ccupy the White
House, Mr. Polk, in company with Gen. Robert Armstrong, called
at the Hermitage to procure some advice from the old hero as to
the selection of his cabinet. Jackson strongly urged the
President-elect to give no place in it to Buchanan, as he could
not be relied upon. It so happened that Polk had already
determined to make that very appointment, having probably
offered the situation to the statesman of Pennsylvania. This
fact induced Gen. Armstrong subsequently to tell Jackson that
he had given Polk a rather hard rub, as Buchanan had already
been selected for Secretary of State. 'I can't help it,' said
the old man: 'I felt it my duty to warn him against Mr.
Buchanan, whether it was agreeable or not. Mr. Polk will find
Buchanan an unreliable man. I know him well, and Mr. Polk will
yet admit the correctness of my prediction.'

"It was the last visit ever made by Mr. Polk to the old hero
when this unavailing remonstrance was delivered, but the new
President, long before the end of his administration, had
reason to acknowledge its propriety and justice, and in the
diary kept by him during that period may still be read a most
emphatic declaration of his distrust of Mr. Buchanan. Every one
is aware of two marked instances in which, as Secretary of
State, the latter failed to support the policy of the
administration, viz., on the question of the tariff of 1846,
and the requisition of the ten regiments voted by Congress for
the Mexican war. On both of these measures he was known to be
opposed to the wishes of Mr. Polk."

_Mr. Charles Irving_, the Democratic editor of the Lynchburg Republican,
and a delegate at Richmond in the State Convention, thus disposes of Mr.
Buchanan in a long and able letter, dated May 7th, 1856:

"If silence during the battle constitutes a claim for office,
how can the South expect Northern statesmen to uphold her
banner, when abolitionists are seeking to tear it to tatters?
If an ability to get free-soil votes makes a candidate
available, and that species of availability is recognized as a
merit at the South, Northern statesmen should court
free-soilers, and not struggle with them, if they wish to be
Presidents. Such availability may be very desirable to those
who wish success alone, but those who look to the in