Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
Footnotes have been gathered at the end of each chapter.
Please consult the note at the end of this text for a discussion of any
textual issues encountered in its preparation.
[Illustration: James Buchanan]
LIFE
OF
JAMES BUCHANAN
FIFTEENTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
BY
GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS
_IN TWO VOLUMES_
VOL. I.
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1883
Copyright, 1883, by GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS.
_All rights reserved._
-------
_Stereotyped by Smith & McDougal._
PREFACE.
Notwithstanding the proverbial tendency of biographers to contract what
Macaulay has called “the disease of admiration,” no one who can lay
claim to any strength of mind need allow the fear of such an imputation
to prevent him from doing justice to a public man whose life, for
whatever reason, he has undertaken to write. But that my readers may
judge of the degree of my exposure to this malady, a frank explanation
of the circumstances under which I came to write this work is due both
to them and to myself.
In the summer of 1880, the executors and the nearest surviving relatives
of Mr. Buchanan asked me to allow them to place in my hands the whole
collection of his private papers, with a view to the preparation of a
biographical and historical work concerning his public and private life.
This duty could not have been undertaken by me, without an explicit
understanding that I was to treat the subject in an entirely independent
and impartial spirit. To be of much value, the work, as I conceived,
must necessarily be, to some extent, a history of the times in which Mr.
Buchanan acted an important part as a public man. Moreover, although I
had been for far the greater part of this period an attentive observer
of public affairs, I had no special interest in Mr. Buchanan’s fame, and
was never personally known to him. I could have no object, therefore, of
any kind, to subserve, save the truth of history; nor did the
representatives of Mr. Buchanan desire me, in assuming the office of his
biographer, to undertake that of an official eulogist. I have sought for
information, aside from the papers of the late President, in many
quarters where I knew that I could obtain it; but the opinions,
inferences and conclusions contained in these volumes are exclusively my
own, excepting in the few instances in which I have expressly quoted
those of other persons. No one has exercised or endeavored to exercise
the slightest influence over what I have said of Mr. Buchanan, and I
acknowledge and have felt no loyalty to his reputation beyond the
loyalty that every man owes to justice and to truth.
I have thought it proper to say this much concerning my relations to the
family of Mr. Buchanan, for two reasons. The President, by his will,
appointed as his biographer a personal friend, the late Mr. William B.
Reed of Philadelphia, in whom he had great confidence, and who was a
very accomplished writer. But Mr. Reed was prevented by private
misfortunes from doing anything more than to examine Mr. Buchanan’s
voluminous papers, and to prepare two introductory chapters of the
intended Life. Of these I could make no use, as they did not accord with
my method of treating the subject. After Mr. Reed had surrendered the
task which he had undertaken, the papers were placed in the hands of the
late Judge John Cadwallader of Philadelphia, another personal friend of
the President. This gentleman died before he had begun to write the
proposed work; and when the papers, which had been placed in his hands
by the executors, came into mine, along with another large collection
from Wheatland, I had to subject them to an entirely new arrangement and
classification, before anything could be done. In resorting to a
stranger as the biographer of Mr. Buchanan, his executors and friends
did what circumstances had rendered unavoidable. The only assurance I
can give is that I have had no reason to be otherwise than strictly
faithful to what I believe to be the truth concerning the whole of Mr.
Buchanan’s career.
The other reason for a candid explanation of my relation to this subject
will occur to every one. Mr. Buchanan’s administration of the Government
during the four years which preceded the commencement of our civil war,
is a topic upon which friends and foes have widely differed. But no
unprejudiced person who now examines the facts can doubt that, in many
minds, injustice has been done to him. Perhaps this was inevitable,
considering that a sectional civil war, of vast magnitude and attended
with great bitterness, followed immediately after his retirement from
office, when a political party which had been in opposition to his
administration came for the first time into the full control of the
Federal Government. It was in the nature of things—or rather, I should
say, it was in the nature of man—that those who succeeded to the
Government should have charged upon the outgoing administration that
they had been remiss in their public duty; and that under the example of
men in high places, there should have grown up a popular belief that Mr.
Buchanan favored the secession of the Southern States, either purposely,
or by lack of the proper energy to meet it in its incipient stages.
Charges of this kind found popular credence in a time of unexampled
excitement; and since the war was ended, there have been, and doubtless
there still are, many persons who regard President Buchanan as a man who
could have saved the country from a frightful civil war, if he had had
the wish and the energy to nip Secession in the bud.
Such, at all events, were the reproaches with which many of his
countrymen pursued him into retirement, and continued to follow him to
his grave. Denied as he was a hearing while he lived, because the perils
and turmoils of the immediate present unfitted men to look
dispassionately back into the past, he may well have desired that in
some calmer time, when he had gone where there is neither ignorance, nor
prejudice, nor rancor, some one should “read his cause aright to the
unsatisfied.” To that better time he looked forward with an undoubting
faith in the ultimate justice of his country. I believe that the time
which he anticipated has come; and that nothing more than a proper
examination of the facts is now needed, to insure for him all the
vindication that he could ever have desired.
In regard to this and to every other part of his life, I have found it
an interesting task to trace the history of a man whose public and
private character were always pure, whose patriotism was co-extensive
with his whole country, whose aims were high, and who was habitually
conscientious in the discharge of every obligation. My estimate of his
abilities and power as a statesman has risen with every investigation
that I have made; and it is, in my judgment, not too much to say of him
as a President of the United States, that he is entitled to stand very
high on the catalogue—not a large one—of those who have had the moral
courage to encounter misrepresentation and obloquy, rather than swerve
from the line of duty which their convictions marked out for them.
I must say a few words in explanation of my method of describing
important public transactions, the interest in which attaches both to
the events and to an individual who has borne a chief part in them.
There are two modes of historical writing. One is to make a narrative of
the course of a foreign negotiation, for example, or of any other public
action, without quoting despatches or documents. The other, which
scarcely rises above the dignity of compilation, is to let the story be
told mainly by the documents. But in biography, where the interest
centres for the nonce in some principal actor, I conceive that the
better course is to unite the two methods, by so much of description as
is needful to illustrate the documents, and by so much of quotation as
is needful to give force to the narrative. It often happens, however,
that the private letters which a person in high official station
receives or writes, are quite valuable to the elucidation of official
papers and official acts, as they certainly may render a description
more lively than it would be without them. The collection of Mr.
Buchanan’s papers is exceedingly rich in private correspondence, both
with persons towards whom he stood in official, and with other persons
towards whom he stood in only social, relations; and I have drawn
largely upon these materials. Whether I have accomplished the object at
which I have aimed, the reader will judge. It is for me to do no more
than to apprise him that I have endeavored to write for his instruction
and his entertainment, as well as to render justice to the person whose
life I have described. To vindicate in all things the public policy of
the party with which he acted, has not been my aim. I have only sought
to exhibit it in its true relation to the history of the times.
Sincerity and strength of conviction were as characteristic of those to
whom Mr. Buchanan was politically opposed, as they were of his political
associates.
It is perhaps almost superfluous for me to say that it would have been
impracticable for me within the limits of these two volumes to give an
account of every debate in Congress in which Mr. Buchanan took part, or
of every transaction with which he was connected as a foreign minister,
as Secretary of State, or as President. Such of his speeches as I have
quoted at length have been selected because of the interest that still
attaches to the subject, or some part of it, or because they illustrate
his powers as a debater; and in making selections or quotations from his
diplomatic papers, I have been unavoidably confined to those which
related to critical questions in our foreign relations. It was equally
impracticable for me to touch upon the connections which he had with
numerous political persons in the course of a public life of forty
years. I have drawn a necessary line, and have drawn it between those
with whom he stood in some important official relation, or who occupied
important public positions, and those who belong in the category of
politicians more or less prominent and active, with whom all very
eminent public men have more or less to do; including the former and
excluding the latter. But of course I have varied this rule in the case
of friends who stood in personal rather than political relations with
him.
It remains for me to give a description of the materials of which I have
made use, and to make the customary acknowledgments to those who
supplied them.
Any man who has been in public life for a long period of time, and has
attained to the highest public stations, must necessarily have
accumulated a vast amount of materials of the highest importance to the
elucidation of his own history and of the history of the times in which
he has acted. Mr. Buchanan had a habit of preserving nearly everything
that came into his hands. The mass of his private correspondence is
enormous. I can hardly specify the number of letters that I have had to
read, in order to form an adequate idea of the state of the public mind
in the opposite sections of the Union during the period when he first
had to encounter the secession movement. My recollection of the
condition of public opinion at such junctures was pretty vivid, but I
could not venture to trust to it without examining the best evidence;
for undoubtedly the best evidence of public opinion was to be found in
the private letters which at such periods reached the President from all
quarters of the country. Many hundreds of such letters have been
examined, in order to write, and to write correctly, a very few pages.
Mr. Buchanan had also another habit of great utility. Although he did
not always keep a regular diary or journal, he rarely held an important
conversation, or was engaged in a critical transaction, without writing
down an account of it with his own hand immediately afterward. These
extremely valuable memoranda will be found to throw great light upon
many matters that have hitherto been left in obscurity, or have been
entirely misrepresented. He was also an indefatigable letter-writer; and
of those of his own letters of which he did not keep copies, he procured
many from his correspondents after his retirement to Wheatland. He wrote
freely, easily, and I should think rapidly. His familiar letters rarely
received or required much correction; but his official productions were
polished with great care.
The principal mass of these papers, along with the public documents
which were connected with them, was collected by Mr. Buchanan himself,
in the interval between his retirement from the Presidency and his
death. This collection was placed in my hands by his brother and
executor, the Rev. Edward Y. Buchanan, D.D., of Philadelphia. Another
large collection came to me from Mr. and Mrs. Henry E. Johnston, the
present possessors of Wheatland. Mrs. Johnston enriched the collection
of papers which were sent to me from Wheatland, by adding to them a
great quantity of her uncle’s letters to herself, of which she kindly
permitted me to take copies.
From James Buchanan Henry, Esq., nephew of the President, and for some
time his private secretary, and from Miss Buchanan, daughter of the Rev.
Dr. Buchanan, I have received interesting contributions, which have
found their place in my work.
Next to these, the immediate relatives of President Buchanan, I am
indebted to the Hon. Jeremiah S. Black, Attorney-General and afterwards
Secretary of State during Mr. Buchanan’s Presidency, for important
information. I am under like obligations to Brinton Coxe and Joseph B.
Baker, Esqs., of Philadelphia, friends of the late President.
And finally, from my own valued friend of many years, Samuel L. M.
Barlow, Esq., of New York, I have received two very interesting
contributions, which are quoted and credited in their appropriate
places. I am also under a similar obligation to W. U. Hensel, Esq., of
Lancaster, and to George Plumer Smith, Esq., of Philadelphia. Nor should
I omit to mention the name of Hiram B. Swarr, Esq., co-executor with Dr.
Buchanan, and the confidential lawyer of the late President, at
Lancaster, as one who has very materially aided my researches.
NEW YORK, May 1, 1883.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
1791–1820.
PAGE
Birth and Parentage—Early Education and College Life—Study 1
of the Law—Admission to the Bar—Settles in Lancaster—A
Volunteer in the War of 1812—Enters the Legislature of
Pennsylvania—Early Distinction—Professional Income—Retires
from Public Life—Disappointment in Love—Re-enters Public
Life—Elected to Congress