into a
popular approval, while the will of all the others would have been
practically void. By this pitiful stratagem, it was supposed, the
double exigency of Mr. Buchanan's often repeated sentiments, and of
the pro-slavery cause, which dreaded a popular vote, was completely
satisfied; and the President of the United States, reckless of his
position and his fame, lent himself to the shameless and despicable
palter. He not only lent himself to it, but he has openly argued its
propriety, and is now making the adherence of his friends to such
baseness the test of their party fidelity. In the name of Democracy,--of
that sacred and sublime principle into which we, as a nation, have been
baptized,--which declares the inalienable rights of man,--and which,
as it makes the tour of the earth, hand and hand with Christianity, is
lifting the many from the dust, where for ages they have been trampled,
into political life and dignity,--he converts a paltry swindle into its
standard and creed, and prostitutes its glorious mission, as a redeeming
influence among men, into a ministry of slavery and outrage.

Mr. Buchanan knows--we believe better than any man in the country--that
the Lecompton Constitution is not the act of the people of Kansas. By
the election of the 4th of January--an election which was perfectly
valid, because it was held under the authority of a Territorial
Legislature superior to the Convention--it was solemnly and
unequivocally condemned. This of itself was enough to demonstrate that
fact. But all the Democratic Governors of the Territory--with the single
exception of Shannon, and the recently appointed acting Governor,
Denver, who is prudently silent--testify urgently to the same truth.
Reeder, Geary, and Walker, together with the late acting Governor,
Stanton, asseverate, in the most earnest and emphatic manner, that the
majority in Kansas is for making it a Free State,--that the minority
which has ruled is a factious minority, and that they have obtained and
perpetuated their ascendency by a most unblushing series of crimes and
frauds. Yet, in the teeth of this evidence,--of repeated elections,--of
his own witnesses turning against him,--the President adheres to the
infamous plans of the pro-slavery leaders; and, if not arrested by the
rebukes of the North, he will insist on imposing their odious measures
upon their long-suffering victims.

Looking at the administration of Mr. Buchanan simply from the point o