The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1849-06-15

Were the approaching Congressional
elections to take place in the Northern in
stead of the Southern States, we appre-
bend that the Unions denunciations of
the Cabinet, though equally remorseless,
would be pitched to a different strain.
We would hear nothing of the injustice
done the South by taking the Postmaster
General and Secretary of the Interior from
New England and the Northwest The
fact that the State Department was offered
to Mr.. Crittenden of Kentucky, the Post
Office Department to Mr.. Gentry of Ten
nessee, and the War Department actually
bestowed upon Mr.. Crawford of Georgia,
before the Home Department was created,
would be relied upon to show, that what
ever of patronage the Northern members
Of the Cabinet enjoy, was the leavings and
refusals of the South. The patronage of
the Post Office Department is no greater
now than when it was offered to Mr.. Gen
try; and of the array of Office holders sub
ordinate to the Home Department, which
the Union displays in confirmation of a
baseless assault, the district attorneys,
marshals, and deputy marshals; pension
Offices and pension agents; the Indian bu-
reau, with Indian agents and sub-agents,
and the Patent Office, were under the con-
troll and attached to the State and War
Departments, when they were actually
rendered to gentlemen from slaveholding
States. 1t was no fault of General TAY-
LoR that Mr. Crittenden and Mr. Gentry
refused Cabinet appointments, nor is he
accountable for the inequality in the dis
tribution of the patronage Of the Govern
ment, which the Union complains of in
the establishment of new department.
If the equilibrium of patronage was dis
turbed by the law creating the Department
of the Interior, the last, and not this, Ad
ministration is responsible for the act.
We would not regret that this matter
has been brought to the notice of the coun.
| try, were it not for the inhammable humo
in which it has been seized upon as topic
to produce sectional irritation. The facts
here elected show conclusively that, il
forming his Cabinet, General TAYLOR wa
guided by national and catholic spirit
Had he been controlled in his selection o
constitutional advisers by narrow desir,
to propitiate the North, he would not hav,
offered appointments of such patronage +
southern gentlemen or, had he bee
under an undue southern influence, h
would not have bestowed them on gentle
men of the North. Whatever of patron
age belongs to the Home and General Pos
Office Departments, the Land Office ap
pointments excepted, was rendered in on
way or another to the South. There coul
not, therefore, have been any unworth
trucking on the part of the President {
any division of the Union. The Cabine
was formed with view to the interests c
the whole nation. The claims of the Who'll
country were regarded, rather than the pre-
JUDGES of either section and the proof
r of this are found in facts, connected wit
the formation of the Cabinet, which tn
+ Union, with other journals, at the tim
| published TO the world.
r In what has already been done by tn
!, Postmaster General and Secretary of tn
e Interior, the Union describes certain ind
. cations of vigor in the administration