Eastern times., 1855-11-22
A Distinguished Defence Of President
Pierce.

In speaking of the personalities and malice
which are at present the great staple of GER
tain class of politicians. the New York Sunday
Mercury. an independent Journal. has the fol-
lowing just, liberal, and manly vindication OF
President Pierce from the malicious falsehoods
of the New York Tribune and its slanderous
correspondents =
"The subject is the more powerfully and
painfully called to our consideration from the
| fact that the New York Trbune-a paper which
! has character to lose as well as to win-a week
or ten days ago suffered one of its Washington
correspondents to charge the President of the
United States with being concerned with cer-
tain public officers in Missouri, in perpetrating
gross frauds in the selection and distribution Of
swamp lands, granted to Arkansas and other
States by an act of Congress passed in Decem-
Der. 1850.
The charge of fraud against the President
was made by the Washington correspondent of
the Tribune, and as grossly endorsed by the ed
itors of that paper. 1t was deemed-very un-
unwisely, we think-of sufficient consequence
to attract the attention of the friends of the
President at Washington, and the organ of the
administration at the capital of the Union pub
lished an elaborate article, in its issue of the
18th inst, to contradict, and not only to
contradict, but to show its entire fal-
lacy and absurdity. 1t showed. and
proved beyond the remotest shadow of a
doubt, that the whole story put in circulation
by the Washington correspondent of the Tri-
bune was libellioss. foul, and diabolical. The
Tribune was called on, in very respectful terms,
to correct the calumnies and falsehoods it pro-
mnlgated; and what did it dos Why, it ad-
mtted that its correspondent was falsifer of
facts. if not a common liar; that there was not
the slightest foundation for his calumny and
then, because of its anxiety TO subserve the ends
of party, reiterated its original story.
1t is well known, we believe, that we are not
political partizans. We do not espouse the
cause of the House of York. much less the
House of Lancaster. The administration of
General Pierce, for aught we know care,
may, or may not, be what any political party
in the Union might desire it to be; but the
idea that the President would lend himself to
the preparation of any projects to advance his
own pecuniary interests is too absurd to men,
ton and too vile to obtain credence with any
intelligent respectable citizen.
President Pierce, of all the men we ever
knew, is the most reckless of those considera-
tions which lead to the accumulation of wealth
by any other means than those which are le-
gitimate and coincident with personal honor.
His integrity was never impeached by any 9TH
er than the unscrupulous tools of faction and
PARTY and we undertake to say that there is
not man in the whole Union who has noticed
the charges of the Washington correspondent
of the Tribune and its editors, who does not
look upon them with unmitigated contempt
Personal respect for an old and valued friend,
a man of whom his country may be proud, in
duces this poor defence, without involving in
its essence anything like mere political consid-
erations."