"It was the last visit ever made by Mr. Polk to the old hero when this unavailing remonstrance was delivered, but the new President, long before the end of his administration, had reason to acknowledge its propriety and justice, and in the diary kept by him during that period may still be read a most emphatic declaration of his distrust of Mr. Buchanan. Every one is aware of two marked instances in which, as Secretary of State, the latter failed to support the policy of the administration, viz., on the question of the tariff of 1846, and the requisition of the ten regiments voted by Congress for the Mexican war. On both of these measures he was known to be opposed to the wishes of Mr. Polk."
Mr. Charles Irving, the Democratic editor of the Lynchburg Republican, and a delegate at Richmond in the State Convention, thus disposes of Mr. Buchanan in a long and able letter, dated May 7th, 1856:
"If silence during the battle constitutes a claim for office, how can the South expect Northern statesmen to uphold her banner, when abolitionists are seeking to tear it to tatters? If an ability to get free-soil votes makes a candidate available, and that species of availability is recognized as a merit at the South, Northern statesmen should court free-soilers, and not struggle with them, if they wish to be Presidents. Such availability may be very desirable to those who wish success alone, but those who look to the interests of the country may well be excused if they prefer a different standard. I certainly prefer that the South shall PREFER the selection, not only of a sound man, but that she shall vote for the nomination of no man upon any such ground of availability. The coming election must settle the slavery agitation. I do not wish a single free-soiler to vote the Democratic ticket, nor will I willingly afford them the slightest excuse for so doing. A prominent North-West Democrat told me to-day, that the nomination of Mr. Buchanan would enable Trumbull, Wentworth, and other free-soilers to come back into the party. I am not anxious to get back such characters. These are some reasons for not preferring Mr. Buchanan.
"But there is still another reason. That reason is in his record. To carry the entire South, we must have not only a sound man, but one who is above impeachment—whose record is as stainless as the principles he advocates. Is such the case with Mr. Buchanan? Let the record answer.
"On the 27th of December, 1837, Mr. Calhoun submitted to the Senate that celebrated series of resolutions, the great objects of which were to set forth with precision and force the constitutional rights of the slaveholding States, and to attract to their support an enlightened public opinion against the attacks of Northern fanaticism. The second resolution was in these words: (Calhoun's Works, volume 3, page 140.)
"'Resolved, That in delegating a portion of their powers to be exercised by the Federal Government, the States retained severally the exclusive and sole right over their own domestic institutions and police, and are alone responsible for them, and that any intermeddling of any one or more States, or a combination of their citizens, with the domestic institutions and police of the others, on any ground or under any pretext whatever, political, moral, or religious, with a view to their alteration or subversion, is an assumption of superiority not warranted by the Constitution, insulting to the States interfered with, tending to endanger their domestic peace and tranquillity, subversive of the objects for which the Constitution was formed, and, by necessary consequence, tending to weaken and destroy the Union itself.'
"Mr. Morris of Ohio, who was then the only avowed Abolitionist in the Senate, moved to strike out the words 'moral and religious.' Had the motion prevailed, the effect would have been to encourage agitation in the form in which it would be most likely to be fatal to the South. It would have been a direct encouragement to the Abolitionized clergy of the North to take the very course which was taken by the 'three thousand and fifty divines' who, in 1854, sacrilegiously assumed, 'in the name of Almighty God, and in his presence,' to denounce the repeal of the Missouri Compromise as 'a violation of plighted faith and a breach of a national compact.' Subsequent events have abundantly attested the truth of what Mr. Calhoun said, when arguing against the motion, 'that the whole spirit of the resolution hinged upon that word religious.'
"The vote taken on Mr. Morris's amendment stood as follows: (Congressional Globe, volume 6, page 74.)
"Yeas—Messrs. Bayard, Buchanan, Clayton, Davis, McKeon, Morris, Prentiss, Robbins, Ruggles, Smyth of Indiana, Southward, Swift, Tipton, and Webster—14.
"Nays—Messrs. Allen, Black, Brown, Calhoun, Clay of Alabama, Clay of Kentucky, Cuthbert, Fulton, Hubbard, King, Knight, Linn, Lumpkin, Lyon, Nicholas, Niles, Norvell, Pierce, Preston, Rives, Roane, Robinson, Sevier, Smyth of Connecticut, Strange, Walker, Wall, White, Williams, Wright, and Young—31.