James Buchanan

“ The "Perry County Democratic Press," for April 9th, 1856, an able paper published at Bloomfield in Pennsylvania, shows up the Federal anti-slavery, anti-Democratic, turn-coat character of Mr. Buchanan, after this fashion:
JAMES BUCHANAN'S SOMERSETS.
"No man in the United States has turned his political coat as often as James Buchanan. ”

“ James Buchanan. The sole part that was taken by President Buchanan, in any public manner, in the election of 1860, was in a speech which he made from the portico of the White House, on the evening of July 9th, when a great crowd assembled in front of the mansion and called him out. In the course of his remarks, he said:
I have ever been the friend of regular nominations. I have never struck a political ticket in my life. Now, was there anything done at Baltimore to bind the political conscience of any sound Democrat, or to prevent him from supporting Breckinridge or Lane? [“No! no!”] ”

“ James Buchanan.
649
[MR. BUCHANAN TO MRS. JOHNSTON.]
Bedford Springs, July 30th, 1866. My Dear Niece:—
I have received your favor of the 25th, and would answer it at greater length, but this will be delivered to you by Miss Goughey Carroll who can tell you all the news. My time passes pleasantly enough, and everybody is kind. I shall leave here with Mr. North on Monday, the 6th August, unless some friend should arrive in the meantime with whom I can travel home at a later period. Thomas is useless, and worse than useless. I shall send him home to-day or to-morrow. ”

“ The Democrats, shelving the now unpopular Pierce, nominated James Buchanan, [187] —a weak character, far past the prime of life, but a man who had held high positions and was likely to carry the important state of Pennsylvania. John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky was chosen as Buchanan’s running mate. Buchanan won at the polls, securing one hundred and seventy-four electoral votes to Frémont’s one hundred and fourteen. But the Republicans had made a better fight than any new party had ever done before and had carried most of the Northern and some of the Western states. ”

“ James Buchanan. P.S.—Miss Lane desires to be kindly remembered to Mr., Mrs. and Miss King.
558
[MR. STANTON TO MR. BUCHANAN.]
Washington, July 16, 1861. Dear Sir:—
Your favor with the continuation of the historical sketch was duly received. Last evening Judge Black and General Dix met at my house, and we consulted together in regard to it. We concur in opinion that a publication at present would accomplish no good. The public mind is too much excited on other topics to give attention to the past, and it would only afford occasion for fresh malignant attacks upon you from ——. ”

“ No more illustrious man than James Buchanan had ever been sent to represent his country at the court of the greatest empire of the world. His fame as a statesman had preceded him. To the public men and educated classes of England his name was familiar, for he had been one of the most conspicuous figures in the United States for the third of the century. No citizen 508of this country had ever held so many great stations as he. His life had been crowded with the gravest public employments. Apart from his reputation as a statesman, he had won the highest encomiums at the bar. ”

“ This child, James Buchanan Johnston, an object of the fondest interest to his great-uncle, grew to be a fine and very promising youth of fifteen, of great loveliness of character and marked intellectual powers. He died in Baltimore on the 25th of March, 1881. His younger brother, Henry, the only remaining child of Mr. and Mrs. Johnston, was taken by his parents to Europe in the autumn of 1881. He died at Nice on the 30th of October, 1882. Dark clouds have gathered over lives that were once full of happiness and hope. ”

“ James Buchanan was born in Pennsylvania in 1791, was educated at school and college, studied law, served in the state legislature, was five times elected to the House of Representatives, and three times to the Senate. In the Senate he was a warm supporter of Jackson, and favored the annexation of Texas under Tyler. He was Secretary of State under Polk, and had been minister to Great Britain.
[10] The Chief Justice ruled that no negro whose ancestors had been brought as slaves into the United States could be a citizen ”

“ Buchanan may have made mistakes. If I had discovered them I should not have hesitated to point them out. But that his policy was sound; that it was the only policy that could have had any chance of preserving the Union without a civil war; that his motive was eminently patriotic; that with a serene and superb patience he incurred the risk of obloquy and misrepresentation for the sake of his country; all this should be the judgment of any impartial mind. Nay, more: I do not hesitate to say that no man can justly accuse him of vacillation, weakness, or timidity. ”

“ Buchanan, to the day of his death, expressed to me his abiding conviction that the American people would, in due time, come to regard his course as the only one which at that time promised any hope of saving the nation from a bloody and devastating war, and would recognize the integrity and wisdom of his course in administering the Government for the good of the whole people, whether North or South. ”

“ Buchanan retired to his home at Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he died on the 1st of June 1868. His mistakes as president have been so emphasized as to obscure the fact that he was a man of unimpeachable honesty, of the highest patriotism, and of considerable ability. He never married. ”

“ Pray let him know, or, rather, may I not say, let me be the recipient of your decision, for I have not yet had the pleasure of placing your autograph among my otherwise valuable collection, where it would hold, I need not say, a choice place, not only from the warm personal regard I entertain for you, dear Mr. Buchanan, but from the fact that I consider you the last constitutional President we shall ever see. At a moment when passion whirled the country to frenzy, you had the true courage to refrain—to abide within the limits marked out by the Constitution for the Executive. ”

“ Buchanan unquestionably did belong, to the higher class of statesmen, had to act with a wise circumspection on this subject of slavery. There was nothing that such a man could do, if he regarded his public duty with an American statesman’s sense of public obligation, but to stand aloof from and to discountenance what was wrong in the doings of the anti-slavery agitators. ”

“ Buchanan returned to his home at Wheatland, rejoicing to be free from the cares of a long and responsible public life, and welcomed by an immense gathering of his neighbors and the citizens of Lancaster. Here he lived quietly for the remaining seven years of his life, taking, however, a lively interest in public affairs, and always supporting, with his influence, as a private citizen, the maintenance of the war for the restoration of the union. His health was generally good throughout his whole life. ”

“ I venture to predict that you will not be much pleased with London, and I desire that you should not be disappointed. You must not anticipate too much, except from seeing the sights. These are numerous and interesting, from their historical associations. I have been making inquiries concerning a maid for you.
Please to remember me, in the kindest terms, to Mr. Pleasanton, and give my love to Laura and Clemmie. Ever yours affectionately,
James Buchanan. In a despatch to Mr. Marcy, written soon after his appearance at the Queen’s levée, Mr. ”

“ Tyler, and those Virginians who are acting with me,” is plainly to be read between the lines of Mr. Tyler’s letter of February 24th to the President. No one can doubt that Mr. Buchanan’s account of his administration, published in 1866, was written with perfect candor. If he had ever sent to Mr. Davis the intimation which that gentleman says he received from him through a third person, inviting commissioners from the Confederate Government, he would have stated the fact, together with his reasons for it. He never shrank from assigning reasons for any thing that he ever did. ”

“ The world in which he lived was distracted by the deepest and widest controversy in modern history; between tradition and the new learning, between absolute and constitutional government, between the romanist and the reformed doctrines and discipline. In this controversy, not only in the field of literature, but of action, Buchanan took a prominent part on the side of the reformers. He is still deemed a traitor, a slanderer, and an atheist by some, while to others he is a champion of the cause of liberty and religion, and one of its most honoured names. ”

“ In all this, some of Buchanan’s critics have thought him too stern, and that gentler methods might have won over James to better thoughts. But truth must always be stern to those who dislike or fear it. Yet those only are the real friends of these latter who give them the chance of profiting by it; and in so acting by James, come what might of himself and his personal fortunes, Buchanan will be thought by most admirers of a high morale to have stamped himself as a wholly high-minded and even heroic character. ”

“ Jackson to send him another minister exactly like himself. He wrote to President Jackson: “Your foreign policy has had no small influence on public opinion throughout Europe.” Of Russia and the emperor Mr. Buchanan wrote: “There is no freedom of the press, no public opinion, and but little political conversation, and that very much guarded; in short, we live in the calm of despotism, though the Emperor Nicholas [I.] is one of the best of despots. Coming abroad can teach an American no other lesson but to love his country, its institutions, and its laws better, much better than he did before. ”

“ Buchanan delivered his sentiments in regard to the proper mode of defending the Commonwealth, on the bill entitled ‘An act for the encouragement of volunteers for the defence of this Commonwealth.’ He said: ‘Since, then, the Congress have deserted us in our time of need, there is no alternative but either to protect ourselves by some efficient measures, or surrender up that independence which has been purchased by the blood of our forefathers. No American can hesitate which of these alternatives ought to be adopted. The invading enemy must be expelled from our shores ”

“ Buchanan’s course as President, for the three first years of his term, is to be judged, with reference to the responsibility that was upon him to so conduct the Government as to disarm, if possible, the antagonism of section to section. His administration of affairs after the election of Mr. Lincoln is to be judged simply by his duty as the Executive, in the most extraordinary and anomalous crisis in which the country had ever been placed. ”

“ Buchanan’s public life, now covering a period of nearly twenty-five years, one can perceive the intellectual growth of an American statesman, who had not been taken suddenly from private pursuits to fill an important public position, but who had been trained by the regular gradations of office for the affairs of government. To have a constituency who can appreciate the value of such a training, and can support a public servant in the devotion of his time and abilities to the public service, is a great advantage. ”

“ War, war upon a State or a people, must have a legal basis, if those who wage it are to be entitled to the privileges and immunities of soldiers. On the other hand, to enforce the laws of the United States against obstructions put in the way of their execution by individuals or unlawful combinations, was not to make war. But for this purpose, President Buchanan could not obtain from Congress the necessary means. ”

“ It is a painful part of an historian’s duty to reflect upon the conduct of public men, who had it in their power at least to 437show a willingness to save their country from the calamity of civil war, and who appear to have been indifferent to everything but the dogmas of a party platform. This special message of President Buchanan, in the circumstances of the moment, was entitled to the gravest attention and respect. ”

“ Buchanan’s policy, from the very first, to save these so-called border States from joining the Southern Confederacy. [164] He could not prevent the formation of that Confederacy among the cotton States, without exercising powers which the Constitution had not conferred upon 501him. To make aggressive war upon a State, or its people, in order to prevent it or them from doing an unconstitutional act, or because one had been committed, was clearly not within the constitutional powers of the Executive, even if it was within the constitutional powers of Congress. ”

“ No other question remains for adjustment, because all agree that under the Constitution slavery in the States is beyond the reach of any human power except that of the respective States themselves wherein it exists. May we not, then, hope that the long agitation on this subject is approaching its end, and that the geographical parties to which it has given birth, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, will speedily become extinct? Most happy will it be for the country when the public mind shall be diverted from this question to others of more pressing and practical importance. ”