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# LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 5 
 
 J UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, J 
 
JAMES BUCHANAN, 
 
 HIS DOCTRINES AND POLICY 
 
 ^S EXHIBITED BY HIMSELF AND FIUENDS. 
 
 MR. BUCHANAN AS A FEDERALIST. 
 
 AN ORATION, 
 
 DBLIVERED ON TOE 4TH OF JULY 1815, BEFORE THE 
 WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION OF LANCASTER. 
 
 BY JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 History of the Revolution. 
 
 Thirty-Nine years ago, upon this day, we were 
 declared an independent people. At that time the 
 Continental Congress burst asunder the chains which 
 bound them to Great Britain, and resolved to be free, 
 or to perish in the attempt. Upon that day, they 
 presented to the world a spectacle of wisdom and 
 firmness which has never been excelled. 
 
 To make a proper estimate of their conduct, we 
 must take into view, the then situation of this coun- 
 try, compared with that of our enemy. On the one 
 side, the armies of Great Britain were numerous 
 and veteran : they were led by commanders who 
 had acquired military reputation in every clime ; they 
 were supported and furnished with every implement 
 of war by a nation whose wealth has, upon differ- 
 ent occasions, purchased the services of all the 
 crowned heads in Europe. On the other side, our 
 armies were small and unacquainted with military 
 discipline : our officers were destitute of experience ; 
 and we were so miserably poor, that our brave 
 soldiers were not more than half clothed, and their 
 winter marches, over the frosty ground which they 
 were defending, could be tracked by the blood that 
 flowed from their naked feet. 
 
 But even these were not the only disadvantages 
 under which we labored. Whilst our enemy invaded 
 us from without, the torch of discord and of treason 
 was lighted up within, when independence was de- 
 clared, the mother country had a powerful party 
 throughout all the middle States, and many adherents 
 In every other part of the Union. 
 
 Dreadful, therefore, was the responsibility of that 
 Congress. Had not victory carried their banners, 
 their names would have been cursed by the people 
 of this country, as the promoters of a destructive 
 civil war, whilst their blood would have flowed on 
 the scaffold as a sacrifice to appease the spirit of 
 British vengeance. In this awful situation, whilst 
 the dark cloud of destruction appeared ready to 
 burst upon them, they declared to the world our In- 
 dependence. They thought that, 
 
 " Oi.e day, one hour of virtuous liberty, 
 Was worth a whole eternity of bondage." 
 
 Everlasting honor to their names ! The gratitude 
 of a free people will forever hallow their memory. 
 
 It is not my intention, at this time, to give yon a 
 narrative of those glorious eveuts of the revolution- 
 ary war, which led to the recognition of our Inde- 
 pendence by Great Britain and the world. They 
 have been the subject of so many orations, and of 
 such general interest, that they are familiar to every 
 mind. The present oration shall contain a short his- 
 torical sketch of the most prominent action of the 
 party now in power in this country, and their conse- 
 quences ; aud also an inquiry concerning the course 
 which sound policy dictates that the government of the 
 United States should pursue in future. The impor- 
 tance of those subjects, although not strictly con- 
 nected with the celebration of this day, will, I trust, 
 be their apology to every miud. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan attacks the Democracy. 
 
 There was a powerful faction in the United States, 
 opposed to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. 
 The individuals of which it was composed were 
 called anti-federalists, and were the founders of the 
 Democratic Party. They gloried in setting them- 
 selves in array against our present admirable form 
 of- government. The authors of this opposition 
 were chiefly Demagogues, who might have risen to 
 the head of a state faction, but who felt conscious 
 that their talents would be eclipsed, wheu the lumi- 
 naries of the United States should be collected 
 around the General Government. To gratify tbeir 
 ambition, they wished that this country should con- 
 tinue divided into a number of petty state sovereign- 
 ties without any efficient government for their con- 
 trol. This they desired, although they had the ex- 
 ample of ancient Greece before their eyes, and well 
 knew the clashing interests of the States and their mu- 
 tual jealousies, kept alive by alliances with different 
 foreign nations, would have made this country a per- 
 petual theatre of contention and c'- ;i war, until it 
 had fled for refuge into the arms of d >tism. They 
 therefore sounded the alarm tbroagL it the Union 
 against the Federal Constitution. They predicted 
 ruin to the State governments and to the liberties of 
 the people, from the powers given to the general 
 government. By these means they succeeded in 
 alarming the fears of many good men, and inducing 
 them to believe that government, which is now 
 the palladium of their safety, would be the instru- 
 ment of their destruction. Notwithstanding their 
 desperate efforts the Constitution was adopted, 
 and Washington was elected President. 
 
 It might have been Bupposed that these factionariea 
 would have been awed into silence by his wisdom 
 
EV^ 
 
 2 
 
 and virtue. This was not tlie case. The opposition 
 which they had given to the Federal government, was 
 now transferred to its administration. At first, in- 
 deed, the voice of calumny dared only to whisper 
 against Washington and his measures, but ere long 
 it was heard in thunder. 
 
 When the French Revolution commenced, it was 
 hailed by the people of this country, generally, as 
 the dawn of rational liberty in Europe. But when, 
 in its progress, it had become the destruction of reli- 
 gion and morality — when thousands of citizens were 
 daily sentenced to death, and butchered without 
 trial and without crime — when all the horrors of an- 
 archy were poured out upon that devoted country at 
 home — and when Attila-like it had become "the 
 Bcourge of God to foreign nations, the Washington 
 party began to entertain fears of its result, and 
 thought it necessary to stem the French influence, 
 which was rapidly overflowing our country. To 
 this duty they were imperiously called, as it was not 
 only in theory one of the avowed objects of thatgov- 
 erumeut to spread revolutionary principles over the 
 whole world, but they had actually attempted to 
 sow the seeds of rebellion throughout the United 
 States. 
 
 True to their original principles and their first 
 love, the democratic party of that day became more 
 the friends of the French as they became niofp the 
 enemies of social order. — When "the proclamation of 
 neutrality was issued by Washington — that procla- 
 mation which is now almost universally admitted to 
 have been the salvation of our country — that procla- 
 tion which impartially placed England and France 
 upon the same footing, and laid open the commerce 
 of the world to America, they were enraged that we 
 had not entered inU) an alLiauce with the French 
 Republic, and waged war under their banners, 
 against the human race. But when the treaty of 
 peace with England, commonly called Jay's treaty, 
 was ratified by Washington, torrents of personal 
 abuse icrre poured out by the democratic party 
 Kjwri his head. They openly charged the father of j 
 his country with an intention of destroying his 
 wen beloved offspring. To such a pitch of ingra- 
 titude were they carried by their diabolical 
 passions that they dared publicly, and without 
 the slightest foundation, to accuse him of secretly 
 putting his hand into the treasury like a felon. 
 and appropriating without authority, the money of 
 the nation to his own individual use. That man, 
 the vigor of whose youth had been worn out in those 
 splendid military achievements which made our 
 country independent, and whose age and experience 
 had been devoted to the creation and organization 
 Of thi! federal government — that man who had never 
 received <<w farthing more of the public money than 
 what he had expended in the public service was ac- 
 cused ol being a base peculator of the public treasure. 
 — During this cruel persecution his noble mind felt 
 sensibly the stings of his countrymen's ingratitude. 
 In the bitterness of his soul he complained that he 
 lii 1 been abused, to use bis o wn emphatical language 
 in "such exaggerated and indecent terms, as could 
 scarcely be applied to a Negro — a notorious de- 
 faulter — or even to a common pick pocket." 
 
 What must be our opinion of an opposition, whose 
 passions wire so dark mid malignant as to be gratified 
 in endeavoring to blast the character and embitter 
 the old age of Washington? After thus persecuting 
 the savior of his country, } imv can the democratic 
 party dare to call themselves his disciples ! 
 
 But no opposition could divert the steady soul of 
 Washington from its purpose. Fie had digested a 
 system of policy, which ne steadily pursued, amid 
 the storms of faction. Bis successor in office for the 
 mo^t part, walked in his footsteps. To continue at 
 peace a nation must be prepared for war, was a 
 maxim by which the Federal administrations were 
 
 constantly directed. Under their auspices, there- 
 fore, public credit was well established as the best 
 means of public defence. The debt of the revolu- 
 tionary war was funded, and moderate taxes were 
 imposed. A navy was built to the protection of com- 
 merce. We considered all nations equally, in war 
 as enemies, in peace as friends ; and therefore a 
 strict neutrality towards all nations was preserved. 
 It would be impossible to enumerate every wise 
 measure of the W ashington administration ; suffice it 
 to say, that during their continuance, the prosperity 
 of this country was unexampled in the annals of 
 time. The dreams of fancy we almost realize. 
 Cities raised up as by magic throughout our country, 
 and wealth flowed in upon us from all nations. The 
 wilderness yielded to agriculture, and fields loaded 
 with the richest harvests covered those gloomy 
 forests, where wild beasts but a few years ago hail 
 used to roam. Happy indeed, were those people, 
 had they but known their own happiness. Notwith- 
 standing their prosperity, faction still continued to 
 rage and to increase. — The possession of power was 
 the end of the opposition, about the means, they 
 were regardless. Their leaders pretended to tender 
 solicitude for the welfare of the people. Their voices 
 were loud in favor of public economy and against a 
 navy, an army, and taxes. Although France had 
 wautonly captured a number of our vessels without 
 cause, had actually demanded tribute from us and 
 had threatened our country with invasion, and with 
 the dreadful fate of Venice if it were not paid ; 
 although she had twice refused to recognize our min- 
 isters who went supplicating for peace, they were 
 opposed to raising an army or navy for our defence. 
 After an army had been raised, notwithstanding it 
 was commanded by Washington, and destined to act 
 against a foreign enemy, they loudly expressed their 
 apprehension that it was intended to destroy our 
 republican form of government and substitute mon- 
 archy in its stead. The taxes necessary for its sup- 
 port afforded them a fresh theme of declamation. By 
 means such as these they succeeded so well in their 
 endeavors that they at length became the majority 
 of the nation, and got its destinies placed in their 
 hands. — How they have used their power it will 
 now be my endeavor to show. 
 
 They began by the destruction of the navy. It 
 had been supposed by the Federal administrations 
 that a navy was our best defence. — From the local- 
 ity of our country, and from the nature of such a 
 force, they knew that it would be peculiarly calcu- 
 lated to protect our shores from foreign invasion, 
 and to make us respected by the nations of the 
 world; without, like a standing army, endangering 
 our liberties. It was also foreseen by them, that 
 without a navy our commerce would be exposed, 
 and in consequence of our weakness we would be 
 exposed to constant insult and injury upon the 
 ocean, without the power of resistance. It had 
 therefore been their policy gradually to erect a navy, 
 and they had built a great number* of vessels at the 
 time when the first democratic administration came 
 into power. 
 
 At that moment the scene changed. They had 
 promised the people an exemption from taxes, and 
 unless they could perform, their popularity was in 
 danger. They did not hesitate what course to pur- 
 sue. They immediately sold our national ships, dis- 
 armed the country, left commerce unprotected, and 
 invited insult and injustice from abroad, that they 
 might not be under the necessity of imposing a 
 trifling tax, and thereby injuring their popularity at 
 home. 
 
 Thanks be to Providence their delusion on this 
 subject has vanished, and their conduct now appears 
 in its proper light before the public. The little 
 remnant of that navy which had been fondly 
 cherished by Washington and his adherents, but 
 
which was deapia&d by the patriots of the present 
 day, has risen triumphant above its enemies at Lome, 
 and has made the proud mistress of the ocean trem- 
 ble. The people are now convinced that a navy is 
 their best detente. 
 
 The democratic administration next declared war 
 against commerce. They were not satisfied with 
 depriving it of the protection of the navy, but they 
 acted aa'tuough they .vere determined upon its anni- 
 hilation. At a time when the nations of Europe 
 were convulsed in deadful wars, the United States 
 being neutral, and vhen in consequence thereof all 
 our native productions were in the greatest demand, 
 and the carrying V ade presented to our merchants a 
 rich harvest in ev -ry quarter of the globe, they shut 
 up our ports by embargoes and non-importation taws. 
 By these means the streams of wealth which were 
 flowing into our national treasury and into our coun- 
 try from the thousand fountains of commerce, were 
 suddenly dried up. These acts of parricide gave in- 
 stantaneous and a dreadful blow to our posterity. 
 The voice of business was no longer heard in our 
 cities. The stillness of death pervaded every street. 
 Dejection and despair sat on each man's counte- 
 nance. The newspapers of the day instead of being 
 liued with arrivals from abroad and sales of mer- 
 chandize, teemed with bankruptcies. And our ships 
 were laid up to rot, as melancholy monuments of 
 the weak and wicked policy of our government. 
 
 Who that has witnessed these things cannot ob- 
 serve the hand of the Corsican despot, like that 
 dreadful hand upon the wall of the Babylonish mon- 
 arch, writing our destruction ? — Who can avoid be- 
 lieving that Bonaparte was the source of this policy V 
 and that it was intended to operate in unison with 
 his continental system? It' might, perhaps.be un- 
 warrantable to assert that our administration was 
 actually corrupted by France ; but that their politics 
 were biased by a warm and improper partiality for 
 that country, there can be no doubt. 
 
 Time will not allow me to enumerate all the other 
 wild and wicked projects of the Democratic adminis- 
 tration. Suffice it to say, that after they had 
 deprived us of the means of defence, by destroying 
 our navy and disbanding our army; after they had 
 taken away from us the power of re-creating them, 
 by ruining commerce, the great source of our na- 
 tional and individual wealth; after they had, by 
 refusing the bank of the United States a continuation 
 of its charter, embarrassed the financial concerns of 
 the Government, and withdrawn the ouly universal 
 paper medium of the country from circulation : after 
 the people had become unaccustomed to, and of 
 course, unwilling to bear taxation; and without 
 money in the treasury, they rashly plunged us into 
 a war with a nation more able to do us injury than 
 any other in the world. What was the dreadful ne- 
 cessity for this desperate measure ? Was our coun- 
 try invaded? No. Were our liberties in danger? 
 No? Was it to protect our little remaining com- 
 merce from the injuries it sustained by the orders 
 in council? Commerce was not such a favorite, and 
 the merchants wished for no war at all on that ac- 
 count. 
 
 Besides, if the existence of the orders in council 
 had been its true cause, after their repeal, our coun- 
 try would have accepted the olive branch which wus 
 offered by England. What then was the cause? The 
 one for which we professed to draw the sword and 
 risk oor all, was to determiue an abstract question of 
 the law of nations, concerning which, an opinion dif- 
 ferent from that of our administration, was hHd by 
 all Europe. To decide whether a man can expatriate 
 or not. In the decision of this question our admi- 
 nistration pretended to feel deep interest. The great 
 part of those foreigners who woi-'.d be affected fry it. 
 had long been tlieir earnest friends. They had been one 
 of the great means of elevating the present ^Democta- 
 
 tic) ruling party, and it would have been ungrati '. 
 for that party to have abandoned them. 
 
 Superficial observers may suppose this to ha\ 
 been the real source of the war. but whoever w 
 care* ally and impartially examine the history of o 
 Country, will find its true origin to have been far d 
 ferent. It took its rise from the over-weening pa 
 tia.ity which the Democratic party have uniform! 
 shown for France, and the consequent hatred whiu 
 they felt against her great adversary, England. 1 
 secure this foreign feeling has been the labor of the 
 leaders for more than twenty years, and well hai 
 they been repaid for their trouble, for it has been o- 
 of the principal causes of introducing and continue 
 them in power. Immediately before the war, /. 
 foreign influence, had completely embodied its* 
 with every political feeling of a majority of the p< 
 pie, particularly in the fVest. — Its voice was heard 
 loud at the seat of government, that the President w 
 obliged either to yield to its dictates or retire frc 
 office. The choice in this alternative was easily ma 
 by a man (Madison) who preferred pi'ivate interest' 
 the public good. We were, therefore, hurried in 
 war unprepared. 
 
 What has been its result? Exactly what eve 
 reasonable man expected at its commencement! V 
 declared our intention of conquering Canada, whetli 
 for the purpose of annexing it to the United Stat 
 or of compelling our enemy to yield the doctrine- 
 Imprisonment, is immaterial to the present questit 
 Instead of conquering it, we have ourselves been in- 
 vaded in every quarter, and the best blood of our 
 country has streamed in defence of our soil. The 
 verv capitol of the United States, the lof'tly temple 
 of liberty, which was reared and consecrated by 
 Washington, has been abandoned to its fate by bis 
 degenerate successor, (Madison,) who ought to have 
 shed his last drop of blood in its defence. 
 
 After the (Democratic) administration had enter- 
 ed upon the war, instead of coming forward with 
 manly confidence and taxing the people for its sup- 
 port, they basely shrunk from their duty, in order to 
 maintain their popularity, and adopted the ruinous 
 system of carrying on the contest by borrowing mo- 
 ney. What were the effects of this policy? Does not 
 every man in the country know, was it even disguis- 
 ed by the administration, that the United States 
 would, in a short time, have become bankrupt, had 
 not peace been concluded? Thanks to Heaven, that 
 we have obtaiued peace, bad and disgraceful as it is; 
 otherwise, the beautiful structure of the Federal 
 Government, supported by the same feeble hand*, 
 might have sunk, like the capitol, into ruins. 
 
 This system of anticipating our revenue has left an 
 immense load of debt upon the country, the payment 
 of which will be a grievous burden, not only upon 
 the present generation, but upon posterity. This 
 burden has fallen more heavily upon our country 
 than upon any other part of the Union: on account 
 of our uumerous and extensive distilleries. The late 
 additional duty upon whisky has almost destroyed 
 its manufacture. In its consequence it has not only 
 affected the distilleries, but it has given a severe 
 blow upon the prosperity of this country generally. 
 
 Whilst the distilleries were in active operation, 
 the cattle and grain found a good and ready market 
 at home. The balance of trade was greatly in our 
 favor, and wealth was rapidly diffusing itself "through, 
 out the country. But Congress, by imposing a tax 
 upon the article, more grievous than it was able to 
 bear, hare destroyed the very revenue which they 
 intended to raise. This instance, among many others 
 of a similar nature, shoivs how totally destitute are our 
 present rulers of wisdom and foresight, even upon sub- 
 jects immediately regarding the pecuniary interest* 
 of the government. 
 
 These are not th»» only evils consequent upon that 
 timid and time-serving policy. It has embarrassed 
 
the government so much that it must be a long time 
 indeed before we can dare again to go to war with 
 any powerful nation, even for the maintenance of our 
 dearest rights. All these evils would, in a great meas- 
 ure, have been prevented by sufficient independence 
 in the administration, to have imposed moderate 
 taxes at the commencement of the contest. The cre- 
 dit of the nation would then have continued good, 
 and we might have avoided the painful spectacle of 
 seeing the public stock sold in the market at an enor- 
 mous discount, and greedy speculators enriching 
 themselves by its purchase, at the expense of the 
 toil and sweat of the honest yeomany of our country. 
 
 Instead of exempting seamen hailing under our 
 flag from impressment by the war, we have alto- 
 gether relinquished that principle ; because it is a 
 well established truth in the history of nations, that 
 if war be waged by one country against another for 
 a specified claim, and the treaty wfeich terminated 
 the contest is silent upon thai subject, it is forever 
 abandoned. — Thus the government have at last yield- 
 ed the very point for the maintenance of which they 
 professed to go to war, after having expended nearly 
 $200,000,000. 
 
 We have not only not obtained by the war any- 
 thing which we ought to expect, but we have lost 
 many valuable privileges. All the numerous rights 
 and advantages guaranteed to us by Jay's treaty 
 have been relinquished. Nay, we have not only been 
 compelled to conclude a treaty which does not con- 
 tain one solitary stipulation in our favor, except that 
 there shall be peace, but which unsettles the boun- 
 daries of our country, and leaves to the decision of 
 commissioners whether we shall retain a part of our 
 own territory, which we have held in quiet posses- 
 sion for more than twenty years. 
 
 But notwithstanding our immense national debt, 
 which, if the war had continued, would soon have 
 resulted in national bankruptcy ; notwithstanding all 
 our (jpverty, even the very necessaries of life have 
 been taxed heavily; notwithstanding we have not 
 obtained a single object which we had in view at the 
 commencement of the contest, but have lost many 
 valuable privileges ; notwithstanding our country 
 has been invaded in every quarter, and the capitol 
 of the United States has been laid in ashes by a 
 marauding party of the enemy, this has been called 
 a glorious war. Glorious it has been in the highest 
 degree to the American character ; but disgraceful 
 in the extreme to the administration. When the in 
 dividual States discovered that they were abandoned 
 by the General Government, whose duty it was to 
 protect them, the fortitude of the citizens arose with 
 their misfortunes. The moment we were invaded, the 
 genius of freedom inspired their souls. — They rushed 
 upon their enemies with a hallowed fury, whkh the 
 hireling soldiers could never feel. They taught our 
 foe that the soil of freedom would ever be the grave 
 of its invaders. 
 
 But do the administration, who involved us in the 
 tale unnecessary war, derive any credit from their ex- 
 ertions ? Certainly not. — They were the spontaneous 
 efforts of the country, undirected by the government. 
 The militia, who were chiefly engaged in these glori- 
 ous conflicts, were often without pay, and without 
 comfortable clothing. The dreadful situation of the 
 country compelled them to abandon their families 
 and the sweets of domestic life, without any previous 
 warning, to defend places which were left utterly un- 
 protected by their proper guardians — places which 
 ought to have been ready for a siege at the com- 
 mencement of the contest. As well might Ferdin- 
 and the VII. of Spain, who was not in his kingdom, 
 but who was nominally king, claim the glory of res- 
 cuing his country from the armies of France, as our 
 government take to itself the credit of expelling our 
 invaders. 
 
 When we tarn our attention to the regular army 
 
 which were peculiarly under the direction of the 
 national government, what do we discover ? During 
 the first year of the war, that year in which it was 
 to have closed with glory, that year within which 
 our triumphant banners were to have floated upon 
 the walls of QueDec, and all Canada was to have 
 been ours, the year in which that province was left 
 unprotected, and the forces of our enemy were em- 
 ployed in Europe, it experienced nothing but degra- 
 dation and defeat. Is there an American on the fleor 
 of this house, who has not blushed for his country a 
 thousand times, during that disgraceful year ? Until 
 all the general officers who had been appointed for 
 political purposes, and entrusted with the command 
 at the commencement of the contest were disgraced ; 
 and until others had fought themselves into credit 
 and into notice, all our battles ended in defeat. 
 
 During the last year of the war, the regular army 
 under their new commanders retrieved their lost 
 character, and performed prodigies of valor, but 
 unfortunately, on account of the impotence of the 
 government, they fought against such fearful odds 
 that they were hardly able even to defend our northern 
 frontier. Indeed, so dreadful was the situation of 
 our country, for some time previous to the close of 
 the contest, that the occasional spendid exploits of 
 our heroes, like the gleams of lightning in a dark 
 and tempestuous night, only added new horrors to 
 the surrounding gloom. They only served to show 
 what brilliant exertions our country might have 
 made, had we been governed by men who were capa- 
 ble of properly collecting and directing its resources. 
 
 But peace has again returned to bless our shores. 
 Again commerce, who has been for years weeping 
 over the misfortunes of our country, begins to smile. 
 Again we stand neutral towards all the European 
 powers. What then should be the political conduct 
 of our country in future ? Precisely to pursue the 
 political maxims adopted by Washington. We ought 
 to cultivate peace with all nations, by adopting a strict 
 neutrality not only of conduct but of sentiment. We 
 ought to make our neutrality respected by placing 
 ourselves in an attitude of defence. We ought forever 
 to abandon the wild project of a philosophic visionary, 
 of letting commerce protect itself. For its protection 
 we ought to increase our navy. We ought never to 
 think of embargoes and non-intercourse laws without 
 abhorrence. We ought to use every honest exer- 
 tion to turn out of power those weak and wicked 
 men who have abandoned the political path marked 
 out for this country by Washington, and whose wild 
 and visionary theories have been at length tested by 
 experience and found wanting. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan as a Know Nothing. 
 
 Above all we might to drive from our *Ao»-» 
 foreign influence, and cherish exclusive American 
 feelings. Foreign influence has been hi every age, the 
 curse of republics. Her jaundiced eye sees all things 
 in false colors ! The thick atmosphere of prejudice, 
 by which she is forever surrounded excludes from her 
 sight the light of reason. 
 
 While she worships the nation which she favors for 
 their very crimes, she curses the enemy of that 
 nation even for their virtues. In every age she has 
 marched before the enemies of her country, pro- 
 claiming peace when there was no peace, and lulling 
 defenders into fatal security, whilst the iron hand of 
 despotism has been aiming a death blow at their 
 liberties. Already has our infant republic felt her 
 withering influence. Already has she involved us in 
 a war which has nearly cost us our existence. 
 
 Let us then learn wisdom from experience, and for- 
 ever banish this fiend from our society. We are sepa- 
 rated from the nations of Europe by an immense 
 ocean. We are still more disconnected from them 
 
by a different form of government, and by the enjoy- 
 ment of true liberty. Why then should we injure 
 ourselves by taking part in the ambitious contests of 
 despots and kings ? 
 
 Should this Washingtonian policy be pursued, our 
 country will again rise to its former greatness and 
 wealth. Under the blessings of Providence, we may 
 
 then calculate on a long and happy existence as i 
 nation. We may reasonably hope, that our chil- 
 dren's children to remote generations may be assem- 
 bled together upon this auspicious day. blessiug the 
 memories of the men whom Heaven intrusted with 
 the glorious task, of making a great nation free, 
 happy, and independent. 
 
 MR. BUCHANAN IN FAVOR OF SEIZING CUBA. 
 
 THE OSTEND MANIFESTO. 
 
 Br a dispatch dated at Washington, on Angnst 
 16th, 1854, signed by the Secretary of State, Presi- 
 dent Pierce directed that Mr. Buchanan, then our 
 ambassador at London, Mr. Mason at Paris, and Mr. 
 Souls' at Madrid, would meet at some convenient 
 point to confer about the best means of settling the 
 then pending difficulties with Spain, and getting pos- 
 session of Cuba. This Conference of the three ambas- 
 sadors accordingly met at Ostend, on the 9th of Octo- 
 ber, 1S54, and after sitting there three days, adjourned 
 to Aix-la-Chapelle, where it also sat for several days. 
 As Mr. Soul£ remarked in a dispatch dated at the latter 
 place, on October 15, 1854: " The most cordial har- 
 mony marked the progress of their labors, and there 
 was not a single opinion expressed by the conference, 
 but which conveys the unanimous sentiments of 
 the conferers." 
 
 He also states in a another dispatch a few days later 
 that "The issues, with reference to which we were- 
 mstructed to express our judgment, were of too mo- 
 mentous an import not to tax all the discernment 
 and discretion in our power, and it was with a deep 
 sense of solemn responsibility that we entered upon 
 the duties which had been assigned to us." 
 
 "My colleagues " he also says, "have had a full 
 view of the difficulties and dangers which the 
 question presents," and with this full view, and this 
 solemn sense of responsibility, the result of their de- 
 liberation was embodied in the famous Ostend Mani- 
 festo, which we proceed to give. We print it as it 
 was presented to Congress by the President, and 
 published by the House of Representative in Execu- 
 tive Document, No. 93 of the second session of the 
 thirty-third Congress. Of this Manifesto, it will 
 Oe observed that Mr. Buchanan is the first signer. 
 
 ME. BUCHANAN'S VIEWS ON FOREIGN 
 POLICY. 
 
 Aix La Chapbllk, October 13, 1S54. 
 
 Sir : The undersigned, in compliance with the 
 wish expressed by the President in the several con- 
 fidential dispatches you have addressed to us, 
 respectively, to that effect, have met in conference, 
 first at Ostend, in Belgium, on the 9th, 10th, and 11th 
 instant, and then at Aix la Chapelle, in Prussia, on 
 the days next following, up to the date hereof. 
 
 There has been a full and unreserved interchange 
 •f views and sentiments between us, which we are 
 
 most happv to inform you has resulted in a cordial 
 coincidence of opinion on the grave and important 
 subjects submitted to our consideration. 
 
 Buy Cuba for a Slave Slate, if you can. 
 
 We have arrived at the conclusion, and are tho- 
 roughly convinced, that an immediate and earnest 
 effort ought to be made by the government of the 
 United States to purchase Cnba from Spain at any 
 price for which it can be obtained, not exceeding 
 the sum of $ 
 
 The proposal should, in our opinion, be made in 
 such a manner as to be presented through the neces- 
 sary diplomatic forms to the Supreme Constituent 
 Cortes about to assemble. On this momentous 
 question, in which the people both of Spain and the 
 United States are so deeply interested, all our pro- 
 ceedings ought to be open, frank, and public. They 
 should be of such a character as to challenge the 
 approbation of the world. 
 
 We Srmly believe that, in the progress of human 
 events, the time has arrived when the vital interests 
 of Spain are as seriously involved in the sale, as those 
 of the United States in the purchase, of the island, 
 and that the transaction will prove equally honorable 
 to both nations. 
 
 Under these circumstances we cannot anticipate 
 a failure, unless possibly throngh the malign iufluence 
 of foreign powers who possess no right whatever to 
 interfere in the matter. 
 
 We proceed to state some of the reasons which 
 have brought us to this conclusion, and, for the sake 
 of clearness, we shall specify them under two distinct 
 heads : 
 
 1. The United States ought, if practicable, to pur- 
 chase Cuba with as little delay as possible. 
 
 2. The probability is great that the government and 
 Cortes of Spain will prove willing to sell it, because 
 this would essentially promote the highest and best 
 interests of the Spanish people. 
 
 Then, 1. It must be clear to every reflecting mind 
 that, from the peculiarity of its geographical position, 
 and the considerations attendant on it, Cuba is aa 
 necessary to the North American republic as any of 
 its present members, and that it belongs naturally to 
 that great family of States of which the Union is the 
 providential nursery. 
 
 From its locality it commands the mouth of the 
 Mississippi, and the immense and annually increasing 
 trade which must er^k this avenue to the ocean. 
 
 On the numerous navigable streams, measuring an 
 aggregate course of some thirty thousand miles, 
 which disembogue themselves through this magnifi- 
 cent river into the (luff of Mexico, the increase of the 
 population within the last ten years amounts to more 
 than that of the entire Union at the time Louisiana 
 was annexed to it. 
 
 The natural and main outlet to the products of thiH 
 entire population, the highway of their direct inter 
 
with the Atlantic and the Pacific States, can | northern provinces to Madrid, Seville, Cadiz, Malaga. 
 
 never be secure, but must ever be endangered whilst 
 Cuba is a dependency of a distant power in whose 
 possession it has proved to be a source of constant 
 annoyance and embarrassment to their interests. 
 Indeed, the Union can never enjoy repose, nor 
 
 Eossess reliable security as long as Cuba is not em- 
 raced within its boundaries. 
 Its immediate acquisition by our government is of 
 paramount importance, aud we cannot doubt but 
 that it is a consummation devoutly to be wished for 
 by its inhabitants. 
 
 The intercourse which its proximity to our coasts 
 begets and encourages between them and the citi- 
 zens of the United States, has. in the progress of 
 time, so united their interests aud blended their for- 
 tunes, that they now look upon each other as if they 
 were one people aud had but one destiny. 
 
 Considerations exist which render delay in the 
 acquisition of this island exceedingly dangerous to 
 the United Spates. 
 
 The system if immigration and labor lately orga- 
 nized within its 'imits, and the tyranny and oppres- 
 sion which characterize its immediate rulers, threaten 
 an insurrection at every moment which may result 
 in direful consequences to the American people. 
 
 Cuba has thus become to us an unceasing danger, 
 and a permanent cause of anxiety and alarm. 
 
 But we need not enlarge on these topics. It can 
 scarcely be apprehended that foreign powers, in vio- 
 lation of international law, would interpose their 
 influence with Spain to prevent our acquisition of 
 the island. Its iidiabitants are now suffering under 
 the worst of all possible governments, that of abso- 
 lute despotism, delegated by a distant power to irre- 
 sponsible agents, who are changed at short intervals, 
 and who are tempted to improve the brief opportu- 
 nity thus afforded to accumulate fortunes by the 
 basest means. 
 
 As lo;i<j as this system shall endure, hnmanity may 
 in fain demand the suppression of the African slave 
 trade in the island. ' This is rendered impossible 
 whilst that infamous traffic remains an irresistible 
 temptation and a source of immense profit to needy 
 and avaricious officials, who, to attain their ends, 
 scruple not to trample the most sacred principles 
 under foot. 
 
 The Spanish government at home may be well dis- 
 poa 1. but experience has proved that it cannot con- 
 trol these remote depositaries of its power. 
 
 B ■sides, the commercial nations of the world can- 
 not fail to perceive and appreciate the great advan- 
 tages which would result to their people from a dis- 
 -vjivition of the forced and unnatural connexion be- 
 tween Spain and Cuba, and the annexation of the 
 latter to the United States. The trade of England 
 and France with Cuba would, in that event, assume 
 at once an important and profitable character, and 
 rapidly extend with the increasing population and 
 prosperity of the island. 
 
 2. But if the United States and every commercial 
 nation would be benefited by this transfer, the inter- 
 ests of Spain would also be greatly and essentially 
 promoted. 
 
 She cannot but see what such a sum of money as 
 we are willing to pay for the island would effect in 
 the development of her vast natural resources. 
 
 Two-thirds of this sum, if employed in the con- 
 struction of a system of railroads, wouid ultimately 
 prove a source of greater wealth to the Spanish 
 people than that opened to their vision by Cortez. 
 Their prosperity would date from the ratification of 
 the treaty o, cession. 
 
 France has already constructed continuous lines of 
 railways from Havre, Marseilles, Valenciennes, and 
 Strasbourg, via Paris, to the Spanish frontier, and 
 anxiously awaits the day when Spain shall find herself 
 In a condition to extend these roads through her 
 
 and the frontiers of Portugal. 
 
 This object once accomplished, Spain would becoms 
 a centre of attraction for the travelling, and secure 
 a permanent and profitable market for her various 
 productions. Her fields, under the stimulus given to 
 industry by remunerating prices, would teem w.ith 
 cereal grain, and her vineyards would bring forth a 
 vastly increased quantity of choice wines. Spain 
 would speedily become what a bountiful Providence 
 intended she should be, one of the first nations of 
 Continental Europe — rich, powerful, and contented. 
 Whilst two-thirds of the price of the island would 
 be ample for the completion of her most important 
 public improvements, she might, with the remaining 
 forty millions, satisfy the demands now pressing so 
 heavily upon her credit, and create a sinking fund 
 which would gradually relieve her from the over- 
 whelming debt now paralyzing her energies. 
 
 Such is her present wretched financial condition, 
 that her best bonds are sold upon her own Bowse at 
 about one-third of their par value ; whilst another 
 class, on which she pays no interest, have but a nom- 
 inal value, and are quoted at about one sixth the 
 amount for which they were issued. Besides, these 
 latter are held principally by British creditors who 
 may, from day to day, obtain the effective interpo- 
 sition of their own government for the purpose of 
 coercing payment. Intimations to that effect have 
 been already thrown out from high quarters, and 
 unless seme new source of revenue shall enable 
 Spain to provide for such exigencies, it is not im- 
 probable that they may be realized. 
 
 Should Spain reject the present golden opportun- 
 ity for developing her resources, and removing her 
 financial embarrassments, it may never again return. 
 Cuba, in its palmiest days, never yielded her Ex- 
 chequer, after deducting the expenses of its govern- 
 ment, a clear annual income of more than a million 
 and a half of dollars. These expenses have increased 
 to such a degree as to leave a deficit chargeable en 
 the Treasury of Spain to the amount of six hundred 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 In a pecuniary point of view, therefore, the island 
 is an incumbrance, instead of a source of profit, to 
 the mother country. 
 
 Under no probable circumstapces can Cuba ever 
 yield to Spain one per cent, on the large amount 
 which the United States are willing to pay for its ac- 
 quisition. But Spain is in imminent danger of losing 
 Cuba, without remuneration. 
 
 Extreme oppression, it is now universally admitted, 
 justifies any people in endeavoring to relieve them- 
 selves from the yoke of their oppressors. The suf- 
 ferings which the corrupt, arbitrary and unrelenting 
 local administration necessarily entails upon the in- 
 habitants of Cuba, cannot fail to stimulate and keep 
 alive that spirit of resistance and revolution against 
 Spain, which has of late years been so often mani- 
 fested. In this condition of affairs it is vain to ex- 
 pect that the sympathies of the people of the United 
 States will not be warmly enlisted in favor of their 
 oppressed neighbors. 
 
 We know that the President is justly inflexible in 
 his determination to execute the neutrality laws ; 
 but should the Cubans themselves rise in revolt 
 against the oppression which they suffer, no human 
 power could prevent citizens of the United States 
 and liberal minded men of other countries from 
 rushing to their assistance. Besides, the present 
 is an age of adventure, in which restless and daring 
 spirits abound in every portion of the world. 
 
 It is not improbable therefore, that Cuba may be 
 wrested from Spain by a successful revolution : and 
 in that event she will lose both the island and the 
 price which we are now willing to pay for it — a prico 
 far beyond what was ever paid by one people to an 
 other for any province. 
 
It may also be remarked that the settlement of 
 his vexed question by the cession of Cuba to the 
 United States, would forever prevent the daugerous 
 complications between nations, to which it may 
 Otherwise give birth. 
 
 It is certain that, should the Cubans themselves 
 organize an insurrection against the Spanish govern- 
 ment, and should other independent nations come to 
 the aid of Spain in the contest, no human power 
 could, in our opinion, prevent the people and govern- 
 ment of the United States from taking part in such a 
 civil war in support of their neighbors and friends. 
 
 If yon canH buy Cuba, steal it. 
 
 But if Spain, dead to the voice of her own interest, 
 and actuated by stubborn pride and a false sense of 
 honor, should refuse to sell Cuba to the United 
 States, then the question will arise, What ought to 
 be the course of the American government under 
 6iich circumstances? 
 
 Self preservation is the first law of nature, with 
 States as well as with individuals. All nations have, 
 at different periods, acted upon this maxim. Al- 
 though it has been made the pretext for committing 
 flagrant injustice, as in the partition of Poland and 
 frther similar cases which history records, yet the 
 principle itself, though often abused, has always 
 been recognized. 
 
 The United States have never acquired a foot of 
 territory except by fair purchase, or, as in the case of 
 Texas, upon the free and voluntary application of 
 the people of that independent State, who desired 
 to blend their destinies with our own. 
 
 Even our acquisitions from Mexico are no excep- 
 tion to this rule, because, although we might have 
 elaimed them by the right of conquest in a just war, 
 yet we purchased them for what was then considered 
 by both parties a full and ample equivalent. 
 
 Our past history forbids that we should acquire the 
 island of Cuba without the consent of Spain, uuless 
 justified by the great law of self-preservation. We 
 must, in any event, preserve our own conscious rec- 
 titude and our own 9elf-respect. 
 
 Whilst pursuing this course we can afford to dis- 
 regard the censufcs of the world, to which we have 
 been so often and so unjustly exposed. 
 
 After we shall have offered Spain a price for Cuba 
 far beyond its present value, and this shall have been 
 refused, it will then be time to consider the question, 
 does Cuba, in the possession of Spain, seriously en- 
 danger our internal peace and the existence of our 
 cherished Union? 
 
 Mr. Buchanan on national morality. 
 
 Should this question be answered in the affirmative, 
 then, by every law, human and divine, we shall be 
 
 justified in wresting it from Spain if we possess the 
 power: and this upon the veiy same principle that 
 would justify an individual in tearing down the burn- 
 ing house of his neighbor if there were no oth<;r 
 means of preventing the flames from destroying his 
 own home. 
 
 Under such circumstances we ought neither te 
 count the cost nor regard the odds which Spain might 
 enlist against us. We forbear to enter into the ques- 
 tion, whether the present condition of the island 
 would justify such a measure? We should, however, 
 be recreaut to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant 
 forefathers, and commit base treason against our 
 posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized 
 and become a second St. Domiugo, with all its atten- 
 dant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames 
 to extend to our own neighboring shores, seriously to 
 endanger or actually to consume the fair fabric of 
 our Union. 
 
 We fear that the course and current of events are 
 rapidly tending towards such a catastrophe. We, 
 however, hope for the best, though we ought cer- 
 tainly to be prepared for the worst. 
 
 We also forbear to investigate the present condi- 
 tion of the questions at issue between the United 
 States and Spain. A long series of injuries to our 
 people have been committed in Cuba by Spanish 
 officials and are unredressed. But recently a most 
 flagrant outrage on the rights of American citizens 
 and on the flag of the United States was perpetrated 
 in the harbor of Havana under circumstances which, 
 without immediate redress, would have justified a 
 resort to measures of war in vindication of national 
 honor. That outrage is not only unatoned. but 
 the Spanish government has deliberately sanctioned 
 the acts of its subordinates and assumed the respon- 
 sibility attaching to them. 
 
 Nothing could more impressively teach us the dan- 
 ger to which those peaceful relations it has ever been 
 the policy of the United States to cherish with for- 
 eign nations are constantly exposed than the circum- 
 stances of that case. Situated as Spain and the 
 United States are, the latter have forborne to resort 
 to extreme measures. 
 
 But this course cannot, with due regard to their 
 own dignity as an independent nation, continue ; and 
 our recommendations, now submitted, are dictated 
 by the firm belief that the cession of Cuba to the 
 United States, with stipulations as beneficial to Spain 
 as those suggested, is the only effective mode of set- 
 tling all past differences and of securing the two 
 countries against future collisions. 
 
 We have already witnessed the happy results for 
 both countries which followed a similar arrangement 
 in regard to Florida. 
 
 Yours, very respectfully, 
 
 James Buchanan. 
 J. Y. Mason. 
 Pierre Soulb. 
 Hon. Wm. L. Marct, Secretary of State. 
 
 THE BUCHANAN CINCINNATI PLATFORM, 
 
 ADOPTED MAY 22, 1856 ; 
 
 Resolved, That the American Democracy place their creed and practice of Federalism, under whatever 
 trust in the intelligence, the patriotism, and the dis- name or form, which seeks to palsy the will of the 
 criminating justice of the American people. I constituent, and which conceives no imposture too 
 
 Rexotved, That we regard this as a distinctive fea- monstrous for the popular credulity. 
 ture of our political creed, which we are proud to Resolved, therefore, That entertaining these views, 
 maintain before the world as a great 'noraf element j the Democratic party of this Union, through their de- 
 in a form of government springing Pom and upheld i legates, assembled in general Convention, coming to- 
 by the popular will ; and we contrast it with the gether in a spirit of concord, of devotion to the doo- 
 
8 
 
 tones and faith of a free representative government, 
 and appealing to their fellow-citizens for the rectitude 
 of their intentions, renew and reassert before the 
 American people, the declarations of principles avow- 
 ed by them, when, on former occasions, in general 
 Convention, they have presented their candidates for 
 the popular suffrage. 
 
 1. That the Federal Government is one of limited 
 power, derived solely from the Constitution, and the 
 grants of power made therein ought to be strictly 
 construed by all the departments and agents of the 
 government, and that it is inexpedient and danger- 
 ous to exercise doubtful constitutional powers. 
 
 2. That the Constitution does not confer upon the 
 General Government the power to commence arid 
 carry on a general system of internal improvements. 
 
 3. That the Constitution does not confer authority 
 upon the Federal Government, directly or indirectly, 
 to assume the debts of the several States, contracted 
 for local and internal improvements, or other State 
 purposes, nor would such assumption be just or ex- 
 pedient. 
 
 4. That justice and sound policy forbid the Federal 
 Government to foster one branch of industry to the 
 detriment of another, or to cherish the interests of 
 one portion of our common country; that every 
 citizen and every section of the country has a right 
 to demand and insist upon an equality of rights and 
 privileges, and a complete and ample protection of 
 persons and property from domestic violence and 
 foreign aggression. 
 
 6. That it is the duty of every branch of the Gov- 
 ernment to enforce and practice the most rigid eco- 
 nomy in conducting our public affairs, and that no 
 more revenue ought to be raised than is required to 
 defray the necessary expenses of the government, 
 and gradual but certain extinction of the public debt. 
 
 6. That the proceeds of the public lands ought to 
 be sacredly applied to the national objects specified 
 in the Constitution, and that we are opposed to any 
 law for the distribution of such proceeds among the 
 States, as alike inexpedient in policy and repugnant 
 to the Constitution. 
 
 _ 7. That Congress has no power to charter a Na- 
 tional Bank ; that we believe such an institution one 
 of deadly hostility to the best interests of this 
 country, dangerous to our republican institutions and 
 the liberties of the people, and calculated to place 
 the business of the country within the control of a 
 consecrated money power and above the laws and 
 will of the people ; and the results of the Democra- 
 tic legislation in this and all other financial measures 
 upon which issues have been made between the two 
 political parties of the country, have demonstrated 
 to candid and practical men of all parties their 
 soundness, safety and utility in all business pur- 
 suits. 
 
 8. That the separation of the moneys of the Gov- 
 ernment from banking institutions is indispensable to 
 the safety of the funds of the Government and the 
 rights of the people. 
 
 9. That we are decidedly opposed to taking from 
 the President the qualified Veto power, by which he 
 is enabled, under restrictions and responsibilities 
 amply sufficient to guard the public interests, to sus- 
 pend the passage of a bill whose merits cannot se- 
 cure the approval of two-thirds of the Senate and 
 Mouse of Representatives, until the judgment of the 
 people can be obtained thereon, and which has saved 
 the American people from the corrupt and tyranni- 
 cal dominion of the Bank of the United States, and 
 from a corrupting system of general internal im- 
 provements. 
 
 10. That the liberal principles embodied by Jeffer- 
 son in the Declaration of Independence, and sanc- 
 tioned in tne Constitution, which makes ours the land 
 of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed of every 
 nation, have ever been cardinal principles in the 
 
 Democratic faith ; and every attempt to abt 
 privilege of becoming citizens and the owners oi »»^ 
 among us ought to be resisted with the same spirit 
 which swept the alien and sedition laws from our 
 statute booKs. - 
 
 And whereas, Since the foregoing declaration was 
 uniformly adopted by our predecessors in National 
 Convention, an adverse political and religious test 
 has been secretly organized by a party claiming to 
 be exclusively Americans, and it is proper that the 
 American Democracy should clearly define its rela- 
 tions thereto ; and declare its determined opposition 
 to all secret political societies, by whatever name 
 they may be called. 
 
 Resolved, That the foundation of this Union of 
 States having been laid in, and its prosperity, ex- 
 pans-ion, and pre-eminent example in free govern- 
 ment built upon, entire freedom of matters of relig- 
 ious concernment, and no respect of persona in 
 regard to rank ; or place of birth, no party can justly 
 be deemed national, constitutional, or in accordance 
 with American principles, which bases its exclusive 
 organization upon religious opinions and accidental 
 birth-place. And hence a political crusade in the 
 nineteenth century, and in the United States of 
 America, against Catholics and foreign - born is 
 neither justified by the past history or future pros- 
 pects of the country, nor in unison with the spirit 
 of toleration, and enlightened freedom which pecu- 
 liarly distinguishes the American system of popular 
 government. 
 
 Resolved, That we reiterate with renewed energy 
 of purpose the well considered declarations of farmer 
 conventions upon the sectional issue of domestic 
 slavery and concerning the reserved rights of the 
 States — 
 
 1. That Congress has no power under the Consti- 
 tution to interfere with or control the domestic in- 
 stitutions of the several States, and that all such 
 States are the sole and proper judges of everything 
 appertaining to their own affairs not prohibited by 
 the Constitution ; that all efforts of the Abolitionists 
 or others made to induce Congress to interfere with 
 questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in re- 
 lation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most 
 alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all 
 such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish 
 the happiness of the people and endanger the stabi- 
 lity and permanency of the Union, and ought not to 
 be countenanced by any friend of our political in- 
 stitutions. 
 
 2. That the foregoing proposition covers and wa9 
 intended to embrace the whole subject of slavery 
 agitation in Congress, and therefore the Democratic 
 party of the Union, standing on this national plat- 
 form, will abide by and adhere to a faithful execution 
 of the acts known as the compromise measures, set- 
 tled by the Congress of 1850: " the act for reclaim- 
 ing fugitives from service or labor included ;" which 
 act being designed to carry out an express provision 
 of the Constitution, cannot, with fidelity thereto, be 
 repealed, or so changed as to destroy or impair its 
 efficiency. 
 
 3. That the Democratic party will resist all at- 
 tempts at renewing in Congress, or out of it, the 
 agitation of the slavery question, under whatever 
 shape or color the attempt may be made. 
 
 4. That the Democratic party will faithfully abide 
 by and uphold the principles laid down in the Ken- 
 tucky and Virginia resolutions of 1792 and 1798, and 
 in the report of Mr. Madison to the Virginia Legis- 
 lature in 1799 — that it adopts these principles as con- 
 stituting one of the main foundations of its political 
 creed, and is resolved to carry them out in their ob- 
 vious meaning an ^ import. 
 
 And that we may more distinctly meet the issue on 
 which a sectional party, subsisting exclusively on 
 slavery agitation, now relies to test the fidelity of the 
 
people, North and South, to the Constitution and the 
 Union — 
 
 1. Resolved, Thit claiming fellowship with and de- 
 siring the co-operation of all who regard the preser- 
 vation yf the Union under the Constitution as the 
 paramount issue, and repudiating all sectional parties 
 and platforms concerning domestic slavery, which 
 seek to embroil the States and incite to treason and 
 armed resistance to law in the territories, and whose 
 avowed purpose, if consummated, must end in civil 
 war aud disunion, the American Democracy recognize 
 and adopt the principles contained in the organic 
 laws establishing the territories of Nebraska and 
 Kansas, as embodying the only sound and safe solu- 
 tion of the slavery question, upon which the great 
 national idea of the people of this whole country can 
 repose in its determined conservation of the Union, 
 and non-interference of Congress with slavery in the 
 territories or in the District of Columbia. 
 
 2. That this was the basis of the compromises of 
 1850, confirmed by both the Democratic and Whig 
 parties in National Conventions ratified by the peo- 
 ple in the election of 1852, and rightly applied to the 
 organization of the territories in 1854. 
 
 3. That by the uniform application of the Demo- 
 cratic principle to the organization of territories, and 
 the admission of new States, with or without domes- 
 tic slavery as they may elect, the equal rights of all 
 the States will be preserved intact, the origraal com- 
 pacts of the Constitution maintained inviolate, and 
 the perpetuity and expansion of the Union insured 
 to its utmost capacity of embracing, in peace and 
 harmony, every future American State that may be 
 constituted or annexed with a republican form of 
 government. 
 
 Resolved, That we recognize the right of the peo- 
 ple of all the territories, including Kansas and Ne- 
 braska, acting through the legally and fairly express- 
 ed will of the majority of the actual residents, and 
 whenever the number of their inhabitants justifies it, 
 to lorm a Constitution, with or without domestic 
 slavery, and be admitted into the Union upon terms 
 of perfect equality with the other States. 
 
 Resolved, finally, That, in view of the condition of 
 the popular institutions in the old world (and the 
 dangerous tendencies of sectional agitation, combin- 
 ed with the attempt to enforce civil and religious dis- 
 abilities against the rights of acquiring and enjoying 
 citizenship in our own land), a high and sacred duty 
 is involved with increased responsibility upon the 
 Democratic party of this country, as the party of the 
 Union, to uphold and maintain the rights of every 
 State, and thereby the union of the States — and to 
 sustain and advance among us constitutional liberty, 
 by continuing to resist all monopolies and exclusive 
 legislation for the benefit of the few at the expense 
 of the many, and by a vigilant and constant adher- 
 ence to those principles and compromises of the 
 Constitution — which are broad enough and strong 
 enough to embrace and uphold the Union as it was, 
 the Union as it is, and the Union as it shall be — in the 
 full expression of the energies and capacity of this 
 great and progressive people. 
 
 1. Resolved, That there are questions connected 
 with the foreign policy of this country which are in- 
 ferior to no domestic question whatever. The time 
 has come for the people of the United States to de- 
 clare themselves in favor of free seas, and progress- 
 -ve free trade throughout the world, and, by solemn 
 manifestations to place their moral influence at the 
 side of their successful example. 
 
 2. Resolved, That our geographical and politicU 
 position with reference to the other States of this 
 continent, no less than the interest of our commerce 
 and the development of our growing power, requires 
 that we should hold sacred the principles involved in 
 the Monroe doctrine. Their bearing and import ad- 
 
 mit of no misconstruction, and should be applie4 
 with unbending rigidity. 
 
 5. Resolved, That the great highway, which naturt 
 as well as the assent of States most immediately in- 
 terested in its maintenance, has marked out for free 
 communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific 
 Oceans, constitutes one of the most important 
 achievements realized by the spirit of modern times, 
 in the unconquerable energy of our people ; and 
 that result would be secured by a timely and efficient 
 exertion of the control which we have the right to 
 claim over it, and no power on earth should be suf- 
 fered to impede or clog its progress by any interfer- 
 ence with relations that it may suit our policy to 
 establish between our government and the govern- 
 ment of the States within whose dominions it lies ; 
 we can under no circumstances surrender our pre- 
 ponderance in the adjustment of all questions arising 
 out of it. 
 
 4. Resolved, That in view of so commanding an in- 
 terest the people of the United States cannot but 
 sympathize with the efforts which are being made by 
 the people of Central America to regenerate that 
 portion of the continent which covers the passage 
 across the inter-oceanic isthmus. 
 
 6. Resolved, That the Democratic party will ex- 
 pect of the next Administration that every proper 
 effort be made to ensure our ascendency in the Gulf 
 of Mexico, and to maintain permanent protection to 
 the great outlets through which are emptied into 
 its waters the products raised out of the soil and 
 the commodities created by the industry of the people i 
 of our western valleys and of the Union at large. 
 
 MB. BUCHANAN ON THE ABOVE PLATFORM. . 
 He renounces his Identity, 
 
 On June 9, 1856, the Keystone Club, having 
 heard of the proceedings of the Cincinnati 
 Convention, went to see Mr. Buchanan at hia 
 house at Lancaster, Pa., when he delivered 
 the following speech, declaring that he no 
 longer regarded himself as James Buchanan, 
 but as the embodiment of the platform erect- 
 ed by that Convention : 
 
 "Gentlemen of the Keystone Club ! — I give you a 
 most hearty and warm welcome to my abode. I con- 
 gratulate you, not upon my nomination, but upon 
 the glorious privilege of being citizens of our great 
 Republic. Your superiority over the people of other 
 countries, has been fully demonstrated, by the con- 
 duct of a vast concourse assembled during the past 
 week at Cincinnati. Upon any similar occasion in 
 Europe, the voluntary expression of the people 
 would have been drowned in martial music, and 
 their actions controlled by an army with banners. 
 How unlike the spectacle at Cincinnati vhere dele- 
 gates from the people of the different 31 ites met in 
 Convention, under protection of the Constitution 
 and Laws, and harmoniously deliberated upon sub- 
 jects of vital importance to the country. Gentlemen, 
 two weeks since, I should have made you a longer 
 speech, but now I have been placed upon a platform 
 of which I most heartily approve, and that can speak 
 for me. Being the representative of the great Dem- 
 ocratic party, and not simply James Buchanan, I must 
 square my conduct according to Vie platform of thai 
 party, and insert no new plank, nor take one from 
 it. That platform is sufficiently broad and national 
 for the whole Democratic party. This glorious party, 
 now more than ever, has demonstrated that it is the 
 true conservative party of the Constitution and of 
 the Union." 
 
10 
 
 A VIRGINIA VIEW OF MR. BUCHANAN 
 
 SPEECH OP GOVERNOR H. A. WISE, AT RICHMOND, JTJN3 13, 1856. 
 
 Mr. Wise said, that he presumed there was no man in 
 the country who could more cordially say that ho con- 
 curred in the nominations of the Cincinnati convention 
 than he did. He ratified them with all his heart, and 
 Vould support them in the canvass might and main. He 
 was especially glad to meet his old friend, the Hon. Bed- 
 lord Brown, of the good old State of North Carolina, here, 
 and to hear hirn, and to have the opportunity of sending a 
 message by him to the democracy of Raleigh. He had 
 •een it reported in the papers that at the ratification meet- 
 ing in that city, some one had asked how it. happened that 
 the nominations were madef Why had Virginia separated 
 herself from the other Southa j States? The reply was, It 
 was a Wise movement. The democracy there, he was hap- 
 
 Sr to learn, were then satisfied, if it was a Wise movement, 
 e knew not in which sense to take the interrogatory and 
 the reply. But if it was meant to inquire, whether he 
 (Wise,) did it, he had to say that he gladly took the res- 
 ponsibility of it. If there was any wrong in it, he would 
 readily un the risk, without looking to any reward what- 
 ever, for the service undoubtedly rendered to the country. 
 
 Buchanan Nominated by Virginia. 
 
 "Bat he preferred not to play with the question and the an- 
 swer, and to give them a more significant and important 
 meaning, than any personal application to himself could 
 ' have. It was a movement wise and politic in itself. It 
 ▼as the very wisest and best for all the country which could 
 have been made, and, therefore, Virginia had promoted it, 
 and did not separate from herself in doing so. He cordial- 
 ly ratified the nomination of James Buchanan — 
 
 1st. Because it was due to the man. 
 
 9d. Because it was due to Pennsylvania. 
 
 8d. Because it was the safest, soundest, most sanitary 
 and conservative movement which could have been made 
 in reference to the condition of the country. 
 
 4th. Because it was, beyond doubt or question, the over- 
 whelming voice of Virginia, united with the great central 
 
 • States, without regard to sections of North or South. 
 
 For these four reasons, any one of which was sufficient, 
 he had gone for the nomination, and now heartily con- 
 tained it. He said it was due to the man. Who is James 
 Buchanan ? He has no military pretensions — he is no 
 
 • Ctaesar, with a Senate at his heels— he never set a squadron 
 in the field, nor wears he a sword to throw it in the scale 
 to make it kick the beam! He is simply that which is ex- 
 pressed by the word most precious to republicanism — a 
 plain, unpretending, but sound, safe, conservative citizen. 
 
 ' Civil in every sense, he is a civilian ; a statesman of train- 
 ing, of age, of experience in public affairs, prudent, cau- 
 tious, honest, patriotic, able, and has rendered the country 
 not some, but much service. He has especially rendered 
 this State and the South the service of that sacred regard 
 
 ' to the Constitution which protects property and persons, 
 and maintains State Sovereignty and State equality— the 
 only policy which can guard the Union. A man of sound 
 morals, he has conserved himself, and kept his faculties so 
 veil by a virtuous life, that he, now at the age of sixty-five, 
 has many year* of service still in him. Though his head 
 he white as snow— full of years and full of honors — be Is 
 yet vigorous in mind and body, and is a man of Herculean 
 labor. Here Mr. Wise paused, and apostrophized the men 
 0/ the heroic age of the Revolution, and those who immedi- 
 ately succeeded them, and were imbued with their spirit. 
 He sail) James Bivchanan was about the last link to that 
 JIne of sages who had settled our system, and secured by 
 their virtue and wisdom the liberties of our free institu- 
 tions ; who could, in the couree of nature, be made to serve 
 hi the highest office, and set a last example of the men of 
 eld to guide us. We should not lose his lessons, derived 
 jrom personal contact with their wisdom and patriotism. 
 
 Always Faithful to Slavery. 
 
 B* was truly of the order of the Roman Cato — or greater 
 (till, the Virginia Madison of the better times of the repub- 
 lic. Venerable with age and sobered by experience, he 
 Would command the confidence and respect of every con- 
 tervative man who venerated the past. Such U the man, 
 
 and his services rendered are the best vouchers and cre- 
 dentials of his vigor and his merit, and of the debt due him 
 by Virginia. He has been especially faithful on the subject 
 of slavery. Mr. Wise undertook to say that not only no 
 man North, but no man South could show a better record 
 than that of James Buchanan on that vexed and danger- 
 ous question. He had been arraigned for the imputed 
 cffence when he was a mere boy — a very youth — of having 
 presided at or attended a meeting in Pennsylvania which 
 denounced slavery, and resolved in favor of the Missouri 
 compromise. This charge had been actively circulated 
 against him in 1S52, and it so happened that when Mr. Bu- 
 chanan had with his own hand, furnished him (Mr. Wise) 
 with the Irrefragable evidence to show not only that the im- 
 putation was false, but that it was next to impossible for it 
 to be true. Mr. Buchanan had manifested his politics by 
 his errly adherence to the Madisouiau war of 1812. He had 
 shouliered his musket and marched to Baltimore ; and, 
 though it had been derisively said, "he marched to Balti- 
 more, and marched back again" — that was all he did ; yet, 
 that march had shown the quo anhno, and that was all 
 which patriotism required. He was as early as 1814 in the 
 Pennsylvania Legislature, and there sustained the war of 
 1812, and voted it supplies. He did not support the Mis- 
 souri compromise. On the contrary, when he went into 
 the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United 
 States, he was found with the great democratic party a 
 supporter of the great arch friend of Southern democracy 
 — Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee. When the issue of in- 
 cendiary publications arose, he voted to violate the very 
 mails rather than permit the agitators of a Nat Turner In- 
 surrection to light the fires of incendiarism by the Post 
 Office. When the Wilmot proviso was invented especially 
 for his destruction by a Cameron faction in his State, he 
 firmly withstood an Insidious contrivance in a free State to 
 undermine the tenure of slave property, and was found 
 maintaining the sovereign equality of slave States, when 
 others faltered and others fell on that fatal issue. 
 
 When the issue of annexation of Texas arose, he con- 
 tented not himself by going for a measure which would ad- 
 mit a State "with or without slavery about her," but he 
 went " undividedly and unspent " for a measure which ad- 
 mitted a State, a new State, not with or without, but with 
 slavery already established as her "peculiar institution." 
 In 1846, when the issues were coming to an issue of internal 
 strife, or separation, he did go for an extension of the line 
 of the Missouri compromise to the Pacific, and every south- 
 ern man went with him. On that point Mr. Calhoun him- 
 self went further north than Mr. Buchanan went. He sub- 
 mitted his amendment to the Oregon bill, proposed that the 
 clause against Involuntary slavery should be the law north 
 of the line, if no question should be raised against slavery 
 Bouth of the line. This was in the spirit of 1819 and '20. 
 They did not propose that what was constitutional on one 
 side of the line should be unconstitutional on the other 
 side, but they agreed to disagree: that if no question was 
 raised pro-slavery on one side, none should be raised con- 
 slavery on the other side. They submitted to the law of 
 climate, that Jack Frost should reign north of 86.30; and 
 Jack Frost had decreed that the " Ebo shins and giz- 
 zard feet of negroes" should not and could not live in the 
 North — slavery would not be profitable there. It was profit- 
 able in the land of sugar and cotton, and even of Virginia 
 tobacco and corn, and Mr. Buchanan, with the whole South 
 at his back, with myself among others — and no one here or 
 elsewhere will say I am an anti-slavery man — went to make 
 the Missouri line a "fixed fact" to the Pacific. Mr. Polk 
 went for that policy, and all concurred, except Mr. Calhoun, 
 in the position that was already a "fixed fact" — that the 
 North was already bound in good faith to carry out the line 
 to the Pacific. But they of the North already reached the 
 Pacific In the Northwest. We wanted territory in the South- 
 west to preserve the equilibrium of slave power in the Union. 
 This we had acquired by the annexation, and its pro-slavery 
 phase would have been preserved by running the Missouri 
 line to the Pacific. Mr. Polk contended it did eo extend — 
 everybody else, except Mr. Calhoun, so contended ; but in 
 spite of friend or foe he offered his amendment to the Ore- 
 gon bill, which conceded that it did not so extend, and he — 
 not James Buchanan — lost the value of the extension to the 
 South. He made it a geographical line, applying only to 
 
11 
 
 territory acquired from France and Spain. Mr. Buchanan 
 and Polk, and myself and all others, urged it over a cli- 
 matory line, and did run it to the Pacific. To concede other- 
 wise, was to put our hands in the lion's mouth of a major- 
 ity—was to concede that we had not the fixed fact of the 
 line to the Pacific— and was to leave us to the mercy of a 
 majority against us. We were in a minority, and of course 
 would lie voted down without that admission. The cost of 
 uot running that line to the Pacific may be valued thus to 
 
 In Favor of Raising the price of Slaves to .$3,000 
 and $5,000. 
 
 Virginia: — We now get a thousand dollars for a sound 
 slave; we would then have gotten from three to five thou- 
 sand dollars for an operative in the gold mines of Califor- 
 nia; four hundred thousand multiplied by five thousand, or 
 even three thousand, will show our immense loss. One bil- 
 lion of dollars would not compensate Virginia for her loss 
 in not running the line on to the Pacific. The North had 
 fixed the line. They had the advantage of it until annexa- 
 tion. It was then our turn, and we did uot take it. That 
 was not Mr. Buchanan's fault. Had it so been fixed, "ebo 
 shins and gizzard feet" true, couldn't have poked their 
 noses north into the dominion of Jack Frost, but then free- 
 soilism couldn't have poked its nose south of that line, as it 
 has since the compromises of 1S5U. Yet, though thus pro- 
 posed by the South and by Buchanan, the pharisees and 
 hypocrites who are uow howling over the repeal of the Mis- 
 souri compromise were the very men to oppose the exten- 
 sion of the Missouri line, and to making it a fixed fact. 
 Their reproach to Mr. Buchanan and to the South is equal- 
 led only in injustice by the reproach which some Southern 
 men have cast in upbraiding Mr. Buchanan for the pro- 
 posed extension of the line to the Pacific. The generous 
 and just Douglas has done him justice in that behalf, and 
 has takeu upon himself his commission of participation in 
 the act. Mr. Buchanan was equally sound on the Kansas- 
 Nebraska bill, lie was uot a member of Congress nor of 
 the Cabinet when that measure was proposed and passed. 
 
 Sound on the Nebraska Bill. 
 
 He didn't know that Mr. B. would have proposed or "intro- 
 duced " such a measure at the time ; but it had passed ; had 
 repealed the Missouri compromise; had returned us to utalu 
 quo ante lbl9-2ti: it. had but followed out the compromise 
 measure of 1850, which had already violated and doue away 
 with the line of 1819-20; and it left us as we ought ever to 
 have been left, to our original rights under the Constitution. 
 His friends ol Pennsylvania, in nominating him at Harris- 
 burg, had, excluding the idea of squatter sovereignty, 
 adopted the principle of non-intervention by Congress to 
 prevent or exclude slavery, and of State equality in the 
 Territories, leaving the rights of all to be guarded by the 
 Constitution ; and immediately upon his return home, he 
 adopted their nomination of him, placed on this platform. 
 This was identification enough with that measure. It was 
 all which could fairly be asked or given by him and liis 
 friends. In addition to this, the principle of the Kansas- 
 Nebraska bill has been incorporated into the democratic 
 platform by the Convention at Cincinnati, and thereon he 
 stands, unreservedly, without " adding or taking away a 
 single plank" of its principles. And it was well and it was 
 wise that the democratic party asked no more than this. It 
 was well that they did not attempt to exclude every man 
 from pretensions to the Presidency because he did not hanj- 
 peu to " introduce " this measure. It would have been go- 
 ing too far to have thus secured a monopoly of pretensions 
 for that high office to those only who happened to be mem- 
 bers of Congress, or of the executive, at tl>e time, of the pro- 
 posal of a particular measure. Men there were outside as 
 well as inside the Congress and the administration who 
 approve of the "introduction" of the measure, though the 
 country was not consulted about its introduction; and 
 there were many men sound on slavery who did not ap- 
 prove of its " introduction," and yet, who would have voted 
 for it. and would now fight against its. repeal. It would not 
 have done, he repeated, to have made the Kansas-Nebraska 
 •ill a hobby-horse for a privileged few, to exclude all others 
 from the race for honors; there were other " weightier mat- 
 ters of the law," and other modes of manifesting soundness 
 other than upon that particular measure. 
 
 As the bill was proposed and passed, as it did repeal the 
 Missouri line and carry out the compromise of 1350, though 
 that compromise cost us so much — as it left us where the 
 constitution found us — the Convention did well on the one 
 
 haDd to adopt the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska rae*- 
 sure, against the hypocrites who had bitterly opposed the 
 extension of the Missouri line to the Pacific ; and on the 
 other hand, to exclude the conclusion that the office of the 
 Presidency was to be exclusively occupied by those who 
 happened to have the opportunity at a particular time to 
 prepare, present and pass this particular measure, though 
 some of its friends had themselves, previously, gone for the 
 extension of the Missouri compromise line to the Pacific, and 
 some had gone very far, if not fully, for the Wiluiot Proviso 
 itself. It did very well to save the Kansas-Nebraska trtB 
 from the odium of being made a monopoly to subserve the 
 aspirations of a special few. It did well not to exclude from 
 the support of the South such friends as Pennsylvania and 
 her representative man. It did well not to allow a great 
 political principle, touching the most delicate and distract- 
 ing of topics, to be made a stalking horse for political 
 cliques: odium might easily have been brought upon the 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill, and the South might have been there- 
 by seriously injured. Mr. Buchanan was perfectly sound 
 upon the question, and sufficiently identified with it to sa- 
 tisfy every Southern conservative; and the Convention did 
 wisely and well to nominate one who opposes the restoration 
 of the Missouri compromise, nr»v that it has been repealed; 
 and one, too, who will resist the repeal of the Kansas-No 
 hraska bill, whether he approved of its introduction or not 
 And the nomination of so sound and profound a statesman 
 casts no reflection upon the rivals to whom he was prefer- 
 red. The venerable Cass had been once before preferred te 
 Mr. Buchanan, and had run and been defeated— not for the 
 want of the support of Mr. Buchanan and his friends. The 
 hopes of but very few si ill lingered, at the Cincinnati Con- 
 vention, around his availability in this canvass. Mr. Bu- 
 chanan was an older, if not a better soldier, than Mr. Doug- 
 las, who is young enough to live to run another day. Let 
 him go on, as of late years he has made his rising greatness 
 to shine, and Virginia, al least, in due season, will delight 
 to honor him with her vote, as she does now with her ap- 
 proval. He deserves thanks universally from the democracy 
 for not allowing bis name to distract the party and defeat 
 the nomination of a man who was preferred by an over- 
 whelming majority of democratic States, and whose nomi- 
 nation had on more than one previous occasion been de- 
 feated by the votes ol non-democratic States He did not 
 understand Mr. Douglas by bis telegraphs as yielding to a 
 majority rule, against the well-settled two-thirds rule, hot as 
 yielding to a couviction of preference beyond controversy 
 or dispute, which a two-thirds rule was meant to secure. 
 This was noble, and his withdrawal will gain him as mu«h 
 favor and as much honor as would his nomination, and hie 
 self-sacrifice will be remembered in future. He cordially and 
 
 Douglas and Pierce love Buchanan. 
 
 eloquently ratifies the nomination of James Buchanan. And 
 no less so does Franklin Pierce, the worthy and approved 
 President of the United States. Why should he, especially, 
 not endorse the preference of James Buchanan over him- 
 self? Be it remembered that he is now the President of the 
 Union, and that James Buchanan's friends nominated htm 
 to that high office. Pennsylvania and Virginia, North Caro- 
 lina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, in 18S2, after giving 
 James Buchanan 34 successive ballots, withdrew his name, 
 and they, they alone, brought forward the name of Franklin 
 Pierce. Mr. Buchanan and his friends gave way then to him 
 and elected him, and why should not he and bis friends hat 
 given way to Mr. Buchanan now? One good turn deserves 
 another, and the recorded rule of democracy is that every 
 good man should have his turn. We condemned not Mr. 
 Pierce as President; he has our gratitude, and we want no 
 better President than he has made, In the main; but Mr. 
 Buchanan will make no worse a President, and his turn had 
 come at last, though late and long postponed to the claims 
 of other men. That is all in the preference of James Bu- 
 chanan over Mr. Pierce now. On the other hand, as Penn- 
 sylvania had, in 1S52, next to Mr Buchanan preferred Mr. 
 Pierce, I regret only that New Hampshire did not, in 1S56, 
 next to Mr. Pierce, if not over him, prefer Mr. Buchanan. 
 But he had said the nomination was not only due to the 
 man, but to the State of Pennsylvania. She is one of the 
 oldest and largest of the Old Thirteen. From ISnl, in ISna, 
 and the war of lsl2. In the election of Monroe, through 
 that of General Jackson, jown to this day, she has been the 
 keystone of the federal arch and the stay and support of the 
 democratic parly and its principles. Among, the fait hlase 
 ever faithful, she ha« never In any great struggle faltered 
 until her politicians and her people, of late, were surprised 
 
12 
 
 by the secrecy of Know-Nothingism, and she has now glo- 
 riously redeemed herself from that ambuscade. And though, 
 bo distinguished in every great battle for the democracy 
 and though democracy has been so often triumphant, and 
 though so strong among the States, she has never been hon- 
 ored until now with a candidate for the Presidency. She 
 has been working for other States, for other men of other 
 States, and not been allowed to name a son of her own. 
 
 Pennsylvania must be cared for. 
 
 How long was she to stand the " great rejected " in the 
 Union? Did she not deserve credit for standing rejected so 
 long? Had she ever proposed a son of hers before 1S44? 
 and yet, from 1844 down to this hour, in 1*44, 1848, 1852, 
 she had patieutly submitted and rallied to the democracy, 
 and gave her strength to its cause, though repulsed and 
 rejected, with a majority of democratic States at her back, 
 three times in succession, and she has not thrown down her 
 shield and buckler and retired to her tent. The fourth time 
 now had come. She alone of all the Middle and North- 
 eastern States stood firm for democracy ; she alone of the 
 Northern and non-slaveholding States jtf largest federal 
 strength and size remains true and reliable ; again she of- 
 fered her son, who had been thrice sacrificed by non-demo- 
 cratic States. Was he to be again defeated — she again to 
 be rejected? Ah I we might again have nominated without 
 Pennsylvania; but could we have elected without her united 
 Toice of twenty-eight electoral votes?— without the only 
 certain first class State left to democracy and the South in 
 the North? It was not safe to reject Pennsylvania a fourth 
 time. She is true to principle, but true alike to herself. She 
 holds her State pride and self-respect as high as any other 
 State, and a fourth repulse of her pretensions might have 
 caused disaffection in her and disaster to democracy. The 
 Convention, then, did most wisely in recognizing the claims 
 of a State so large, so strong, so true, so faithful, and yet so 
 long neglected and rejected. But, above all, the nomina- 
 tion of Mr. Buchanan was best in reference to the present 
 condition of the country. By feud and faction, the whole 
 nation Is internally torn— fanaticism and sectionalism are 
 distracting the people and dividing them from each other in 
 moody separation of societies aud States and churches. The 
 nation's genius is acting against itself at a time when we 
 are, by no insignificant menace, threatened with causes of 
 foreign war. Thank God, thai in ev< ry extreme trial, in 
 every perplexity, whenever men know not what to do to 
 save and unite us as one people, there is yet left one moun- 
 tain of refuge I We may yet go to the shrine of George 
 Washington 1 We may yet rely on his precept and on his 
 example as a tower of strength, and feel safe under the 
 shadow of his parental influence ! We may always recur to 
 fundamental principles, and take counsel from that rich 
 legacy of advice he left us in his ever blessed Farewell Ad- 
 dress 1 It is so marked by wisdom, and virtue and patriot- 
 Ism, by disinterested devotion to country, that it has never 
 thus far been violated but in two instances ; and it is the 
 most remarkable proof of its prescience, that the very crop 
 of dragons' teeth we are |ow reaping as a nation, spring 
 from those two violations. The Father of his Country told 
 us " Never to draw a sectional geographical line." The 
 Missouri compromise liue was drawn, and its repeal is 
 causing the civil war in Kansas, the pious contributions for 
 rifles by the preachers of" Christian politics" in the North, 
 and in attempting to set up a law higher than the Constitu- 
 tion, at the imminent risk of peace and Union. And he 
 told us "Never to form entangling alliances with foreign na- 
 tions." And the wretchedly conceived and executed Clay- 
 ton-Bulwer treaty was formed, not only to bind us to forego 
 the dominion of the Isthmus of the two Americas, at the 
 time when the apple was beginning to ripen, and be ready 
 to fall Into our laps, but binding us by an alliance, offensive 
 and defensive, to forbear all intervention by ourselves and 
 others to 6ecure to America her sovereign right of way 
 from one side to the other of her own continent; a treaty 
 which binds us to exclude no nation of all nations from the 
 way, but bound us to full one-half of the risk, responsibility 
 
 Buchanan will make a Slave State of Kansas. 
 
 Now, as to the first of these troubles, he (Mr. Wise) under 
 took to say that no man in this country could bring so be- 
 nign an influence to bear as James Buchanan, no State 
 more material aid to restore the Constitution to its reign 
 than the State of Pennsylvania, in the present crisis. Mr 
 Buchanan had done all a wise man could do to run tb 
 Missouri line, by way of guarantee to North and South, b> 
 way of final settlement of sectional controversy, to the 
 Pacific. Against him and his friends of the South it was 
 destroyed, in 1850, by its now professed friends, and, being 
 repealed, he will revert to the Constitution as the only just 
 compromise, allow no more sectional Mnes to be drawn, and 
 fight, if he must, against destroying State equality in the 
 Territories. He has the standard point, the position from 
 which he may surely and safely pursue this policy, and to 
 this policy he and his powerful State of Pennsylvania are 
 committed. Upon this he was nominated, and when he is 
 elected, and another non-slaveholding President, from the 
 great tier of Middle States, shall have confirmed the doc- 
 trines of the late messages cf Franklin Pierce, a President 
 from the extreme North — from the Granite State of noble 
 New Hampshire — then we may regard the doctrine and the 
 practice as settled and sanctioned, and the South may feel 
 safe, and the North be content to abide by the Constitution 
 as it is. To settle this sectional strife, no man could bring 
 so much of Northern and slave-holding strength to unite 
 with the South in defence of the Constitution and the Union 
 as .lames Buchanan lias brought and can bring. His name 
 has held Pennsylvania to Virginia; his name has united the 
 hard and the soft factions of New York, and made them 
 make the welkin ring with one voice of ratification, shouting 
 together at the Park of their city, the other night, in favor 
 of his nomination. What other name has the magic of 
 harmony in it, so to nnite factions like these ? He was iden- 
 tified with no feud, and had healing in his wings at once to 
 compose these strifes. Soft, winning, gentle, forbearing, he 
 is the man to turn away wrath, and to bear ftie olive branch 
 of peace and reconciliation wherever his brethren dissent 
 and differ at home. And, above all men, he is the man of 
 men to keep the peace with Great Britain, at home and 
 abroad. Just returned from the Court of St. James, no 
 man has had the personal contact, no man has had the per- 
 sonal impress with a Clarendon or a British cabinet which 
 James Buchanan has. He is, I hope, utterly opposed to a 
 
 War dangerous to the Slave-breeding States. 
 
 war with England. Nothing could be more disastrous to 
 our whole country, and especially to our Southern section 
 of it, than a war with England at this crisis. He (Mr. Wise) 
 did not fear England. If he was to have a war, if war must 
 come, it was more honorable to have it with a power wor- 
 thy of our steel. No foeman was as worthy of a war with 
 America as Great Britain. Every laurel gained in a war 
 with her would be an honor well won, if any were won. He 
 wished to be distinctly understood. He was no war man in 
 peace, and no peace man in war. He loved the English 
 nation better than any other, except his own. He loved 
 the Anglo-Saxon race best, because it was his own race, and 
 ho believed it was the best race of men on earth. He knew, 
 after all that had passed between John Bull and Brother 
 Jonathan, notwithstanding all the hard knocks given and 
 received between them, they at heart loved each other and 
 respected each other. He had felt this once abroad. When 
 the Mexican war began, he had opportunities in South Am- 
 erica to see and to feel, and he would never forget that, 
 whilst Spaniards and Portuguese and Frenchmen were sym- 
 pathizing with and bantering for the Mexican, and hoping 
 and prophesying his victory over us, John Bull rammed h:a 
 fists in his breeches pockets and gruffly stood up for Brother 
 Jonathan. He swore, and he offered to bet, with no little 
 bullying in his tone, that he could whip his kinsman, but 
 nobody else could whip his brother Jonathan. If there is 
 bad blood between John Bull and Brother Jonathan, it is all 
 in the family— they will settle their quarrels in their own 
 way and nobody else must interfere. Whilst he (Mr. W ise) 
 would rather whip an Englishman than anybody else, only 
 
 and expense of the guarantee of the way without a consl 
 
 ion of the , . 
 treaty between us and our ally, which we are now incurring, Great Britain virtoric-W »|**f .£"" Jowers than our 
 
 before, its selves, and he desired anything else tban a war wmi tug 
 
 deration, and at the hazard of the true interpretation of the | because there was more honor in H, yet tabid rattai SW 
 treaty between us and our ally, which we are now 
 and which may drive us all around Cape Horn 
 
 solution is arrived at. This extraordinary wanton conces 
 gion, so much in violation of the Farewell Address, was 
 
 land, unless there was necessity for it, and honor requires 
 And he undertook to say this was the feeling of our peo- 
 
 made by the famous administratis of Fillmore, which pie generally > and almost "'"ve.sally an. hi here _»»'»*** 
 claimed to be so « Washington-like throughout." It Is the with Great Britain, It would be an act Of f oily or cnm£ ^r 
 Lain difficulty which we have to encounter in a Mttlement of a blunder worse than cr»nej«' irMcr .there >s no* xc use 
 With Great Britain. 1 »n d can be no pardon. He meant to cas, not We lea.t e- 
 
13 
 
 proach upon the course of the present administration. Mr. 
 Pierce had acted prudently, cautiously, and firmly. His 
 policy is doubtless peace, and to preserve peace he has 
 acted firmly and decisively. But the question of peace or 
 war ia complicated, and the issues are somewhat involved. 
 He meant no alarm, not even to the nerves of old women, 
 when he said that mismanagement or bad motives might 
 bring on a war; and to prevent war, to preserve peace, 
 nothing could have had a more pacific effect in Great Britain, 
 at this hour, than the selection of James Buchanan, of Penn- 
 sylvania, late Minister of the United States at. the Court of 
 Victoria. There he was known, there his personal confer- 
 ences had been felt, and his correspondence weighed. He is 
 known there to be pacific and conciliatory. It is claimed 
 there that he was already committed to an acknowledgment 
 of satisfaction on the enlistment issue. But a question of 
 peace or war is to be settled. The United States say to Eng- 
 land : " You violated our territory, you forced our neu- 
 trality, you in veded our sovereign rights by enlistment ; 
 we complained of your agents and requested their recall. 
 You pretended not to justify, but apologized for their 
 acts, and yet refused to recall them. We dismiss them 
 and send them home to you discredited. By this we mean 
 no discourtesy to you, but to say that your servants are not 
 tolerahle or acceptable to us. Again, on the subject of our 
 treaty we say your interpretation is wrong, and we will not 
 submit to it; and we recognize as a power de facto, to be 
 treated as a sovereign, a force, the Walker-Rivas govern- 
 ment, which has, in the face of the treaty to guarantee non- 
 intervention, interposed on the Isthmus and assumes its 
 jurisdiction and control." This notice is given whilst the 
 servants of the British government are sent home — contem- 
 poraneously — Great Britain replies: " We regret it and re- 
 call the act, if your jurisdiction, your neutrality, or your 
 sovereignty has been invaded by our servants. Nothing 
 was further from our intentions, and we issued orders im- 
 mediately to our servants to desist. Thinking them guilty 
 yourselves, you did not, as you might have done, adjudge 
 them so far as to sentence them to dismissal from your 
 limits and to send them home. Had you done so without an 
 appeal to us, we could have taken no offence. But. you ap- 
 pealed to us to ailjudge your complaints against them and 
 to punish them. We could not punish without trying them, 
 and at your request we examined your complaint and their 
 defence, and upon trial, according to the best of our judg- 
 ment and conscience, we were compelled to find them ' not. 
 guilty,' anil we could not punish without convicting them. 
 You have indignantly sent them home, reversed our judg- 
 ment, and punished them by a dismissal from your court. 
 You say this is not meaning to be discourteous to her Ma- 
 jesty's government, and yet, after calling on her Majesty's 
 government to judge her servants, how could you dismiss 
 them without contemptuously reflecting upon and acting 
 against the judgment of her Majesty's government which 
 yourselves called for? The disclaimer is not reconcilable 
 with the fact of the case, nor with the respect which is 
 claimed for a solemn decision demanded on your part to be 
 made upon our part. Sending these servants home, dis- 
 missing them contrary to our judgment which you called for 
 and which we conscientiously gave, you at the same time 
 notify us of a contention about our treaty in respect to 
 Nicaragua. We cannot and will not yield our interpreta- 
 tion of that treaty; but whether that interpretation be right 
 or wrong, you bound, whether we can claim or retain pos- 
 session or not of any part of the Isthmus or its islands, 
 yourselves in alliance with us to guarantee against inter- 
 vention or occupation by any other p'^er; and yet, you 
 have recognized a power de facto, whi!;h is notoriously a 
 filibustering power, looking to ultimate annexation to you. 
 In view of these plain facts, we end diplomatic relations, we 
 send Mr. Dallas home to you, and we notify you that we 
 will carry out our interpretation of thi treaty by taking 
 open possession immediately of the parts we claim, and that 
 we will drive from the country the invading and filibuster- 
 ing forces of what you have recognized as a de facto sove- 
 reign power, called a Walker-Rivas government." Now, if 
 messages like these should be sent and received, there would 
 be some danger of collision. The two issues come together in 
 conjunction, and most inopportunely do they conplicate the 
 adjustment and double the danger. And for us, he repeated, 
 a war with Great Britain will be most destructive and disas- 
 trous. We have fearful issues ou the slavery question uow, 
 and there would be a worse one then. Fifteen years ago, when 
 he (Mr. Wise) offered a resolution in the House of Represen- 
 tatives declaring that Congress had no power whatever over 
 slavery in the States of the Union, that " old man eloquent," 
 as he was called, John Quincy Adams, said: "Sir, the pro- 
 position of the gentleman from Accomac is not true. If 
 Congress can.it legislate, less than Congress in the Federal 
 
 government may interfere with slavery in the States. Ii\g« 
 land was compelled to treat with Cudjo in the cockpits of 
 Jamaica, and if he could compel England to make emanci- 
 pation a condition of peace, much more could a President 
 and Senate, under your treaty-making power, unlimited as 
 it is, make emancipation a condition of peace, in case of a 
 war, to be settled with any foreign power." This warning, 
 horrible, revolting as it is to every sense of safety and con- 
 stitutional and national obligation, he took to his remem- 
 brance forever. The thought, of a war with Old England at 
 this crisis of black republicanism in New England, made 
 him remember it with a vengeance. If we go to war we will 
 not have the power of privateering we had in the last war. 
 We are without the nucleus of a navy, save in merchant 
 marine, whose bottomry and tonnage exceeds that of Great 
 Britain. With more commerce and shipping than England 
 to be destroyed, we have not a hundredth part of her navy, 
 and especially of her steam navy. It is not as in the last 
 war, when canvas, when sails were the motors on the 
 high seas. Now steam is the substitute, and in thirty 
 days our shipping and sailors would be shut In and 
 shut out at every port; and sails could not cruise against 
 steam. One steamer could protect a fleet of argosies, which 
 no privateer could touch. The war would have to last 
 more than one, two or three years for us to come out 
 of it with honor. He knew that, in the long run, if war 
 would only continue long enough, we could fight under 
 until the nation had time to rise up and shake off its want 
 of preparation, and exhaust its adversary and make honor- 
 able terms. But would we have time? Would time be al- 
 lowed us? No, he feared. New England commerce and 
 Southern cotton and tobacco would suffer so much they 
 would cry out for peace like frogs for rain. And this agony 
 for peace would aid black republicanism to propose term* 
 alike dishonorable and destructive to our property and our 
 independence. Aye, if such a man as that pious politician, 
 Johu McLean, of Ohio, who is the first of the bench of the 
 Supreme Court to stain the ermine of the Judiciary by ap- 
 peals to fanatical prejudice to make him President, shall 
 succeed in his mad ambition, and if a Senate shall have a 
 majority of such men as Seward and Wilson, and Wade, 
 anil Sumner, — with a house composed of black republicans 
 or mulattoes or Know Nothings, headed by a Banks— can 
 we expect anything else, if there should be a war with 
 England, than black republicanism combining with foreign 
 English influence to make emancipation a condition of 
 peace? Would not such arch-fiends of national distur- 
 bance, dishonor and disgrace with a war with Old England, 
 in order that, the abolitionists of New England might have 
 the chance of proposing such conditions of peace? For 
 James Buchanan he was not authorized to speak ; but he 
 spoke his own well-assured convict. ons, when he expressed 
 the confidence that peace would be his policy ; and if war 
 should come, he would repel such terms and conditions of 
 peace as he would repel the worst invaders of peace. He 
 trusted 30 such opportunity of mischief would be afforded 
 to internal or external foes. He trusted that James Bu- 
 chanan would speedily restore diplomatic intercourse with 
 Great Britain, and guard the nation from war by abrogat- 
 ing the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. He trusted that he would 
 guard our neutrality laws, but would never yield our inter- 
 pretation of the treaty anil the Monroe doctrine as long as 
 there is " a shot in the kicker " The country will gladly 
 accept any settlement made within these limits of peace 
 and self-protection. He is now called upon at the right time, 
 for his conservatisms, and because especially he is safe 
 upon our foreign relations, his nomination for the Presi- 
 dency is most opportune, and will be most heartily ratified 
 and sustained by the American people. The danger of 
 foreign war and of domestic strife alike call the peaceful 
 sage to preside over the nation. He went for the nomina- 
 tion lastly, because it was the emphatic voice of Virginia. 
 
 Buchanan the choice of the Virginia Slave-breeders. 
 
 It was not the movement of him, Mr. Wise, but It was the 
 movement of Virginia. She made it ; without her it would 
 not have been made; and she had the right to make it. If 
 any State could in justice claim the right to have her wishes 
 preferred, it was Virginia, in this nomination. Just one 
 year ago — no, not one year ago, for that wouldn't bring us 
 to the 24th of May, lS5ft—fourteen months ago, how stood 
 the hopes of democracy? Overwhelmed in every Northern 
 State, many of the leaders began to cower, shuddering in 
 the gloom of the dark lantern in the South. The "dagger 
 and the cord," as in Germany in the time of the Vehiue 
 Gerichte, were stealthily in the night stuck upon men's 
 tables, as upon that of Charles the Bold; and the boldest 
 
14 
 
 In the South bef.-an to waver — to hash and be still. Flesh 
 wan made to creep upon one's bones — political assassina- 
 tions near froie the blood of men, and many turned pale 
 and skulked to the culvert for safety — some went for suc- 
 cor Many who are amongst those now foremost in de- 
 nouncing 9am, since Sam is down, and none so poor as to 
 do hira reverence, were whispering eagerly the inquiry 
 whether it was not best to yield to the Great Unknown — 
 the Invisible Invincible! But Sam met here in Virginia 
 the visible invincible — the Indomitable democracy of the 
 Old Dominion. If there is anything on earth which is 
 Invincible, it is thai glorious democracy — ever un- 
 moved, unshaken, un terrified ! It was not him, he was but 
 a trumpet, a horn, to wake ibe knights and steeds of Hur- 
 Bebloun. lie but made the rotate tour to tell the men of the 
 lowland and the mountains the danger which lurked in the 
 citadel of their faith, and they awoke in their might. Sam 
 was not smart — he hallooed before he was out of the woods 
 — he boasted of his numbers — said he had seventy-three 
 thousand enrolled— and he had : it was about the only 
 truth he told during the canvass. That was all that was 
 wanting. It was like a strong athletic man seeing how far 
 the antagonist jumped; the democracy only wanted to 
 know the required effort to be made to secure victory. The 
 full strength of Virginia democracy is never put wholly 
 forth — it is never required. Her majority is no test of her 
 power. She only wants to kuow the mark of the adversary 
 just cleanly to leap over it. Sam told us his— he didn't 
 keep thai secret, and its telling was fatal to him. He said 
 73,0110, and it was beaten more than 10,000. The Legisla- 
 ture did not count and correct the poll. It was more than 
 10,000. If he had said 83,000, it would have been all the 
 •ame — 93,000 would have been beaten. Never, until he 
 touched the mark of 103,000 voters, would he have brought 
 Virginia democracy to a tie. Why? Because there are 
 2o6,00d voters in Virginia, and therefore he said 103,000. 
 It is the half of 206,000, and anywhere within that margin, 
 anything known to be opposed to democracy, will be 
 beateB in Virginia. If Sam hadn't been known to be 
 beaten on the 24th of May, 1S65, from 5,000 to 15,OtiO— it 
 mattered not which here — the Tenth Legion would not 
 have been done voting until the election was sure by some 
 certain majority. So indomitable, so sure, so true to them- 
 selves and their country are our Virginia democracy. It 
 is here no political pastime, it is a principle and a passion 
 wim the people. The leaders may wander off, but the mass 
 here are their own leaders. It is not so much, so gloriously 
 so anywhere else on earth. This Indomitable democracy 
 of Virginia, here and nowhere else, turned back the tide 
 of revolution — rolled defeated back upon victory, and 
 plucked our drowning hopes up by the locks. Dope 
 was sunk. There was no hope before the Virginia election. 
 Sara'8 secrecy had surprised even old Pennsylvania — and 
 there is no hope now. Hope is made up of " desire and ex- 
 pectation." 
 
 Before the Virginia election, there was the desire, but no 
 expectation of Buccess for democracy. Now, since the Vir- 
 ginia election and this glorious nomination, there is still the 
 desire, but still no "expectation "—for expectation, doubt, 
 uncertainty, is turned into a certainty, anil is swallowed up 
 In a glorious democratic victory and triumph. Virginia re- 
 vived hope, restored strength and certainty of success ; and 
 she had the right to say who should be her standard-bearer 
 — who should wear the honors and wield the power she had 
 won. Gratefully she turned to her sister State of Pennsyl- 
 vania. The " sour krout " democracy of Simon Snyder had 
 always stood true to the "red waistcoat" democracy of 
 Thomas JeflVrson — as North Carolina with ber Macon In- 
 tegrity had always tieen the " left bower," eo Pennsylvania 
 had always been the "right bower" of Virginia, and neither 
 sf ber sisters had ever had a son promoted to the Presiden- 
 cy. Pennsylvania now had the representative man, ami 
 North Carcdina and Virginia both needed strength In the 
 North. New York was still divided — Ohio was hopeless — 
 the only State left to us was Pennsylvania. In '44 Virginia 
 had voted In her delegation'in convention for James Bu- 
 chanan; in '48 she had voted for hira; In '52 she had voted 
 thirty-four times in succession for him, and since then there 
 was no change in him, and no change in events, except that 
 the reasons for his nomination multiplied — factions In his 
 own State had died out — Cass was no longer his competitor 
 — the South still more than ever needed to preserve all 
 
 her strength of union In the Northern and non-slaveholdlivj, 
 democracy. Pennsylvania was our fortress and triend : he< 
 son was the man. And here, therefore, he (Mr. Wise) grate- 
 fully thanked the delegation from Virginia at Cincinnati, for 
 their continuous, persistent votes for sixteen ballots more. 
 Virginia, in the two last Conventions, has given him fifty 
 ballots combined, until he is now the nominee of the demo- 
 cracy, with a certainty of election. If it be asked, as it wag 
 in Raleigh, "Why did Virginia separate herself from North 
 Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Missis- 
 sippi?" the reply is that they beparated themselves from 
 Virginia. Virginia stood where she was in 1852. She re- 
 membered that in 1S52 Pennsylvania then separated herself 
 from the North to join with Virginia, North Carolina, Geor- 
 gia, Alabama and Mississippi, to make a nomination, and 
 they — these six States— did make it, and did well to make it. 
 Virginia did well to stand still by Pennsylvania, and she 
 will not atop to ask why did not the Southern States remain 
 with her in the nomination, for they will all be with her in 
 the election. She will prove to the South how wise and how 
 well it was, and ever will be for the whole country that Vir- 
 ginia and Pennsylvania shall forever be united in democra- 
 tic and patriotic triumphs. What is to prevent his election? 
 Mr. Fillmore has accepted— accepted without reference to 
 the chances of success or defeat. But he wanted one thing 
 marked— he accepts expressly, not the platform of June, 
 1855, with a 12lh section, but the platform of February, 
 1S56, which expunged and ignored the 12th section, and in 
 a letter which goes expressly for restoring the Missouri 
 compromise. The Mulengeons of Richmond endorsed the 
 " late Convention " at Philadelphia, too ; but will any South- 
 ern man — a Stuart or an Imbodin even — endorse this letter 
 fur the restoration of the Missouri Compromise? They may 
 re-endorse returning to the purity of the times of the Gal- 
 phins and the Gardners, and to the wisdom of a Ctayton- 
 Bulwer treaty by a Washington-like administration through- 
 out; but will they go for restoring the odious Missouri 
 compromise? There was but one excuse now made for 
 
 Fillmore used only to defeat the Fremoiiters. 
 
 supporting a Fillmore ticket. It had been whispered to Mr. 
 Wise that it was politic and patriotic to let Southern men in 
 minorities, and Northern men in majorities in some Slates, 
 if they could be got to go for it, as it would tend to divide 
 the black republican forces. This was a monstrous patriot- 
 ism, and more monstrous admission. Not hoping for suc- 
 cess, just to run to hoodwink parties. They are to allow 
 their names to be used to prevent their partisans in the 
 North from voting the black republican ticket. Then their 
 partisans there have, it is admitted, black republican affini- 
 ties. If so, how came their partisans in our midst to have 
 affinities with their partisans in the North having black re- 
 publican affinities? This is a juggle no more respectable 
 than that of Know-Nothingism. No 1 — The effect of run- 
 ning a Fillmore ticket is to keep the Souib from being united 
 to a man — that ticket will get but few men North. This 
 proves that the ticket is a mongrel ticket — that the offspring 
 of it is, as he had said, a mulatto, or, as he had better said, 
 a Mulungeon ! But the South will unite on the Cincinnati 
 nomination. It addresses itself too strongly to the respect- 
 able old line whigs for good men not to combine for good, 
 when bad men are combined for evil — it is too conservative 
 for them not to rally with us to conserve the moral princi- 
 ples which preserve suciety — the fundamental political prin- 
 ciples which conserve the State— the hallowed rights of reli- 
 gion which protect the purity of churches, our altars and 
 religion themselves against the infidelity and the anti- 
 Christ of fanaticism — our Constitution and Union, the pal- 
 ladium of our liberty and strength, against the higher law 
 and lower morals of sectionalism. He said that when a 
 boy, shooting " geese, ducks and plover," along the Atlan- 
 tic coast, he had always found " double B's " — B. B. shot — 
 to be most effective. This is a B. B. ticket 1 Let it be called 
 the "double B" ticket. It has not only B. for Buchanan, 
 but B. for a son of the chief State 'of Virginia— Kentucky 
 j'oined to Pennsylvania — Virginia's nephew and grand- 
 child I Now, with these double B's we had only to load the 
 democratic big gun, take aim at the butts of the wings of 
 the leaders or watch-geese, let fly Into the flock, and at 
 every fire we would bring down more game than we could 
 
15 
 
 PRESTON S. BROOKS FOR BUCHANAN. 
 
 Ft-om his Letter to the Buchanan Ratification Meeting at Charleston, S. C. 
 "Mr. Buchanan was neither ray first nor second I supplemental resolutions adopted at Cincinnati, and 
 
 choice for the Presidency; but, as the represents 
 tive of a type of principles, and standing ooldlv as 
 he does upon the Baltimore platform, upon which 
 General Pierce was carried into power — enlarged, 
 improved, and strengthened as it has been by the 
 
 by which resolutions our principles, as practically ap- 
 plied to the Territory of Kansas, have been re-indorsed 
 by the American Democracy, and by their nominee 
 — I could not be unfaithful to the man withpat 
 treachery to the principles he representa." 
 
 MR BUCHANAN APOLOGIZES FOR BROOKS. 
 
 Lancaster, Thursday, July 24, 1S5C. 
 Correspondence of the N. T. Tribune. 
 
 I retnrned.here again yesterday, to attend the An- 
 nual Commencement of Franklin and Marshal Col- 
 legs. 
 
 The Hon. James Buchanan i9 President of the 
 Board of Trustees, and graced the occasion with his 
 presence upon the stage. 
 
 Notking occurred to mar the pleasure of any one, 
 unless it was the oration of W. W. Davis of Sterling, 
 Illinois, which really troubled the Bace of Wheatland. 
 The subject was " Decline of Political Integrity." 
 The sentiments were noble and manly, delivered in 
 a pleasant and forcible style, worthy of maturer 
 years. He commended the patriotism of the fathers 
 of the Republic, and denounced the degenerate poli- 
 tical huxters of the present day, who make all kinds 
 of sycophantic promises to all parties and portions 
 of the country for even a nomination by a Conven- 
 tion, no matter how corrupt or regardless of politi- 
 cal integrity. "So truckling in their character and 
 destitute of moral courage and political integrity 
 that men are found who applaud the attack of 
 Canine Brooks upon the noble Sumner for defending 
 Freedom." 
 
 During the delivery of this sentence the whole 
 house was still as death, and at its close it was 
 heartily applauded. Mr. Davis finished his oration 
 and retired from the front of the sta^e amid thunders 
 of applause, and showers of bouquets from his lady 
 friends. For him it was truly a triumph. But o» 
 retiring to his seat, next to that of Mr. Buchanan, 
 did he receive the congratulation of the sage of 
 Wheatland? No, no. Mr. Buchanan said to him, 
 loud enough that the whole class could hear ; "My 
 young friend, you look upon the dark side of the 
 picture. Mr. Sumner's speech was the most vulgar 
 tirade of abuse ever delivered in a deliberative 
 body." To which the young orator replied that he 
 "hoped Mr. Buchanan did not approve of the 
 attacks upon Mr. Sumner by Brooks aud others." 
 To which Mr. Buchanan rejoined that " Mr. Erooks 
 was inconsiderate, but that Senator Butler was a very 
 mild man." Mr. Davis expressed his regret at the 
 moderation of Mr. Buchanan's views, and dropped 
 the conversation. After the close of the exercises, 
 the friends of Mr. Davis related what 1 have written. 
 Mr. Davis himself said he " did not think for a mo- 
 ment that he was not in conversation with James 
 Buchanan," but now learns that it was the Repre- 
 sentative of the Cincinnati Platform he was ad- 
 dressed by. The whole matter has caused no little 
 gossip here in quiet old Lancaster. 
 
 LETTER FROM 
 
 THE HON. A. G. BROWN TO THE HON. S. R. ADAMS. 
 
 The Hon. Albert G. Brown, United States Sena- 
 tor from Mississippi, was one of the committee 
 chosen by the Cincinnati Convention to wait on 
 Mr. Buchanan and apprise him of his nomination. 
 Having done so, he reports progress to his prede- 
 cessor in the following letter : 
 
 Washington Citt, Wednesday, June 18, 1S56. 
 
 Mr dear Sir : I congratulate you on the nomina- 
 tion of your favorite candidate for the Presidency. 
 
 It the nomination of Mr. Buchanan was acceptable 
 
 to me at first, it is still more so now, since I have seen 
 
 Mm aud heard him speak. The committee of which 
 
 Was one, waited on him at his residence to give him 
 
 t -mal an ? official notice of his nomination, and, in 
 
 the name of the National Democracy, to request his 
 acceptance of it. We found him open, frank, and 
 wholly undisguised in the expression of his sentiment*. 
 Mr. Buchanan said, in the presence of all who had as- 
 sembled, and they were from the North and the South, 
 the East and the West, that he stood upon the Cin- 
 cinnati Platform and indorsed every part of it. Ha 
 was explicit in his remarks on its Slavei-yfcatwes, sott- 
 ing, that the Slavery issue was the absorbing element m 
 the canvass. He recognized to its fullest extent the 
 overshadowing importance of thatissue, and if elected, 
 he would make it the great aim of his Administration 
 to settle the question upon such terms as should giv» 
 peace and safety to the Union, and security to the 
 South. He spoke in terms of decided commendation tf 
 the Kansas Bill, and as pointedly deprecated the un- 
 worthy sfforte of sectional agitation to get up a na» 
 
16 
 
 tional conflagration on that question. After the pas- 
 sage of the Compromise measures of 1850. the Kan- 
 sas bill was, he said, necessary to harmonize our 
 legislation in reference to the Territories, and he ex- 
 pressed his surprise that there should appear any- 
 where an organized opposition to the Kansas bill, after 
 the general acquiescence which the whole country 
 had expressed in the measures of 1850. 
 
 After thus speaking of Kansas and the Slavery 
 issues, Mr. Buchanan passed to our foreign policy. 
 He approved in general terms of the Ciyicinnati reso- 
 lutions on this subject. But said that while enforcing 
 our own policy, we must at all times scrupulously re- 
 gard the just rights and proper policy of other na- 
 tions. He was not opposed to Territorial extension. 
 All our acquisitions had been fairly and honorably 
 made. Our necessities might require us to make other 
 acquisitions. He regarded the acquisition of Cuba as 
 very desirable now, and it was likely to become a na- 
 tional necessity. Whenever we could obtain the Is- 
 land on fair, honorable terms, he was for taking it. 
 But, he added, it will be a terrible necessity that 
 would induce me to sanction any movement that 
 would bring reproach upon us, or tarnish the honor 
 and glory of our beloved country. 
 
 After the formal interview was over, Mr. Buchanan 
 said playfully, but in the presence of the whole audi- 
 
 ence, " If I can be instrumental in scttliyig the Slavery 
 question upon the terms I have mentioned, and then add 
 Cuba to the Union, I shall, if President, be milling to 
 give up the ghost, and let Breckenridge take the Govern- 
 ment." Could there be a more noble ambition? 
 You may well be proud of your early choice of a 
 candidate, and congratulate yourself that no adverse 
 influences ever moved you an inch from your stern 
 purpose of giving the great Pennsylvanian a steady, 
 earnest and cordial support. In my judgment he is 
 as worthy of Southern confidence and Southern votes as 
 Mr. Calhoun ever was ; and in saying this I do not 
 mean to intimate that Mr. Buchanan has any sec- 
 tional prejudices in onr favor. I only mean to say 
 that he has none against us, and that we may rely 
 with absolute certainty on receiving full justice, ac- 
 cording to the Constitution, at his hands. 
 
 Knowing your long, laborious and faithful adher- 
 ence to the fortunes of Mr. Buchanan, I have thought 
 it proper to address you this letter to give you assur- 
 ance that you had not mistaken your man, nor failed 
 in the performance of a sacred and filial duty to the 
 South. In doing so I violate no confidence. 
 Very truly, 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 A. G. Browm. 
 
 To the Hon. S. R. Adams. 
 
 REPUBLICAN DOCUMENTS NOW READY. 
 
 LIFE OF COLONEL FREMONT. 
 An original and authentic Biography of the 
 People's Candidate for President, prepared ex- 
 pressly and with great care for The Tribune 
 Office, is now ready. It is condensed into a 
 pamphlet of 32 large octavo pages, on good type, 
 with spirited illustrations. 
 
 Price per dozen, $ 40 
 
 Price per huudred, . . • • 2 60 
 Price per thousand, . . . . 20 00 
 
 A German Edition of the above is now ready, 
 tame price. 
 
 HON. CHARLES SUMNER'S SPEECH in the 
 Senate, on Kansas Affairs— 32 pages. 
 
 Price per dozen, $ 40 
 
 Price per hundred, . • • 2 50 
 
 Price per thousand, . . . .20 00 
 
 THE REPORT OF THE KANSAS INVESTIGAT- 
 ING COMMITTEE; 
 
 Submitted on Tuesday, the 1st Inst., by the Hon. Messrs 
 Howard of Mich, and Sherman of Ohio, with 2,500 pages of 
 evidence, the fruit of three months' faithful labor in Kansas. 
 Price per single copy, . . . $ 04 
 
 Price per dozen, 40 
 
 Price per hundred, .... 250 
 
 Price per thousand, . . . • 20 00 
 
 BORDER RUFFIAN CODE IN KANSAS is now 
 teady— 16 large octavo pages. 
 
 Price per dozen $ 20 
 
 Price per hundred, . • . . 1 25 
 Price r>er thousand 10 00 
 
 GOVERNOR SEWARD'S SPEECH on the I-nmediate 
 Admission of Kansas, is now ready— 16 large octavo page*. 
 
 Price per dozen, $ 20 
 
 Price per hundred, . . • • 1 26 
 Price per thousand, . . • • 10 00 
 
 HON. SCHUYLER COLFAX'S SPEECH on the 
 "Laws'* of Kansas, 16 octavo pages, same price as the 
 above. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN, HIS DOCTRINES AND 
 POLICY, as exhibited by himself and his frienda. 16 octa- 
 I vo pages, same price as above. 
 
 Orders enclosing the cash are respectfully solicited. 
 
 GREELEY & McELRATH, 
 
 Tribune Office, New Yobk. 
 


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