St. Charles Republican intelligencer. (St. Charles [Charles City], Iowa) 1856-1857, 1857-03-26
The New American Government.

The Presidential pageantry is over:
the fcstal music no longer resounds in
bower or hall, in the street or ball
room, and up stairs in the large room
with the big fireplace in the White
House, sits James Buchanan, consult
ing with his bran-new Cabinet.
The retiring Administration has
been made to saddle as many of it's
own blunders as possible, but some
yet remain to plague the inventors.
At the Presidents right hand stands
General Cass, versed in the tactics of
politics for two generations of parti-
sans. A careful man, trimming to the
fair wind when he can, old enough to
have seen Ex-Prcsident Pierce in his
baby-clothes, selected for his post as
compromise candidate, between the
fire-eaters and the fogies, and upon
the whole perhaps more likely to give
strength to the brceching than to the
steam power of the administration.
Cobb undoubtedly has been and is
aparty politician, but for man so far
South creditably conservative. He
was ardently for the Compromise of
80 as Speaker of the House of Repre-
sentatives, to which he was elected
against Mr.. Winthrop, he was indus
trious and faithful to duty. He has
some of that real chivalry which Gov.
Aiken of South Carolina manifested
in offering a vote of thanks to Speaker
Banks.
Mr.. Toucey has been Governor of
Connecticut, was appointed Attorney
General by President Polk, and in
1852 was elected to the U. S. Senate.
He seems to be particular favoritc
of the Democratic Party. His oppo-
nents consider him man whose moral
spine has decided leaning towards
warmer ATTITUDES.
Gov. Floyd of Virginia, was the
condescending gift of the mother of
Presidents, Virginia, to President Blu
chanan The nation knows not much
of him, save that he opposed Mr.. Web
ster's views on the Compromise, and
Mr.. Banks views on Commerce with
the East. In the former case Virginia
was his attentive audience, in the
latter Wall street. But Wall street,
however was very inattcntive, for he
proved wholly unequal to Mr.. Banks
in pleasing an open air crowd. He
showed that whatever he may be as a
statesman, he is pretty sorry orator.
The rest are, politically speaking,
the Leather and prunella of the Cab
met. They arc not index figures of
its path. Jacob Thompson, of Missis-
sippi, to be sure, denounced squatter
sovereignty in the Cincinnati Conven-
ton, but Mr.. Buchanan's Inaugural con-
forms much more nearly to his view
than to that of General Cass.
Such is the ships company who
gather round the Palinurus at the helm.
What stars will she steer by?
The Inaugural throws a faint glim.
mer, sort of pinnacle light upon the
path. Upon the question Of Squatter
Sovereigntyism we find it is trickily
worded. The President first states
the Squatter Sovereignty principle as
its originators understood it, and as
Cass takes it namely, that the people
IN the territory should determine whcth.
cr the Territory should have slaves or
not. This he says he approves.
Directly after he takes this all back,
by saying that the proper time for the
people to decide, is when they apply
to become State. That is, while the
Territory is Territorial the people shall
not say anything at all about the
admission of Slavery ; every individu-
al shall do as he pleases. The people
in the Territory shall determine their
private institutions, but shall not do
it until just as they are ceasing to be
Territories.
Even with this doctrine, however,
we should not tremble for the free
States yet to be born of the northern
territories, if at the time of making
the choice they could have fair play.
That jewel the President promises.
We regard Mr.. Buchanan himself
as the last of the eminent Democratic
statesmen. He has breathed the in
spring influences of the first men of
the Republic, who are now in their
graves. We we'll remember gazing
with an admiration almost reverential
on the U. S. Senate in the days when
the intellectual giants, the Titans of
debate, were there--whcn the eye of
the visitor rested on many forms be-
fore his, but turned to him at length,
as eminent among the second rates.
There he used to sit with his white
neckcloth on, as smooth and smiling