"better currency." In a few years the banks all exploded and the system with them, giving, as the result of that Democratic experiment, the worst currency ever known, and the most widespread commercial disaster and ruin ever witnessed. The national loss to traders, manufacturers, and business men of all classes. was moderately computed by the hundreds of millions.

The Democracy then told the nation that it must take care of itself in the matter of its currency. That the Democracy would render it no aid but that of a good example. It proclaimed its intention to cut the Government entirely loose from all connection with the nation's business currency, make it a purely hard money Government, which was effectively to restrain undue expansions, and in every event enable the Government to transact its own great business in hard money, and in that alone.

Uninfluenced by the example, no State adopted the experiment, but all made more banks, which, uninfluenced by the panacea, expanded more than they had ever done, and there occurred one of those suspensions which seem to be part of the law of the existence of State banks. After the lapse of a few months, the banks resumed specie payments, and the nation and the State Governments have ever since enjoyed a redeemable currency equal to specie, while the Federal Government has been compelled to resort to a paper circulation of inconvertible treasury notes, which the Secretary of the Treasury tells us must be kept up for two years longer.

This experiment having utterly failed in all its promised advantages, the Democracy promptly steps forward and offers the nation the benefit of still another experiment. It says through its organ, the President, that the States are too lenient toward their banks, and hence their undue expansion; only place them under Democratic control, let them live in salutary fear of inexorable Federal rigor, and there will be no more suspensions. Only give us a bankrupt law against banks and railroads, and you have our assurance that all shall be well; the banks shall cease all undue expansions, and railroads forbear improvidently to incur debts. But should these just expectations fail, should the banks and railroads fail so to act, then they are to have inexorable law, their property and that of their debtors, including the whole trading community, shall be brought under the sacrificing

hammer of Federal officials, and thus "the equilibrium restored;" that is, the rapid adjustment of all debts, at whatever sacrifice of property the experiment may require.

The nation has long been fully aware, as much as Mr. Buchanan or his Secretary of the Treasury can make them, that a periodical suspension is one of the unavoidable accompaniments of its State bank system. But great as that evil is, it is not comparable to the evil of making our banks and railroads dependent upon the smiles and frowns of Federal Democratic rulers for a lenient or rigorous enforcement of a bankrupt law. Nor does the evil compare with what would ensue from the honest, rigorous enforcement of such a law at a time of general suspension, in the unavoidable sacrifice of every trader's or business man's property. The nation needs no experiment to tell what would be the result of a sudden enforcement by law of all individual debts. Every one ought to know that an almost universal bankruptcy would be the result. That the Democracy would be sufficiently inexorable in such a crisis, may well be allowed. While the nation was writhing under the effects of the "better currency" experiment, the wail of woe which it sent up to Democratic headquarters was curtly answered with memorable apothegm: "All who trade on credit deserve to break." Put the power in the hands of the Democracy, and it may be relied on to carry out this its maxim. As little will the nation be inclined to confide to the inexorable Democracy the power of needlessly breaking up those very beneficial institutions, our railroads, by a sudden rigorous enforcement of their debts.

7. It is an Extravagant, Wasteful Party.

The conclusive proof of this lies in the fact that under its rule. the annual expenditures have increased from less than twenty to more than eighty millions.

The single item of five million spent in two congressional terms for public printing, and the waste of six hundred thousand dollars annually in collecting the revenue, as stated in the report of even a Democratic committee, supersede the necessity of any detailed exposure of extravagance.

In the published letter of President Buchanan before referred

to, he complained that in 1852 the annual expenditures "have reached the enormous sum of fifty million," and predicts that, "unless arrested by the strong arm of the Democracy, may in the course of a few years reach a hundred million." "I am convinced our expenditures ought to be considerably reduced below the present standard, not only without detriment, but with advantage to the Government and the people." The "strong arm of the Democracy" has had control of the finances for the last six years, and, instead of arresting waste and extravagance, they have been nearly doubled in amount. Such is the contrast between Democratic performance and its promise while seeking popular favor. Thus Mr. Buchanan, the most competent and reliable witness in such a case, proves the wasteful extravagance of the honest Democracy!

The wasteful donation of public lands enabled the directors of a single railroad to use a million of dollars in bribing the passage of the scheme through Congress and the Wisconsin Legislature, as fully proved before a legislative committee. This is one instance out of many that might be adduced to prove how the national treasure and domain are squandered, as Mr. Buchanan says, "to enrich contractors, speculators, and agents."

This summary of only a part of the misrule, shows the necessity of a combined effort of all opponents of the corrupt Democracy to rescue the Government from its evil grasp. The defeat of that party is a great national necessity-the indispensable prerequisite to any reform. That is the only mode by which power can be placed in the hands of honest men, who will

1. Prevent disunion and check disunion tendencies. 2. Give peace to the nation on the slavery question.

3. Give an honest, economical administration of the Government, and stop spoliations of the treasury and national domain.

4. Not give injurious control to the Federal Government over State banks and railroads, by means of a bankrupt law, as recommended by our Democratic President and Secretary of the Treasury.

5. Not permit the substitution of direct taxation in lieu of duties on imports, to raise revenue for enormous national expenses, as recommended by a Democratic committee.

6. Not permit the transfer of the war-making power to a Presi

dent, nor allow him to make treaties without the supervising control of the Senate, nor trust him with an enormous secret service corruption fund, to be used either abroad or at home.

7. Not attempt the acquisition of Cuba by any but honorable

means.

8. Not permit the importation of foreign felons or paupers.

9. Not squander the national domain in donations to unnaturalized foreigners and pet corporations, but keep it as a sacred trust for all the States, to whom it belongs.

In conclusion, deeming, as we do, the defeat of the Democratic party a great public necessity, for the reasons already stated, and many more, we would rejoice to see patriotic citizens throughout the Union abandoning those unprofitable disputes which have been the main instrument of perpetuating power in the hands of the unscrupulous Democracy, combined together for its overthrow. But co-operation or union, by the Opposition of Kentucky, is, now and forever, utterly undesirable and impossible with any party or persons who seek, by the action of the Federal Government, through any of its departments, to interfere with the institution of slavery; and we declare that we can have no affiliation whatever with disunionists or abolitionists. All others are invited to a cordial affiliation on terms of perfect equality.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE ISSUES OF THE CAMPAIGN.

PUBLISHED JULY, 1859.

THE great objects of the Opposition are-saving the Union, peace on the slave question, and an honest economical administration.

To this end they propose to proscribe sectional partyism, break up or put down the Democratic and Republican sectional parties by a combination of conservative Union men from all parties.

The necessity for such effort to save the Union arises from the undisputed fact of a conspiracy among most of the Southern Democratic Governors and members of Congress to dissolve the Union by armed violence and civil war if the Republican candidate had been elected President at the last election. Also from the admitted fact that there is a wide-spread and desperate conspiracy at the South to dissolve the Union if a Republican President should be chosen at the next election, a contingency almost certain to occur unless the intervention of a conservative party shall prevent the triumph of either of the sectional parties over the other. Also from the obvious fact that prolonged collision between two such sectional parties must necessarily result in disunion, even if that does not immediately ensue from the election of a Republican President.

By way of permanent peace, ignore the slave question as a party issue, so far as it can be done consistently with the firm and stern maintenance of our constitutional rights as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States.

The special reasons for breaking up the Democratic party, over and above its sectionalism and its disunion affinities and tendencies, are mainly these:

First. Its disorganizing, destructive, usurping tendency. Hav