CHAPTER XXII.

1848–1849.

Central America—The Monroe Doctrine, and the Clayton-Bulwer 619

Treaty

LIFE OF JAMES BUCHANAN.

CHAPTER I.

1791–1820.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE—EARLY EDUCATION AND COLLEGE LIFE—STUDY 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.

Autobiography, when it exists, usually furnishes the most interesting

and reliable information of at least the early life of any man. Among

the papers of Mr. Buchanan, there remains a fragment of an

autobiography, without date, written however, it is supposed, many years

before his death. This sketch, for it is only a sketch, ends with the

year 1816, when he was at the age of twenty-five. I shall quote from it,

in connection with the events of this part of his life, adding such

further elucidations of its text as the other materials within my reach

enable me to give.

The following is the account which Mr. Buchanan gives of his birth and

parentage:

“My father, James Buchanan, was a native of the county Donegal, in the

kingdom of Ireland. His family was respectable; but their pecuniary

circumstances were limited. He emigrated to the United States before the

date of the Definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain; having sailed

from —— in the brig Providence, bound for Philadelphia, in 1783. He was

then in the twenty-second year of his age. Immediately after his arrival

in Philadelphia, he proceeded to the house of his maternal uncle, Mr.

Joshua Russel, in York county. After spending a short time there, he

became an assistant in the store of Mr. John Tom, at Stony Batter, a

country place at the foot of the North Mountain, then in Cumberland (now

in Franklin county.)

“He commenced business for himself, at the same place, about the

beginning of the year 1788; and on the 16th of April, in the same year,

was married to Elizabeth Speer. My father was a man of practical

judgment, and of great industry and perseverance. He had received a good

English education, and had that kind of knowledge of mankind which

prevented him from being ever deceived in his business. With these

qualifications, with the facility of obtaining goods on credit at

Baltimore at that early period, and with the advantages of his position,

it being one of a very few spots where the people of the western

counties came with pack horses loaded with wheat to purchase and carry

home salt and other necessaries, his circumstances soon improved. He

bought the Dunwoodie farm for £1500 in 1794, and had previously

purchased the property on which he resided at the Cove Gap.

“I was born at this place on the 23d of April, 1791, being my father’s

second child. My father moved from the Cove Gap to Mercersburg, a

distance of between three and four miles, in the autumn of 1796, and

began business in Mercersburg in the autumn of 1798. For some years

before his death, which occurred on the 11th of June, 1821, he had quite

a large mercantile business, and devoted much of his time and attention

to superintending his farm, of which he was very fond. He was a man of

great native force of character. He was not only respected, but beloved

by everybody who approached him. In his youth, he held the commission of

a justice of the peace; but finding himself so overrun with the business

of this office as to interfere with his private affairs, he resigned his

commission. A short time before his death, he again received a

commission of the peace from Governor Hiester. He was a kind father, a

sincere friend, and an honest and religious man.

“My mother, considering her limited opportunities in early life, was a

remarkable woman. The daughter of a country farmer, engaged in household

employment from early life until after my father’s death, she yet found

time to read much, and to reflect deeply on what she read. She had a

great fondness for poetry, and could repeat with ease all the passages

in her favorite authors which struck her fancy. These were Milton, Pope,

Young, Cowper, and Thomson. I do not think, at least until a late period

of her life, she had ever read a criticism on any one of these authors,

and yet such was the correctness of her natural taste that she had

selected for herself, and could repeat, every passage in them which has

been admired.

“She was a sincere and devoted Christian from the time of my earliest

recollection, and had read much on the subject of theology; and what she

read once, she remembered forever. For her sons, as they successively

grew up, she was a delightful and instructive companion. She would argue

with them, and often gain the victory; ridicule them in any folly or

eccentricity; excite their ambition, by presenting to them in glowing

colors men who had been useful to their country or their kind, as

objects of imitation, and enter into all their joys and sorrows. Her

early habits of laborious industry, she could not be induced to

forego—whilst she had anything to do. My father did everything he could

to prevent her from laboring in her domestic concerns, but it was all in

vain. I have often, during the vacations at school or college, sat in

the room with her, and whilst she was (entirely from her own choice)

busily engaged in homely domestic employments, have spent hours

pleasantly and instructively in conversing with her. She was a woman of

great firmness of character and bore the afflictions of her later life

with Christian philosophy. After my father’s death, she lost her two

sons, William and George Washington, two young men of great promise, and

a favorite daughter. These afflictions withdrew her affections gradually

more and more from the things of this world—and she died on the 14th of

May, 1833, at Greensburg, in the calm but firm assurance that she was

going home to her Father and her God. It was chiefly to her influence

that her sons were indebted for a liberal education. Under Providence, I

attribute any little distinction which I may have acquired in the world

to the blessing which He conferred upon me in granting me such a

mother.”

The parents of Mr. Buchanan were both of Scotch-Irish descent, and

Presbyterians. At what time this branch of the Buchanan family emigrated

from Scotland to Ireland is not known; but John Buchanan, the

grandfather of the President, who was a farmer in the county of Donegal

in Ireland, married Jane Russel, about the middle of the last century.

She was a daughter of Samuel Russel, who was also a farmer of

Scotch-Presbyterian descent in the same county. James Buchanan, their

son, and father of the President, was brought up by his mother’s

relatives. Elizabeth Speer, the President’s mother, was the only

daughter of James Speer, who was also of Scotch-Presbyterian ancestry,

and who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1756. James Speer and his wife

(Mary Patterson) settled at first on a farm ten miles from Lancaster,

and afterwards at the foot of the South Mountain between Chambersburg

and Gettysburg. It is told in some memoranda which now lie before me,

that in 1779, James Speer left the “Covenanted Church,” on account of

difficulties with Mr. Dobbins, his pastor, and was afterwards admitted

to full communion in the Presbyterian congregation under the care of the

Rev. John Black. This incident sufficiently indicates the kind of

religious atmosphere in which Mrs. Buchanan grew up; and the letters of

both parents to their son, from which I shall have occasion to quote

frequently, afford abundant evidence of that deep and peculiar piety

which characterized the sincere Christians of their denomination. They

were married on the 16th of April, 1788, when Mrs. Buchanan was just

twenty-one, and her husband twenty-seven. Eleven children were born to

them between 1789 and 1811. James, the future President, was born April

23d, 1791.

Of his early education and his college life, he gives this account:

“After having received a tolerably good English education, I studied the

Latin and Greek languages at a school in Mercersburg. It was first kept

by the Rev. James R. Sharon, then a student of divinity with Dr. John

King, and afterwards by a Mr. McConnell and Dr. Jesse Magaw, then a

student of medicine, and subsequently my brother-in-law. I was sent to

Dickinson College in the fall of 1807, where I entered the junior class.

“The college was in a wretched condition; and I have often regretted

that I had not been sent to some other institution. There was no

efficient discipline, and the young men did pretty much as they pleased.

To be a sober, plodding, industrious youth was to incur the ridicule of

the mass of the students. Without much natural tendency to become

dissipated, and chiefly from the example of others, and in order to be

considered a clever and a spirited youth, I engaged in every sort of

extravagance and mischief in which the greatest proficients of the

college indulged. Unlike the rest of this class, however, I was always a

tolerably hard student, and never was deficient in my college exercises.

“A circumstance occurred, after I had been a year at college, which made

a strong and lasting impression upon me. During the September vacation,

in the year 1808, on a Sabbath morning, whilst I was sitting in the room

with my father, a letter was brought to him. He opened it, and read it,

and I observed that his countenance fell. He then handed it to me and

left the room, and I do not recollect that he ever afterwards spoke to

me on the subject of it. It was from Dr. Davidson, the Principal of

Dickinson College. He stated that, but for the respect which the faculty

entertained for my father, I would have been expelled from college on

account of disorderly conduct. That they had borne with me as best they

could until that period; but that they would not receive me again, and

that the letter was written to save him the mortification of sending me

back and having me rejected. Mortified to the soul, I at once determined

upon my course. Dr. John King was at the time pastor of the congregation

to which my parents belonged. He came to that congregation shortly after

the Revolution, and continued to be its pastor until his death. He had

either married or baptized all its members. He participated in their

joys as well as their sorrows, and had none of the gloomy bigotry which

too often passes in these days for superior sanctity. He was, I believe,

a trustee of the college, and enjoyed great and extensive influence

wherever he was known. To him I applied with the greatest confidence in

my extremity. He gave me a gentle lecture—the more efficient on that

account. He then proposed to me, that if I would pledge my honor to him

to behave better at college than I had done, he felt such confidence in

me that he would pledge himself to Dr. Davidson on my behalf, and he did

not doubt that I would be permitted to return. I cheerfully complied

with this condition; Dr. King arranged the matter, and I returned to

college, without any questions being asked; and afterwards conducted

myself in such a manner as, at least, to prevent any formal complaint.

At the public examination, previous to the commencement, I answered

without difficulty every question which was propounded to me. At that

time there were two honors conferred by the college. It was the custom

for each of the two societies to present a candidate, and the faculty

decided which of them should have the first honor, and the second was

conferred upon the other candidate as a matter of course. I had set my

heart upon obtaining the highest, and the society to which I belonged

unanimously presented me as their candidate. As I believed that this

society, from the superior scholarship of its members, was entitled to

both, on my motion we presented two candidates to the faculty. The

consequence was, that they rejected me altogether, gave the first honor

to the candidate of the opposite society, and the second to Mr. Robert

Laverty, now of Chester county, assigning as a reason for rejecting my

claims that it would have a bad tendency to confer an honor of the

college upon a student who had shown so little respect as I had done for

the rules of the college and for the professors.

“I have scarcely ever been so much mortified at any occurrence of my

life as at this disappointment, nor has friendship ever been manifested

towards me in a more striking manner than by all the members of the

society to which I belonged. Mr. Laverty, at once, in the most kind

manner, offered to yield me the second honor, which, however, I declined

to accept. The other members of the society belonging to the senior

class would have united with me in refusing to speak at the approaching

commencement, but I was unwilling to place them in this situation on my

account, and more especially as several of them were designed for the

ministry. I held out myself for some time, but at last yielded on

receiving a kind communication from the professors. I left college,

however, feeling but little attachment towards the Alma Mater.”

In regard to the danger of his expulsion from the college, which Mr.

Buchanan has frankly recorded in his autobiographical fragment, I find

no other reference to it. But I have seen in the note-books of his

studies and in the notes which he kept of lectures that he attended,

abundant proof that he was, as he says, “a tolerably hard student.” He

seems to have had a strong propensity to logic and metaphysics, and of

these studies there are copious traces in his own handwriting. The

incident which he relates concerning his disappointment in not receiving

one of the highest of the college honors at his graduating

“commencement,” is thus touched upon in a letter from his father:

MERCERSBURG, September 6, 1809.

DEAR SON:—

Yours is at hand (though without date) which mortifies us very much for

your disappointment, in being deprived of both honors of the college,

especially when your prospect was so fair for one of them, and more so

when it was done by the professors who are acknowledged by the world to

be the best judges of the talents and merits of the several students

under their care. I am not disposed to censure your conduct in being

ambitious to have the first honors of the college; but as it was thought

that Mr. F. and yourself were best entitled to them, you and he ought to

have compounded the matter so as to have left it to the disposition of

your several societies, and been contented with their choice. The

partiality you complain of in the professors is, no doubt, an unjust

thing in them, and perhaps it has proceeded from some other cause than

that which you are disposed to ascribe to them.

Often when people have the greatest prospects of temporal honor and

aggrandizement, they are all blasted in a moment by a fatality connected

with men and things; and no doubt the designs of Providence may be seen

very conspicuously in our disappointments, in order to teach us our

dependency on Him who knows all events, and they ought to humble our

pride and self-sufficiency...... I think it was a very partial decision,

and calculated to hurt your feelings. Be that as it will, I hope you

will have fortitude enough to surmount these things. Your great

consolation is in yourself, and if you can say your right was taken from

you by a partial spirit and given to those to whom it ought not to be

given, you must for the present submit. The more you know of mankind,

the more you will distrust them. It is said the knowledge of mankind and

the distrust of them are reciprocally connected......

I approve of your conduct in being prepared with an oration, and if upon

delivery it be good sense, well spoken, and your own composition, your

audience will think well of it whether it be spoken first, or last, or

otherwise......

We anticipate the pleasure of seeing you shortly, when I hope all these

little clouds will be dissipated.

From your loving and affectionate father,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

Following Mr. Buchanan’s sketch of his early life, we come to the period

immediately after he graduated from Dickinson College.

I came to Lancaster to study law with the late Mr. Hopkins, in the month

of December, 1809, and was admitted to practice in November, 1812. I

determined that if severe application would make me a good lawyer, I

should not fail in this particular; and I can say, with truth, that I

have never known a harder student than I was at that period of my life.

I studied law, and nothing but law, or what was essentially connected

with it. I took pains to understand thoroughly, as far as I was capable,

everything which I read; and in order to fix it upon my memory and give

myself the habit of extempore speaking, I almost every evening took a

lonely walk, and embodied the ideas which I had acquired during the day

in my own language. This gave me a habit of extempore speaking, and that

not merely words but things. I derived great improvement from this

practice.

It would seem that young Buchanan remained at home with his parents

after he had graduated until the month of December, when he went to

Lancaster and entered himself as a student at law, in the office of Mr.

Hopkins. The following letters from his parents give all that I am able

to glean respecting the period of his law pupilage, and the choice of a

permanent residence after he had been admitted to practice, which was,

it seems, in November, 1812.

[FROM HIS FATHER.]

March 12, 1810.

...... I am very glad to hear you are so well pleased with Lancaster,

and with the study of the law.

...... I hope you will guard against the temptations that may offer

themselves in this way, or any other, knowing that without religion all

other things are as trifles, and will soon pass away...... Your young

acquaintances often talk of you, and with respect and esteem. Go on with

your studies, and endeavor to be eminent in your profession.

Mr. Buchanan was admitted to the bar in the year which saw the

commencement of the war with Great Britain, under the Presidency of Mr.

Madison. His early political principles were those of the Federalists,

who disapproved of the war. Yet, as the following passages in his

autobiography show, he was not backward in his duty as a citizen:[1]

The first public address I ever made before the people was in 1814, a

short time after the capture of Washington by the British. In common

with the Federalists, generally, of the Middle and Southern States,

whilst I disapproved of the declaration of war under the circumstances

in which it was made, yet I thought it was the duty of every patriot to

defend the country, whilst the war was raging, against a foreign enemy.

The capture of Washington lighted up a flame of patriotism which

pervaded the whole of Pennsylvania. A public meeting was called in

Lancaster for the purpose of adopting measures to obtain volunteers to

march for the defence of Baltimore. On that occasion I addressed the

people, and was among the first to register my name as a volunteer. We

immediately formed a company of dragoons, and elected the late Judge

Henry Shippen our captain. We marched to Baltimore, and served under the

command of Major Charles Sterret Ridgely, until we were honorably

discharged. This company of dragoons was the _avant courier_ of the

large force which rushed from Pennsylvania to the defence of Baltimore.

Mr. Buchanan’s entrance into public life is thus described by himself:

In October, 1814, I was elected a member of the House of

Representatives, in the Legislature, from the county of Lancaster. The

same principles which guided my conduct in sustaining the war,

notwithstanding my opposition to its declaration, governed my course

after I became a member of the Legislature. An attack was threatened

against the city of Philadelphia. The General Government was nearly

reduced to a state of bankruptcy, and could scarcely raise sufficient

money to maintain the regular troops on the remote frontiers of the

country. Pennsylvania was obliged to rely upon her own energies for the

defence, and the people generally, of all parties, were ready to do

their utmost in the cause.

Two plans were proposed. The one was what was called the Conscription

Bill, and similar to that which had been rejected by Congress, reported

in the [State] Senate by Mr. Nicholas Biddle, by which it was proposed

to divide the white male inhabitants of the State above the age of

eighteen into classes of twenty-two men each, and to designate one man

by lot from the numbers between the ages of eighteen and forty-five of

each class, who should serve one year, each class being compelled to

raise a sum not exceeding two hundred dollars, as a bounty to the

conscript. This army was to be paid and maintained at the expense of the

State, and its estimated cost would have been between three and three

and one-half million of dollars per annum. The officers were to be

appointed by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the

Senate.

The other was to raise six regiments under the authority of the State,

to serve for three years, or during the war, and to pass efficient

volunteer and militia laws.

[_Here the narrative changes to the third person._]

“On the 1st of February, 1815, Mr. 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; he must be taught to

respect the rights of freedom.’

“Again, speaking of the Conscription Bill, he said: ‘This law is

calculated to be very unjust and very unequal in its effects. Whilst it

will operate as a conscription law upon the poor man in the western

parts of the State, where property is not in danger, it will be but a

militia law with the rich man in the eastern part of the State, whose

property it contemplates defending. The individuals in each class are,

to be sure, to pay the two hundred dollars in proportion to their

comparative wealth, as a bounty to the substitute or conscript. It will,

therefore, be just in its operation among the individuals composing each

class, but how will it be with respect to entire classes? Twenty-two men

in the city of Philadelphia, whose united fortunes would be worth two

million dollars, would be compelled to pay no more than twenty-two men

in the western country, who may not be worth the one-thousandth part of

that sum.’

“After Mr. Buchanan had stated that he would have voted for the

Enlistment Bill, had he not been necessarily absent when it passed the

House, he said: ‘After all, I must confess, that in my opinion an

efficient volunteer and militia bill, together with the troops which can

be raised under the Voluntary Enlistment Bill, will be amply sufficient

for the defence of the city of Philadelphia. We need not be afraid to

trust to the patriotism or courage of the people of this country when

they are invaded. Let them have good militia officers, and they will

soon be equal to any troops of the world. Have not the volunteers and

militia on the Niagara frontier fought in such a manner as to merit the

gratitude of the nation? Is it to be supposed that the same spirit of

patriotism would animate the man who is dragged out by a conscription

law to defend his country, that the volunteer or militiaman would feel?

Let us, then, pass an efficient militia law, and the Volunteer Bill

which is now before us. Let us hold out sufficient inducement to our

citizens to turn out, as volunteers. Let their patriotism be stimulated

by self-interest, and I have no doubt that in the day of trial there

will be armies of freemen in the field sufficiently large for our

protection. Your State will then be defended at a trifling comparative

expense, the liberties of the people will be preserved, and their

willingness to bear new burdens be continued.’

“The bill having passed the Senate, was negatived in the House, on the

3d of February, 1815, by the decisive vote of 51 to 36. It was entitled

‘An act to raise a military force for the defence of this Commonwealth.’

The Senate and the House thus differed in regard to the best mode of

defending the Commonwealth; the one being friendly to the Conscription

Bill, and the other to the Voluntary Enlistment and Volunteer Bill. All

agreed upon the necessity of adopting efficient means for this purpose.

Before any final action was had upon the subject, the news of peace

arrived, and was officially communicated by Governor Snyder to the

Legislature on the 17th February, 1815.”

So open and decided was I in my course in favor of defending the

country, notwithstanding my disapproval of the declaration of war, that

I distinctly recollect that the late William Beale, the shrewd,

strong-minded, and influential Democratic Senator from Mifflin county,

called upon me, and urged me strongly during the session to change my

[political] name, and be called a Democrat, stating that I would have no

occasion to change my principles. In that event, he said he would

venture to predict that, should I live, I would become President of the

United States. He was mistaken, for although I was friendly to a

vigorous prosecution of the war, I was far from being a “Democrat” in

principle.

[FROM HIS FATHER.]

September 22, 1814.

DEAR SON:—

I received your letter of the 9th ult. from Baltimore, which stated that

you were then honorably discharged. This news was very gratifying, as at

that moment we received accounts that the British were making their

attack on Baltimore, both by sea and land, and consequently our

forebodings with respect to your fate were highly wound up......

You say you are in nomination for the Assembly. I am not certain that it

will be to your advantage, as it will lead you off from the study and

practice of the law. If by your industry and application you could

become eminent at the bar, that would be preferable to being partly a

politician and partly a lawyer. However, you must now be directed by

circumstances and the counsel of your friends.

...... The Assembly has passed a law for the benefit of the poor, which

in fact prevents them from paying any debts, as they hold all under

cover of the reserve made them in the law. So much for popularity at the

expense of justice.

October 21, 1814.

DEAR SON:—

I received yours by Mr. Evans, informing me you were elected to the

Assembly. The circumstances of your being so popular amongst your

neighbors as to give you a majority over Isaac Wayne, who, I suppose,

was one of the highest on your ticket, is very gratifying to me, and I

hope your conduct will continue to merit their approbation. But above

all earthly enjoyments, endeavor to merit the esteem of heaven; and that

Divine Providence who has done so much for you heretofore, will never

abandon you in the hour of trial. Perhaps your going to the Legislature

may be to your advantage, and it may be otherwise. I hope you will make

the best of the thing now. The feelings of parents are always alive to

the welfare of their children, and I am fearful of this taking you from

the bar at a time when perhaps you may feel it most......

There is now every prospect of a continuation of the war. The terms

offered us by the British are such that no true American could comply

with, or submit to them...... News has just come to this place that Lord

Hill has arrived with 16,000 men.

From your loving father,

J. B.

January 20, 1815.

...... I am glad to find you are well pleased at being a member of the

Legislature. Perhaps it may have the effect you mention, that of

increasing your business hereafter. I am glad to hear that you mean to

proceed with caution, and speak only when you are well prepared for the

subject you mean to speak upon. You are young, consequently deficient in

experience; therefore you must supply that defect by watchfulness and

application, never forgetting that every gift you may possess flows from

that Being who has always been your friend, and will continue to be so,

if you are in your duty.

February 24, 1815.

DEAR SON:—

I expect you are now engaged in repealing many of those laws which have

been enacted for prosecuting the war with vigor. As the olive-branch has

been presented to us, it will change all our plans, and we will again be

permitted to return in peace to our different occupations, and ought to

thank heaven for the blessing. This night we are to illuminate this

place in consequence of peace. Those who have seen the treaty say it is

dishonorable to America; that there are none of those points gained for

which we declared war.

June 23, 1815.

...... You appear to hesitate about going to the Legislature again, and

I am both unable and unwilling to advise you on that point; but as it

appears your business has not decreased by being there last winter, I

would have no objection to your going another session, as it would

afford you another opportunity of improvement, and perhaps the people of

your district may some time elect you to Congress. Could you not get an

active young man as a student that could keep your office open in your

absence, and do a little business for you?......

You may expect to have many difficulties and dangers to encounter in

your passage through life, especially as your situation becomes

enviable; but I hope you will always depend upon the protection of that

kind Providence, who has dealt so kindly with you, to shield you from

the shafts of malicious enemies.

Your mother and the family send their kind love to you, and believe me

your loving father,

J. B.

The next event in his life of which I find any mention in his

autobiography, was the delivery of an oration before the Washington

Society of Lancaster, July 4, 1815, of which he speaks as follows:

On the 4th of July, 1815, I delivered the oration before the Washington

Association of Lancaster, which has been the subject of much criticism.

There are many sentiments in this oration which I regret; at the same

time it cannot be denied that the country was wholly unprepared for war,

at the period of its declaration, and the attempt to carry it on by

means of loans, without any resort to taxation, had well nigh made the

Government bankrupt. There is, however, a vein of feeling running

throughout the whole oration—of which, as I look back to it, I may be

excused for being proud—which always distinguishes between the conduct

of the administration and the necessity for defending the country.

Besides, it will be recollected that this oration was not delivered

until after the close of the war. I said: “Glorious it has been, in the

highest degree, to the American character, but disgraceful in the

extreme to the administration. When the individual States discovered

that they were abandoned by the General Government, whose duty it was to

protect them, the fortitude of their citizens arose with their

misfortunes. The moment we were invaded, the genius of freedom inspired

their souls. They rushed upon their enemies with a hallowed fury which

the hireling soldiers of Britain could never feel. They taught our foe

that the soil of freedom would always be the grave of its invaders.”

I spoke with pride and exultation of the exploits of the navy, and also

of the regular army during the last year of the war. The former “has

risen triumphant above its enemies at home, and has made the proud

mistress of the ocean tremble. The people are now convinced that a navy

is their best defence.”[2]

In the conclusion there is a passage concerning foreign influence which

must be approved by all. “Foreign influence has been, in every age, the

curse of Republics. Her jaundiced eye sees all things in false colors.

The thick atmosphere of prejudice, by which she is forever surrounded,

excludes from her sight the light of reason; whilst she worships the

nations which she favors for their very crimes, she curses the enemies

of that nation, even their virtues. In every age she has marched before

the enemies of her country, ‘proclaiming peace, when there was no

peace,’ and lulling its defenders into fatal security, whilst the iron

hand of despotism has been aiming a death-blow at their liberties.” And

again, “We are separated from the nations of Europe by an immense ocean.

We are still more disconnected from them by a different form of

government, and by the enjoyment of true liberty. Why, then, should we

injure ourselves by taking part in the ambitious contests of foreign

despots and kings?”

[FROM HIS FATHER.]

July 14, 1815.

No doubt you will have many political enemies to criticise your oration,

but you must take the consequences now. It is a strong mark of

approbation to have so many copies of it published. I hope to see one of

them.

I am busily engaged with my harvest. I am very glad I did not purchase

goods as I proposed, as they have fallen greatly in price.

September 1, 1815.

...... Myself and the family are very anxious to see you, yet I am glad

that your business is so good that you cannot, with propriety, leave it,

yet you must always make your calculations to come as often as you can.

Have you agreed to your nomination for the Legislature another session?

You know your own situation best. If you think proper to take another

seat, it has my approbation. I have read your oration, and I think it

well done. Perhaps it is a little too severe, and may hurt the feelings

of some of your friends, who have been friendly, independent of

politics. I have lent it to a few people who have asked for it, and they

all speak well of your performance.

Oct. 19, 1815.

...... It appears from the Lancaster Journal, you are again elected. I

wish you may end the next session with the same popularity as a

statesman that you gained in the last session.

Mr. Buchanan’s own account of his second term of service in the

Legislature is thus given:

I was again elected a member of the House of Representatives in the

State Legislature in October, 1815. The currency at that period was in

great disorder throughout the Middle, Western, and Southern States, in

consequence of the suspension of specie payments occasioned by the war.

On the 20th of December, 1815, a resolution was adopted by the House of

Representatives, instructing the Committee on Banks, “to inquire into

the causes of the suspension of specie payments by the banks within this

Commonwealth; and also, whether any or what measures ought to be adopted

by the Legislature on this subject.” This committee was composed of Mr.

McEuen, of the city; Milliken, of Mifflin; Stewart, of Fayette; and

Dysart, of Crawford. On the 12th of January, 1816, Mr. McEuen made a

report which concluded with a recommendation that a law should be

passed, obliging the banks to pay interest on balances to each other

monthly, at the rate of six per cent. per annum, after the 1st of March;

also, obliging the banks refusing to pay specie for their notes after

the 1st of January, 1817, to pay interest at the rate of eighteen per

cent. per annum from the time of demand; and forfeiting the charters of

such banks as should refuse to redeem their notes in specie after the

1st of January, 1818. A bare majority of the committee had concurred in

the report. The minority had requested me to prepare a substitute for

it, and offer it as soon as the report was read. This substitute

concluded with a resolution, “that it is inexpedient at this time for

the Legislature to adopt any compulsory measures relative to the banks.”

The original report and the substitute were postponed, and no action was

ever had afterwards upon either.

The substitute states the following to have been the causes of the

suspension of specie payments in Pennsylvania:

1. The blockade by the enemy of the Middle and Southern seaports, the

impossibility of getting their productions to market, and the consequent

necessity imposed upon them to pay in specie to New England the price of

the foreign merchandise imported into that portion of the Union.

2. The large loans made by banks and individuals of this and the

adjacent States to the Government to sustain the war, and the small

comparative loans made in New England, which were paid by an extravagant

issue of bank notes. These latter bore but a small proportion to the

money expended there. To make up this deficiency, the specie of the

Middle and Southern States was drawn from the vaults of these banks, and

was used by the New England people in commerce, or smuggled to the

enemy.

3. The great demand for specie in England.

4. The recent establishment of a number of new banks throughout the

interior of Pennsylvania, which drew their capital chiefly from the

banks in Philadelphia and thereby weakened them, compelled them first to

suspend specie payments. These new banks, in self-defence, were

therefore obliged to suspend.

5. The immense importation of foreign goods at the close of the war, and

the necessity of paying for them in specie, have continued the

suspension.

During this session, and whilst the debates on the subject were

proceeding in Congress, I changed my impression on the subject of a Bank

of the United States, and became decidedly hostile to such an

institution. In this opinion I have never since wavered, and although I

have invested much of the profits of my profession in stocks, and was

often advised by friends to buy stock in this bank, I always declined

becoming a stockholder. Whilst the bill was pending in Congress, I urged

Mr. Holgate and other influential Democrats in the House to offer

instructions against the measure, but could not prevail with them. I

recollect Mr. H. told me that it was unnecessary, as our Democratic

Senators in Congress would certainly vote against the measure without

any instructions.

Mr. Buchanan appears to have left the Legislature at the end of the

session of 1815–16, with a fixed determination to devote himself

exclusively to the practice of his profession. He says:

After my second session in the Legislature, I applied myself with

unremitting application to the practice of the law. My practice in

Lancaster and some of the adjoining counties was extensive, laborious,

and lucrative. It increased rapidly in value from the time I ceased to

be a member of the Legislature. During the year ending on the 1st of

April, 1819, I received in cash for professional services $7,915.92,

which was, down to that time, the best year I ever experienced.[3]

Among his professional employments at this period, I find the following

modest allusion to a cause in which he gained great distinction:

During the session of the Legislature of 1816–17 I alone defended the

Hon. Walter Franklin and his associates on articles of impeachment

against them before the Senate; and during the session of 1817–18, I

defended the same judges on other articles, and had for associates Mr.

Condy and Mr. Hopkins. I never felt the responsibility of my position

more sensibly than, when a young man between 25 and 26 years of age, I

undertook alone to defend Judge Franklin; and although he was anxious I

should, again the next year, undertake his cause without assistance, yet

I insisted upon the employment of older and more experienced counsel.

As the impeachment case referred to in the close of this sketch was the

occasion of Mr. Buchanan’s early distinction at the bar, a brief account

of it may be here given. It was a prosecution instituted from political

motives, and was a lamentable exhibition of party asperity. Judge

Franklin was the president judge of the court of common pleas for a

judicial district composed of the counties of Lancaster, Lebanon, and

York. His associates were not lawyers. At a period of great political

excitement, which had continued since the close of the war with Great

Britain, there arose a litigation in Judge Franklin’s court which grew

out of one of the occurrences of the war. In July, 1814, the President

had made a requisition on the Governor of Pennsylvania for the services

of certain regiments of militia. The troops were called and mustered

into the Federal service. Houston, a citizen of Lancaster, refused to

serve; he was tried by a court-martial, held under the authority of the

State, convicted, and sentenced to pay a fine. For this he brought an

action in the common pleas against the members of the court-martial and

its officer who had collected the fine. On the trial, Judge Franklin

ruled that when the militia had been mustered into the service of the

United States, the control of the State and its power to punish were

ended. The plaintiff, therefore, recovered a verdict. Judge Franklin was

subjected to this impeachment for ruling a point of law on which the

Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States afterwards differed.

In a diary kept by a gentleman who watched this impeachment with the

deepest interest, I find the following allusion to Mr. Buchanan’s

argument:

“This argument was conducted with great ingenuity, eloquence, and

address. It made a deep impression. It will tend very much to raise and

extend the reputation of Mr. Buchanan, and will have, I hope, a

favorable effect upon his future prospects as a lawyer and a

politician.”

The impression produced by Mr. Buchanan’s argument was so strong, that

the managers of the impeachment asked for an adjournment before they

replied to it. His defence was made upon the sound doctrine that

“impeachment” of a judge for a legal opinion, when no crime or

misdemeanor has been committed, is a constitutional solecism. The

respondent was acquitted, and his advocate acquired a great amount of

reputation for so young a man.

With an honorable and distinguished professional career thus opening

before him, a favorite in society both from his talents and his

character, young, high-spirited and full of energy, it seemed that

happiness had been provided for him by his own merits and a kind

Providence. But there now occurred an episode in his life which cast

upon him a never-ending sorrow. He became engaged to be married to a

young lady in Lancaster, who has been described to me, by persons who

knew her, as a very beautiful girl, of singularly attractive and gentle

disposition, but retiring and sensitive. Her father, Robert Coleman,

Esq., a wealthy citizen of Lancaster, entirely approved of the

engagement. After this connection had existed for some time, she

suddenly wrote a note to her lover and asked him to release her from the

engagement. There is no reason to believe that their mutual feelings had

in any degree changed. He could only reply that if it was her wish to

put an end to their engagement, he must submit. This occurred in the

latter part of the summer of 1819. The young lady died very suddenly,

while on a visit to Philadelphia, on the 9th of the December following,

in the twenty-third year of her age. Her remains were brought to her

father’s house in Lancaster, on the next Saturday, just one week from

the day on which she left home. “The funeral,” says the diary already

quoted from, “took place the next day, and was attended by a great

number of the inhabitants, who appeared to feel a deep sympathy with the

family on this distressing occasion.”

From the same source, I transcribe a little obituary notice, which was

published in a Lancaster paper on the 11th of December, and which the

diary states was written by Mr. Buchanan:

“Departed this life, on Thursday morning last, in the twenty-third year

of her age, while on a visit to her friends in the city of Philadelphia,

Miss Anne C. Coleman, daughter of Robert Coleman, Esquire, of this city.

It rarely falls to our lot to shed a tear over the mortal remains of one

so much and so deservedly beloved as was the deceased. She was

everything which the fondest parent or fondest friend could have wished

her to be. Although she was young and beautiful, and accomplished, and

the smiles of fortune shone upon her, yet her native modesty and worth

made her unconscious of her own attractions. Her heart was the seat of

all the softer virtues which ennoble and dignify the character of woman.

She has now gone to a world where in the bosom of her God she will be

happy with congenial spirits. May the memory of her virtues be ever

green in the hearts of her surviving friends. May her mild spirit, which

on earth still breathes peace and good-will, be their guardian angel to

preserve them from the faults to which she was ever a stranger—

“‘The spider’s most attenuated thread

Is cord, is cable, to man’s tender tie

On earthly bliss—it breaks at every breeze.’”

The following letter, written by Mr. Buchanan to the father of the young

lady, is all that remains of written evidence, to attest the depth of

his attachment to her:

[JAMES BUCHANAN TO ROBERT COLEMAN, ESQ.]

LANCASTER, December 10, 1819.

MY DEAR SIR:

You have lost a child, a dear, dear child. I have lost the only earthly

object of my affections, without whom life now presents to me a dreary

blank. My prospects are all cut off, and I feel that my happiness will

be buried with her in the grave. It is now no time for explanation, but

the time will come when you will discover that she, as well as I, have

been much abused. God forgive the authors of it. My feelings of

resentment against them, whoever they may be, are buried in the dust. I

have now one request to make, and, for the love of God and of your dear,

departed daughter whom I loved infinitely more than any other human

being could love, deny me not. Afford me the melancholy pleasure of

seeing her body before its interment. I would not for the world be

denied this request.

I might make another, but, from the misrepresentations which must have

been made to you, I am almost afraid. I would like to follow her remains

to the grave as a mourner. I would like to convince the world, and I

hope yet to convince you, that she was infinitely dearer to me than

life. I may sustain the shock of her death, but I feel that happiness

has fled from me forever. The prayer which I make to God without ceasing

is, that I yet may be able to show my veneration for the memory of my

dear departed saint, by my respect and attachment for her surviving

friends.

May Heaven bless you, and enable you to bear the shock with the

fortitude of a Christian.

I am, forever, your sincere and grateful friend,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

There is among Mr. Buchanan’s papers a letter written to him by one of

his friends, shortly after the death of Miss Coleman, which shows how

this affliction immediately affected him, and how it was regarded by

persons of high social standing in Pennsylvania, who were not prejudiced

by erroneous beliefs in regard to the circumstances which led to the

breaking of the engagement.

[AMOS ELLMAKER TO MR. BUCHANAN.]

December 20, 1819.

DEAR SIR:—

I hear you have left Lancaster, and have not heard where you have gone

to; but I take it for granted the absence will be short. I am writing, I

know not why, and perhaps had better not. I write only to speak of the

awful visitation of Providence that has fallen upon you, and how deeply

I feel it. The thought of your situation has scarcely been absent from

my mind ten days. I trust your restoration to your philosophy and

courage, and to the elasticity of spirits natural to most young men. Yet

time, the sovereign cure of all these, must intervene before much good

can be done. The sun will shine again—though a man enveloped in gloom

always thinks the darkness is to be eternal. Do you remember the Spanish

anecdote? A lady, who had lost a favorite child, remained for months

sunk in sullen sorrow and despair. Her confessor, one morning, visited

her, and found her, as usual, immersed in gloom and grief. “What!” says

he; “have you not forgiven God Almighty?” She rose, exerted herself,

joined the world again, and became useful to herself and friends.

Might I venture to hint advice? It would be to give full scope (contrary

to common advice on similar occasions), I say to give full vent and

unrestrained license to the feelings and thoughts natural in the case

for a time—which time may be a week, two weeks, three weeks, as nature

dictates—without scarcely a small effort during that time to rise above

the misfortune; then, when this time is past, to rouse, to banish

depressing thoughts, as far as possible, and engage most industriously

in business. My opinion is that too early an effort to shake off a very

heavy affliction is often, if not always, dangerous. An early effort is

futile, and worse—an unavailing struggle renders the mind cowardly, and

sinks the spirits deeper in gloom. The true way to conquer is to run

away at first. The storm which uproots the firmest oak passes harmlessly

over the willow.

Forgive all this talk; it opens in my own bosom a wound which a dozen

years have not cicatrized, and brings to my recollection a dark period

of my own days, the remembrance of which yet chills me with horror.

Two of your cases here may be tried. If they are, I will endeavor to

assist your colleague, Mr. Elder, for you, and for your benefit. This is

our court week for the civil list......

Mrs. E—— talks much of you, and if she knew I was writing, would have me

add her kindest message—indicative of the interest she feels. Farewell.

AMOS ELLMAKER.

In the course of Mr. Buchanan’s long subsequent political career, this

incident in his early life was often alluded to in partisan newspapers,

and in that species of literature called “campaign documents,”

accompanied by many perversions and misrepresentations. These

publications are each and all unworthy of notice. On one occasion, after

he had retired to Wheatland, and when he had passed the age of seventy,

he was shown by a friend a newspaper article, misrepresenting, as usual,

the details of this affair. He then said, with deep emotion, that there

were papers and relics which he had religiously preserved, then in a

sealed package in a place of deposit in the city of New York, which

would explain the trivial origin of this separation.[4] His executors

found these papers inclosed and sealed separately from all others, and

with a direction upon them in his handwriting, that they were to be

destroyed without being read. They obeyed the injunction, and burnt the

package without breaking the seal. It happened, however, that the

original of the letter addressed by Mr. Buchanan to the young lady’s

father, before her funeral, was not contained in this package. It was

found in his private depositaries at Wheatland; and it came there in

consequence of the fact that it was returned by the father unread and

unopened.

It is now known that the separation of the lovers originated in a

misunderstanding, on the part of the lady, of a very small matter,

exaggerated by giddy and indiscreet tongues, working on a peculiarly

sensitive nature. Such a separation, the commonest of occurrences, would

have ended, in the ordinary course, in reconciliation, when the parties

met, if death had not suddenly snatched away one of the sufferers, and

left the other to a life-long grief. But under the circumstances, I feel

bound to be governed by the spirit of Mr. Buchanan’s written instruction

to his executors, and not to go into the details of a story which show

that the whole occurrence was chargeable on the folly of others, and not

on either of the two whose interests were involved.

Among the few survivors of the circle to which this young lady belonged,

the remembrance of her sudden death is still fresh in aged hearts. The

estrangement of the lovers was but one of those common occurrences that

are perpetually verifying the saying, hackneyed by everlasting

repetition, that “the course of true love never did run smooth.”

But it ran, in this case, pure and unbroken in the heart of the

survivor, through a long and varied life. It became a grief that could

not be spoken of; to which only the most distant allusion could be made;

a sacred, unceasing sorrow, buried deep in the breast of a man who was

formed for domestic joys; hidden beneath manners that were most

engaging, beneath strong social tendencies, and a chivalrous

old-fashioned deference to women of all ages and all claims. His

peculiar and reverential demeanor towards the sex, never varied by rank,

or station, or individual attractions, was doubtless in a large degree

caused by the tender memory of what he had found, or fancied, in her

whom he had lost in his early days by such a cruel fate. If her death

had not prevented their marriage, it is probable that a purely

professional and domestic life would have filled up the measure alike of

his happiness and his ambition. It is certain that this occurrence

prevented him from ever marrying, and impelled him again into public

life, after he had once resolved to quit it. Soon after this

catastrophe, he was offered a nomination to a seat in Congress. He did

not suppose that he could be elected, and did not much desire to be. But

he was strongly urged to accept the candidacy, and finally consented,

chiefly because he needed an innocent excitement that would sometimes

distract him from the grief that was destined never to leave him.[5]

Great and uninterrupted, however, as was his political and social

success, he lived and died a widowed and a childless man. Fortunately

for him, a sister’s child, left an orphan at an early age, whom he

educated with the wisest care, filled to him the place of a daughter as

nearly and tenderly as such a relative could supply that want, adorning

with womanly accomplishments and virtues the high public stations to

which he was eventually called.

-----

Footnote 1:

Under the date of September 13, 1813, Mr. Buchanan’s father writes to

him: “Yesterday the fast day was kept here pretty unanimously. Mr.

Elliot gave us an excellent sermon, and spoke of the war as a

judgment, and the greatest calamity that could befall a people. He

showed it to be worse than the famine or the pestilence. In the two

latter cases, he said God acted as the immediate agent: in that of war

he acted by subordinate agents; therefore the calamity was the

greater.” This was the tone of many Federalist sermons.

Footnote 2:

“There is extant, according to the best of my recollection in the

National Intelligencer, though not in Everett’s edition of his works,

a speech of Mr. Webster in 1814, in the House of Representatives, on

the ‘Conduct of the War.’ It is very severe on the military

operations, especially in Canada (which no doubt, as a general thing,

deserved all that was said of them), but he dwells with pride on our

naval exploits. ‘However,’ says he, ‘we may differ as to what has been

done or attempted on land, our differences cease at the water’s

edge.’” (Note by Mr. Buchanan.)

Footnote 3:

I find a memorandum in Mr. Buchanan’s handwriting of his professional

emoluments during his years of active practice.

1813 $938│1821–2 $11,297

1814 $1,096│ 1823 $7,243

1815 $2,246│ 1825 $4,521

1816 $3,174│ 1826 $2,419

1817 $5,379│ 1827 $2,570

1818 $7,915│ 1828 $2,008

1819 $7,092│ 1829 $3,362

1820 $5,665│

Footnote 4:

These and other papers of importance were sent by Mr. Buchanan from

Wheatland to a bank in New York during the Civil War, when

Pennsylvania was threatened with an invasion by the Confederate

troops.

Footnote 5:

Conversing once in London with an intimate friend, very much younger

than himself (Mr. S. L. M. Barlow of New York), Mr. Buchanan said: “I

never intended to engage in politics, but meant to follow my

profession strictly. But my prospects and plans were all changed by a

most sad event which happened at Lancaster when I was a young man. As

a distraction from my great grief, and because I saw that through a

political following I could secure the friends I then needed, I

accepted a nomination.”

-----

CHAPTER II.

1820–1824.

MONROE’S ADMINISTRATION—EMINENT MEN IN CONGRESS—NOTICES OF WILLIAM

LOWNDES AND JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE—JOHN SARGEANT—BUCHANAN BECOMES

A LEADING DEBATER—BANKRUPT BILL—CUMBERLAND ROAD—THE TARIFF.

In the autumn of 1820, Mr. Buchanan was elected a Representative in

Congress for a district composed of the counties of Lancaster, York, and

Dauphin. He was nominated and elected as a Federalist. He took his seat

on the 3d of December, 1821.

Of course a young man of nine-and-twenty, who had been for two terms a

member of the Legislature of his native State, and had been somewhat

active in that body, was already possessed of some powers as a debater.

But his political principles, as a national statesman, were yet to be

formed. The “Federalism” of the period in which Mr. Buchanan came into

public life, and which was professed by those among whom he grew up,

chiefly consisted in an opposition to the war of 1812 and to some of the

measures of the Administration which conducted it. In the five years

which followed the peace of 1815, the sharper lines which had separated

the Federal and the Republican (or Democratic) parties, and their

distinctive organizations, almost disappeared. Mr. Monroe, who succeeded

Mr. Madison, was elected President, for the term commencing March 4,

1817, by a majority of 109 out of 217 electoral votes. At his second

election, for the term commencing March 4, 1821, his majority was 118

out of 235. This near approach to unanimity evinces almost an

obliteration of party distinctions. Mr. Monroe’s personal popularity and

the general confidence that was reposed in him had a considerable

influence in producing what was called “the era of good feeling.” which

prevailed while he administered the government. The Federalists, who had

been strongest in the North and the East, were conciliated by his first

Inaugural, while his strength was not weakened among the Republicans (or

Democrats) of the South. In truth, it was not until the war was over and

some of the animosities which it caused had begun to fade, that the

attention of men began to be directed to questions of internal

administration, which would involve an exploration of the Federal powers

and a discussion of policies applicable to a state of peace.

When Mr. Buchanan entered Congress there was no sectionalism to disturb

the repose of the country. The Cabinet was a fair representation of the

different sections, its members being from Massachusetts, New York,

Georgia, South Carolina, Ohio, and Maryland. It remained the same, with

one exception only, until Mr. Monroe went out of office in 1824.[6] It

is not easy to trace among the public men of this period any fixed

political doctrines such as afterwards came to distinguish the opposing

parties. All that can be said is, that in the Middle States those who

had been Republicans had a strong tendency to the Virginia principles of

State Rights; but what these were, beyond a general tendency to watch

and prevent undue expansion of the Federal powers, it would be difficult

now to say. In Congress, most of the Eastern representatives were Free

Traders, while those of the Middle States were in favor of moderate

protection. Among the Southern members there was a disposition to follow

a liberal policy in the administration of the government, which was

aided by the ability and ambition of Mr. Calhoun, the Secretary of War.

But among the members, chiefly confined to the Southwestern States,

there was a compact knot of men who were called “Radicals,” in the

political nomenclature of that period. It is hard to define them, but

their distinctive policy appears to have been a steady resistance to all

expenditures of public money, and a persistently strict construction of

the Constitution. Thus there cannot be said to have been any

well-defined parties at this period, such as the country has since been

accustomed to. But they began to be formed on the questions relating to

finance and the development of the internal resources of the country,

which arose during Mr. Monroe’s Presidency, and continued to a later

period. Men who had been Federalists and men who had been Republicans,

during the previous administrations, passed into the one or the other of

the subsequent parties, which assumed new designations, without much

real historical connection with the old parties that had preceded them.

The personal composition of the two Houses of Congress at this time

presents many interesting names. In the Senate, Rufus King, who had been

a Senator during Washington’s Administration, and Nathaniel Macon, who

had been a Representative at the same time, gave a flavor of the

formative period of the Republic. John Galliard and William Smith (of

South Carolina) and James Brown (of Louisiana) were also among the older

members. A somewhat younger class of men numbered among them Martin Van

Buren, who succeeded General Jackson as President.

Mr. Buchanan always considered it one of the great advantages of his

life that he had the benefit, at this early period, of the society of

Mr. King and Mr. Macon, and he always spoke in the most grateful terms

of their personal kindness to him. The members of the House of

Representatives, with one exception, General Smith of Maryland, were

younger men. They are spoken of in the following paper, which I find in

Mr. Buchanan’s handwriting, and in which he has recorded his impressions

of that beau-ideal of a statesman, William Lowndes, of South Carolina,

by whose early death, in 1822, the country lost one of the ablest, most

accomplished and purest men it has ever produced:[7]

“I entered the House of Representatives with George McDuffie and Joel R.

Poinsett of South Carolina, Andrew Stevenson of Virginia, John Tod of

Pennsylvania, John Nelson of Maryland, Reuben H. Walworth and Churchill

C. Cambreleng of New York, and Benjamin Gorham of Massachusetts. They

were all able and promising men, having already attained high

distinction in their respective States.

“Among those who had served in former Congresses, Mr. William Lowndes of

South Carolina was the foremost in ability and influence. Next to him

stood Mr. Sergeant of Pennsylvania, Mr. McLane of Delaware, Mr. Philip

P. Barbour of Virginia, Mr. Baldwin of Pennsylvania, Mr. Tracy of New

York, and John Randolph of Roanoke. Neither Mr. Clay nor Mr. Webster was

a member of Congress at this period. Mr. Lowndes did not take his seat

until December 21st, nearly three weeks after the beginning of the

session. In the meantime, the new members of the House awaited his

arrival in Washington with much interest. He, with Mr. Calhoun and Mr.

Cheves, had constituted what was termed the ‘Galaxy’ of young men whom

South Carolina sent to the House to sustain the war of 1812 with Great

Britain, and he ranked the first among them.

“Mr. Lowndes had been unanimously nominated in December, 1821, by the

Legislature of South Carolina, as a candidate for the Presidency to

succeed Mr. Monroe. To this he made no direct response. In a letter to a

friend in Charleston, after stating that he had not taken and never

would take a step to draw the public eye upon him for this high place,

he uttered the memorable sentiment: ‘The Presidency of the United States

is not, in my opinion, an office to be either solicited or declined.’

And such was the general conviction of his candor and sincerity that no

man doubted this to be the genuine sentiment of his heart. Fortunate

would it have been for the country had all future aspirants for this

exalted station acted in accordance with this noble sentiment. At the

time, as Mr. Benton truly observes, ‘he was strongly indicated for an

early elevation to the Presidency—indicated by the public will and

judgment, and not by any machinery of individual or party management,

from the approach of which he shrank as from the touch of

contamination.’[8]

“When Mr. Lowndes took his seat in the House, it was apparent to all

that his frail and diseased frame betokened an early death, though he

was then only in the forty-first year of his age. He was considerably

above six feet in height, and was much stooped in person. There was

nothing striking in his countenance to indicate great and varied

intellectual powers. As a speaker he was persuasive and convincing.

Though earnest and decided in the discussion of great questions, he

never uttered a word which could give personal offence to his opponents

or leave a sting behind. His eloquence partook of his own gentle and

unpretending nature. His voice had become feeble and husky, and when he

rose to speak, the members of the House, without distinction of party,

clustered around him so that they might hear every word which fell from

his lips. Towards his antagonists he was the fairest debater ever known

in Congress. It was his custom to state their arguments so strongly and

clearly that John Randolph, on one occasion, exclaimed: ‘He will never

be able to answer himself.’ He possessed all the varied information

necessary to the character of a great American statesman; and this, not

merely in regard to general principles, but to minute practical details.

“On one occasion it became his duty, as Chairman of the Committee on

Commerce, in the House, to present a history of the origin, progress and

character of our trade with the East Indies. This he did with such

fulness and precision that Mr. Silsbee, a well-informed and

much-respected member of the House, and afterwards a Senator from

Massachusetts, declared in his place, that although he had been engaged

in that trade for many years, the gentleman from South Carolina had

communicated to the House important information and shed new light on

the subject which had never been known to him. On another occasion, two

young members made a wager that Mr. Lowndes could not promptly state the

process of manufacturing a common pin. On propounding the question to

him, he at once stated the whole process in minute detail.

“Mr. Lowndes’ great influence,—for he was the undisputed leader in the

House—arose in no small degree from the conviction of its members that

he never had a sinister or selfish purpose in view, but always uttered

the genuine sentiments of his heart. Mr. Lowndes had not the least

jealousy in his nature. In his social intercourse with his

fellow-members he was ever ready and willing to impart his stores of

information on any subject, without feeling the least apprehension that

these might be used to anticipate what he himself intended to say, or in

debate against himself. His health continuing to decline, he resigned

his seat in the House, and by the advice of his physicians, embarked in

October, 1822, from Philadelphia in the ship Moss, with his wife and

daughter, for London. He died on the passage, on the 27th of that month,

and was buried at sea.

“His death was announced in the House of Representatives on the 21st of

January, 1823, by Mr. James Hamilton, his successor. This was the first

occasion on which such honors had been paid to the memory of any one not

a member of the House at the time of his decease. Among the eulogies

pronounced was one by John W. Taylor, of New York, who had been the

Speaker of the House during the session immediately preceding. He had

been an active and able opponent of Mr. Lowndes throughout the debates

and proceedings on the Missouri question, which had for two years

convulsed the House and the country, until its settlement at the close

of the last session. Coming from a political antagonist, it so

graphically presents the true character of Mr. Lowndes, that I am

tempted to copy a portion of it. After referring to his death, as ‘the

greatest misfortune which had befallen the Union’ since he had held a

seat in its councils, he proceeds: ‘The highest and best hopes of this

country looked to William Lowndes for their fulfillment. The most

honorable office in the civilized world—the Chief Magistracy of this

free people—would have been illustrated by his virtues and talents.

During nine years’ service in this House, it was my happiness to be

associated with him on many of its most important committees. He never

failed to shed new light on all subjects to which he applied his

vigorous and discriminating mind. His industry in discharging the

arduous and responsible duties constantly assigned him, was persevering

and efficient. To manners the most unassuming, to patriotism the most

disinterested, to morals the most pure, to attainments of the first rank

in literature and science, he added the virtues of decision and

prudence, so happily combined, so harmoniously united, that we knew not

which most to admire, the firmness with which he pursued his purpose or

the gentleness with which he disarmed opposition. His arguments were

made not to enjoy the triumph of victory, but to convince the judgment

of his hearers; and when the success of his efforts was most signal, his

humility was most conspicuous. You, Mr. Speaker, will remember his zeal

in sustaining the cause of our country in the darkest days of the late

war.’

“The whole House, with one accord, responded to the truthfulness of

these sentiments so happily expressed by Mr. Taylor. And yet, strange to

say, the published debates of Congress contain but a meagre and

imperfect sketch, and offer no report at all of the speeches of this

great and good man. His fame as a parliamentary speaker, like that of

the great commoner, Charles James Fox, must mainly rest upon tradition

now fast fading away. The editors of the National Intelligencer truly

remark that, ‘of all the distinguished men who have passed periods of

their lives in either House of Congress, there is certainly no one of

anything like equal ability who has left fewer traces on the page of

history or on the records of Congress than William Lowndes, the eminent

Representative in Congress for several years of the State of South

Carolina.’ The reason which they assign why so few of his eloquent

speeches are to be found on record is attributable, in part, to his

unfeigned diffidence, which placed less than their true value upon his

own exertions, and in part to an objection which he had, on principle,

to the practice of writing out speeches for publication, either before

or after the delivery. Little or no reliance could be placed on the

reporters of that day. The art even of shorthand writing was almost

unknown in this country, and the published sketches prepared by the

so-called reporters, were calculated to injure rather than to elevate

the character of the speaker.

“How much has been lost to the country by the scruples of Mr. Lowndes

may be imagined from the ‘little gem’ of a speech written out by him at

the personal request of Mr. Silsbee, then a member of the House, on the

bill for the relief of the family of Commodore Perry, but never

published until more than twenty years after his death. It does not

appear in the annals of 1821 that he made any speech on this occasion.

It may be added, to show the incapacity of the reporters of that day,

that there is no other mention of his speech against the bankrupt bill,

commenced on February 21st, and concluded on March 5th, 1822, though

listened to with rapt attention by the House, except that he did speak

on these two days. From physical exhaustion he was unable to say all he

had intended on this important subject. His name does not even appear in

the index as a speaker on this bill.

“I have written much more than I should otherwise have done, to repair

injustice done to the character of the ablest, purest, and most

unselfish statesman of his day.”[9]

Of John Randolph and John Sergeant, Mr. Buchanan thus records his

recollections:

John Randolph of Roanoke was the most conspicuous, though far from the

most influential member of the House, when I first took my seat. He

entered the House in 1799, and had continued there, with the exception

of two terms, from that early period. His style of debate was in perfect

contrast to that of Mr. Lowndes. He was severe and sarcastic, sparing

neither friend nor foe, when the one or the other laid himself open to

the shafts of his ridicule. He was a fine _belles-lettres_ scholar, and

his classical allusions were abundant and happy. He had a shrill and

penetrating voice, and could be heard distinctly in every portion of the

House. He spoke with great deliberation, and often paused for an instant

as if to select the most appropriate word. His manner was confident,

proud, and imposing, and pointing, as he always did, his long forefinger

at the object of attack, he gave peculiar emphasis to the severity of

his language. He attracted a crowded gallery when it was known he would

address the House, and always commanded the undivided attention of his

whole audience, whether he spoke the words of wisdom, or, as he often

did, of folly. For these reasons he was more feared than beloved, and

his influence in the House bore no proportion to the brilliancy of his

talents. He was powerful in pulling down an administration, but had no

skill in building anything up. Hence he was almost always in the

opposition, but was never what is called a business member. To me he was

uniformly respectful, and sometimes complimentary in debate. I well

remember Mr. Sergeant putting me on my guard against Mr. Randolph’s

friendship.”

“Mr. Sergeant entered the House in December, 1815, and had continued to

be a member since that day. As a lawyer, he stood in the front rank

among the eminent members of the bar of Philadelphia, at a period when

its members were greatly distinguished throughout the country for

ability and learning. His personal character was above reproach. From

his first appearance he maintained a high rank in the estimation of the

House. As a debater, he was clear and logical, and never failed to

impart information. His fault was that of almost every member of

Congress who had become a member after a long and successful training at

the bar. He was too exhaustive in his arguments, touching every point in

the question before the House without discriminating between those which

were vital and those which were subordinate. His manner was cold and

didactic, and his prolixity sometimes fatigued the House. In his social

intercourse with the members, he was cold but not repulsive. The high

estimation in which he was held, arose from the just appreciation of his

great abilities, and of his pure and spotless private character. There

was nothing _ad captandum_ about him. He was regarded by his

constituents in Philadelphia with pride and affection, who generally

spoke of him as ‘our John Sergeant.’”

The first debate in which Mr. Buchanan took part related to a bill,

introduced by General Smith of Maryland, making appropriations for the

Military Establishment. This discussion, which took place on the 9th and

11th of January, 1822, was an excited one, from the inner motive of the

opposition to the bill, which was aimed at the supposed aspirations of

Mr. Calhoun, the Secretary of War. In reference to the Secretary Mr.

Buchanan said: “I have no feeling of partiality for the Secretary of

War, nor of prejudice against him. I view him merely as a public

character, and, in that capacity, I conscientiously believe that he has

done his duty.” After a sharp reply from Mr. Randolph, the bill was

passed by a very large majority, the members of the so-called “Radical”

party alone voting against it. There very soon occurred another debate

which is of greater importance, since it marks the direction which Mr.

Buchanan’s mind was beginning to take on the subject of Federal powers

and State Rights. This was the occasion of the introduction of a

Bankrupt bill.

Prior to this time, Congress had but once exercised the constitutional

power “to establish uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies

throughout the United States.” This was in the Bankrupt law of 1800,

which was repealed in 1804. Of the power of Congress to legislate on the

subject of “bankruptcy” there can of course be no doubt, since it is

expressly conferred. But there has always been a doubt respecting the

true construction of the terms “bankruptcy” and “bankrupt.” Following

the English system, the Act of 1800 rejected the idea that these terms

include all “insolvents,” of all occupations, and confined the meaning

to “traders,” or mercantile insolvents. Here, therefore, was one very

serious question in interpretation to be encountered; for although the

measure, of which some account is now to be given, contemplated, as it

was first introduced, none but commercial insolvents, it finally turned

upon an amendment which would have made it applicable to all classes of

insolvent debtors. In either aspect, too, it brought into view the

contrasted functions of the Federal and the State courts, in the

enforcement and collection of private debts.

The close of the war, in 1815, was followed by extensive financial

embarrassment among the commercial classes. The merchants of

Philadelphia suffered severely during the five years which succeeded the

peace, and it was by one of their Representatives, Mr. John Sergeant,

that a bankrupt bill, retrospective as well as prospective in its

operation, was introduced in the House, on the 11th of December, 1821.

On the 22d of January, 1822, the debate was opened by Mr. Sergeant, as

Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. His speech was exceedingly able,

and even pathetic, for he spoke for a large class of ruined men. The

discussion continued until the 12th of March, Mr. Sergeant standing

almost alone in advocacy of the bill, in opposition to George Tucker and

Philip P. Barbour of Virginia, and to Mr. Lowndes of South Carolina. The

latter, although opposed to the bill, did not accord with the strict

constructionists of Virginia. Thus far, the proposed measure included

only commercial insolvents. But on the 12th of March, a member from

Kentucky offered an amendment that included all insolvent debtors, which

was adopted. This, of course, changed the aspect of the whole subject,

and whether so intended or not, finally defeated the bill. Mr. Buchanan

spoke in opposition to the bill on the day the amendment was adopted. He

did not question the power of Congress to pass a bankrupt law. Nor did

he contend that the “bankruptcy” referred to in the Constitution,

necessarily included only commercial insolvents. But there is very

perceptible in his speech on this occasion a tendency to that line of

politics which he afterwards adopted and always adhered to, and which

may be described as a forbearance from exercising Federal powers of

acknowledged constitutional validity, in modes and upon occasions which

may lead to an absorption of State jurisdictions. Thus he said: “The

bill, as it stood before the amendment, went far enough. It would, even

then, have brought the operation of the law and the jurisdiction of the

Federal Courts into the bosom of every community. The bill as it now

stands will entirely destroy the symmetry of our system, and make those

courts the arbiters, in almost every case, of contracts to which any

member of society who thinks proper to become a bankrupt may be a party.

It will at once be, in a great degree, a judicial consolidation of the

Union. This was never intended by the friends of the Constitution......

The jurisdiction of Federal Courts is now chiefly confined to

controversies existing between the citizens of different States. This

bill, if it should become a law, will amount to a judicial consolidation

of the Union.”

Of the general tenor of this sweeping measure, Mr. Buchanan said:

“Let a bankrupt be presented to the view of society, who has become

wealthy since his discharge, and who, after having ruined a number of

his creditors, shields himself from the payment of his honest debts by

his certificate, and what effects would such a spectacle be calculated

to produce? Examples of this nature must at length demoralize any

people. The contagion introduced by the laws of the country would, for

that very reason, spread like a pestilence, until honesty, honor, and

faith will at length be swept from the intercourse of society. Leave the

agricultural interest pure and uncorrupted, and they will forever form

the basis on which the Constitution and liberties of your country may

safely repose. Do not, I beseech you, teach them to think lightly of the

solemn obligation of contracts. No government on earth, however corrupt,

has ever enacted a bankrupt law for farmers; it would be a perfect

monster in this country, where our institutions depend altogether upon

the virtue of the people. We have no constitutional power to pass the

amendment proposed by the gentleman from Kentucky; and if we had, we

never should do so, because such a provision would spread a moral taint

through society which would corrupt it to its very core.”

The next important discussion in which Mr. Buchanan took part was on a

bill relating to the Cumberland Road. Before he entered Congress, a

national turnpike had been built by the Federal Government, extending

from Cumberland in the State of Maryland to Wheeling in the State of

Virginia. It crossed a narrow part of Maryland, passed through a corner

of Pennsylvania, and touched but a small part of Virginia. The principal

interest felt in this work was in the Western States. It encountered

much opposition in Pennsylvania, where a turnpike road had been built,

under State authority, from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, which was kept

in repair by tolls, and which paid a small dividend to its stockholders.

A national road, supported by the Federal Government, and taking the

travel from the Pennsylvania road was considered in that State as a

grievance. Moreover, whenever the question of appropriating money for

the continued support of this national road, or the alternative of

imposing tolls, arose in Congress, the question of constitutional power

to establish such means of communication necessarily arose at every

stage of the legislation. That legislation is of interest now, inasmuch

as the course taken by Mr. Buchanan illustrates the development of his

opinions upon the constitutional question.

Of the last appropriation for continuing the Cumberland Road, there

remained a balance in the Treasury of less than $10,000. In the General

Appropriation Bill of this session (1822), provision was made for the

repair of the road. A member from New Jersey moved to increase the

amount. On this amendment there was an animated discussion, in which Mr.

Buchanan appears to have considered that this public work was so

beneficial to the general prosperity of the Union, that Congress might

well appropriate the money needed for its support. “The truth is,” he

said, “we are all so connected together by our interests, as to place us

in a state of mutual dependence upon each other, and to make that which

is for the interest of any one member of the Federal family beneficial,

in most instances, to all the rest. We never can be divided without

first being guilty of political suicide. The prosperity of all the

States depends as much upon their Union, as human life depends upon that

of the soul and body.” It is quite obvious that this kind of reasoning

was, however true in the general, too broad and sweeping to justify the

appropriation of money from the Federal Treasury for a public work which

could claim no other than an incidental and remote relation to the

prosperity of all the States. Every appropriation of money by Congress

must rest upon some specific power of the Federal Constitution; and

although Congress has a specific power “to regulate commerce among the

several States,” and while it may be admitted that commerce includes

intercourse, it has been from the first, and still is, a serious

question whether this grant of the power of commercial regulation

includes a power to establish and maintain the means by which commerce

is carried on, and by which intercourse may be facilitated, unless such

means fall within the designation of “post-roads,” and are established,

primarily at least, for the transmission of mails. The appropriation

proposed for the continued support of the Cumberland Road failed, and

then came the question, in a separate bill, of imposing tolls for the

support of the road. Mr. Buchanan voted for this bill, as did most of

his colleagues from Pennsylvania, and it passed both Houses. But on the

4th of May (1822), the President, Mr. Monroe, returned the bill with a

very long message, stating his objections to it. From this voluminous

message, we may extract, although with some difficulty, two positions;

first, that in Mr. Monroe’s opinion, Congress had no power to raise

money by erecting toll-gates and collecting tolls, and that the States

cannot individually grant such a power to Congress by their votes in

Congress, or by any special compact with the United States; secondly,

that Congress having an unlimited power to raise money by taxation

general and uniform throughout the United States, its absolute

discretion in the appropriation of the money so raised is restricted

only by the duty of appropriating to the purposes of the common defence,

and of general, not local, benefit. The first of these positions will be

conceded by every one. The second admits of some doubt. Its soundness

depends upon the true interpretation of the first of the enumerated

powers of the Federal Constitution, that which contains the grant of the

taxing power.[10] This is not the place to enter upon the discussion of

controverted questions of constitutional interpretation. But all

students of the Federal Constitution are aware that the grammatical

construction of the clause to which Mr. Monroe referred, admits of, and

has been claimed to admit of, two interpretations. Read by itself, and

without reference to the other enumerated powers, this clause has been

supposed by some persons to grant an unlimited power to tax for any

purpose that in the judgment of Congress will promote the general

welfare of the United States, provided only that the taxation is

uniform. On the other hand, it has been contended that the clause is not

a broad, independent, and specific power to tax for any object that will

promote the general welfare of the United States, but that it is limited

to the promotion of the general welfare through the exercise of some one

or more of the other enumerated powers of the Constitution, each of

which must receive its own scope from a just interpretation before the

people of the United States can be taxed for the means of exercising

that power. Viewed in the latter sense, the clause contains a grant of

the power of taxation, general and universal in its nature, but limited

as to its objects by the objects of each of the other enumerated powers.

Viewed in the former sense, it becomes a separate and independent power

to tax for any object that will promote the general welfare, without

reference to the exercise of any of the specific powers of the

Constitution which form the objects for which the Federal Government was

created.

Mr. Monroe’s veto message on this occasion was sustained in the House by

a vote of 68 to 72, and the bill consequently failed. The vote of the

House, however, is to be considered as a concurrence in Mr. Monroe’s

objection that Congress cannot establish toll-gates and collect tolls,

and not as an affirmance of the general views which he expressed on the

taxing power. But upon Mr. Buchanan this message produced a strong

effect. It was the first time that his mind had been brought sharply to

the consideration of the questions in what mode “Internal Improvements,”

as they were called, can be effected by the General Government, and

consequently he began to perceive the dividing line between the Federal

and the State powers. Although he had voted for the bill imposing tolls

upon the Cumberland Road, influenced probably by the desire to diminish

its injurious competition with the Pennsylvania road, he took occasion

at the next session to retract the error of which he had been convinced

by Mr. Monroe’s message. When a bill was introduced at the next session,

making an appropriation for the preservation and repair of the

Cumberland Road, he moved as an amendment that the United States

retrocede the road to the three States through which it passed, on

condition that they would keep it in repair and collect no more tolls

than such as would be necessary for that purpose. Being now convinced

that Congress could not impose the tolls, he thought the only

alternative was to cede the road to the States, since it could not be

supported from the Federal Treasury without producing inequality and

injustice. His amendment was rejected and the bill was passed.[11] A

precedent was thus established for the support of the road by Congress.

The subject will again recur in 1829 and 1836. In Mr. Buchanan’s speech

in 1829 will be found the expression of his more matured constitutional

views on the whole subject of Internal Improvements.[12]

The 17th Congress, which commenced its session in December, 1822, and

terminated in March, 1823, witnessed a protracted discussion on the

doctrine of “protection,” which extended into the 18th Congress. The

tariff of 1823–4 was the second measure of that kind after the war. At

that period the prevalent doctrine in the New England States was

Anti-protectionist. The city of Boston was represented by Mr. Benjamin

Gorham, a lawyer of remarkable ability, the immediate predecessor of Mr.

Webster. His speech against the new tariff was replied to by Mr.

Buchanan; and if the reply is a fair indication of the speech against

which it was directed, Mr. Gorham’s language must have been

vehement.[13] Mr. Buchanan said:

“The gentleman from Massachusetts has declared this bill to be an

attempt, by one portion of the Union for its own peculiar advantage, to

impose ruinous taxes on another. He has represented it as an effort to

compel the agriculturists of the South to pay tribute to the

manufacturers of the North; he has proclaimed it to be a tyrannical

measure. He has gone further, and boldly declared that the people of the

South should resist such a law, and that they ought to resist it. The

gentlemen from Massachusetts and Georgia (Mr. Tattnall) have proclaimed

it tyranny, and tyranny which ought to be resisted. I confess I never

expected to hear inflammatory speeches of this kind within these walls

which ought to be sacred to union; I never expected to hear the East

counselling the South to resistance, that we might thus be deterred from

prosecuting a measure of policy, urged upon us by the necessities of the

country. It was by a combination between the cotton-growers of the South

and the manufacturers of the North, that the introduction of coarse

cottons from abroad has been in effect prohibited by the high rates of

duties. It is ungenerous, then, for the South and the East to sound the

tocsin of alarm and resistance when we wish indirectly to benefit the

agriculturists and manufacturers of the Middle and Western States by the

imposition of necessary duties. If I know myself, I am a politician

neither of the East nor of the West, of the North nor of the South; I,

therefore, shall forever avoid any expressions, the direct tendency of

which must be to create sectional jealousies, sectional divisions, and,

at length, disunion—that worst and last of all political calamities. I

will never consent to adopt a general restrictive system, because the

agricultural class of the community would then be left at the mercy of

the manufacturers. The interest of the many would thus be sacrificed to

promote the wealth of the few. The farmer, in addition to the premium

which he would be compelled to pay the manufacturer, would have also to

sustain the expenses of the Government. If this bill proposed a system

which leads to such abuses, it should not receive my support. If I

could, for a single moment, believe in the language of the gentleman

from Georgia—that this bill would compel the agricultural to bow down

before the manufacturing interest—I should consider myself a traitor to

my country in giving it any support.”

In the subsequent Congress, Mr. Buchanan spoke twice on the subject of

the tariff, namely, March 23d and April 9th, 1824. But the foregoing

extract from his speech in February, 1823, is sufficient to show how

moderate and just his views were on the subject of protection.

When Mr. Buchanan entered Congress in December, 1821, his professional

income was the largest that he ever received. He had then been eight

years at the bar, and his emoluments from his profession, which were

less than $1,000 for the first year, had become more than $11,000 for

the year 1821–2. They then fell off somewhat rapidly, and in the year

1828 they amounted to only a little more than $2,000.

-----

Footnote 6:

Mr. Thompson, Secretary of the Navy, was appointed to the Bench of the

Supreme Court in December, 1823, and Mr. Southard, of New Jersey, took

his place.

Footnote 7:

These notes were written by Mr. Buchanan in 1867.

Footnote 8:

Benton’s Thirty Years in the Senate, Vol. I, p. 19.

Footnote 9:

In the debate on Chilton’s Resolutions, in 1825, Mr. Sergeant said:

“At the head of the Committee of Ways and Means in 1816, was one who

could not be remembered without feelings of deep regret at the public

loss occasioned by his early death. He possessed, in an uncommon

degree, the confidence of this House, and he well deserved it. With so

much accurate knowledge, and with powers which enabled him to delight

and instruct the House, there was united so much gentleness and

kindness, and such real, unaffected modesty, that you were prepared to

be subdued before he exerted his commanding powers of argument. I mean

William Lowndes of South Carolina.”—_Benton’s Debates_, Vol. IX, 730.

Footnote 10:

Art. I., § 8.—“To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises,

to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general

welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises

shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

Footnote 11:

February 21, 1823.

Footnote 12:

_Post._

Footnote 13:

Mr. Gorham’s speech has not been preserved.

-----

CHAPTER III.

1824–1825.

ELECTION OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS—THE “BARGAIN AND CORRUPTION”—UNFOUNDED

CHARGE—GENERAL JACKSON’S ERRONEOUS IMPRESSION—HIS CORRESPONDENCE

WITH MR. BUCHANAN.

I now approach one of those periods of intense political excitement

which it becomes every one who has to write of them to treat in an

entirely impartial and judicial spirit. The subject of this chapter is

the Presidential election of 1824,[14] and Mr. Buchanan’s connection

with it. The famous “coalition” between Mr. John Quincy Adams and Mr.

Clay, is a topic that involves so much that is personal, that one must

needs divest one’s self of all preconceived opinions, and must regard

the whole matter with that indifference which the present age already

feels, and which is solicitous only to do no injustice to individual

reputations. At the same time, the whole case should be plainly stated;

for it touches a provision of the Constitution, by which its framers

supplied a means for filling the office of President, in the event of

there being no choice through the electoral colleges.

In the year 1824, there were 261 electoral votes in the Union, a

majority being 131. The candidates at the popular election were General

Jackson, Mr. John Quincy Adams, Mr. Crawford, and Mr. Clay. Neither of

them was the candidate of a distinctively organized political party.

General Jackson was a member of the Senate, from the State of Tennessee.

Mr. Adams was Secretary of State, under President Monroe. Mr. Crawford,

who had formerly been a Senator from Georgia, was not in any public

position. Mr. Clay was a Representative from Kentucky, and was chosen

Speaker of the House at the beginning of the session. Neither of these

candidates having received a majority of the electoral votes, the

election of a President devolved on the House of Representatives, in

which body each State would have one vote. But as the Constitution

required that the choice of the House be confined to the three highest

candidates on the list of those voted for by the electors, and as Mr.

Clay was not one of the three, he was excluded. He and his friends,

however, had it in their power to make either General Jackson or Mr.

Adams President; and Mr. Clay at all times had great control over his

friends. How he would cast his vote, and how he would lead his followers

who were members of the House to cast theirs, became therefore an

intensely exciting subject of speculation both in Washington and

throughout the country. For a short time it was supposed that Mr. Clay

and the other members from Kentucky would be governed by a resolution

adopted by both branches of the Legislature of that State, requesting

their members of Congress to vote for General Jackson. This resolution

had been adopted in the Kentucky House of Representatives on the 31st of

December (1824), by a majority of 73 to 11; and in the Senate of the

State it was adopted by a vote of 18 to 12. It spoke what was the

undoubted wish of the people of Kentucky, whose first choice for the

office of President was Mr. Clay himself, but whose preference for

General Jackson to Mr. Adams was explicitly declared by their

Legislature.[15] General Jackson had received the unanimous electoral

votes of eight States: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South

Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana, and Alabama. Mr. Adams had

received the unanimous electoral votes of the six New England States. If

the Representatives of these various States in Congress should vote as

their States had voted, it would require but five additional States to

elect General Jackson, while seven would be needed to elect Mr. Adams.

Of the remaining States which had not unanimously given their electoral

votes to General Jackson or to Mr. Adams, it appears that General

Jackson received one of the electoral votes of New York, Mr. Adams

received twenty-six, and Mr. Crawford five. Delaware had given one of

its electoral votes to Mr. Adams and two to Mr. Crawford. General

Jackson had seven of the electoral votes of Maryland, Mr. Adams three,

and Mr. Crawford one. Virginia had given all of her electoral votes,

twenty-four, to Mr. Crawford. Louisiana had given three of her electoral

votes to General Jackson, and two to Mr. Adams. The electoral votes of

Illinois had gone two for General Jackson, and one for Mr. Adams. Which

of these doubtful States would be won in the great contest for General

Jackson, and which for Mr. Adams, was now the all-absorbing topic, and

the result depended very much upon the course of Mr. Clay.

Among the scandals which hung around this election, it was afterward

said that Mr. Buchanan, while the matter was pending before the House of

Representatives in the winter of 1824–5, had, as an agent or friend of

Mr. Clay, approached General Jackson and sought to secure his promise to

make Mr. Clay Secretary of State, in consideration of his receiving Mr.

Clay’s vote and influence in the House. There was not much intrinsic

probability in this imputation, for the relations between Mr. Clay and

Mr. Buchanan were not such as would naturally have led to the selection

of the latter as Mr. Clay’s agent in such a negotiation, even if Mr.

Clay had been capable of making such an attempt to obtain from General

Jackson a promise to make him Secretary of State, while the election of

a President was pending in the House. But inasmuch as General Jackson,

nearly twenty years afterward, was quoted in support of this statement,

it is proper that I should lay before the reader Mr. Buchanan’s own

explicit account of what actually took place. It will be seen hereafter

that General Jackson, who always believed that there had been a corrupt

political bargain between Mr. Clay and Mr. Adams, was led afterwards to

think that Mr. Buchanan had at the time of the election entertained the

same belief, and yet that Mr. Buchanan had refrained from denouncing the

bargain as he should have done, because he had himself made the same

kind of attempt for Mr. Clay, in the conversation which he had with

General Jackson before the election took place. Mr. Buchanan’s own

account of his interview with General Jackson shows very clearly that,

instead of seeking an interview with General Jackson for the purpose of

proposing to him to make a bargain with Mr. Clay about the office of

Secretary of State, his sole object was to obtain from General Jackson a

denial of a prevailing rumor that he had said he would continue Mr.

Adams in that office, if elected President.

At the time of this occurrence, Mr. Buchanan was a comparatively young

member of Congress, in the beginning of his fourth session. Speaking of

himself in the third person, he says in a memorandum now before me, “He

[Buchanan] had never personally known either General Jackson or Mr. Clay

until about the opening of this Congress, when the one took his seat as

a Senator from Tennessee, and the other was elected Speaker of the

House. Having great confidence in the sound political principles and

exalted character of General Jackson, and greatly preferring him to any

of the other candidates, he [Buchanan] had taken a very active part

before the people of Pennsylvania in securing for him their electoral

vote. Still, he was at the same time a warm admirer of Mr. Clay.”

The prevalent rumor that General Jackson had said he would continue Mr.

Adams in the office of Secretary of State, in case of his election to

the Presidency, was supposed to derive some color of probability from

their known friendly relations, and from the defence which Mr. Adams had

made of the General’s conduct in the Seminole war. It was a rumor that

greatly disturbed General Jackson’s friends and supporters in

Pennsylvania. They regarded Mr. Adams’ constitutional views as much too

latitudinarian for the leading position in General Jackson’s cabinet;

and they feared that the General’s announcement of such a purpose would

stand in the way of his election by the House of Representatives. Mr.

Buchanan fully shared this anxiety of his Pennsylvania constituents and

political friends; and with the approbation and advice of a leading

gentleman among this class of General Jackson’s supporters, Mr. Buchanan

determined to ascertain from the General himself whether there was any

foundation for the rumor.[16] He first endeavored to obtain the

information from Major Eaton, the colleague of General Jackson in the

Senate, and his most intimate friend. Major Eaton declined to make the

inquiry. Mr. Buchanan then determined to make it himself. What follows

is from Mr. Buchanan’s own account of the interview, which lies before

me in his handwriting:

Calling at the General’s lodgings in “the Seven Buildings,” Mr. Buchanan

accompanied him, on his own invitation, in a walk as far as the War

Department, where the General had to call on public business. After a

suitable introduction and reference to the rumor afloat, Mr. Buchanan

requested him to state whether he had ever declared that in case he

should be elected President he would appoint Mr. Adams Secretary of

State. To this he replied by saying that whilst he thought well of Mr.

Adams, he had never said or intimated that he would or would not make

this appointment. With this answer, Mr. Buchanan was entirely satisfied,

and so expressed himself. The object of his mission was thus

accomplished. The General’s answer was positive and emphatic. It made a

deep and lasting impression on his only auditor, who requested

permission to repeat it, and he gave it without reserve.

This, however, was not the whole of the conversation; and in order to

explain how this conversation became afterwards distorted into the

appearance of an application by Mr. Buchanan to General Jackson on

behalf of Mr. Clay, it is necessary to advert to something which took

place between Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Philip S. Markley, another

Representative from the State of Pennsylvania, before Mr. Buchanan spoke

to General Jackson. Mr. Markley had been a devoted advocate of Mr. Clay

for the Presidency. He urged Mr. Buchanan to see General Jackson, and to

persuade him either to say that Mr. Clay should be Secretary of State,

or to remain absolutely silent as between Mr. Clay and Mr. Adams; “for

then,” as he remarked, “the friends of Mr. Clay would be placed upon the

same footing with the friends of Mr. Adams, and fight them with their

own weapons.” If Mr. Buchanan had made any proposition to General

Jackson respecting Mr. Clay, there might have been some foundation for

the subsequent charge that Mr. Buchanan approached the General as an

emissary of Mr. Clay. But, in point of fact, Mr. Buchanan did nothing of

the kind. After the General had given him the assurance that he had

never said he would or would not appoint Mr. Adams Secretary of State,

and before they parted, Mr. Buchanan mentioned, as an item of current

news, what he had heard Mr. Markley say. It does not appear to have

produced upon General Jackson, at the time, any impression that Mr.

Buchanan wished him to hold out any encouragement to the friends of Mr.

Clay that in the event of his election he would make Mr. Clay Secretary

of State. On the contrary, from what General Jackson said in answer to

Mr. Buchanan’s sole inquiry, it is apparent that Mr. Buchanan obtained

the only answer that he sought to obtain, namely, that the General had

not said that he would or would not appoint Mr. Adams as his Secretary

of State. Mr. Buchanan continues his account of the interview as

follows:

“When I parted from the General, I felt conscious that I had done my

duty, and no more than my duty, towards him and my party, as one of his

most ardent and consistent political friends. Indeed the idea did not

enter my imagination at the time that the General could have afterwards

inferred from any thing I said, that I had approached him as the

emissary of Mr. Clay, to propose to elect him President, provided that

he (the General) would agree to appoint him Secretary of State. It is

but justice to observe that the General stated, in his subsequent

publication, that I did not represent myself to be the friend and agent

of Mr. Clay. Surely, if Mr. Clay had desired or intended to have made

such a bargain, he would have selected as his agent an old political and

personal friend. Events passed on,” Mr. Buchanan continues; “then came

the letter of Mr. George Kremer to the Columbian _Observer_, of the 25th

of January, 1825, charging the existence of a corrupt bargain between

Messrs. Adams and Clay; his avowal of its authorship, the appeal of Mr.

Clay to the House of Representatives against the charges it contained,

the report of the Committee on the subject, and, on the same day, the

election of Mr. Adams as President of the United States by the House of

Representatives; Mr. Adams receiving the vote of thirteen States,

including that of Kentucky, General Jackson of seven States, and Mr.

Crawford of four States. During all the debates and proceedings of the

House, on Mr. Clay’s appeal against the charges of Mr. Kremer, it was

never intimated to me, in the most distant manner, by any human being,

that I was expected to be a witness to sustain this charge, or had any

connection with the subject more than any other member of the House.

“The conduct of General Jackson, after his defeat, was admirable. He

bore it with so much dignity and magnanimity, and perfect self-control,

as to elicit strong commendations, even from his political opponents. At

President Monroe’s levee, on the evening of the election, where he and

Mr. Adams were both present, it was repeatedly remarked, from the

courtesy and kindness of his manner and conversation, contrasted with

the coldness and reserve of Mr. Adams, that a stranger might have

inferred he had been the successful and Mr. Adams the defeated

candidate.”

The election of Mr. Adams by the House of Representatives was followed

after the adjournment of Congress by a correspondence between Mr.

Buchanan and General Jackson, commencing in the spring of 1825 and

extending to August, 1827. This correspondence shows, first, the terms

on which General Jackson and Mr. Buchanan parted in Washington in the

spring of 1825; and in the next place it fixes the time and mode in

which the idea was first presented to the mind of General Jackson that

Mr. Buchanan came to him in December, 1824, as a friend of Mr. Clay. The

reader will observe that, while the election of Mr. Adams was a recent

event, while the country was ringing with the charge of a “corrupt

coalition” between Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, and down to the 29th of

January, 1827, during the whole of which period General Jackson’s mind

was peculiarly excited by what he may have believed concerning the means

by which his rival had become President, there is no trace in this

correspondence of any feeling on his part that Mr. Buchanan had ever

been in any way connected with the supposed bargain, or with any effort

to make a similar bargain between General Jackson and Mr. Clay, or that

Mr. Buchanan knew of any important fact that would tend to support the

charge of a bargain between Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay. It was not until the

summer of 1827, nearly three years after the conversation between

General Jackson and Mr. Buchanan, that the General appears to have had

an erroneous impression of Mr. Buchanan’s purpose in seeking that

interview.

[MR. BUCHANAN TO GENERAL JACKSON.]

MAY 29, 1825.

MY DEAR GENERAL:—

I write this letter from Mercersburg, being now on a visit to my mother

and the family. I have no news of any importance to communicate, but

both inclination and duty conspire to induce me to trouble you

occasionally with a few lines, whilst you must be gratefully remembered

by every American citizen who feels an interest in the character of his

country’s glory.

You have imposed additional obligations upon me by the uniform kindness

and courtesy with which you have honored me.

In Pennsylvania, amongst a vast majority of the people, there is but one

sentiment concerning the late Presidential election. Although they

submit patiently, as is their duty, to the legally constituted powers,

yet there is a fixed and determined resolution to change them as soon as

they have the constitutional power to do so. In my opinion, your

popularity in Pennsylvania is now more firmly established than ever.

Many persons who heretofore supported you did it cheerfully from a sense

of gratitude, and because they thought it would be disgraceful to the

people not to elevate that candidate to the Presidential Chair, who had

been so great a benefactor of the country. The slanders which had been

so industriously circulated against your character had, nevertheless, in

some degree affected their minds, although they never doubted either

your ability or patriotism, yet they expressed fears concerning your

temper. These have been all dissipated by the mild prudence and dignity

of your conduct last winter, before and after the Presidential election.

The majority is so immense in your favor that there is little or no

newspaper discussion on the subject. I most sincerely and fervently

trust and hope that the Almighty will preserve your health until the

period shall again arrive when the sovereign people shall have the power

of electing a President.

There never was a weaker attempt made than that to conciliate the good

opinion of Pennsylvania in favor of the administration by the

appointment of Mr. Rush, although no appointment could have produced the

effect desired; yet, if the President had selected Mr. Sergeant, he

would have chosen a man who had been his early and consistent friend,

and one whose character for talents and integrity stands high with all

parties in this State. Mr. Rush was a candidate for the office of

elector on the Crawford ticket. I verily believe his appointment will

not procure for the administration, out of the city of Philadelphia,

twenty new friends throughout the State. In that city their additional

strength is limited to John Binns and a few of his devoted followers.

I hope Mrs. Jackson, ere this, has been restored to her accustomed

health. When I left her, I felt some apprehensions in relation to the

issue of her disease. Please to present to her my kindest and best

respects, and believe me to be ever your sincere friend,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

[GENERAL JACKSON TO MR. BUCHANAN.]

HERMITAGE, June 25, 1825.

DEAR SIR:—

I have the pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of your kind letter of

the 29th ult., which has just reached me.

That respect which I formed for your character on our first acquaintance

increased with our friendly intercourse, and to you was only extended

what I viewed a debt due to your merit as a gentleman of intelligence

and urbanity. It is, therefore, a source of much gratification to me to

receive a letter from you, detailing the friendly feelings of the

citizens of Pennsylvania toward me.

It is gratifying to hear, through you, that the confidence and support

which the majority of the citizens of Pennsylvania expressed for me, by

their vote on the Presidential question, will not be withdrawn by the

artful and insidious efforts of my enemies. This is another evidence of

the firmness and indulgence of the freemen of Pennsylvania. This

organized plan of calumny and slander, levelled against me by the

unprincipled and wicked, will not owe its defeat to any effort of mine,

unless it be that which always attends truth and a conscious rectitude

of conduct, when submitted to an untrammelled and honest public. The

continued good opinion, therefore, of my fellow-citizens of

Pennsylvania, lays me under additional obligations, whilst it connects

my name with another guaranty of the wisdom of our government—I mean in

furnishing to posterity another example of the weakness of demagogues

when endeavoring to advance to power upon the destruction of innocence.

It is much to the honor of the good citizens of Pennsylvania that they

calmly submit to the legally constituted power; this all good citizens

will do, who love a government of laws, although they show much

disapprobation at the means by which that power was obtained, and are

determined to oppose the men who obtained power by what they believe

illicit means. The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the

people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents, is

the right of suffrage; and this, when used with calmness and

deliberation, will prove strong enough. It will perpetuate their

liberties and rights, and will compel their representatives to discharge

their duties with an eye single to the public interest, for whose

security and advancement government is constituted.

I have not yet been so fortunate as to fall in with Mr. Frazer, although

I have made inquiry for him. Should I meet with him, be assured it will

be a gratification to me to extend to him those attentions due to any of

your friends.

I regret very much that the bad health of Mrs. J. prevented me from

passing through your hospitable town. I assure you, could we have done

so, it would have afforded Mrs. J. and myself much pleasure. Mrs. J.’s

health is perfectly restored. So soon as I got her to breathe the

mountain air of Pennsylvania, she mended by the hour.

We are also blessed, in this section of the country, with the promise of

fine crops. Our cotton promises a good crop. This is six days earlier

than ever known in this section of country.

Mrs. J. joins me in kind salutations to you, with our best wishes for

your happiness.

Your friend,

ANDREW JACKSON.

[GENERAL JACKSON TO MR. BUCHANAN.]

HERMITAGE, April 8, 1826.

DEAR SIR:—

I received, by due course of mail, your friendly letter of the 8th ult.,

transmitting a resolution passed by the Convention at Harrisburg, in

which it is declared “that their confidence in me is unimpaired.” This

resolution adds another to the many obligations which I owe to the

Republicans of Pennsylvania, and which shall be cherished as long as the

feelings of gratitude and the sentiments of patriotism have a place in

my heart. What greater consolation could be offered to my declining

years than the reflection that my public conduct, notwithstanding the

difficulties through which it has led me, can still be honored with

testimonials so distinguished as this from the enlightened and patriotic

Pennsylvanians; I desire no greater.

I have noted your remarks relative to Mr. Molton C. Rogers—every

information I have received concerning him corroborates your account of

him, and I have no doubt he fully merits the high character he sustains.