John C. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, is now the Democratic candidate for the Vice Presidency; and in our devotion to the head of the ticket, we do not wish to neglect the tail. Mr. Breckenridge is a good speaker, and is about as good a selection as his party could make. He has not been long enough in public life to attain any experience as a statesman, nor has he been guilty of any great indiscretion in his short Congressional career. He will be unable to carry Kentucky for his party, though he has some elements of strength. Standing out in violent opposition to his relatives upon the Know Nothing issues, he will be acceptable to all Foreigners, and the Catholics in particular! Being on the very best of terms with Cassius M. Clay, and voting with the Emancipationists of Kentucky, he will be rather acceptable to the Anti-Slavery men than otherwise! He was a zealous supporter of the bill in Congress appropriating a million or two dollars to works of Internal Improvement, which was vetoed by Pierce. That bill provided $50,000 for the improvement of the Kentucky River, to which he urged an amendment insisting on $150,000. This will give him strength with the Democracy of the North and North-West, who advocated the doctrine of Internal Improvements by the General Government!

On May 20th, 1856, the Charleston Mercury came out advising the South as to the selection of candidates, which advice, if adhered to, would prove ruinous alike to Buchanan and Breckenridge. A brief extract from that article is in these words:

“A man unsound on Slavery, Free Trade, and Internal Improvements, or whose opinions are shrouded in treacherous ambiguity such a man, be he Black Republican or Democrat, is unworthy of her support. To vote for either, is to give away her influence, to be used against her. It is to stultify principle, and be the instrument of her own undoing.”

This doctrine would get very much in the way of such men as Toombs and Stephens, of Georgia, and other Anti-Internal Improvement Democrats, but they can excuse Breckenridge on the ground that he acquiesced in the veto of Pierce, and was possibly only trying to make a little capital at home, which is common with Democracy. Besides, Mr. Breckenridge being raised a Clay Whig, and representing the Ashland District as a Democrat, should be allowed to pass over the Jordan of Democracy by degrees!

His name can be used advantageously in this contest in another respect. While Mr. Buchanan was Mr. Clay’s most vindictive enemy, traducer, and calumniator, Mr. Breckenridge can be held up to the Clay Whigs, as having announced to the House of Representatives the death of Mr. Clay, in language and sentiments branding Buchanan as a malignant slanderer, without mentioning his name, by the character he gave to Clay! Closing his eulogy upon Mr. Clay in these words, Mr. Breckenridge evidently looked with the eye of prophecy at the slanders of Buchanan, the recollection of which would “cluster” around his grave:

“Every memorial of such a man will possess a meaning and value to his countrymen. His tomb will be a hallowed spot. Great memories will cluster there, and his countrymen as they visit it may well exclaim:

“Such graves as his are pilgrim shrines
Shrines to no creed or code confined;
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind.”

If we mistake not, this young Breckenridge is the nephew of the Rev. John Breckenridge, formerly of Baltimore, and pastor of the Presbyterian Church. If so, he is the nephew of the Rev. Robert Breckenridge, the talented and staunch advocate of the American party. The venerable uncle of this young man, whilst pastor of the Church in Baltimore, was a most formidable opponent of the Roman Catholic religion, and is the man who conducted the debate with Archbishop Hughes, in 1836, which we now have before us, in a large volume of 550 pages. Of course Bishop Hughes will require the young man to repudiate his uncle’s views and charges in opposition to the Papal religion; and this, we should think, he will do for the sake of the Catholic vote in America!

From the Knoxville Whig of June 14, 1856.