“ He therefore wriggles and shuffles, with an absurd and transparent inconsistency, to defeat the popular will, and yet mouth it bravely about "the great principle of Popular Sovereignty."
The President thinks that it is time that these troubles in Kansas were at an end, and we cordially agree with him in the sentiment; but he needs scarcely to be reminded that they never will be at an end, until the wicked schemes, which have been so long persisted in, to override the convictions and hopes and interests of a large majority of the Kansas settlers, are utterly abandoned by those who are in power. ”

“ In other words, Popular Sovereignty is merely designed to cover the right of the people to vote on a single question, specially presented by an illegal body, under electoral arrangements made by its new officers,--which officers not only receive, but count the votes, and make the returns,-- while all the rest is merely unimportant and trivial. ”

“ What is worse, the President of the United States argues that this would be a fair settlement of the question, and that in the exercise of such a choice, the glorious doctrine of Popular Sovereignty is amply applied and vindicated. He admits that "the correct principle," as in the case of Minnesota, is to refer the Constitution "to the approval and ratification of the people"; he admits that the only mode in which the will of the people can be "authentically ascertained is by a direct vote" ”

“ The Federal Government, he thinks, can do little or nothing in the premises,--a fatal admission at the outset,--and we are coolly turned over to the most unsubstantial and impracticable of all reliances, "the wisdom and patriotism of the State legislatures"! Why cannot the Federal Government do anything in the premises? The President tells us that the Constitution has conferred upon Congress the exclusive right "to coin money _and regulate the value thereof_," and that it has prohibited the States from "issuing bills of credit,"--which phrase, if it mean anything, means making paper-money ”

“ Popular Sovereignty means "pertaining to negroes,"--not the negroes already in the Territory, but those who may be hereafter introduced; for the monopoly of that branch of trade and merchandise, which is already established, and the future growth and increase of it, must not be interfered with, even by Popular Sovereignty, because that would be "an act of gross injustice." ”

“ An old authority tells us that "it is hard to kick against the pricks"; and the President appears to have experienced the difficulty, in kicking against the pricks of his conscience. He had committed himself to a principle which he is now compelled by the policy of his Southern masters to evade, and is painfully embarrassed as to how he shall hide his tracks. ”

“ Buchanan is so superior to any of the Messages of his immediate predecessor, that the reader naturally expects to find in it a corresponding superiority of sentiment and aim. When we meet a man who is well-dressed, and whose external demeanor is that of a gentleman, we are prone to infer that he is also a man of upright principles and honorable feelings. ”

“ We do not ourselves say that Congress ought to interfere and undertake by main force to regulate the currency, because we hold to other and, as we think, better methods of arriving at a sound and stable currency ”

“ We wonder that so great a subject could be dismissed with the suggestion of a few petty restraints.
"If the State legislatures," remarks the President, summing up his entire thought, "afford us a real specie basis for our circulation, by increasing the denomination of bank-notes, first to twenty, and afterwards to fifty dollars; if they will require that the banks shall at all times keep on hand at least one dollar of gold and silver for every three dollars of their circulation and deposits ”

“ At the convention of the party which nominated Mr. Buchanan as a candidate for his present office,--"a celebrated occasion," as he calls it,-- the members affirmed in the most emphatic manner the right of the people of all the Territories, including Kansas, to form their own Constitutions as they pleased, under the single condition that it should be republican. Mr. ”