of new territory could be considered. Whether, back of them, there was a fixed programme, or whether they were merely intended cautiously to ascertain how great a charm such bait would exercise, could not be discovered from the vague phrases used. Buchanan, therefore, could not abandon himself to the illusion that public opinion would find, in the inaugural address, the answer to the question, what the more practical and more urgent questions were to which they should turn; and hence it was to be inferred from it that he would soon be seen devoting himself, with ardent zeal, to a hunt after such questions. The self-overestimation of successful mediocrity, ambition and vanity exercised, indeed, a much greater influence on his policy than has been generally believed; but, even if these qualities had been entirely wanting in him, he certainly would not have been satisfied with being the head of the administration. Their flattering whisperings, to which the self-complacent man listened only too willingly, and honest, earnest patriotic solicitude pointed out the same way to him. The role of a president of high politics not only pleased him, but he considered it his duty to play it, in order to force the people away from the unfortunate question which was impelling them with demoniacal power towards a most terrible catastrophe. But as a really great question neither existed nor could be raised, he seized on everything that presented itself, in domestic or foreign politics, with uncritical zeal, in the foolish hope. that in the opinion of the public the resultant of the combined forces of all the small questions would toss the giant weight of the slavery question out of sight. But he did not meet with real success in a single one of them. In the most important, he made a complete failure, and the aggregate result of his altogether too polit

ical policy was that the flames he wished to stifle shot higher still, because they were all connected, directly or indirectly, with the burning question of slavery.

With respect to the first question with which Buchanan tried to play this role, he could not be reproached with having artfully raised it, or even with having given it unseemly proportions. He found it as a legacy from former presidents or from the thirty-first congress, and its solution had become so urgent that it would have been a serious neglect of duty not to grapple with it earnestly and vigorously. But to judge of his mode of procedure, it is not sufficient, as he and many writers - among them the German, Neumann, by no means friendly to himdid, to simply state this fact. Side by side with pertinent reasons, there were motives that could not be approved; in the choice of means to attain the laudable end, he was guilty of greatly exceeding his legal and constitutional powers; improper grounds of action caused mistakes in the execution of the wrong, or, at least, insufficient, plan - mistakes which would have become almost ruinous; and, in consequence of all this, the result was, essentially, a covering up of the evil instead of its removal, which was desired, and which it was pretended had been accomplished.

The annual message asked for the formation of four new regiments to reduce the seditious Mormons, in Utah, to obedience. "This is the first rebellion," said the president," which has existed in our territories, and humanity itself requires that we should put it down in such a manner that it shall be the last." Strange! Buchanan had neither reached the stage of extreme senectitude when the memory does not reach back farther than a few weeks, nor did he give the least ground for the suspicion that he was in conflict with the policy, approved and sup

ported by the democratic party, of his predecessor, who had over and over again declared the free-soil people of Kansas to be rebels, and who had made ample use of the federal troops against them. Not only Kansas but the entire people had the right and it was even their dutyto be informed how the contradiction between this declaration and Pierce's words and deeds could be reconciled. Either Buchanan's assertion was a notorious untruth or Pierce had lied a dozen times and scandalously abused his official power.

The information furnished by the message on the history of the development of the rebellion and the state of affairs at that time was very meager. The president recalled the fact that Utah had been organized as a territory by a law of September 9, 1850, with a provision that the governor of the state should be ex officio superintendent of Indian affairs. On September 20th of the same year Brigham Young was appointed governor, and had since then filled the office. Since, at the same time, he claimed, as the head of the Mormon church, to govern its members by virtue of direct divine inspiration and authority, and to dispose of their property, his power over both church and state had been absolute. Utah was inhabited almost exclusively by Mormons, who, with the fanatical certainty of conviction, looked upon him as the ruler of the territory, set over it by God. If it pleased him to bring about a conflict with the federal. government, they would yield him absolute obedience, and, unfortunately, it could scarcely be doubted that he desired a conflict. All the federal officials except two Indian agents had left the territory to insure their personal safety, because the only government it had was the despotism of Brigham Young. Then the president proceeded as follows: "This being the condition of affairs

in the territory, I could not mistake the path of duty. As chief executive magistrate, I was bound to restore the supremacy of the constitution and laws within its limits. In order to effect this purpose, I appointed a new governor and other federal officers for Utah, and sent with them a military force for their protection, and to act as a posse comitatus, in case of need, in the execution of the laws." The instructions given to Governor Cumming were made to conform strictly to the principle that the power of officials extended only to acts and not to relig. ious convictions. When these instructions were dispatched, it was hoped that there would be no need of the military to restore and preserve the supremacy of the law; but this hope had now disappeared. Young had declared, in a proclamation, that he was resolved to assert his power by force, and had already given expression to. this resolution by acts, although he had been assured by Major Van Vliet,' who had been sent to Utah to purchase provisions for the troops, that the government had peaceful intentions, and that the troops were to be employed only as posse comitatus when a requisition to that effect should be made "by the civil authority," in order to assist in the execution of the laws. There was reason to believe that Young had kept this issue in view for a long time. He knew that the continuance of his despotic power depended on the exclusion of all non-Mormon settlers from the territory. Hence he had been industriously collecting and manufacturing arms and ammunition for years, had given a military training to the Mormons, and had, as superintendent of military affairs, disaffected the Indians and stored up provisions for three years, with which, as he told Van Vliet, he would flee to the mountains and defy the entire power of the government.

1 Thus the message. Van Vliet subscribes his report as "captain."

Buchanan could not have said less in justification of the fact that he had, on his own sole responsibility, sent a military expedition to Utah, and yet he said a great deal too much; for his nearly every sentence was either a grave charge against the 31st congress or the last two presidents, or convicted him of boldly exceeding his legal powers and of gross mistakes which were being already severely punished.

What Buchanan said about the nature and extent of Young's power as well as about the tendency, the effects and the aims of his policy was entirely appropriate; and the more he without becoming guilty of the slightest exaggeration-filled out this outline with a description of the details, the clearer it became to the minds of the people that the situation was really a dreadful one and demanded a radical cure. But from this it followed directly that the responsibility for the atrocious anomaly of the existence of such a community as a territory, organized under a federal law, lay, in the first place, on the 31st congress, and, in the second, on the presidents who had made the head of the Mormon church governor or left him in that office. It was well enough known, even in 1850, that the religious fanaticism of the Mormons was not harmless, and was, by no means, a matter of indifference, from a politico-social point of view. In Missouri and Illinois, part of their history had been written in blood; and because their convictions and their aims had proved irreconcilable with the political institutions of the land and the ethico-moral convictions of the people, they had wandered over the desert and sought an asylum, in complete seclusion from the whole civilized world. With the fantastic and absurd garnishment of their belief, the political powers had, according to the principle of complete religious freedom and absolute sep