New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1858-01-15

into the Government at period unusually full OF
events, and finding himself surrounded BY unusual
and embarrassing circumstances must necessarily
be bothered. We have no wish to do the veneer
able gentleman at the head Of affairs the smallest
injustice We feel, just as keenly as he can feel,
that his triumph was more snowy than successful;
that the election of 1856 settled nothing, but did,
on the other hand unsettle much; that ma
jorities in the present Congress give no
accurate INDIGESTION Of the state Of pub
lie opinion and that the Democratic party,
divided distracted and cOnvulsed BY intestine
brois, and unable to agree upon any fixed line OF
policy, must and will consult its own safety, and,
We may correctly say, its own preservation rather
than the personal aspirations Ofany member or any
leader, however distinguished. There is already
streak of dawn. Hard facts are hammering at the
heads if not at the hearts of Northern Democratic
Senators and Representatives. CustOm-Houses
and Post Offices in the Free States are no longer
asylums wide enough for all the wounded invalids
Of the party; conveniently small minorities are
already becoming inconveniently small; and, as has
always been the case, patronage arrayed against
opinion is showing itself to be impotent.
This alone must be enough to dis
tract Mr. Buchanan, and to make the
small successes achieved by his party in local
elections, mere mockeres. What is temporary
triumph in a New-York State election to the de-
lection of leading man like Douglas What are
a few local victories compared with the fact that
the Administration measures have been and will
continue to be discussed IN either House without
reference to the Executive views! A President
who is not certain of his Congress may, under the
forms Of the Constitution, continue to hold Office,
when all his power, weight and force have faded
Like the baseless fabric of vision. He must serve
out, stagger out, drag out his term of Office when
al English Minister, under the same circumstances,
would find consolation and peace in prompt resig-
nation; but the browning compliment Of re-
election he can never clutch, and he is doomed to
spend the fourth year of his service in dangling
about Conventions, in managing Delegates, in low
and mean and DOisOme intrigues, until in a National
slaughter house he ends his political career if not
his personal misery. This--with all due respect
we say it-ths is the fate for which Mr.. Buchanan
is making the most ample preparation. This is the
indignity of which he seems to be emuOus This is
the retribution toward which ne Is extending most
affectionately his arms Greater political faulty
and stonier political blindness it has never been
our i'll fortune to witness. Poor Mr.. Pierce was
but boy; but Mr. Buchanan ia old enough to be
wiser.
We are not, of course, certain that the present
Congress may not be dragooned into submission to
the Executive will. That would be small mat
ter; for so was the Congress which passed the
Kansas bill bought or bullied into cOmplacency.
But purchased majority in legislative body BIZ
ennially elected will afford to the President but o
slippery foothod. He must remember that new
Congressional elections, i'll many States, will take
place at no very distant period. He must remem-
Der that terrible verdict against him and his party
and the impolicy of his party rendered by the
public opinion Of the North and West lie must
have morsel of respect for the intelligence of his
fellow-citizens, and particularly of those residing
in his own section of the country. But If he
pleases to be made fool and tool, and to play
that game which ADLER men have played and lost,
he will receive more pity than votes. His idea
seems to be that party discipline may be implicitly
relied upon, and this he still clings to, although
several Sepoys have performed unusual and
insubOrdinote antics in the very presence Of
the Commander He sticks by the
Lecompton Constitution WREN the stitest-
stomached members of his own party have thrown
it up. He fancies that he can make scapegoat OF
Com. Paulding by simultaneously slapping him
upon the cheek and pattng him upon the shoulder
At the same time he has had the temerity TO make
Nathan Clifford Supreme Judge and has not had
the boldness TO send in the nomination of Mr.. Bel
mont, although he wants to appoint that gentleman
to be the successor of the Iberan Dodge. He has
turned out of Office Mr.. McKeOn, for opposing the
reelection of Mayor Wood, and is said to grin in
private at the defeat of Fernando. He is at once
flexible and obstinate, labby and forcible, compla-
cent and suspicious. He means, if possible, TO
manage success; and be begins with qusrreling
with his best friends alternating his strongest sup
porters, and converting his most stalwart cham
pions into his bitterest assailants. Is this the re-
suit Of Mr.. Buchanan's long experienced The gods
of his political dolatry-JehersOn and Jackson
hardly committed as many blunders in sixty years
as he has managed to commit in six weeks.
The main cause OF this unfortunate exhibition
must be looked for in the Presidents utter want of
faith in the popular intelligence. He thinks that
the Democracy of the North viii swallow the Lee
compton Constitution; whereas, upon that naked
question, he would find il difficult to discover even
by the aid of double-extra glass microscopes, any
Northern Democracy (of his stripe) at all lie
thinks that he can rely upon the Shareholders, for
getting that all Northern Democrats have been
flung away like squeezed oranges BY that interest
ing class He has hoard 81 much about =" fs-