol a general political character, as I In- 
 ferred from whal be told monitor looking them over. He 
 had apparei I thin all over before I camo into th • 
 
 room. The\ can u i i how the cause was pri 
 ing. 
 
 "Qui i hi recollect whether, in answvr or reply 
 
 to any of tl , you did send off monoyt 
 
 '•Answer. [| mj memory serves mo, I returnod to Phfla- 
 delphlathal c ining,orthe next evening, with munitions. 
 1 think I retun ed that evening. 1 bad returned home tin 
 evening before, and had looked after my business during 
 the day, ami went back the samo evening to Philadelphia. 
 I was backwards and forwards, pretty actively engaged in 
 preaching the good doctrine. 
 
 " By the ( e.OKMAN : 
 
 V Question. Bj ' munitions ' you mean money, do you? 
 
 "Answer. V 
 
 " Question. And you loft the evening of the conversation 
 With the Pros: 
 
 •'Answer. Y 
 " By Mr. WotSXOW : 
 
 " Question. Vv ill you give the particulars of the conver- 
 sation ? 
 
 "Answer. It was general talk upon' tho subject of elec- 
 tions and our prospects. 
 " By Mr. Ou.\ : 
 
 "Question. And the probabilities of carrying the district? 
 
 '■ Answer. TIk probabilities of carrying tho district in 
 which he was a candidate. And from tho conversation, I 
 niade up my mind thai that district was a gono case; I 
 put it down among the hopeless cases. 
 
 '• Question. I in your return to Washington, subsequently, 
 did you see the President? 
 
 " Answer. I did, sir. 
 
 " Question. Did you have any conversation with him 
 upon the subject of tho election in Foster's Congressional 
 district? 
 
 " Answer. I did, and informed him what my views were 
 ui>oii the subject I recollect having a conversation of that 
 kind. 
 
 " Question. Did you have any conversation with him upon 
 the subject of what, it' any, money should be used in that 
 district? 
 
 " Answer. If :ny memory serves me, I did. I had a con • 
 versatiou with nim ; and, it' my memory serves me, I told 
 him that It w ess to do anything in that district ; 
 
 that we were re w4 commenced there. 
 
 '•Questiou. Do you rcollect whether, on tho occasion of 
 that interview, he banded you any lottors in roforenco to 
 the condition ol things in tho various districts of Pennsyl- 
 vania? 
 
 " Answer. I do, sir ; I have a recollection that ho had 
 several letters, but I could not say positively that ono of 
 them was from thai district, although that among other dis- 
 tricts was the subject of conversation." 
 
 Wendell is ruined by the earnest and prodi- 
 gal zeal with which he devoted himself and 
 means to give effect to Buchanan's corrupt in- 
 trigues. Buchanan will retire from the Presi- 
 
 I dency, like Mr. Polk, a much richer man than 
 i he came into it ; but whether he will go into 
 
 private life with a better reputation than Mr. 
 
 Windell, is doubtful. Their . ruins'. 
 
 the Government were alike. I Pn -.dent 
 i was the master, and an accompli 
 I sphere assigned to W< n VII j bat it won. ; 
 
 derogatory to him and his Cabim t I 
 
 the management to maintain their ; 
 
 confided entirely to their print r. These high 
 
 officers have appeared on the e themsi 
 
 and shown their pi . 
 
 dell, their most active and unhesitating instru- 
 ment, in all the venal 
 
 probity from the Gov . | turn the pub- 
 
 lic agents into dishonest 
 signal acts of this sort on the pari ol 
 dent and Secretaries have been branded with 
 
 the censure of the HonseofRept lentath 
 ■ majorities — respectable men of al! 
 ties uniting in the Ti 
 
 One of the acts censured by reso'ution of 
 the House was thai of the Presi lent and 3 
 cretary Toucey, dividing the i : tie- 
 
 coal agency between Hunter, a doctor of B 
 ing, Getz, an editor in Reading, an ! Smith, % 
 man engaged in the omnibus basin* 
 delphia. Neitherofthe.se men even profi 
 to have a knowledge of the different sorts. of 
 coal, and neither of them atten ie 1 to the pur- 
 chase, the measurement, or inspection, of the 
 coal purchased for the United States. "The 
 whole business was turned over to Tyler, 
 Stone, & Co., who became at once pun ha ■ tl 
 for and sellers to the Government." 11 , 
 and Smith divided between them, for this sine- 
 cure, $7,442.92, Getz having the lion- 
 fuse to share in wages given out of the 'IV . 
 ury for political services. Besides, the Govern- 
 ment was cheated in the price of the coal, and 
 under the name of a coal agency. The Com- 
 mittee's report says : 
 "In addition to this direct loss, the mi Ie of pot 
 
 i furnished no guaranty ag uUlty 
 
 or the amount of coal, which wh «*u\l 
 
 was not Inspected by anj ofDi 
 
 J. Glancy Jones, our Minister to Austria, is 
 reported by the Committee to the House to have 
 had a haud in this arrangement, being then a 
 member of Congress from the district. I; I 
 not appear in proof that he took a share, but 
 from the interest he manifested he maj have 
 taken that which Getz refused, for he i 
 ported by the Committee, on making anotli tr 
 arrangement for some of his constituents, tn 
 h.ave taken some of the money. Thev " r 
 that Hon. J. Glancy Jones, while a meml " 
 this House, entered into a contract with 
 Reading Forge Company, by which he > freed 
 to procure work for it from the Govern: 
 in consideration of which he was to receive 
 five per cent, commission, and U In 
 
 ceive money from said company for laid 
 vice," and this in violation of the -pirit of the 
 laws cited in the report. " Q of 
 
 these laws was to prevent a member of Co:. • 
 
16 
 
 from hating any pecuniary interest in a con- 
 tract with any officer of the Government, or in 
 any claim against the Government." 
 
 The House of Representatives, by resolution 
 passed by a decisive majority, comprising 
 member* of all parties, next censured the Ad- 
 ministration for violation of law and mischief 
 to the public service, in a corrupt transaction, 
 of which this is an outline, taken from the 
 Committee's report: 
 
 George Plitt, a noted familiar partisan and 
 instrument of Buchanan, entered into writ- 
 ten agreement with one Swift, to help him to 
 obtain live-oak contracts from the Govern 
 ment for ten per cent, on the gross amounts of 
 tbe contracts made. "Pending the Presiden- 
 tial election of 185G, Plitt introduced Swift to 
 Mr. Buchanan, and sought to place him in the 
 very best position he possibly could with the 
 President. Plitt at the time was treasurer of 
 the Democratic State Central Committee of 
 Pennsylvania, and as such received from Swift 
 the sum of §16,000, of which Swift contributed 
 $10,000, and received the balance of his im- 
 m mediate friends, to be used in the pending 
 election. Alter the election, and the Cabinet 
 formed, Plitt introduced Swift to Toucey, tell- 
 ing the Secretary of Swift's advances, and that " 
 (using his own words,) "such gentlemen ought 
 to be patronized, of course;" and, in fact, and 
 •ot course," "contracts for live oak were 
 awarded to Swift for 150,000 feet, to be deliv- 
 ered at three of the navy yards. An outstanding 
 contract with a Mr. Blanchard was cancelled, 
 and awarded to Swift in November, 1857. The 
 amount of these contracts is $232,940," and they 
 were effected under circumstances which make 
 it probable that they were "a foregone conclu- 
 sion on the advance of the $10,000 to Mr 
 Buchanan's treasurer, Plitt, for operating in 
 his election, of which Toucey, too, was duly 
 apprized by Plitt, ou introducing Swift to him 
 It is not to be believed that Toucey would have 
 been guilty of the violation of law in the transac- 
 tion, and the false pretences to which he resorted 
 to cover it, unless he had been made sensible 
 that the President had come under positive 
 obligations, which he was compelled to make 
 such sacrifices to discharge. 
 
 The law is, that "all purchases, &c, made 
 by or under the direction of the Secretary of 
 the Navy, shall be made either by open pur- 
 chase or by previously advertising for propo- 
 sals respecting the same, &c. Purchases in 
 open market cannot be resorted to except in 
 case of such articles as are wanted for use so 
 immediate as not to admit of contracts by ad- 
 vertisement." 
 
 To get round these imperative provisions, 
 and enable Swift to realize on his advance of 
 sixteen thousand dollars contingent on Buchan- 
 an s election large profits without competition, 
 the. following plan was adopted : " Prior to June 
 lbjS, (says the Report,) Swift brought to 
 some ot the navy yards large quantities of tim- 
 
 ber, which was rejected— some of it because 
 the size was below that prescribed by the con- 
 tract, and some for its inferior quality. By rule 
 of the Department, at most of the navy yards 
 umber not coming within the contract was re' 
 quired to be removed before that which had 
 been accepted would be paid for." The tim- 
 ber Swift wanted to get rid of was exempted 
 from the rule, and his first effort was to get the 
 Secretary to buy it upon open purchase, but he 
 decided he could not, because it was not " for 
 immediate use." The Secretary then ascer- 
 taining, from his chief clerk of his bureau, " the 
 shortest time within which the timber could be 
 cut and transported to the various navy yards, 
 made his advertisement for such short time 
 that nobody could deliver in time to compete 
 with Swift, and the kind of timber described 
 was such as Swift had in the yards. The lum- 
 bermen saw this fraud in the advertisement, 
 and one of them, Mr. Brown, of Maine, (called 
 as a witness,) says he told Swift that he "knew 
 it was got out for his benefit." The witness 
 says: 
 
 "I advised him for his own reputation, to go to the Sec- 
 tary and mduco him to withdraw that advertisement and 
 let h„n purchase his timber, if he wanted it for immediate 
 use He told me that he had been trying to inducetRc 
 retaryto do that same thing, but the Wur^toMnta 
 m^l, i ?. noa . ut ?°"ty topurcha.se this timber He ad 
 
 smf • but Z T d r hat he could not d0 jt "**™* advert 
 sing , but the advertising arrangement was such that no 
 body could offer for it but himsW, bccu.st he lad It mbe 
 m the yards, and he knew that no other man couU fiK 
 
 SK£V* W0 ^° nI ? be t,iflm » to ^.ko any offer I 
 stated to Mr. Swift that I should make an offer to take the 
 contract in good faith, and then should ask the Secretary fo? 
 an extension of time; says he, 'ho will not Irlnt \?> 
 Well then,' said I, < lei him do that and w U r ep r he 
 thing to Congress next winter.' " P 
 
 Several other lumbermen, not supposing the 
 Secretary would enforce an impossibility? but 
 would allow a delivery of the timber at any 
 time within the six months prescribed for the 
 whole, made proposals, reducing the price be- 
 ow that of Swift's, $28,000, and the proof was 
 that it would have been $25,000 more if the 
 usual terms of one or two years, for delivery, 
 had been advertised, being $53,000 less than 
 bwiits. ioucey encouraged some of them, who 
 said they " were ready to do what other con- 
 tractors had done to meet the wants of the 
 Government, and asked whether one of their 
 farm had not better go into Florida and ascer- 
 tain what the wants of Government were there- 
 to which the Secretary replied, that he had bet- 
 ter ao so, and report to the Government 
 before he returned, however, the contract had 
 been awarded to Swift." 
 
 1 ,in',-^ ring , aU this , time ' ( while lower bikers were em- 
 ployed, m doing what on other occasions had obtained an 
 extension of time in the usual long term con racts SwtS 
 remained in Washington, in confidence th at h would fiS v 
 get lie contracts. He assured Bialer « (hat he uZsat^d 
 thai ike parties wouOL have to give them up rL "X 
 was under obligations to him, amlhe thought he a U E 
 ^njluenee to lear iMt lk, v „ W(W ,»v, Mm tkc^eamU^ 
 He said it was due to him for services rendered. ' ' 
 
 The fraudulent design of the advertisement 
 had become so visible that the Secretary was 
 compelled to abandon it, and, in giving the 
 
17 
 
 contract to Swift, he at last resorted to that of 
 open purchase, -which in the beginning he re- 
 jected, when proposed by Swift, because "it 
 was against law to buy timber upon open pur- 
 chase, except for immediate use," and, to bol- 
 ster this pretence, alleges that there were fears 
 of a rupture with Great Britain when the ad- 
 vertisement was issued. To this, the Committee 
 reply, " that in September, when the contract 
 was made, our relations with Great Britain 
 were certainly as harmonious as they have 
 ever been at any time." And to show how 
 unfounded was the statement that " the con- 
 tract was made to supply the pressing and im- 
 mediate wants of the Government," the Com- 
 mittee say " they have directed their attention 
 to that subject," and say that the naval con- 
 structor at Norfolk testifies that "they have 
 used up to this time (March 18, 183'J) leas 
 than one thousand feet of Swill's timber, and 
 that they have on hand five hundred thousand 
 feet. At Kittery, the wants of the Govern- 
 ment were supplied by open purchase from 
 Bigler of three thousand feet, and at Pensecola 
 Degraw had arranged with the naval con- 
 structor for the few sticks for immediate use, 
 and for the balance as needed." This shows 
 how fallacious is the Secretary's pretence, that 
 he was obliged to supply demands in 1858 by 
 open purchase from Swift. The report of 
 the Committee adds : 
 
 " In June, 1£57, a greater necessity for timber existed 
 than when the contracts were awarded to Swift, and yet 
 the usual advertisement was then issued. It is wonhy of 
 observation, moreover, that at 1'ensacola, where the Secre- 
 tary informs us the. wants of the sorvico were most press- 
 ing, Swift had QO timber, and did not deliver it as soon as 
 the lowest bidders could have dono." 
 
 Although the Secretary was compelled, by 
 the unexpected bids, to reduce Swift to the 
 lowest bid obtained, and in terms meant to de- 
 ter bidders, yet he got, besides the usual profits 
 made on such a contract, the $25,000 which 
 the straitened terms of six months instead 
 of two years made contractors add to their 
 bids ; but, as he sold rejected timber at these 
 high rates, the contract was in fact a gift of the 
 whole money. It was probably the bargain on 
 which the $10,000 for the Presidential election 
 was advanced. Yet Swift was not content 
 with this advantage. He refused to pay poor 
 Plitthis per centum on this scandalous trans- 
 action, and Plitt thereupon consulted the 
 President. The result of this conference is 
 thus stated by him : 
 
 " I did not want to involve the present Administration iu 
 any difficulty, and therefore I asked the President whether 
 there would' bo any objection to my prosecuting Mr. BwlfJ 
 In court for this claim. The President looked at thi 
 menl made in 1S54, and said ho could not see any objection 
 to it. Ho had, of course, no advice to give, and told mo I 
 might do as I pleased about it." 
 
 The President saw no impropriety in Plitt 
 selling out his favor in anticipation for means 
 to make it available ; and having realized his 
 part of the speculation in reaching power, 
 employed it in paying Swift out of the Treasury 
 his $10,000 with usury, and compounded it for 
 
 risks, <tc. He saw no reason why a court should 
 not adjudge the pimp entitled to the stipula- 
 ted wages of corruption. 
 
 Another most fatal abuse censured by 
 House was the prostitution of the navy yt 
 t<> bring the hired force concentrate il in t 
 to defeat the popular will in elections. T 
 great establishments, in o;.- 
 lions are expend) 1 I j the G 
 turned into recruiting rendez 
 tration members of Cun r 'ri-<. I 
 on '"the Expenditure.-! for th" Navy I 1 ; 
 ment" gives Brooklyn navy yar 1 ai 
 
 pTej Bhowing how completely it is c »n*< 
 from a naval into a political establilhme 
 the whole concern being put onder the ch 
 of members of Congress, i iiMt o;vt of • 
 cers, as formerly. The 
 ■• The division of patrons i - \»»« 
 
 rn in the yard I i»nd< i 
 
 la w hem bt and each ol bis (ell >w» ■ 
 Thus ili' - construe ive engii eer, tie- m 
 the master block ' 
 master pninler repn senied Mi S 
 maker, mast r blai ksmiih, snd 
 tented Mr. M ■<- bj . the. ma u r laborer mid i -i • 
 strueiin^ engineer, >ii' - master bo i 
 t.T ship-carpenter, represented .Mr T 
 caulker represented Mr. Co 
 cutter represented Mr Ward. Hi: it I May, 1 
 t. - r laborer tuuler tl 
 
 Mr Clark, and the muter carnenl i I Mi 
 
 llaskiu. and so with all the heads ol I ■' 
 
 labor ii. the i nr.l at Br oklyn." 
 
 When Messrs. fiaskin and Clars 
 the Lecompton fraud of the Administration, 
 their recruiting sergeants were 1 by 
 
 the partisans of aspirants who .sup; 
 fraud. The Committee giv. - th | let- 
 
 ter from John COCH&IXI to B I 
 ter in the navy, showing the absolute anth .riiy 
 exerted by members of I 
 workmen in a local election which should be 
 controlled by local citizens : 
 
 ■• Nj \v S ..BR, Jimt 14. I 
 " Mr. Coiiane: Mr. Cullen tells mc thai yon OK 10 lake 
 men on oifTucsday, .Now. I a-k you lo lake tarn on, 
 nnd the others I have as ed you to lake on I ••■ have 
 my proportion of men uiid< r yon; >i yon do n 
 them, 1 will lodge charge* agaiocl yo i Yo ■ 
 away all the men but i>n<- from my d irici 
 this 1 have complained to the Secret r> n i 
 you rectify this injustice, I will niaki appli u 
 be turned out The beort r will bring me an a 
 
 "Years ftc ■ JOHN COCHR \M ' 
 
 Letters of Dan Sickles, among others, 
 exhibited, calling on the Secretary to rei 
 the heads of departments in the yard. It is 
 doue on his demand, disobedience of hi.s orders 
 being the charge. 
 
 The effect of this derangement of our naval 
 system is a double mischief The yard 
 filled with a sort of electioneering lazaroui, 
 who, being appointed and retained on « 
 there, to operate in the can . 
 
 patrons, are nnsuited to fl tploymt 
 
 which they are nominally a 
 beyond the reach of disciplll 
 mander within the yard, theli 
 attaching solely to their patron who ap| 
 iheui to perform political tnd so tho 
 
 navy yard becomes mainly a sort of d-^pot of 
 
18 
 
 election managers, who set the civil police at 
 defiance on election day, and open the way 
 to ballot stuffing, and who, through the au- 
 thority of their patrons with the Secretary, 
 derange the police of the naval establishment, 
 while billeted upon it in the interval of elec- 
 tions. Proof is adduced, in the report of the 
 Committee oti Expenditures, pointing to the 
 mischief of thus subjecting the navy, gathered 
 at the city stations, to abuses to subserve party 
 interests ; but the most striking proof is to be 
 found in the report of a commission of distin- 
 guished officers, who have passed from one 
 navy yard to another, to look into the causes 
 of the decay of energy, discipline, and economy, 
 which once characterized our establishments. 
 At New York, Boston, Norfolk, and Philadel- 
 phia, they find their original vigor sapped by 
 one of prevailing disorder, and the cause of it 
 the malaria of politics. 
 
 The Board, after going through, item by 
 item, all the abuses which have deranged the 
 whole system, thus say: 
 
 " In conclusion, the board would beg leave to recommend 
 that the efforts now being made by the officers in the New 
 York navy yard to maintain discipline, introduce economy 
 and efficiency., and break up the system of political patron- 
 age, bo sustained by the head of the Department. They are 
 convinced that no navy yard can be made efficient, or to 
 serve the purposes for which it was intended, unless the 
 commandant of the yard is supported in the exercise of his 
 legitimate authority, and the minor departments are held 
 strictly responsible, and the heads of them liable to dis- 
 missal for any act subversive of the discipline by which our 
 naval establishments should be governed. 
 
 " Wo have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obe- 
 dient servants. 
 
 F. H. GREGORY, Senior Officer. 
 
 G. J. VAN BRUNT, Captain U. S. Navy. 
 C. H. POOR, Covi'r U. S. Navy. 
 
 JOHN R. TUCKER, Com'r U. S. Navy. 
 DAVID D. porter, Lieutenant. 
 '• Hon. Isaac Toucey, Secretary of the Navy." 
 
 This is the appeal they urge in respect to 
 the other navy yards. These honest officers are 
 sensible that an unscrupulous Secretary can 
 harass them in their profession, and thwart 
 them in their interests and comforts and hon- 
 orable ambition for admonishing him of the 
 fatal influence he has infused into the naval 
 service of his country, but in the pride they feel 
 in the glory of the flag and its constellation of 
 stars which they look up to as the emblem of 
 their country, they do not hesitate to point 
 again and again to the vile mire into which he 
 has dragged it. 
 
 They go to Norfolk, and find things there 
 equally bad. They sum up the abuses there 
 in this way : 
 
 " The master workmen, considering themselves necessary 
 to their political friends, and being assured of protection have, 
 assumed a bearing independent of proper authority out of 
 koopmg with their position, and not to be found in any other 
 navy yard. It is very apparent to the board, although they 
 have not taken much evidence on this point, that the leaders 
 of a majority of theshops are politicians, and have around 
 them a & t of men who are selected as much for their politi- 
 cal as mechanical character." 
 
 They come to Philadelphia, and find the navy 
 yard in a commotion. They point to the cause : 
 
 "According to an estimate made by persons, in evidence 
 the extra number of men unnecessarily employed in the 
 
 Philadelphia yard would, if cut down, be a saving of over 
 S100,000 a year, which would add one flno ship to the navy 
 ) early j and as an increase of the navy is lhe great uesicl- 
 eralum it is desirable that the reduction be made as soon 
 as possible. 
 
 11 P"lilieians have tio much <wai/ 
 " The present stale of things existing in this yard is, no 
 doubt, owing to officers yielding from time 1o lime 10 po- 
 litical influences, which the Government alone had the 
 power to regulate." 
 
 This may be called Mr. Florence's navy 
 yard. Say the officers : 
 
 "The master blacksmith is a politician, and admits it, 
 and there is evidence on record to show ihat he does not 
 always employ the most efficient kind of men ; moreover, 
 his shop is crowded with a larger number of persons than 
 is ju-tifie.l hy the quantity of work goi isr o v here. He has 
 on occasions been known to defeat the effi us of officers 
 of the yard to keep nvn off, and admits that he used his 
 influence v\ iih a member of Congress, in Washington, to 
 have thirty men put on, when it was denied him by the 
 proper authority of lhe yard. There are now in his de- 
 partment lO-i men, with foreman, quarterman and a larger 
 gang of men than is employed in f\iew York." 
 
 This introduction of men into the yards to 
 bear down on elections is developed in the of- 
 ficial lists of the hands employed. In Jan., 
 1857, the number in the Philadelphia navy 
 yard was 574; to meet the necessities of Mr. 
 Florence's election in October following, the 
 number was 1,722. 
 
 All here is of a piece. It is all election ma- 
 chinery. The President himself did not hesi- 
 tate to come to the rescue, when Mr. Florence's 
 district was about to drive him out of this 
 stronghold which belongs to him in virtue of 
 his seat in Congress. It was on this occasion 
 that the President interposed, and set aside the 
 rights of the lowest bidder, (the. Novelty Works, 
 New York,) to give the contract for the ma- 
 chinery of a sloop to Merrick & Sons, Phila- 
 delphia, for the reasons shown in this corres- 
 pondence, which fell into the hand of the Com- 
 mittee : 
 
 *' Philadelphia, September 13, 1859. 
 
 " Dear Sir : I venture to suggest to you the importance 
 of awarding the eontraeis for the machinery of lhe sloop 
 now building at the navy yard at this time and if it can 
 be done without prejudice to the public service, to Mer- 
 rick & Sons Theirs is the only establishment in the first 
 district which employs a large number of mechanics ; a' 
 this time, 390; wtien in full work. 450. 
 
 ''The managing partners (Mr. M., sen , being absent, in 
 bad health) are lull of energy, straining every nerve to 
 keep their force during this depression, and. in so far as 1 
 know, the only ol i Whigs o- any influence in that district 
 who aro in favor of the re-eleciion o Col Uorence. 
 
 "I know, from former experience, the value of that in- 
 fluence, and feel persuaded that it is lhe interest of the 
 Democratic party to incre-ise it. 
 
 "The first district will, I hope, be carried in any event 
 but with that shop at work, full handed, two weeks prior 
 to the election, the result would I think, be placed ne- 
 yond all doubt. With much re-pect, 
 
 'The President. W C. PATTERSON." 
 
 This letter was sent to the Secretary of the 
 Navy, by the President, with this endorsement : 
 
 » " September 15, 1358. 
 
 "The enclosed letter from Colonel Patterson, of Phila- 
 delphi i, is submitied to the attention of lhe Secretary of 
 ihe Navy. j ^ 
 
 'The undersigned regard this as a serious oflence- It 
 is the duty of tne Secretary to determine which ot the hid- 
 ders was -the lowest responsible bidder,' and to award 
 io him the contract. It i a judicial act The rights di 
 parties under he law, and the rights of the Government, 
 were involved in ihe award. 
 
 " If the President had suggested io a judge of the United 
 feta'es courts that he rend r a judgment in 'avor of one of 
 
19 
 
 the parties liligant in a cause pending before him, be- 
 cause that judgment would aid in the election of a parly 
 favorite, or would contribute to the success of the Demo- 
 cratic parly, the general voice of the people would de- 
 mand his impeachment. Is it a less serious otTeno- wbeu 
 this suggestion is made hy the President to thf Secretary 
 of the Navy ? The judge is beyond the power of ih 
 President; the Secretary is within his power. Each is 
 required to perform judicial functions. The soggprtion 
 by the President of corrupt motives to either, is equally 
 dangerous, and is more likely to succeed with nn officer 
 whose tenure of office is the will of the President." 
 
 The scraps here inserted from official reports 
 show that the House Committee, the House of 
 Representatives itself, and the board of officers, 
 all condemn the combination of political in- 
 trigue and corruption with the naval service of 
 the country, making the latter subservient to 
 the selfish schemes of the civil office-holders, at 
 the expense of its usefulness, and the high 
 character it had earned under other Administra- 
 tions. 
 
 The proneness of the present Administra- 
 tion to turn the naval as well as the military 
 service to account in creating jobs and patron- 
 age to gain another term in the Presidency is 
 seen in its Paraguay as well as its Utah war. 
 A brief sketch of the Paraguay war is worth 
 considering, in this view, as particularly char- 
 acteristic of the Buchanan policy. 
 
 Hopkins, who got up this war, was a partner 
 in a Rhode Island trading company, which 
 sent him to Paraguay, to establish a cigar 
 business there, obtaining the place of Consul 
 from our Government to dignify his business. 
 He was always, it seems, from his personal 
 history, as a school-boy, a midshipman, and 
 trader, a most obnoxious person, pregnant with 
 quarrels everywhere, and in the semi-barbarous 
 Republic of Paraguay he managed to put the 
 whole community, President and all, into dis- 
 tress about a trifle. This is a brief of what 
 transpired, taken from the account of Captain 
 Page, of the Water Witch, who interposed in 
 the affair on the side of the Consul, who had, 
 from his official character, involved the inter- 
 ests of the country in his private quarrel. 
 
 " Of the difficulty, I have no idea of entering 
 ' into detail, further than to state that the imme- 
 ' diate cause of its outbursting at that particular 
 ' time was an assault made by a soldier on the 
 ' person of the brother of Mr. Hopkins, while ri- 
 ' ding with a lady, also a foreigner. The man was 
 ' driving cattle to the city, and, on being met or 
 ' overtaken by the riding party, the herd was 
 1 dispersed into the wood. There was no per- 
 ' sonal injury to the lady or the gentleman, but 
 ' the insult was to be considered and justly 
 ' made a subject of complaint. President Lo- 
 ' pez took exception to the language in which 
 ' the complaint was made; a paper war ensued ; 
 ' crimination followed recrimination. The con- 
 ' sular exequatur was revoked, and the wrath 
 ' of the Chief Magistrate extended to the mem- 
 ' bers of the American Company, of which Mr. 
 ' Hopkins was agent. Decrees, (or Jiandos,) 
 ' intended to embarrass their operations, were 
 
 ' issued, and at last the cigar factory wa 
 ' closed." 
 
 The decree which produced this happy resu' 
 for Mr. Hopkins, (who now claims iicmlj 
 million of dollars for indemnity,) as given b_ 
 Captain i ' 
 
 " .1 ' / .i>rx must iake out a lu'etue i 
 ;>■ in any eOWUfrffll Of mdut tri d }>u 
 .suit." 
 The Captain adds: "This last article was 
 reasonable, but the Company, though 
 on for u year, had sol before been require <1 1 
 take out a license ; and when Mr. Hopkil 
 made an application foi it, in the < 1, meter 
 ' general agent.' bavin • 
 for the 6tamped paper, it was n-fu-> 1, on tl 
 ground of his being general agent. Tl 
 was objectionable] ild not be n 
 
 niscd. He must apply aa 'agent,' and i 
 ' general.' " '• I am to thai da s< 
 
 tain) mystified liy this phase ofthe difficult 
 There waa but cue General in P . 
 son-in law ofthe President ; but by what pi 
 of reasoning the title of the ' general ageot' re- 
 flected upon the head of the military arm of 
 the Government, I am unabi neither 
 
 do I see why it should not be relinquish! I." 
 It seems that Hopkins, who was simply an 
 "agent," took the title, and with it tin- as- 
 sumption, of General, which the President) 
 only understanding in the military .-• 
 sidered as arrqgating equality with his heir, 
 whose dignity it was meant only to deride — an 
 offensive interpretation, which the quarrel of the 
 Consul with tlic President ;,n/ /,■-:. d. At this 
 stage ofthe controversy, Captain 1'iu"' arrived, 
 and "found Mr. Hopkins determined, by reason 
 ' ofthe course ofthe Government, to leave the 
 ' country, with the members of the Company, 
 ' and such of their effects as could be couveni- 
 ' eutly removed." 
 
 The Captain interposed to restore amity. 
 He says: " I called on President Lopes; was 
 courteously received, and discussed the diffi- 
 culty between the Government find Mr. 11 >; 
 kins at some length. The President said the 
 soldier [who had insulted the broiler of Hop- 
 kins] had been severely punished by the in- 
 fliction of three hundred stripes in ' running 
 the gauntlet' through the regimenl to which he 
 was attached. He complained of the intemper- 
 ate language of Mr. Hopkins. It was, he said, 
 insulting to him, and he had, in consequence, 
 withdrawn his exequatur. That the agent, Mr. 
 Hopkins, was personally obnoxious to him, and 
 he would not consent to his i Dgagiug in any 
 business in the country." Hut tin- i 
 assured him "that the American Com] 
 would be allowed to carry on its operati Ml un- 
 der a guaranty o 
 
 from the possible recurrence of insult i i 
 nity." The Captain continues : " I Wt 
 Hopkins by appointment, sad informi d him of 
 the result of my interview with tie 
 He theu informed me that the bu-. 
 
20 
 
 Company had been broken up by the action of 
 the Government, regardless of all pre-existing 
 contracts 5 and that he would hold it responsi- 
 ble for the damages, looking to the United 
 States Government for the enforcement of the 
 • reclamation ; that under the circumstances he 
 wished to withdraw from Paraguay, but that no 
 trading vessel would take them, the masters 
 Fearing that the odium in which he was held 
 by the Government would be visited on 
 hem." 
 
 It is the game of some of our ill- doing tra- 
 ;rs among the petty neighboring Republics, 
 id especially among our Indian tribes, to get 
 > difficulties, provoke injuries, and then get 
 the strong hand of our Government to extort 
 demnitics. All the fraucluleut claims set up 
 raiust Mexico, in which our people speculate, 
 e for the most part of this sort, the claimants 
 ilculating on the avidity of our contiguous 
 tates for acquisition of Mexican territory, and 
 lying, in the event of quarrel between the 
 overuments, that they may get their asserted 
 ■mands paid out of the United States Treasury, 
 as so much in liquidation of the amount to be 
 paid for ceded territory. It is so with Indian 
 annuities, which are often swallowed up in in- 
 demnities. Hopkins is not too scrupulous to 
 be an expert in this mode of speculation, and 
 he was dexterous enough to get out of the 
 country at the expense of our Government, 
 which he also involved in an expense of many 
 millions, to get at his reclamation. Captain 
 Page removed his difficulty about removal. 
 He told him, " I will see the President ; and 
 if na arrangement can be made for your leaving 
 the country by a trading vessel, I will receive 
 the members of the Company and their effects 
 on board the Water Witch, and convey them 
 to Corrientes — this being the point at which we 
 wished to establish them." 
 
 The Captain called on the President, and he 
 said he should have the " permit " asked by 
 Page. But alas I another difficulty arose. The 
 Captain explains it : "A vessel was engaged, 
 passports obtained, and I concluded that all 
 was satisfactorily arranged for the departure of 
 the Company, when one of the Company came 
 on board the Water Witch, and complained of 
 tresh insults by the chief of police. The Cap- 
 tain went to the President. The policeman 
 was sent for, charged by the President, and 
 denied every word, rising to his feet as he 
 spoke." 
 
 Then came another difficulty : " On applying 
 for the ' permit' to ship the goods, it had been 
 refused until Hopkins should surrender the 
 papers, deeds, &c, which secured to the Com- 
 pany certain property purchased and paid for 
 by the Company." 
 
 Hereupon, Capt. Page took pen in hand, 
 i; telling the President what would be my 
 course for the relief of the Company, if they 
 were not allowed to depart by the usual mode 
 of conveyance." The Secretary of Foreign 
 
 Relations desired, by "verbal nressage-^o the 
 Captain's clerk, " to take my notes, (the Cap- 
 tain's,) and requested me to have them trans- 
 lated. I replied, verbally, that I must corres- 
 pond with the Government in my own lan- 
 guage, and would not allow my letters to be 
 translated by any one associated with me." 
 This bit of etiquette brought about the war. 
 The notes were returned to the Captain. He 
 (Capt. Page) sent them back, aud informed 
 the Captain of the Port that he " should receive 
 them (the Company) and their effects onboard, 
 and leave Asuncion at a certain hour. Scarce- 
 ly had the announcement been made, when 
 President Lopez issued the permit, showing 
 conclusively that his Excellency was fully in- 
 formed of the contents of my notes, if he did 
 not understand English. It was late. The 
 Americans were in the act of coming on board 
 before its issue was made known. It expe- 
 dited matters, however, for it was accom- 
 panied by an order to the Port Captain to 
 afford them every facility in shipping their 
 goods." 
 
 Capt. Page's last note had produced great 
 alarm. The Captain says: "Not a soul was 
 abroad ; not a man, cart, or horse, was to be 
 seen, except a few conveying the effects of. the 
 American Company to the beach. What was 
 feared ? " The following explanation was made : 
 " Last night, the President called a consulta- 
 tion of his advisers, at which your letter was 
 considered. The wise heads thought they saw 
 in it another Greytown affair. His Excellency 
 thought that, as heavy bodies move slowly, it 
 would be prudent to be prepared ; so he sent 
 for a machinist to examine his carriage, and 
 see that all was in good running condition. 
 Orders were issued that none should appear 
 in the plaza or streets after eleven o'clock this 
 morning, aud not a horse or cart, except those 
 engaged in transporting the goods of the 
 American Company, was to be seen." " The 
 Brazilian Consul, an amiable, gentlemanly 
 man, came on board the Water Witch, and 
 expressed, with much anxiety, the hope that I 
 was not really about to fire into the town. I 
 assured him I had no such intention," &c. 
 " The preparations of the steamer, with her 
 three howitzers planted on board, as a protec- 
 tion against savages, was simply a duty to 
 meet any exigency that might occur." 
 
 Thus the effect of Capt. Page's diplomacy 
 and preparations for action on board his ship 
 had inspired terror enough to make him vain. 
 " I had, it is true, resolved, that if the property 
 of the Americans was retained by the Presi- 
 dent, or placed beyond the reach of our guns, 
 to return the compliment by capturing his 
 navy at Tres Bocas," &c. " On reaching Tres 
 Bocas, we observed an unusual array of 
 soldiers and the little navy of five vessels, with 
 their armament, ranging from two to six guns, 
 all doubly manned, and ready, as the President 
 had said, ' to salute or fight.' The vessels were} 
 
21 
 
 moored so close to the bank, that a plank from 
 each would have enabled the personnel of the 
 marine to make an excursion into the interior 
 of the country at tbe shortest possible notice. 
 On the deck of the flag ship, a prominent figure 
 in the picture, stood my old friend, the Ad- 
 miral. Salutes would have been dangerous ; 
 for, from the evident state of hostile prepara- 
 tion, the first flash of one of the ir guns might 
 have been returned by a fire from our how- 
 itzer, without delay for explanation. We passed 
 slowly on, and in silence, many a soul on the 
 Water Witch devoutly hoping, perhaps, that 
 some brave son of Paraguay would provoke a 
 fight." 
 
 Now it is very evident, from the panic in the 
 town, that the President and his people had 
 discovered in the Captain's note, (which is not 
 given in his volume here quoted,) and from 
 the bearing of the Water Witch, that there was 
 a spirit somewhere " to provoke a fight." Capt. 
 Page ingenuously admits that, up to this time, 
 he had no pretext for it; "as it had yielded 
 every point, as the Americans were personally 
 safe and on board the Water Witch, and the 
 'permit' had been issued to facilitate the ship- 
 ment of the goods, there was no possible excuse 
 for so extreme a measure. I was not at all 
 ambitious of the achievement of firing into a 
 town, destroying the property of Unoffending 
 citizens, perhaps the lives of women and chil- 
 dren, and disturbing the course of a Govern- 
 ment with which I had been directed to treat 
 for commercial intercourse." 
 
 Nevertheless, the threatening note which 
 Captain Page had addressed to the Presi- 
 dent, his refusal to translate it, and sending 
 back those addressed to him, together with the 
 alarming preparations ou board the Water 
 Wiich, where Hopkins, the vindictive enemy 
 of the President, had taken his place, filled the 
 town with apprehensions of this formidable 
 stranger, which could easily have taken his 
 flotilla and burned his town. He therefore, 
 ou the 3d of October, issued this decree : 
 
 " Art. 1. In the navigation of the rivers of ihe Repub- 
 lic, foreign vessels of war are excluded. 
 
 '"2. The exp oration? of the rivers of Upper Paraguay, 
 which are embraneri within the territories of tho Repub- 
 lic orof other neighboring Slates, cannot be made mrough 
 the J^owcr Paraguay pending the settlement of limits 
 with the neighboring Powers, Brazil and Bolivia." 
 
 These decrees would undoubtedly be within 
 competency of England, France, or the United 
 States, in regard to waters within their bound- 
 aries. Notwithstanding this interdict, Capt. 
 Page sent the Water Witch into the Parana. 
 Here is his account of the result : 
 
 "Lieutenant Jeffers had advanced but a short di^ance 
 above the junction of the Parana and Paraguay, platting 
 the work as he progressed, when, from very deep water, 
 the vessel was run upon a sand-bank, the lead :tt the 
 gangway indicating no material change in the depth. 
 YM|ile in the act of getting the steamer afloat, a boat 
 came alongside from a fort on the Paraguay shore, when 
 was a flag-staff, but no flag llyinj, and presented a paper 
 to Lieutenant Jeder?, who returned it to the messenger, 
 informing him that lie did not read Spanish. This, with 
 
 the substitution of the word : Spanish ' for ' English." was 
 Presidenl I. ope/> reply to my communication ia behalt 
 ol Americans in Asuncion He observed -orue but'o 
 
 an.! activity ai ihe fort: and, lo be prepared for any 
 
 emergency, put the Teasel in the bcsl stale of defence he 
 
 could, but scarcely adinitfin- to hnii«elf the uossitnlily of 
 
 attack. 
 
 '■ st„- was got (float; and on •mkinc ,ne pilot where 
 lay the chann I be u hesitatingly said thai it »■< near 
 the Paraguay shore. ! ut he h id suBpe*ed Hie river waa 
 high enough '.. en iblc tbe Water u , 
 shoals neat ae left bank, and made t 
 informing the commanding oflaci The pilot, like n any 
 oUier Argcntinas of the same class, looked apoa I'ara- 
 guay as a semi-civilized country, and as to 
 
 put a great distance between Ihe Water IVHeb. an I 
 Itapira. ii ■• .vn« ordered to change in. cot rss of ihe 
 
 and the na i 
 explain' d to linn, thai he mi hi 
 
 aacfl of keeping In mid-channel iviow* 
 
 ity to the Parnguay shore, or whether there wa» water 
 tnoin-h oufide of it. When the VI ■ was 
 
 within close shot, two oi 
 
 fired from Ihe fori, in (piiek ■ . . | t, v a 
 
 shot. At what pan oi ihe vessel it was aimed, I can 
 only judge by fraetdenl i. . 
 l> partment, where be magnanimously lays Ii m , 
 
 -oai to 'pass ahead ' I; i daa 
 
 mark, and was unfortun re, for n i 
 
 through (in- after pert, cut away the | killed 
 
 the helmsman. Lieutenant J'Keri had disregarded the 
 blank cartridges, and up to this tune had wilhhel 
 fire. Indeed, ins means of defence, with thn 
 one twenty four pounder, and t.v 
 
 small against B brick or -tone i,irt Hut, when this shell 
 same, he returned it ai rapidly as thr reduced nun 
 his officers and crow and tbe d 
 helm wou'd admit. The accuracy o!" ihe fire ws 
 in cutting away the flii;htuff, and in the shrapnel! gra- 
 zing the low wall ; for the mo null i! on bar- 
 bette. \\'e learned afterwards thai severs i 
 ans were killed ; some reports said tlntn others /■ 
 
 So ended the affair, which is here presented 
 in the light in which Hopkins and Page gave 
 it. What President Lope/, had to say mt him- 
 self was not material to President Bucha] an. 
 The sequel shows that the latter engrafted on 
 the facts thus reported a messaj 
 denying the validity of the decree of I 
 against navigating the river, because only ono 
 side of it belonged to him, and beCMM tho 
 Water Witch "was not a vessel of war," and 
 did not come within the decree, and because 
 citizens of the United States "had their prop- 
 erty seized and taken away from them.'* The 
 two last facts stated by Mr. Buchanan are not 
 supported by Captain Page's statement : and 
 the first point, as matter or law, will hardly be 
 admitted, if a nation, holding '>f a 
 
 rivor with a fortress, sees it approached l>y an 
 armed vessel, which vessel refuses to receive a 
 message by a flag, and refuses to pause on the 
 firing of blank cartridges. Lopez ordered " a 
 shot ahead," as is common to bl 1 to. 
 
 Fearing, from observation of what was passing 
 on the Water Witch, that the ai ring 
 
 on a battle, he sent a countermand oi hi; of led 
 It did not arrive iu '■'- ; this it would 
 
 seem that what occurred was the effect of a 
 double accident. In proof of tl 
 Lopez, the fact that he Bent to thr- witlow nf tho 
 man killed $10,000 gratuity may I 
 These circumstances are spoken of by Cum. 
 Shubrick, whose i s ''' and humanity 
 
 closed the war so honorably ; and as our ' I 
 eminent sought no indemnities fcr its vast ex- 
 
22 
 
 penditnres, it would seem to have been satis- 
 fied with the explanation. 
 
 It is very dear, from Mr. Page's statement, 
 that means were at hand to compel Lopez to 
 make prompt atonement for whatever wrong 
 he had committed, or to punish it to the ut- 
 most, without resorting to this expensive expe- 
 dition. Captain Page descended the river, met 
 Com. Salter at Montevideo, with the Savannah 
 flag-ship and the Germantown, and in his note, 
 18th April, says: 
 
 " Have had a conversation with the Commodore since 
 my visit of 31st, and urged the propriety of Bending the 
 Germantown un, towed by the Wider Witch, to knock 
 down Itapira Ciptuin Lynch, in a nob 'e, generous spirit, 
 which I lully appreciate, hail proposed to the Commo- 
 dore to take ihe Ge mant -wn up, or relinquish 'he com 
 mund of the ship to me for that purpose." 
 
 The Commodore said : 
 
 " I cannot ni-ve in t"is matter. The affair is referred 
 to the Government, and I shall await instructions." 
 
 Captain Page's comment is : 
 "The Fort Itapira ought to have been knocked down, 
 and we should now be even with the Faraguay Govern- 
 ment. I begged but for two guns, atul I would havepledged 
 my life in the effort.''' 1 
 
 This is the whole case. Three vessels lay 
 at the mouth of the river, awaiting the Presi- 
 dent's instructions, the least of which, furnished 
 with two additional shell guns, might have 
 produced submission, or the destruction of the 
 town, the fort, and Lopez's whole flotilla. 
 Neither alternative suited Mr. Buchanan. It 
 presented a fine opportunity to carry out his 
 policy at home. It develops itself. After pre- 
 senting the case to Congress as recounted, he 
 adds, very modestly : 
 
 '• I am constrained to consider the attack upon her 
 (the Water Wiieli) as unjustifiable, and as calling for 
 satisfaction from the Paraguayan Government. A de- 
 mand for these purposes will be made in a firm but con- 
 ciliatory spir t This will the more probably be granted, 
 if the Exe. u.ive shall have authority to use other means 
 in the event of a refusal." 
 
 Well, he had " other means" enough to back 
 a conciliatory message to Lopez at the mouth 
 of the river, and to blow up his little Republic 
 in case of contumacy. But that would have 
 been a short job, and far away. President 
 Buchanan's policy required jobs at home; 
 and his skill in creating them out of this affair, 
 and using them in aid of his political manage- 
 ment, will add another trophy to his reputation. 
 The President and his Secretary Toucey 
 thought it indispensable to accompany a de- 
 mand " for satisfaction," in a firm, conciliatory 
 spirit, with a fleet of fifteen vessels of war! ! 1 
 Seven of these were steam ships, chartered 
 from the merchant service, on terms which 
 made it necessary to buy them, having cost 
 more than they were worth in refitting and 
 alterations to bear cannon — the refitting 
 amounting to $141,020.86 at first, and accu- 
 mulating ever since. There were twenty-six 
 small vessels employed in transporting coal. 
 Cost of the coal, $201,094.02. 
 
 The flag-ship (the Sabine) which conveyed 
 Lhe Commissioner, Hon. Mr. Bowliu, cost in 
 provisions alone $45,454.50. The purchase 
 
 of the chartered vessels cost $289,000 ; but 
 the Secretary of the Navy furnishes only some 
 of the extra charges incurred by the expedi- 
 tion, in reply to the resolution requesting the 
 Committee on Expenditures to inquire into 
 and report on the expenditures of the Paraguay 
 expedition. The Secretary answers, laconi- 
 cally : " It is impossible to give an exact state- 
 ment of the total expense of the expedition ; " 
 and there he drops it. It must be guessed 
 from aggregates. The present term of four 
 years more than doubles Mr. Van Buren's 
 term. The expense of the naval service of 
 Mr. Buchanan's past two years is almost 
 twenty-seven millions, doubling that of Mr. 
 Madison's naval expenses during the war with 
 Great Britain, when the glory of our flag of 
 stars illuminated the ocean. 
 
 But there are circumstances which prove 
 that Mr. Buchanan's war upon Paraguay was 
 not for glory, but to furnish means of corruption. 
 It has appeared already how it has poured 
 its current into and through our naval depart- 
 ments. The charter and repairs of the leven 
 steamboats afterwards purchased, added to the 
 tide which preparation of the national vessels for 
 war began to raise. But, outside of the political 
 laboratories, this war gave motion to consid- 
 erable political influence along the seaboard. 
 Mr. Hopkins and his Rhode Island incor- 
 porated trading company were called into 
 action for the Administration. Then Crom- 
 well & Co., who sold out their line of merchant 
 steamers for war ships, have an establishment 
 in New York, and one in Baltimore, and traded 
 all along South. This company, in selling out 
 their old ships, were set to build more, and 
 were thus put in control of a multitude of 
 voters. Then two hundred thousaud dollars 
 spent in the coal mines gave a money impulse 
 there for the Administration. Then the twen- 
 ty six vessels employed in the transportation of 
 the coal would call out an expenditure among 
 the masters which might be made to tell all 
 along shore. In addition, Mr. Toucey found a 
 job account in the purchase of the steamers, af- 
 ter they were all reported by their officers, after 
 trial, as wholly unfit for w»r vessels. " Their 
 slightness of construction ; " " helpless condition 
 at sea;" "imperfect machinery;" "patched 
 boilers, (one with one hundred patches,) much 
 burned ; " " unmanageable under canvas ; " 
 " many weaknesses ; " " ordinary pumps would 
 not keep afloat;" "engines broken down;" 
 " vessels unable to carry a battery, from want 
 of speed, and exposure of machinery, not at all 
 adapted to purposes of war ; " " unsafe to make 
 a voyage of any great distance on the ocean " — 
 all this, and much more represented by the 
 officers in their correspondence with the Sec- 
 retary, while on their voyage, creeping from 
 island to island, and the ports along the conti- 
 nent, to river La Plata, could not deter him from 
 purchasing these ships of war. Com. Shubrick 
 says, if they had been with him on the ocean 
 
23 
 
 when the storm struck his flag-ship, the Sabine, 
 that all would have gone down. To persons un- 
 acquainted with the recent management of the 
 navy in politics, such a purchase would seem in- 
 explicable. Those acquainted with the abuses in 
 the navy yards know that the worthlessness of 
 these vessels were tbeir recommendation. They 
 are rebuilt at the navy yard, under appropriations 
 for repairs, when they can be no longer patch- 
 fed up. Congress feels bound to allow estimates 
 for repairs, when they would not vote for new 
 ships; but ships are sometimes thus made new 
 without a stick of the old, and bearing nothing 
 but the name, and even this is occasionally 
 changed. 
 
 And this increase of the navy, in leaky, rot- 
 ten, worm-eaten, worn-out merchant steamers, 
 is all that results from the many millions sunk' 
 in the Paraguay war, if the commission given 
 to the President's friend, the Hon. Cave John- 
 con, does not produce something more. He is 
 to hunt up pretexts for an indemnity to Hop- 
 kins & Company for insulting and. aliena- 
 ting a young and rising Republic. The nation 
 must lose its trade by extorting near a million 
 from Para-nay to satisfy the General agent for 
 being refused permission to sell his cigars, 
 probably only " a beggarly account of empty 
 Doxes." 
 
 The Utah war has ended quite as ignomini- 
 ously. Kansas, the President confesses to Mr. 
 Walker in his private letter, on opening the 
 campaign, was its primary object. Until "you 
 are out of the woods," he tells the Governor, 
 you shall keep Harney and his army. " Kari- 
 sas is vastly more important to us at this mo- 
 went than Utah." All the war could accom- 
 plish here, was to exclude the State from the 
 Union ; he could not enslave it. 
 
 What has he done for Utah ? The Secretary 
 of War, in his report to Congress at the session 
 before the last, alludes to the demands which 
 had been made on " that body for appropria- 
 ting the large sums of money necessary for 
 crushing the treason at a single blow." Now 
 that the ten millions have been spent, and the 
 blow struck, what is the result? The Secretary 
 tells us in his last report: 
 
 •• miairs in the : Trrri'ory oi crncb ■<_>....!.• -. . , .....*-• ..^ 
 at the date of rny last annual report. The uriny is inact- 
 ive, and Manils in Ihfl attitude of a menacing Ibrce 
 toward; a cmqucred a:id sullen people. I am satisfied 
 that the preservation of right and justice through the 
 means of any jurisprudence known or recognised by the 
 people of the United Stales, is impossible in ihat Terri- 
 tory. It is governed practtt aliy by a system which is 
 in totul disregard of the laws or Constitutions of the laud. 
 The laws of the Mormon church and the will of lit- m r- 
 acuy are alone, potential there beyon t a mere outward 
 show of acquiescence in Federal authority, they are as 
 irresponsible to it as any foreign nation. 
 
 There is in the present altitude, of ailurs scarcely any 
 necessity for the presence of trcops in Utah, and they 
 will be otherwise disposed of in the coming ssaso . 
 There are no complaints of Indian hostilities towards the 
 Mormon people. All other Territories and people upon 
 our vast fio.itters sutler from Indian depredations, bu1 
 the Mormon people enjoy an immunity from all these 
 outrages. For thi protection of these people against In- 
 dians, there is no necessity for the presence of a Fir ™le 
 soldier. Mimcrs and robberies of the most atrocious 
 
 character hive been perpetrated in '.he Territory u"On 
 emigrants from the S'ates;ourneying towards the Vacific, 
 and in some of the m< si shockire instances by white 
 men disgui'ed as Indians. The general imprv ->ion. so 
 far as I have been able to ascertain it mnn"g those hav- 
 ing opportunity n> kr.ow. is. that these murders are the 
 work of the Mormon people themselves, sanction! 1 n 
 not directed by the authority of the Mifflnn church."' 
 
 The Mountain Meadow massacre, in which 
 one hundred and twenty peace able 
 
 emigrants fell — a butchery extending through 
 five days, within a few miles <•(' the Mormon 
 settlements, leading Mormons looking on, and 
 after receiving the spoil from the Indians, till 
 detailed in Mr. Forney's f Indian superintend- 
 ent) report — makes it certain that the Secretary 
 is well founded in the statement that Mor- 
 mons are the instigators in this war against 
 emigration across the central part of.tbe conti- 
 nent. The butchery of Captain Qnnnison and 
 his party of explorers to open this way, it is 
 almost certain was tin i r work. But besides 
 this participation in Indian atrocit' 
 may be only the crime of a few confederate 
 Mormons, the Secretary thus charges the whole 
 community : 
 
 " After the open nets of war by the Morm-m people 
 against the UtHied states, ,,, seizing the pr.p i lion trains 
 of our army and destroy ing them by fire. ■ d Bleating and 
 driving oil" the herds of eattie and horses belonging, to the 
 command, although these were essential as everybody 
 supposed, to the maintenance of our troops, and ihi ir 
 protection against starvat on, these people continued to 
 manifest every proof of afixed determination to push their 
 treason to the extremity of bloodshed and war." 
 
 Then a long list of Mormon violations of the 
 Constitution and laws is given, to justify the 
 Administration in the sigual vengeance it had 
 taken, of which the Secretary seems proud : 
 
 "This movoment upon this Territory was d. msj ded 
 by the :ru.r;tl sentiment of the eon itry— was due to a vin- 
 dication of the laws and Constitution — and v.-.\* essential 
 io demonstrate the power of the Federal Government 
 to chastise iasuborduation and quell rebellion," &o. 
 
 The report does not tell how this insubordi- 
 nation was chastised and rebellion quelled, but 
 goes on to say : < 
 
 "These people, however, still evince a spirit of in- 
 subordination and moody discontent. The necessity 
 which called for the presenci of the tr h will 
 
 require a Slro I 'o be kept there." 
 
 Now, what was the chastisement of the trea- 
 son, the bloodshed, the robberies, the confla- 
 grations, the attempt to starve a whole army ? 
 what was the spirit in which our Executive, 
 with a powerful army at his bidding, r> bilked 
 all this? Defied by Brigham Xonng at every 
 step in their progress, our poor-spirited Pi 
 dent submits at last to beg tin' way for his 
 army to .Salt Lake City, without encounter, 
 through the intervention of a private citizen, 
 Thomas L. Kane, the brother or the Arctic ex- 
 plorer. The President writes a letter of cre- 
 dence to this envoy, but, with hie usual duplici- 
 ty, disavowing that he did "send any agent to 
 visit them in behalt of the Government." This 
 letter is a master piece ot Ruchanan diploma- 
 cy. Mr. Kane gncs to the Mormons, and lets 
 them know what vengeance awaited till their 
 crimes. They were to have, in the first place, 
 a general amnesty for all their crimes — cover- 
 
24 
 
 ing up the blood of the innocents shed on the 
 Mountain Meadow, that of Captain Gunnison's 
 exploring party, the robbery and 'fire of the 
 army trains, and, in a word, all the treason, 
 from first to last — Young on his part promising 
 nothing, but .allowing Governor Powell and 
 Ben MeOullough (the commissioners sent to 
 him after Ivane had obtained leave) to say 
 "that it was agreed that the officers civil and 
 military of tin; United States should peaceably 
 and without resistance enter the Territory of 
 Utah, and discharge, unmolested, all their offi- 
 ciul didieg." Brigham did not even sign this 
 agreement, but merely adds a note, admitting 
 that it was il said in said conference." 
 
 Now, the Secretary of War admits in both 
 of his reports, since the agreed ease, that Brig 
 ham Young has acted on his mental reserva- 
 tion, and so acted that neither the laws nor Con- 
 Lion have been permitted to have any force 
 i". t!e T frtl ry. f/bat the Mo*raoii<» - "'keep 
 up strictly .iieir organization, which has I 
 object and end the complete exclusion of Fed- 
 eral authority from all participation iu the 
 Governmental affairs in the Territory beyond 
 a mere hollow show." This he tells Congress 
 at its session before the last, to show that it 
 must appropriate money to keep the army there, 
 and keep up "the mere hollow show." in the 
 report to the last session he even gives this up, 
 and proposes to take the army away, and sur- 
 render the Territory to the Mormons, 
 time the Mormons are grown rich on the mar- 
 ket the army has afforded them, and are Bpecu 
 lating on all the spoils obtained in exchanges. 
 Fur instance, they bought hundreds of wagons 
 used as transports for the army and il 
 visions, for $20 each; they now sell the 
 v. ins, to transporttbe army away, at $150 each. 
 
 Now, the question is, why does our Govern- 
 ment sllbmit to Young's Government, instead 
 of bringing his to submission? The answer 
 is, his is a slave State. The army was r 
 not to subdue a slave State, but to make Kan- 
 Gas a slave State. Young has not only i 
 lished negro slavery, but has established B 
 system that must end in enslaving the I 
 and dependent of the white race. He can have 
 but one wife at a time of the sixty he h«ik*«*» 
 such. The rest are slaves. This plurality 
 means nothing but concubinage, and is in 
 a denial of the rights of wedlock to lho.-e who 
 are. euslaved. In other sections, the rights of 
 marriage in slaves are denied or broken at 
 pleasure, in Mormondom, a man may have as 
 many wives as he can buy ; and as this makes 
 it literally a matter of money, he may dispose 
 of them, without regard to what mankind gen- 
 erally consider sacred ties. This allies both 
 white aud black slavery in Utah in tome sort 
 with negro slavery iu the South; aud from this 
 sympathy of institutions, the Senate, at the 
 last session, put down the bill of the House of 
 Representatives, declaring polygamy a crime, 
 and punishing it as a violation of the morals 
 and laws of the country. The executive power 
 at Washington, which indeed in all its branches 
 
 is in suoaerviency to the South, understands 
 their sympathy; and hence its leaning to the 
 crimes of Brigham Young's Government. 
 Beace, while the Secretary declares that this 
 Government is the accomplice of the Indian 
 murderers who beset the path of the emigrant 
 .hi every central route to the Pacific, the troops 
 are removed because the Mormons do not need 
 de.ie.nce against the Indians, aud thus, in block- 
 iivg the middle way to California, are serving 
 the interests of the slave States, which desire 
 to drive the emigration into the ox-bow route 
 the Mississippi, across through desert 
 
 ma, and up again north along the Pacific 
 to San Francisco. The Postmaster Geueral 
 violated the law, and pays $o0t),000 a year to 
 change to this put of the- way course the post 
 route contemplated by the law. This was done 
 to give its direction to the railroad across the 
 Continent. The Ex in this de- 
 
 and hence the middle of I 
 surrendered to the Mormons aud their savage 
 allies. 
 
 And this is all our gain from the Mormon 
 war, which made the annual military expenses 
 of the Government equal to thos$ of the war 
 v.ith Great Britain, and would have 'raised 
 them four millions higher, if the Republican 
 [any had not voted down the demand of the 
 .i increase of the standing arm; 
 by the addition of four more regiments of reg- 
 
 each year. 
 This would have raised Mr. Buchanan's army 
 outlay above t .eutv-three millions, very nearly 
 the total expei 1 ..-;" of the ei tire G iverranent un- 
 der Mr. Van Buren. The four regiments were 
 
 down, and Mr. Buchanan doubtless would 
 give this as a reason for leaving Utah in the 
 of Brigham Young, as Secretary Floyd 
 admits it is. it' Congress had not offered the 
 President a force of volunteers to bring him to 
 obedience or drive him from the country. The 
 Executive refused the volunteers. They had 
 driven these Ishmaelites out of Missouri and 
 Illinois, and if permitted to drive them out of 
 Utah we should have one slave State less. 
 
 In the passages commented on in this paper, 
 the Administration has written its own history. 
 
 reluctant witnesses of its own party. They show 
 it to be the creature of the slave power, wl 
 
 exhibits, p. one to despotic goveru- 
 ment aud corruption. Its strength is in the 
 combination and organization of ill who profit 
 by its oppressions. Being at war with the en- 
 nobling principles of humanity, it necessarily 
 appeals to the worst instincts and passions for 
 
 it. Where freedom prevails, it can have 
 no party on honest principles. There it must 
 buy a }>artij. Hence their appeals to the sordid 
 of the once patriotic Democracy of the 
 free States, successfully holding out to their 
 avarice, and ambition, advancement to tho high 
 places und patronage of the Government. Tho 
 result of their prostitution has been the ruin of 
 
 irty whose name aud organization they 
 abused. 
 
 §4 Mf