A letter from a local politician, addressed to the President himself, urging without disguise the giving of a large contract for machinery to a particular house in Philadelphia, employing four hundred and fifty mechanics, with a view to the approaching election, was sent to the Secretary of the Navy, with this indorsement, in a well-known handwriting, signed by well-known initials: “Sept. 15, 1858. The enclosed letter from Colonel Patterson, of Philadelphia, is submitted to the attention of the Secretary of the Navy. J. B.” Thus did the President of the United States, in formal written words, now of record in the history of the country, recommend the employment of the public money, set apart for the public service, to influence an election. Here was criminality as positive as when his supporters purchased votes in the streets. From one learn all; and from such a characteristic instance learn the character of the Administration. But there are other well-known instances; and the testimony before the Congressional Committees discloses the President on Sundays in secret conclave with one of his corrupt agents, piously occupied discussing the chances of an election, and how its expenses were to be met, while, at the same time, like another Joseph Surface, he was uttering in public “fine sentiments” of political morality, and lamenting the prevalence of the very indecencies in which he was engaged. It was natural that a President, who, with professions of purity on the lips, made himself the pander of such vulgar corruption, should stick at nothing needful to carry his purposes. I shall not dwell on the Lecompton Constitution; but it belongs to this chapter. You all know its wickedness. Concocted originally at Washington, with the single purpose of fastening Slavery upon the people of Kansas, it was by execrable contrivance so arranged as to prevent the people, when about to become a State, from voting on that question. Next sanctioned by a convention of usurpers, who in no respect represented the people of Kansas, then fraudulently submitted to the people for their votes, it was fraudulently adopted by stuffing ballot-boxes on a scale never before known. Thus, at the Delaware Crossing, where there were but forty-three legal voters, four hundred were returned; at Oxford, where there were but forty-two legal voters, a thousand were returned; and at Shawnee, where there were but forty legal voters, twelve hundred were returned. And yet this Constitution, disowned by the very Governor who had gone to Kansas as agent of the President,--rotten with corruption, gaping with falsehood, and steaming with iniquity,--was at once recognized by the President, urged upon Congress in a special message, and pressed for adoption by all the appliances of unprincipled power. If the words of Jugurtha, turning his back upon Rome, cannot be repeated, that the Republic is for sale, and soon to perish, if it shall find a purchaser,[154] nor the sharper