Year: 1859

Able and Good Men Needed.


The Importance of having an able, just,
and upright man at the head of the Govern


ment, was never more fully demonstrated
than by the present Administration. The
almost entire absence of either ability, justice
or uprightness in our present Chief Magis
trate has well enabled us TO judge of what
the conduct of n government is without those
qualities. As long as we had able, Just and
upright men at the head of affairs we did
not really see the importance of those quail
ties to the country; as we never know how
TO value health until we have been sick.
Not until we look around us and see how
the Union is shaken with convulsions at
time in which there should lie profound
peace the National Treasury empty when it
should be full; rebellion rampant when it
should be suhdued; a lack of confidence in
the Government to protect her citizens
abroad, when faith in her will and power to
do so should be most perfect do we feel how
thoroughly the Nation is cursed with the inn
becility and the lack of moral force of its
rulers The Pacific seaboard left wholly un'
protected and Mt the mercy of any invading
foe-the great work of the age for our coun
try, so imperatively demanded by all the
great interests of the Union, untouched and
no effort made to begin it-all the patron
age of the Government welded to CRAFTY
the personal favoritism or maignity of Il
selfish old man who nspires to be supreme
dictator and the awarder of life and death,
politically, from one extent of the Union TO
the other-disconten breathing everywhere,
who is there that cannot realize how wretch
edy weak and despicable i, ard has been
the policy of the present Chief Ruler Of the
United states? 1t is as if a gallant ship in
mid ocean were under the pilotship of a blind
man, or locomotive, with vast train of
life and wealth at its heels, were laundering
over chasms and ahysses, with rlunatic at
the wheel. The staunchness OF the timbers,
the soundness of the machinery, together
with good luck, may prevents fatal catastro-
phe, but no thanks are due certainly to the
pilot or the engineer.


Had this Administration been allowed full
swing, there is no telling what it would not
have come to. With the success of its Kan
sas policy. which Douglas and Broderic1 de-
'ented, it would have plunged Kansas into a
civil war, the end of which would not have
been seen until it had involved half the States
of this Union. Had its foreign policy been
allowed full play, we should have been the
laughing stock of the whole world. 1t has
been bad enough, with the rein that it has
had, but had not public opinion forced the
Administration to crawfsh out of its position,
our flag so far as its protection of our citi =
zens is concerned. would have been CON
| temptible rag in the winds As it is, we
have no atonement for the blood of our
slaughtered citizens at Panama or at Cavorca
and u very inadequate guarantee that our
citizens will he any better protected, here
after. Had. furthermore, the reckless de-
mands Of the President for money-ostensi-
bly, for public, but really for electioneering
ends-been complied with, system of cor.
ruption would have been established for
which history could scarcely have furnished
n parallel The contracts for mules for Utah
the contracts for fitting out expeditions for
Paraguay, the Navy Yard speculations and
contracts, which put so much money into the
pockets Of the Presidents iavorites would
have dwinded into insignfcance by the side
of the vast power of corruption which would
thus have been put into the hands of the
Administration. Thank God it has not had
full swing. But it still has ability to do evil
and seeks to perputrate its power by using
its influence to re.elect Mr. Buchanan or n
man of his stamp and proclivties. 1t is for
the people to say whether such an Admins
tration and its future designs are to be en-
couraged and fostered by their votes.