"He entered political life in 1814 as a rank Federalist, and by the Federal party he was elected to the Legislature of the State. He was re-elected in 1815, defeating Molton C. Rogers, the Democratic candidate, and afterwards one of the Supreme Judges of the State.

"In 1820, he was the Federal candidate for Congress, and was elected over Jacob Hibsman, the Democratic candidate, by 976 majority. In 1822, he was reelected over the same man by 813 majority. In 1824, he was the Federal candidate for Congress, and elected over Samuel Houston, the Democratic candidate, by 519 votes. In 1826, he was re-elected over Dr. John McCamant, the Democratic candidate, by 453 votes. His majorities were becoming less each time, and in order to satisfy his Federal friends of his fidelity to the party, he had to declare that 'if he had a drop of Democratic blood in his veins, he would open them and let it out.'"

HE BECOMES A DEMOCRAT.

"Two years after this, he changed his coat and became a full-blooded Democrat, and ran for Congress as the Democratic candidate, and was elected by virtue of General Jackson's popularity. He was afraid to run a second term, and he declined."

HIS TEN CENT SPEECH.

"In 1843, in the United States Senate, he made a speech advocating the principle that ten cents is a sufficient compensation for a day's labor. Hence he is called 'Ten Cent Jimmy.'

"In 1845, he became Secretary of State under Polk's administration, and consented to give away about half of the Territory of Oregon to the British government, after he had proven that they had not a spark of t.i.tle to it.

"He extolled the Federal administration of John Adams, and endorsed the abominable Alien and Sedition laws of the Federal reign of terror. He bitterly denounced the administration of that pure Democrat, James Madison, and ridiculed what he termed the follies of Thomas Jefferson."

HIS SLAVERY SOMERSETS.

"In 1819, at a meeting in Lancaster, he reported resolutions favoring resistance to the extension of slavery and the admission of the State of Missouri as a slave State.

"In 1847, he wrote to the Democracy of Berks county, saying that the Missouri Compromise had given peace to the country, and that instead of repealing it he was in favor of its extension and maintenance.

"In 1850, in a letter to Col. Forney, he rejoiced over the settlement of the slavery agitation by the pa.s.sage of the compromise measures during Fillmore's administration, and hoped that before a dissolution of the Union he might be gathered to his fathers, and never be permitted to witness the sad catastrophe.

"In 1852, he wrote to Mr. Leake, of Virginia, concerning Fillmore's compromise measures of 1850, which had been pa.s.sed by Congress, and said, 'that the volcano has been extinguished, and the man who would apply the firebrand to the combustible materials still remaining, will produce an eruption that will overwhelm the Const.i.tution and the Union."

BUCHANAN'S LAST SOMERSET.

"On the 28th of December, 1855, about three months ago, Mr.

Buchanan, in a letter to John Slidell, of Louisiana, says: 'The Missouri Compromise is gone, and gone for ever. It has departed. The time for it has pa.s.sed away, and the best, nay, the only mode now left of _putting down_ the fanatical and reckless spirit of the North is to adhere to the existing settlement without the slightest thought or appearance of wavering, and without regarding any storm which may be raised against it."

Here, then, is an authentic record--if the reader please, a GILT-FRAME PENNSYLVANIA LOOKING-GLa.s.s, in which the Democracy of the South who admire the nominee of the late Cincinnati Convention can _see him as he is_! Heretofore, to use the language of Holy Writ, they have seen him "through a gla.s.s darkly, but now face to face." Here they see him standing erect upon the floor of the United States Senate, in all the pride of that _aristocracy_ which has characterized his course in life, and giving vent to the old and bitter feelings of the _royalists_ in Pennsylvania, by advocating the _oppressive British doctrine_, that TEN CENTS PER DAY _is enough for a poor white man as a day-laborer_! And here, too, our hard-fisted working-men, North and South, can see what sort of a man the Democracy are asking them to vote for for the Presidency!

In his Fourth of July oration in 1815, delivered in the hearing of an immense crowd, and afterwards published in all the leading papers of Pennsylvania, Mr. Buchanan came out as a _Know-Nothing_, which he has now to repudiate in stepping upon the _Anti-American Catholic Platform_ prepared for him at Cincinnati! Here is what he said in that celebrated oration:

"The greater part of those foreigners who would not be thus affected by it, have long been the warmest friends of the party. They had been _one of the great means of elevating the present ruling_ (Democratic) party, and it would have been ungrateful for that party to have abandoned them. To secure this foreign feeling has been the labor of their leaders for more than twenty years, and well have they been paid for their trouble, for it has been one of the princ.i.p.al causes of introducing and continuing them in power. Immediately before the war this foreign influence had completely embodied itself with the majority, particularly in the West, and its voice was heard so loud at the seat of government, that President Madison was obliged either to yield to its dictates or retire from office. The choice was easily made by a man who preferred his private interests to the public good, and therefore hurried us into a war for which we were utterly unprepared."

And then again:

"We ought to use every honest exertion to turn out of power those weak and wicked men whose wild and visionary theories have been tested and found wanting. Above all, we ought to drive from our sh.o.r.es foreign influence, and cherish American feeling. Foreign influence has been in every age the curse of republics--its jaundiced eye sees every thing in false colors--the thick atmosphere of prejudice by which it is ever surrounded, excluding from its sight the light of reason. Let us then learn wisdom from experience, and for ever banish this fiend from our country."

And here is what JACKSON thought of BUCHANAN. The Democratic Washington correspondent of the New York Evening Post, who was favorable to the nomination of Pierce, makes this statement--a statement we have often heard before, and never heard contradicted:

"On the night before leaving Nashville to occupy the White House, Mr. Polk, in company with Gen. Robert Armstrong, called at the Hermitage to procure some advice from the old hero as to the selection of his cabinet. Jackson strongly urged the President-elect to give no place in it to Buchanan, as he could not be relied upon. It so happened that Polk had already determined to make that very appointment, having probably offered the situation to the statesman of Pennsylvania. This fact induced Gen. Armstrong subsequently to tell Jackson that he had given Polk a rather hard rub, as Buchanan had already been selected for Secretary of State. 'I can't help it,' said the old man: 'I felt it my duty to warn him against Mr.

Buchanan, whether it was agreeable or not. Mr. Polk will find Buchanan an unreliable man. I know him well, and Mr. Polk will yet admit the correctness of my prediction.'

"It was the last visit ever made by Mr. Polk to the old hero when this unavailing remonstrance was delivered, but the new President, long before the end of his administration, had reason to acknowledge its propriety and justice, and in the diary kept by him during that period may still be read a most emphatic declaration of his distrust of Mr. Buchanan. Every one is aware of two marked instances in which, as Secretary of State, the latter failed to support the policy of the administration, viz., on the question of the tariff of 1846, and the requisition of the ten regiments voted by Congress for the Mexican war. On both of these measures he was known to be opposed to the wishes of Mr. Polk."

_Mr. Charles Irving_, the Democratic editor of the Lynchburg Republican, and a delegate at Richmond in the State Convention, thus disposes of Mr.

Buchanan in a long and able letter, dated May 7th, 1856:

"If silence during the battle const.i.tutes a claim for office, how can the South expect Northern statesmen to uphold her banner, when abolitionists are seeking to tear it to tatters?

If an ability to get free-soil votes makes a candidate available, and that species of availability is recognized as a merit at the South, Northern statesmen should court free-soilers, and not struggle with them, if they wish to be Presidents. Such availability may be very desirable to those who wish success alone, but those who look to the interests of the country may well be excused if they prefer a different standard. I certainly _prefer_ that the South shall PREFER the selection, not only of a sound man, but that she shall vote for the nomination of no man upon any such ground of availability.

The coming election must settle the slavery agitation. I do not wish a single free-soiler to vote the Democratic ticket, nor will I willingly afford them the slightest excuse for so doing.

A prominent North-West Democrat told me to-day, that the nomination of Mr. Buchanan would enable Trumbull, Wentworth, and other free-soilers to come back into the party. I am not anxious to get back such characters. These are some reasons for not preferring Mr. Buchanan.

"But there is still another reason. That reason is in his record. To carry the entire South, we must have not only a sound man, but one who is above impeachment--whose record is as stainless as the principles he advocates. Is such the case with Mr. Buchanan? Let the record answer.

"On the 27th of December, 1837, Mr. Calhoun submitted to the Senate that celebrated series of resolutions, the great objects of which were to set forth with precision and force the const.i.tutional rights of the slaveholding States, and to attract to their support an enlightened public opinion against the attacks of Northern fanaticism. The second resolution was in these words: (Calhoun's Works, volume 3, page 140.)

"'_Resolved_, That in delegating a portion of their powers to be exercised by the Federal Government, the States retained severally the exclusive and sole right over their own domestic inst.i.tutions and police, and are alone responsible for them, and that any intermeddling of any one or more States, or a combination of their citizens, with the domestic inst.i.tutions and police of the others, on any ground or under any pretext whatever, political, moral, or religious, with a view to their alteration or subversion, is an a.s.sumption of superiority not warranted by the Const.i.tution, insulting to the States interfered with, tending to endanger their domestic peace and tranquillity, subversive of the objects for which the Const.i.tution was formed, and, by necessary consequence, tending to weaken and destroy the Union itself.'

"Mr. Morris of Ohio, who was then the only avowed Abolitionist in the Senate, moved to strike out the words 'moral and religious.' Had the motion prevailed, the effect would have been to encourage agitation in the form in which it would be most likely to be fatal to the South. It would have been a direct encouragement to the Abolitionized clergy of the North to take the very course which was taken by the 'three thousand and fifty divines' who, in 1854, sacrilegiously a.s.sumed, 'in the name of Almighty G.o.d, and in his presence,' to denounce the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as 'a violation of plighted faith and a breach of a national compact.' Subsequent events have abundantly attested the truth of what Mr. Calhoun said, when arguing against the motion, 'that the whole spirit of the resolution hinged upon that word _religious_.'

"The vote taken on Mr. Morris's amendment stood as follows: (Congressional Globe, volume 6, page 74.)

"Yeas--Messrs. Bayard, BUCHANAN, Clayton, Davis, McKeon, Morris, Prentiss, Robbins, Ruggles, Smyth of Indiana, Southward, Swift, Tipton, and Webster--14.

"Nays--Messrs. Allen, Black, Brown, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Clay of Kentucky, Cuthbert, Fulton, Hubbard, King, Knight, Linn, Lumpkin, Lyon, Nicholas, Niles, Norvell, Pierce, Preston, Rives, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smyth of Connecticut, Strange, Walker, Wall, White, Williams, Wright, and Young--31.

"The fifth resolution to which Mr. Calhoun here referred, and which he justly regarded as the most important of all, and struggled most perseveringly to have pa.s.sed without amendment, was strictly as follows:

"'Resolved, That the intermeddling of any State or States, or their citizens, to abolish slavery in this District, or in any of the Territories, on the ground, or under the pretext, that it is immoral or sinful, or the pa.s.sage of any act or measure of Congress, with that view, would be a direct and dangerous attack on the inst.i.tutions of all the slaveholding States.'

"This resolution covered the whole premises. It met the issue boldly and fully. No Southern Democrat can hesitate to say that it embodied a great truth, to which events have borne emphatic testimony. Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, moved to strike it out, and insert the following as a subst.i.tute:

"'Resolved, That when the District of Columbia was ceded by the States of Virginia and Maryland to the United States, domestic slavery existed in both of those States, including the ceded territory; and that, as it still continues in both of them, it could not be abolished within the District without a violation of that good faith which was implied in the cession, and in the acceptance of the territory, nor unless compensation were made for the slaves, without a manifest infringement of an amendment of the Const.i.tution of the United States, nor without exciting a degree of just alarm and apprehension in the States recognizing slavery, far transcending, in mischievous tendency, any possible benefit which would be accomplished by the abolition.' (Congressional Globe, vol. 6, page 58.)

"The utter insufficiency of this temporizing amendment scarcely need be pointed out. Objectionable as it was in conceding to Congress the const.i.tutional power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and declaring against the exercise of that power only on the ground of inexpediency, it was still more so in this, that it made no reference whatever to the territories of the United States. The pa.s.sage of Mr. Calhoun's resolution would have committed the Senate, not only against the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, but against the application of the Wilmot Proviso and kindred measures to the Territories. Mr. Clay's amendment was entirely silent on the subject. It is true, that in another resolution which he proposed to have adopted as an additional amendment, it was declared that the abolition of slavery in the Territory of Florida would be highly inexpedient, for the princ.i.p.al reason 'that it would be in violation of a solemn compromise made at a memorable and critical period in the history of this country, by which, while slavery was prohibited north, it was admitted south of the line of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north lat.i.tude.' The defect in the first amendment can hardly be considered by Southern men as remedied by another which recognized the binding force of the Missouri Compromise.

"On the question to strike out Mr. Calhoun's resolution, and insert Mr. Clay's as an amendment, after it had been modified by striking out the part relating to compensation for slaves, the vote stood--yeas 19, nays 18. (Congressional Globe, vol.

6, page 62.) _Mr. Buchanan's name stands recorded in the affirmative._

"On a subsequent occasion, Mr. Calhoun, with a view to infuse vitality into Mr. Clay's amendment, moved to insert that any attempt of Congress to abolish slavery in the Territories, 'would be a dangerous attack upon the States in which slavery exists.' Mr. Buchanan opposed the amendment, and it was in reply to his speech that Mr. Calhoun made the remarks which may be found in the third volume of his works, pages 194 to 196, and which he commenced by saying that 'the remarks of the Senator from Pennsylvania were of such a character that he could not permit them to pa.s.s in silence.'

"From these votes, and this language of Mr. Buchanan, it is clear:

"1st. That he was not opposed to the _religious_ agitation of the slavery question--a species of agitation which Mr. Calhoun justly regarded as more fatal than any other.

"2d. That he recognized the const.i.tutional power of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, opposing its existence only on the ground of its inexpediency--a proposition which the position of Mr. Van Buren shows affords no reliable protection to Southern inst.i.tutions.

"3d. That he refused to commit himself fully on the great question as to the power of Congress over the Territories of the United States, and as far as he did go, evidently left it to be understood that the abolition of slavery by Congress in those Territories would be no attack on the States in which it exists.'

"If his opinions, in these respects, have undergone any material change, the country has not yet been authoritatively apprised of the fact. The reflections cast by him on the inst.i.tution of slavery, in one of his speeches in England, and the studied design he has manifested to keep aloof from the excitement growing out of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, are not well calculated to inspire confidence, that if his views have undergone any change, it has been a change for the better."

After thus disposing of the _slavery issue_, _Mr. Irving_ thus turns to the _Tariff Question_: