Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1856-07-30

sent for me soon after his Inauguration, desiring
me to call upon him the next evening aI eignt
o'clock. | went according to request. lie toid
me he wished to speak about the Missouri ap-
pointments, and know if they could not be put
off for while? | answered yes-that they
were all four years appointments, and TO De ou,
of themselves in the course of the spring ana
summer-that despised the business OF remoV
ing men who were doing their business WELL ana
whose terms would soon expire, and had rather
wait for the vacancy to come OF itself. lie re-
Piled that these were exactly his own sentiments
and it was readily agreed that the appoint
ments 81 ould stand over until my return from
Missouri which would be in six weeks.
son this agreement, thus volunteered by
himself left the city, and in two weeks was
followed by q list of the appointments-and you
know what kind appointments they were-al
made from my enemies, and to work IN the e.
lection against me-a thing which they have
faithfully done and are still doing. Even the
post Office in my own town was SO filled as TO
render it impossible for me to use it, and
drove me to the resource of sending my cores
pondence through Adams & Co. This is what
happened between the President and myself,
and is one of the innumerabe instances to prove
his nullity in his own administration. did not
get angry with him for it, knew he was SIN
cere at the time he spoke with me, and pitied
his inability to keep his own word voluntarily
given. | expressed no resentment because L
knew they would not let him do as he wished :
but self-respect required me to avoid his house,
and have not been there since. Still, we meet
handsomely when accidents brings us together;
sometimes meeting in the evening rides, when
the respective hats Immediately rise high in the
mir: sometimes on foot, in an evening walk,
when we rush to the salutation, and so pressing
Ily that an observer might suppose it was
pair of old bosom friends-Damon and Pythias
lust getting together again after long and
cruel separation.
''In the next place, do not mean Mr.. Marcy
He leaves himself out by permitting Others to
dominate in his department, and by publicly
agreeing to what he privately condemns. L
leave out also the Secretaries of the Treasury,
of the Navy, and the Postmaster General, and
only condemn them for remaining IN Caolnet
in which they are without influence, and shar-
ing the odium of measures of which they have
no part in the paternity. This brings me to the
Secretary at War and the Attorney General, who,
with an outside force of determined nullitiers,
are the whole administration. But little need
be said of the Secretary of War. lie is mar
net, puffed up withWest Point science, ,dogmatical
and pragmatical, within his circle; but that cir
Gle is a narrow one and he moves uncontrolled
within it. He is an avowed secessonist.
"Of the the outside force of nullifiers still less
remains to be said. They govern when they
please. and always in the same style-by pre-
senting menacing front. Of all these the At
torney General is the master spirit. He is o
man of talent, of learning, of industry-unscru-
,ova1 1ouh1a- -napdarad and her.
maphroditic in politics-with hinge in his
knee, which he often crooks, "that thrift may
follow fawning." He governs by subserviency !;
and to him is deferred the masters place in Mr..
Pierce's Cabinet When heard that he was
to come into the Cabinet, l set down Mr..
Pierce for doomed man, and foresaw the
swift and full destruction that was to fall
upon him. I had known Mr.. Gushing as
an Abolitionst, voting against Arkansas be-
cause she was slave State, and backing Slade,
of Vermont, in the attempt to abolish slavery
| in the District of Columbia. / had known him
as Wing, attacking the Democracy and all
their measures; and as Tylerite, auctioneering
officers for Tyler as long as lie had any office
to 90 to the hammer | could have no faith in
an administration so led, and fOretold its calam
itous fate from the moment it was seen who was
to be in it."
He then aludes to the acts of the administra-
ton, classifying them under eight heads
The national expenditures, he says, are three
times as much as they were under Polk. Under
the third head he speaks Of the appointments on
foreign missions and says
"This is mortifying head Of accusation a.
gainst the present administration. Never were
such men sent abroad to represent our country
men without particle of the knowledge which
diplomacy requires and even without manners
without knowing how to behave in company
mere political demagogues, to reward them for
services past, and services TO come, at the Fede-
raj and State elections. They send such abroad
in order to give them indemnity for past services
at the polls, and to enable them to come back
and recommence their partisan labors. Former
", the United States ministers were the pride of
our country, and the admiration of the courts to
which they were sent. Talented, educated, re-
plete with knowledge, polished in manners, mod
est, virtuous such were formerly our ministers
abroad.
"What contrast are those we now send a.
broad What contrast to the Rufus Kings,
the John Marshalls, the Albert Gallatins, the
John Quincy Adanses, the Pinckneys, of South
Carolina, and the Pinkney, of Maryland, the
Henry Clays, and the long list of splendid names
which grace our diplomatic annals Such ap-
pointments as this administration makes-I
speak of the mass, for there are few exceptions
are not only disgrace, but an injury to our
country. They injure our national reputation.
They degrade us in the eye of foreign nations.
They injure the whole character of republican
government Many of them not only Of bad
manners, but bad morals.
"Only think of that Dale Owen, who publish
ed newspaper and wrote a book to abolish the
institution of marriage, and to persuade men and
women to live together like the beasts Of the
field. He is sent to foreign court for his cleo
ton services, and must convey the idea, wherever
he goes, that the United States is whole nation
of Mormons, returning to the state of forest ami
mails. But if he must 60, he has certainly gone
to the right place. They sent him to Naples,
where his doctrine may meet with less abhor-
renee than in any other part of the civilized
world. And all these missions are multiplied to
the greatest possible extent. Sending these un-
fit men to places where they have nothing to
do, even if they could do anything, merely to
give them pay, and where many of them, by
their vulgarity and misconduct, are excluded
from social intercourse, and confined to the
privileges which the treaties secure them, and
left TO the low company which their manners
and tastes require"
Under the sixth head he takes up the policy
of the administration towards Utah Territory
and Brigham Young:
"The administration was afraid of him. and
undertook to outmaneuvre him, and that in
the highest style Of West Point tactcs they
determined to smugge Steptoe in. For that
purpose the military Governor was furnised with
battalion of soldiers and directed to proceed
to the Mormon kingdom, as if he was going to
California, stop there to hybernate, and watch
ing the chance, slip into the governorship some
day when Brigham was out-somethng like q
weazel that goes into another hole when he finds
the occupant gone. When heard of this fine
schame | said to my acnnaintances and I nan