Lynchburg Virginian

GEN. CASS.

There is every reason to believe that Gen. Cass is likely to be the candidate of the democratic party for the Presidency. He would be strong in the Northwestern States, and he has certainly—at the expense of all consistency, it is true—bid higher for Southern votes than any of his rivals. He is a man of fair character, and respectable talents, and a good deal of information, without a spark of genius. His political principles he has manifested, at all times, an easy lubricity, which indicates that he recognizes expediency as the only guide. Commencing life as a black cockade federalist, like all of that faith who apostatized, he became the most ultra of democrats. He is a thorough demagogue—not in his manners, which are cold and aristocratic enough—nor in his associations, which are quite exclusive—but in the violence and ultraism of his views. He is never found opposing what he thinks is popular, whatever may be his own views of the propriety of the thing, or what its aspect in a moral point of view. Thus, the other day in the Senate, he treated with scorn the idea of preventing the conquest and annexation of the whole of Mexico, if the American people should set their hearts upon the scheme—evidently considering it to be little short of moral treason, in any man, to stand up and reason with his countrymen as to the morality and expediency of making another Poland of a co-terminous Republic. Were such a thing possible, that our people should clamor for a King, Gen. Cass would not have the courage to resist the popular current. He looks beyond the Constitution and sees a higher law for him in the impulses of the people. He is the Sempronius of the Senate, and ready, at all times, to fan the flames of discord. He did his best to plunge us into a war with England, and is now the warmest supporter of the designs—whether avowed or concealed—of the Administration upon Mexico. With nothing in his personal character to win upon the masses—being, as we have said, a thorough aristocrat in feelings, manners and associations, and a great lover of the trappings of rank and high station, as evinced in his little book about the Court of France—he is, nevertheless, most likely to be the choice of his party for the Presidency, and to present another instance of the possibility of the enthusiasm of the democracy being stirred up in behalf of a man, whose tastes cast off mud, and social and personal peculiarities, all fit him for the exclusive press of some parvenu city circle, rather than for contact and sympathy with the mass of his countrymen.