National Topics
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NATIONAL TOPICS
The next session of Congress will be watched by the people of all parts of the Union with intense anxiety. Rarely have so many subjects of vital interest to the welfare of the nation crowded themselves together upon the attention of the people’s representatives.
In the first place we have a President whose line of policy on the great questions of the day has yet to be developed; and while much may be augured from Mr. Buchanan’s1 antecedents, yet it is impossible to foretell with precision what will be his course on very many subjects. One thing only is as yet certain—and it is matter of universal gratification to the public—that he is not, like some of his recent predecessors, a mere passive instrument in the hands of wire pullers in the back ground. The President is, to a great extent, master of the situation, and what is more, he is aware of that fact.
The monetary disorders which have led to so many misfortunes, present and prospective, will early enlist the attention of the Federal Government and legislature. It is to be determined, whether experience and skill cannot suggest such regulations, in regard both to our internal system of finances and our trade with foreign nations, as shall prevent the recurrence of a time like the present—when with overflowing granaries and store houses, and plentiful crops, our working classes are plunged into the utmost distress, and every citizen suffers more or less loss and inconvenience.
Next in importance comes the Kansas question 2. Governor Walker,3 whose course is unquestionably endorsed by the great majority of the citizens of both sections of the Union, will be furiously warred upon by the ultra South; and if his removal be effected, and his acts of justice to the people of Kansas repudiated, there is every prospect, if not of a civil war in the territory, at least of renewed convulsion and agitation on the everlasting slavery question, exceeding in violence all former agitations.
The Mormon revolt4 also threatens to swell into unexpected dimensions. Every fresh despatch from the plains presents additional evidence that the modern Mahomet has not raised the standard of open resistance without making preparations on a scale in some degree commensurate with the greatness of the stake he plays for, and the power of the nation he defies. The Rocky Mountains bid fair to be to the United States what Tyrol is to Austria, or Caucasia to Russia.
The departure of General Walker on another filibustering expedition, also, involves in difficulty a subject which it was hoped was on the eve of a friendly solution between the Federal Government and the other powers who claim an interest in Central American affairs.
Notes:
1. James Buchanan (1791–1868) was the fifteenth President of the United States (1857–1861). Late in life Whitman still considered Buchanan "perhaps the weakest of the President tribe—the very unablest" (With Walt Whitman in Camden, Monday, November 5, 1888). For more information on Whitman and his disdain for Buchanon, see also Bernard Hirschorn, ""To a President" (1860)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]
2. The "Kansas question" refers to whether Kansas would enter the union as a free or slave state. [back]
3. Robert J. Walker (1801–1869) served as a Mississippi Senator between 1835 and 1845 and Secretary of Treasury between 1845 and 1849. During a contentious period between abolitionists and anti-abolitionists regarding slavery, Walker was appointed as the fourth territorial governor of Kansas from May to November of 1857. [back]
4. The Mormon revolt refers to the Utah War (1857–1858), also known as "Buchanon's Blunder," a series of skirmishes between Mormon militia and the US army. The conflict ultimately resulted in secular rule over Utah but only after a lengthy and costly engagement, generally considered an embarrassment for the Buchanon administration at the time. [back]