Martinsburg Gazette And Public Advertiser

We extract the following paragraph from the answer of the Hon. William Wilkins, to a committee of the recent Harrisburg Convention.

My answer to your letter would still be imperfect if I did not proceed further and say—that, if it shall happen to be the pleasure of my fellow citizens composing the Harrisburg Convention, to confer upon me the very distinguished honor of placing me before the nation as a candidate for their second office, upon the same ticket with that excellent Chief Magistrate whose administration I am this moment faithfully engaged in sustaining, I shall, with profound gratitude, accept the nomination, and shall adhere to it until the same authority that gave it shall require me to yield it up. If the exalted nomination was in my hands, it never could be surrendered but in obedience to the wishes and interests of Pennsylvania."

Mr. Buchanan addressed a letter to the Committee, requesting that the Convention would abstain from nominating him, and conveying these truths—

"I did not believe that the character of my public services had placed me in that elevated position before the American people, which a citizen should first occupy, to justify his selection for the second office in the Government. To preside over the Senate of the United States, and to decide all questions on which they may be equally divided, is an exalted public trust, which never can be usefully or safely confided to any citizen, unless he enjoys in advance the highest confidence and respect not only of that body, but of the people of the sovereign States which its members represent. Besides, when I reflected that this office was the resource provided by the Constitution to supply any vacancy which, in future times, might occur in the office of President, I felt still more solemnly impressed that the station demanded a statesman of more mature age and longer experience than I possess."