Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-11-11
NOVEMBER IL, 1853
The Administration and the PEOPLE.

The administration ana the R-cOples
The people have sat in Judgment on the
first year and a half Of Mr.. BrcHANAN's adj
ministration. Its bitterest foe could scarcely
desire a more severe verdict against it. Oh
tanning the Presidency by the vote of a pop
ular minority it would have required man
of extraordinary personal and administrative
attributes to have reversed the tide of popu-
lar sentiment which was against him in the
outset. Such attributcsi it is absurd to claim for
Mr.. BUCHANAN. On a FmOothe sea- with sun
shine and light hreezes, or no breeZes at all,
he might have been able to have kept the
ship Of state af1oat without serious disaster.
But when everything was stormy. he has not
been long in showing how utterly unfit he is
for the helm. In the first place the American
people made fatal mistake when they per-
mitted their divisions to secure his election.
In the next place he made great mistake in
calling around him a crew of scurvy cormO-
rants. who have already manifested their dis
position to plumber and mutiny. Mutny and
plumber have both been industrious-and
while this has bankrupted the Treasury, that
has bankrupted the Democratic party. The
President, instead of gaining the strength
which he lacked in the beginning. has lost
much of that with which he set out. Every
where throughout the North his friends have
been defeated. until a Congress hostile to his
cause il almost inevitable. He has sustained
losses in every northern State except one, and
that one where his former friends openly
brolyo with him and denounced his admins
tration. And this may not be called an ex-
ception. To some minds this may appear re-
markable; but to ours it seems the most natu-
raj, nay the necessary, effect of adequate cause.
He has acted in bad faith TO his party and to
the American people. What other effect
could follow than that he should receive the
rchuke of the one and the scorn Of the other?
1t viii not do to attribute these humilating
facts TO any one particular act of the Admin
istration. They are the result of a complica-
tion of errors and compound of blunders
and shortcomings. without a parallel in all
the Executive annals of the government. The
dealing of him, who is, by the forced courtesy
Usage of Whcatland,' with the affairs of
Kansas. the first rock which imperiled his
safety, exhibited him in the character of
turner of petty and un>kiliful somersaults.
He unwarrantahly and officiously held out TO
the people of that territory, the assurance
that they should vote upon their State Con-
stitution as a whole, before its presentation
TO Congress. This voluntary guarantee on
his part. he gracelcsSly and shamclcssly falsi-
fed. With what other than feelings of dis
gust could the people regard this act of bad
faith Upon this lac was hasty to accumulate
other acts to deepen and widen the odium.
The system of dcspotism which he set up to
ostracise and Danish from democratic af1ilia-
ton, the very men whom he had thus injured
and those who sustained them, could bring no
other feeling to the breasts of frecmen than
that of contempt for the tyrant. His man
agcment of the finances of the country-his
extravaganza and his failure to present mea-
sures to supply the enormous deficiencies,
otherwise than by n species of wildcat bank
ing and borrowing also had their due weight
in bringing about the verdict which is an
nounced by the recent elections. But we
cannot now enter into details. There is
scarcely subject that he has touched that
has not tended in some measure to his de-
feat.
1t is evident that the President will have
to bring forward some expedient by which to
retrieve his fallen and disgraced fortunes.
We await his forthcoming message for the
development of what it shall be-