8 to a lucrative and highly honorable office. This appointment no doubt reconciles him to the seeming inconsistency of the President’s opinions as presented in his letter, and as embodied in the bill now under consideration ; and the high and dignified position which Mr. Buchanan occupies in the President’s Cabinet no doubt saves him from those gnawings of conscience which would otherwise disturb him when his memory reverted to the part which he played in the false and perfidious transaction which I am describing. Mr. Chairman, the secret history of this celebrated Kane letter has never been, and perhaps never will be, made public. If the same facility existed for obtaining access to the private correspondence of certain citizens of Pennsylvania and Tennessee, which seems to exist with respect to the confidential records of the State Department, relating to the expenditure of the secret service fund, I apprehend that a flood of light would be shed upon the interesting period of political history which I am now discussing, and I think it would be made manifest that Mr. Polk's Kane letter was written to order : that it was the result of an understanding between Mr. Polk and certain leading politicians of Pennsylvania ; that they sought it for the purpose of deceiving the people of that State, and that he wrote it with a full knowledge of their purpose, and with the intention that this letter should be used for the accomplishment of that nefarious design. When it was published in Tennessee, where it was known that Mr. Polk had been uniformly opposed to the policy of protecting “home industry f and where his supporters were daily striving to win the people to his support upon the ground of his opposition to that policy, the Whig party of that State were inspired with astonishment and indignation, that a fraud so bold and barefaced should be attempted, and they determined to expose it. They forwarded to Pennsylvania Mr. Polk’s speeches and circulars, containing conclusive proofs of his uniform inveterate hostility to the protective policy, as that policy was known to be understood by the people of that State. The Democratic politicians of Pennsylvania met these proofs by assuring the people that they**were Whig inventions—Whig falsehoods. The people believed, and shouted huzza for Polk and the Tariff of 1842. The Democratic leaders of that State emblazoned upon their banners in close juxtaposition, Polk and the Tariff of 1842; and with these words for their motto, they marched on “ conquering and to conquer.” The Whigs of Tennessee were not content with merely forwarding to Pennsylvania the proofs of Mr. Polk’s opinions, to which I have referred : public meetings were called at different places in that State, in which many of the most prominent citizens participated, at which resolutions were passed propounding to Mr. Polk interrogatories calculated to elicit from him a more specific declaration of his opinions upon the subject of the tariff, and to relieve his Kane letter from ambiguity, and from the possibility of misconstruction. Committees of highly respectable gentlemen were appointed to communicate those interrogatories to Mr. Polk, and ask a response. They performed in respectful terms the task assigned them. Upon various pretences he postponed and evaded a response to those interrogatories. He was as silent as the grave. He perceived that he could not reach the Presidential chair without the support of the tariff men of the North and the anti-tariff men of the South. Hence it was not his interest to be distinctly understood on that subject; He chose to be supported as a tariff man in New York and Pennsylvania, and
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