The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-03-09
I'm Articulo Morris.

40 $AASAOAAO SAAVAShbs
1t is not generally regarded an attractive
spectacle to witness any patient, however
characterless or humble, in artieulo mortis J;
but we confess that we havnt yet shed any
tears, of the salt kind, over the dying spasms
of the BUCHANAN Administration. These
last struggles are violent enough, and betray
an amount of internal agony acute enough,
to awaken any amount of sympathy, if the
object did not absolutely repel it; but, as
it is, we witness its tortures, as BUCHANAN
surveyed the Illinois canvass, with "serene
Indifference "-sustained therein by kind
Of philosophy, whether of Fate or Religion,
we have not stopped to analyze. Yet, there
are some features of the case which, in the
breasts of the sympathetic, must produce
painful emotions. The mere certainty of
its dissolution might be looked upon calmly,
as dispensation of providence, not alto.
gether affecting. But it is distressing to
the tender to see a patient, whose brow is
beaded with the damps of death, careless of
his condition, and Indifferent alike to his
actions in the past, his conduct in the pres.
ent, and his fame in the future. This is
mournful spectacle; and it is one which the
federal Administration is just now present
ing to the view of the people of this country.
Nbo fatal ;l1rooo of 80
commenced in 1857 when it abandoned the
doctrine of Popular Soverei; nty, on which
the President was elected, and swallowed
that unfortunate dose of Lecompton, which
has been operating on the patient ever since,
with double severity, both as a purgative
and an emetic. Before that, the patient
was not only strong and hearty, but was
actually waxing fat in the public esteem.
But political nature, any more than human
nature, cannot stand everything. Lecomp-
ton was too strong dose for any Admins
tration to recover from. And so, rapidly
and surely, the patient has been sinking from
that hour to this.
Perhaps, the most curious feature con-
corning the case under consideration, is the
persistency with which the Administration
has adhered to the class of nostrums that
produced the disease. Essences, tinctures,
pills. and plasters, all containing the essen
tial elements of Lecomptonism, have been
repeatedly taken and applied, until it would
seem that desire for change of treatment,
if nothing else, would have led to the adop~
ton of different class of remedies. But,
instead of being changed, the doses have
been doubled, as the danger to the patient
became more imminent. Simple Lecomp-
tonism, which offered bribe for the adop-
ton of slave constitution over free one,
would have caused the instant death of any
common Administration. Or, if life had
remained after the effects of that dose, it
would have been destroyed by the second,
which made slavery the normal condition of
the Republic. But, with marvellous tenacity,
the Administration has survived to take a
third, which proposes Congressional code
for the protection of slave property in the
Territories. This last must be fatal. The
experience of opium eaters proves that men
addicted to its use can consume quantities
which would instantly kill other men, until
at last life itself is sustained by the poison
Gus drug. But their experience also proves
that opium is not reliable as an article of
daily food. 1t is exhilerating rather than
nutritious; and is bound to kill in the end.
And so with Lecomptonism. 1t has brought
BUcHANAN's Administration to its death
bed, and it will be the cause of funeral at
Charleston, South Carolina, on or about the
twenty-third day Of April, in the current
year of our Lord. And, of funeral with
out mourners.