He looked upon the despotism which he saw with the calm eye of an observer who could comprehend its character and trace its operations, without doing injustice to the reigning monarch. He saw a vast nation entirely incapable of any thing like constitutional liberty, and governed by the absolute will of one man, to obey whom was at once a point of religion, loyalty and patriotism. Between the nobility and the throne, there was no middle class, capable of thinking or acting upon any political subject; and the nobility, as a rule, were capable and desirous of no other political training, ideas or aspirations than such as would fit them for the part of useful servants of an emperor whom they adored, and of a system which constituted their country the most peculiar and the least free of any in Europe. The statesmen who were formed under such a system were, as might naturally be expected, accomplished in many ways, subtle and often powerful reasoners; and they were not seldom among the ablest men of the age. When they were made to understand how completely, as Mr. Buchanan said, they and we were “political antipodes,” they found no difficulty in yielding to the necessity of respecting a state of things in America which was so unlike any thing that they knew at home. At first, Count Nesselrode could not understand how a government could have an official organ, and yet disclaim responsibility to a foreign power for what that organ said in its editorial columns. But when it was explained to him that the American Government did disclaim that responsibility, and was obliged to do so by the nature of its political institutions, he did not make it his business to argue the point, but gracefully accepted the explanation and put an end to the whole of the misunderstanding. It must be confessed, however, that while Mr. Buchanan fully and firmly carried out his instructions and procured all the admission that his own Government desired, in regard to Baron Sacken’s note, it was a pretty fine distinction that his Government had to draw. It was perfectly true that the _Globe_ was the official gazette of the American Government, and yet that its editorial columns could not be legally controlled by the President. Still it might be a question whether an American administration should have had an official organ, with which it was connected on such terms that the editor or conductor was just as independent of its influence or its power, as if he published a newspaper that was not connected in any way with the Government. Both at home and abroad, the editorial columns of the _Globe_ were liable to be regarded as speaking the sentiments of the administration; and when it became necessary to disclaim that they did so, the explanation, although made upon undeniable facts, was an awkward one to make. Mr. Buchanan certainly felt it to be so, for in writing to the Secretary of State, after he had obtained from Count Nesselrode all the disavowal that was desired, he said: