ovided for
them at Washington. Having adopted a form of society more like that of
Congo and Dahomey than of the United States, and having accepted too
literally the prevalent dogma, that every community has the right to
form its own institutions for itself,--they preferred the polygamy
of barbarism to the monogamy of civilization, and the rod of the
priest-prophet Brigham or the seal of Elder Pratt to the sceptre
of Governor Steptoe or the sword of Colonel Johnston. Under these
circumstances, the duty of the government of the United States was to
relinquish its pretensions to supremacy over a nation opposed to its
rule, or to maintain that supremacy, if it were necessary, with a strong
and unflinching hand. Mr. Buchanan, on his own principles of popular
sovereignty, as far as we can understand them, ought, logically, to have
adopted the former course, but (as the interests of Slavery were not
involved) he elected to pursue the latter; and he has pursued it with an
impotence which has cost the nation already many millions of
dollars, and which has involved the "army of Utah" in inextricable
embarrassments, allowing them to be shut up in the snows of the
mountains before they could strike a blow or reach the first object of
their expedition. Not very well appointed in the beginning, this little
force was despatched to the Plains when it was too late in the season; a
part of it was needlessly delayed in assisting to choke down freedom in
Kansas; and when it attained the hills which guard the passages to the
valley of the Salt Lake, it found the canons obstructed by snow, and
the roads impassable. The supplies required for its subsistence were
scattered in useless profusion from Leavenworth to Fort Laramie, and
assistance and action were alike hopeless until the arrival of the
spring.[A]

[Footnote: A: More recently the energy and wisdom of Col. Johnston
have repaired some of the mischief produced by the dilatoriness of his
superiors.]

The same feebleness, which left the poor soldier to perish in the
desert, has brought an overflowing treasury nearly to default. Mr.
Buchanan, in his Message, discussed the existing financial crisis with
much sounding phrase and very decided emphasis. He rebuked the action of
the banks, which had presumed to issue notes to the amount of more than
three times that of their specie, in a tone of lofty and indignant
virtue. He commended them to the strictest vigilance and to the
exemplary dis