Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1854-05-12
re sident Pierce and our Foreign Relations

President Pierce and our Foreign Relations
We do not think that the resolution offered
in the L. S. Senate, May !, by Mr. Slidcll Of
Louisiana, need to excite any great anxiety
In the country. He proposes to have the
Committee on Foreign Relations inquire into
the expcdiency of authorizing the President
at any time during the recess of Congress, to
suspend the acts of Congress preventing expe-
diticns leaving the United States against
foreign countries.
In speech in which all sorts of topics are
iumhlcd together, he seems to have been under
the influence of some nightmare of horrors
about the assumed aims of France and Eng
land to make another Ilayti of Cuba, which
would be cfcctually baked he thinks by
giving President Pierce the liberty to " un-
fcttcr the limbs of our people, if he should
see fit. France and England would at once
haul in their horns-and all fears of " the
horrors of II scryilc war might be given to
the winds
The Committee ON Foreign relations will
make talk about the resolution but it
will he some time we think before Congress
will trust Mr.. Pierce and his right hand man,
MIR. Forncy, with any such power as the re-
solution contemplutcs. The Craftsmanship
and the Gcncralship Of the President rate
lower now than they did when the canvass
for his election was in progress.
\ week or two since we heard member Of
the democratic party in neighboring State
himself man Of prominence, who few
years ago was at the head of chief Com
mittoc in Congress, express himself after
this fashion
II have been thinking sa id he, of one special
benefit which an overruling Providence may
have provided for us in an administration so
worthless a. our present one is Considering
the present condition of the governments of
Europe, there is no knowing to what extent
our nation might be- drawn into their quar-
rels. if we had an able as well as ambitious
administration for the three years to come.
A President of force and decision. who could
attach to him the party which put him into
power, might take such positions, that before
we were well aware of it, we should be drawn
completely into the contentious which we
ought to keep aloof from.
But as we have President and Cabinet
for whom no body has the least sort of res
pect, whom nobody will dare to trust for any
important purpose whatever,-th nation is
obliged to keep still. Everybody feels that
we are absolutely crippled There can be no
unity of action for anything, We must just
live along in shutting sort Of way as well as
we can, so long as our present imbecile and
corrupt Pres idcnt and Cabinet last. Tn
desirable as it light appear to have the power
| in such hands, it ma Y he the means Of saving
us from greater evils"
| We are not aware of any other benefit that
is at present expected by the nation from the
/ government of Pierce, Forney X Co. If this
/ shall follow, we will be thankful for it, but
not to them. As general rule, we should
prefer different sort of rulers from those
who are to be the occasion of good only be-
cause they are SO weak and corrupt that no.
body dare trust them.