Year: 1860

George N. Sanders to President Blu


chanan.


NEW YORK, July 80, 1860.


SIR The popular mind inclines to the
sentiment that national self.respect should
shield the position of President from any
exposure of the delinquencies of the incum.
bent. The Constitution declares otherwise
and, in your, case, it is most healthy for the
public to advance to the constitutional
limit. You have, besides, voluntarily en-.
tered the lists of partisan discussion, in.
vlting all the consequences of the position.


Your cumulative infdelity to the country,
which has brought US to our present disin-
tegrating condition, was shadowed forth in
the beginning of your administration, by
base ingratitude to individuals. Step by
step friend after friend was sacrificed. The
fact of previous obligation chilled you
great service made any one odiOus. A
President should have no animosities. You
are governed only by your hates; affection
you have none. But two classes have any
hold upon you; those who had opposed and
revied and cowed you, and the supple para>
sites who fawn upon you. Yet, even these
cannot be devoted if they would. For the
course which is settled on to-day is changed
by your vascllating mind tomorrow, and
on the morrow the zig gag programme is
changed again. You even endeavOr to pur
sue two opposite courses at once. Witness
your open instructions to Gov. Walker, and
your private instructions to the Surveyor
General, and other officials in Kansas.
Witness your late declaration d" Therefore,
every Democrat is at perfect liberty to vote
as he thinks proper )" and your secret cir
cular, ordering the dismissal of every Office.
holder in favor of Douglas. Witness your
contradictory declarations in regard to the
rights of naturalized citizens abroad. Con-
tradiction upon contradiction


Not only the political, but the social at.
mosphere of Washington, is poisoned by
the upas of your influence. Such is your PERM.
cious course, that the White House is made
uncomfortable for visitors, by the obtrusion
of vicious politics into your parlors. 1t
should be the patriotic pride of every adj
minstration to make Washington centre
of intellectual brilliancy. But instead OF
communing with the best minds of the coun
try, and informing yourself freshly from its
different sections, you make the recesses of
the Presidential mansion labyrinths of espi-
onage, where the chief magistrate sits
greedily receiving petty reports of detection
among his enslaved Office holders. The
wisest and the most honored men of the
country avoid Washington as moral pest
house.


The Nero.like perfdy to individuals
which characterized your administration
from the beginning, now marks its close by
the betrayal OF the great and generous par
ty that las fostered you by its hitherto i'm
pregnable organization, from your early
days of Federalist-apostacy, down to your
last hours of reasonable ingratitude and
disunion in the Presidential chair. Never
did man owe so much to a party never
was party so wantonly betrayed. False
alike to persons and party, you have not
thought of either but for the shallowest in
stincts of self.


1t is favorite thought and expression
with you that the Federal officers are your
personal property. How often have the
monocratic words, "my secretaries, my
ofice-holders," grated upon the indignant
ears Of American citizens assembled in the
presence-ehamber of the White House
Even the European despotic formula quail
i6es itself by the less arrogant use of the
plural. Instead of inculcating the ennob-
ling idea that their first duty is to their
country and to Democratic principle, your
rule holds officials to degrading subser-
viency there is not man of your appoint
ment from the cabinet minister to tide
water, who does not live in state of daily
irritation and protest under your grinding
rule. Offices, men, patronage and public
money are all classed as your property.
There is scarcely contract made under the
Government in which you do not actively
participate not on the side of the people,
but for some follower, as instanced in your
divisions and subdivisions of the profits on
the Post-O Office blank printing. The
thought never struck you that it was your
duty to save the excess over reasonable
profit, instead of disreputably dividing it
among your favorites. Your small politics
keep you always in some imaginary Admin
istration crisis, and constantly on the look
out for vacant positions for the reward of
your partizans of the moment. Positions of
consequence are thus not appreciated by
you, and are often thrown away or over
looked, whilst inferior positions are swelled
into places of Importance. Witness your
recent varied attempts to get rid OF the Par
aguay commission, in pursuance of your
tactics to lower superior men by Offering
them inferior positions The antithesis is
seen, in the dragging of the sacred ermine
of the Supreme Bench into the dust of
party arena, to reward your JEFFREYs for
his Infamous decisions and sneaking doser-
tion as President of the National Conven-
tion.


You have in your Cabinet gentlemen who
had right to look forward to the position