New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-01-15
PIsrs DIE n Us. aI,s q / &c.

q = ~ 49,
The President, on Wednesday last, transmitted
TO Congress message on the . state Of the coun.
try. It viii be found in another column, aud we
propose to refer briefly TO some Of the points that
he makes.
First of ALL he refers TO his Annual Message in
December, wherein he stated that the country gem
orally was in very bad way. Trade was para
lived, manufactures stopped and the credit of the
Government down to q low ebb. Instead Of
improving since that time, the President adds that
matters still worse at present than they were
then.n The Old Public FanctionaIy states this as
if it were something extraordinary and unaccount-
able whereas it is. in point of fact the most nat
ural thing in the world Doubtless he expected
that things would grow more bright and promising
under the benign influence of his brilliant Admin
istration, but he finds himself much disappointed.
The loans to the Treasury, he says, cannot be ne
gotiated at less than twelve per cent interest.
From which the President draws the sage conclu-
sion that !" in a Government organized like ours,
domestic strife, or even well grounded fear OF
civil hostities, is more destructive to our public
and private interests than the most formidable for
eignwar.n
" Just SOL The fact is undeniable. The oracu-
| is worthy Of the wisdom of Bunsby. If the Old
Public Funotionary has just found out that civil
wars the most destructive and Injurious of all
others he must have sadly neglected his historical
reading. But it is not the prospect of civil war
alone which has deprecated the public credit.
The circumstance is due in some measure to the
stealing and corruption that have been going on at
Washington in SO many ways, whereby Treasury
which ought to be able to meet all its obligations,
is in point of fact, hardly able to pay the clerks
in the Departments the miserable pittance which
the Government allows.
Mir. Buchanan then reiterates his former opinion
that no State has right secede from the Union,
and that he does not recognize any State as indie
pendent that does. Consequently he is bound to
collect the public revenues and protect the public
property, even il the States that secede. we wish
him good the in doing this in the States which
are now, eitler formally or informally, out of the
Union, comprising nearly every State of the South
An eulogi1m of the Union is followed by an ex-
preston Of opinion that dissolution would be q q
calamity quite as great, to say the least in the
Southern as the Northern Statesn Mr.. Buchanan.
in this, commits a mistake common to Northern
people of all parties 1t is the easiest thing in the
world to prove that the dissolution of the Union if
we do not have war, will be the best thing for the
South that has ever happened. If our cause did
not rest on other grounds than those of mere ma
terial interests and peenniary considerations, we
would take the trouble to establish this fact beyond
all question or refutaton.
The President then calls upon the people
through Congress, to declare that the Union shall
be preserved. He wants the question to be trans
ferred from political assemblies to the ballotbox''
--as if that had not already been done on the 9th
Of November last, with a result which everybody
knows. Then he recommends the adoption of
something like the Critenden Compromise in re-
gard to the Territories forgetting again that that
compromise has been secuted and kicked out of
the committees by every Black Republican mem
Der. And with blubbering protestation that
whatever the RESULT he will carry to his grave
the consciousness that he meant well for his coun-
try the President winds up his message.
is, indeed, painful to witness such ignorance of
the real facts of the case, in the present distracted
condition Of the country and such an utter inability
to grapple with them with firm and steady hand,
as is exhibited by Mr.. Buchanan. Cannot the Pres
dent see is he 50 stone blind that the fact is not
apparent to him that the Union is already dis
solved and that all this palaver about it is the
most superiative nonsense that ever emanated from
any man not hopelessly insane or lacking in every
element of manhood or craftsmanship? Is it any
worse to have fddled while Rome was burning,
As Nero did, than to expostulate and whine over a
Union already dissolved, the reconstruction of
which, at the present time, is thing Of utter i'm
possibility? II the President really means well for
his country as he ayers, let him look at things as
they are, and take decided position either for the
North or the South, as it becomes every man to do
who is man at all. The qnarrel is beyond all
chance Of present adjustment and it is worse than
weakness for the President, or anybody else to be
talking about such thing at such time as the
present