Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1860-03-31

bosn employed for the purpose of subsidizing
the political press, and in the election of Dem
Ocrats to Congress. Pennsylvania aud New
York have been the principal fields of Executive
corruption outside Of the District of Columbia.
A large portion of the three million seven
hundred thousand dollars, it has been proved
before the Congressional Investigating Com,
mittee, has been used by Executive direction,
in upholdiug Democratic pro slavery organs,
aad in perpetrAting frauds upon the ballot box
for the benefit of the Democratic disunion
party of the South,
Mr.. Wendslls testimony touching the print-
ing plunder is cOrrobOrsted by Mr.. Bowman,
the present owner of the Presidents organ
imported from Pennsylvsnis to Washington
expressly to subserVe Mr. Buehanau's purposes
He testified thatfrty thousand dollars have been
taken from the Treasury annually for constructs
i've printing; that is, by changing composition
and press work tiOiee,o documents printed onlv
once
We would pursue this rich mine, the partial
opening of which has put President Buchanan
on his old high Federal hobby, but the Demo~
cratic PlRindealer of yesterday has come in,
with plain spoken and pointed article from
which we copy as follows The Editor has
enjoyed a large measure of Executive favor
and confidence, and is posted. Read and in,
wardly digest.
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 80.
A Presidential Prebest..An traordiuury
Document.
Presidential protest is new thing in the
history of this Government. Mr.. Buchanan
has been driven to the wall by Resolution Of
inquiry passed by Black Republican House
ofRepresentatiyes, and as the President ofthese
United States, he makes a formal protest
against the constitutional power ofa co ordinate
branch OF government to catechise him In the
manner and form proposed Hls defense is more
technical than truthful, more sensitive than seusi-
bic; ifhe is innocent Ofany complicitythe charges
preferred, he should court, not shun investiGa
tiOn. His objections, however, are all done
away by the matter being referred to the Ju-
dietary Committee of the House
Mr. Buehsuan Tevives in this protest the old
federal doctrine, the tendency to encroaehment
of the Legislative Department upon the Execu.
tive and Judiciary Departments Jefferson
taught a different doctrine He warned his
cOuntrymen against the ''ineVitable tendency of
the rights of the many stealing to the few"
Says Mr.. Buchanan:
The whole proceedings against him iustifiee
the fears of those wise and great men, who be-
fore the constitution wss adopted by the States
apprehended that the tendency Of the Govern
ment was to the sgrandisement of the Legiys
1of1r - ,f
dicisry departments.
Those ''wise and great men" referred to were
Alexan er Hamilton, John Adams and others,
who held it to be the duty of Government to
protect the rich and the rich would take care
Of the poor" that a common laborer thorn oplv
to the plough tail should have nothing to do
with matters Of government" &c DC We
think the country has much less to fear from a
House that is changed bienniaIly than from a
President whose Cfficial term lasts four wears
and who has an almost unlimited federal pa.
trOnage to control coordinate branches and to
prepe uate his own policy and power; or from a
federal Judiciary elected for life This finpi
at the Popular branch of Congress, the inn.
mediate and direct Representatives of the neo.
pie, comes with wTetched bad grace from a
Democratic President II there Is ANYTHING
wrong in that branch of Government the peoDie
are much more competent to correct it than
the President For all this trouble the Presi- ]
dent may thank himself. He laid the foundation
for this investigation in his celebrated Du-
quesne Letter, written on the 22d of November
1858. In that letter he said:
g shall assume the privilege of advancing
years in referring to another growing and dan.
gerous evil. In the last age, although cur
fathers, like ourselves, were divided into po-i
litica parties, which often had severe conflicts
with each other, yet We never heard nntil
within recent period, Of the employment of
money to carry elections. Should this practice
increase until voters and their representatives
IN ths State and National Legislatures shalt
become infected, the fountain of free govern.
ment will then be poisoned at its source. and
we must end as history proves, in military
desp0tism. A Democratic Republic, all agree.
cannot long survive unless sustained BY public
virtue. When this is corrupted and the people
become vensl, there is 4 cancer at the root of
the tree of liberty, which must cause it tol
Wither and die" \
1t appears that few weeks before this letter
was written, large sums obtained out of the
profits Of the public printing were used with
his implied consent, for the purpose Of controll-
ing the Congressional elections in PennsyIVauia
and New York
Such patriotic pretentions should not be put
forth TO the country in such high sounding 1
phraseOlOay, on an occasion too which did not 1
call for the slightest allusiOn to the subject. /
without being prepared for any kind of q test /
of such Presidential purity. Everybody at all |
in the confidence, Fnot to say secrets, of the |
President at the time he wrote said letter.
knew that he was up to his srm-pits using the |
of the Government and the money /
Of the people TO carry out his Lecompton Dol. !
icy, to save his Lecomptou friends, and punish 1
his Anti~Lecompton enemies The late Post
Master General told US with his own lips that \
u there was q large printing funi especially |.
under the control of the President" and we
knew, as did many Others, and which has
recently been testified to under oath by those
charged with the disbursement Of said fund,
that 10y direction Of the President IN person, /
and not by proxy, this fund was being used to
sustain LecomptOu papers in his own State,
md TO carry elections Of LeeOmpton members
70 Congress. Il is well known too that the
Duquesne letter was leveIed at Sen.
ltor Douglas. BE, the Senator, had lust car.
led IlliL Os against the combined opposition
# BuehRuanisn, Blaekism, and Republicanism.
md the President had been told by his federal
,imps in Illinois, from whom he expected a
lifferent result, that money had done it. The
PRESIDENT could not account for his disastrous
efeat in any other way, and he opened up the
God gates Of bis Sirtuous wrath in this pomp-
us Duquesne Letter, which, like other sins,
ONES home to roost.
REv. TaEoDohE PARkER-Letters received
Q this city from Rome state that, with deci-
eoly improved health, Rev. Theodore Parker