BUBONIC PLAGUE 



968 



BUCHANAN 



BUBONIC PLAGUE, bewbon'ik playg. See 

 PLAGUE. 



BUCCANEER, buk'anecr, one who robs, 

 plunders and murders. The name really ap- 

 plies, however, in its original sense to the 

 adventurers of the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries who preyed upon vessels in the Carib- 

 bean Sea and on neighboring coasts. It orig- 

 inated from the French boucan, meaning place 

 jor curing meat, because the earliest of these 

 adventurers stole cattle, smoked the meat and 

 sold it to passing vessels. In time they cap- 

 tured such vessels and went to sea. 



Religious wars between Britain and Spain 

 produced the daring buccaneers Drake and 



Hawkins; and Sir Henry Morgan, the Welsh- 

 man, is among the most famous leaders of early 

 buccaneers. In the eighteenth century, the 

 government no longer assisting in or consenting 

 to such robbery, the methods of pirates were 

 adopted. Among pirates perhaps the most 

 famous is Captain Kidd, whose treasure-trove 

 makes part of the story of Edgar Allan Poe's 

 Gold Bug. Later, marooning was practiced; 

 that is, putting ashore on desert islands those 

 whom the pirates robbed. By the end of the 

 eighteenth century, practically all these prac- 

 tices had been abandoned, or were carried on in 

 the most out-of-the-way places. (See articles 

 on each man named above.) 



UCHANAN, bukan'an, JAMES (1791- 

 1868), the fifteenth President of the United 

 States. At the time of his inauguration he 

 was in his sixty-sixth year; with the exception 

 of William Henry Harrison he was the oldest 

 man ever chosen to that office. Unlike Frank- 

 lin Pierce, his predecessor, and Abraham Lin- 

 coln, his successor, Buchanan entered office 

 after he had passed the prime of life. He had 

 long been known as a statesman of ability and 

 experience; he had won honor in both houses 

 of Congress, sat in President Folk's Cabinet 

 as Secretary of State and had been his coun- 

 try's representative at the courts of Great 

 Britain and Russia. He was without question 

 one of the leaders, not merely of the Demo- 

 cratic party, but of the nation. His reward 

 was the highest office in the gift of the people, 

 yet he retired to private life under a cloud of 

 dislike and indignation. 



BJS Youth. James Buchanan was born near 

 Mercersburg, Pa., on April 23, 1791. His par- 

 ents were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who 

 worked hard for a living on their farm. The 

 son was sent to Dickinson College at Carlisle, 

 Pa., where he was graduated in 1809. He then 

 studied in a law office for several years, and in 

 1812 began to practice his profession. In poli- 

 tics he was at first a Federalist. He was op- 

 posed to the second war with Great Britain, 



but when it, came he said that it was "the 

 duty of every patriot to defend the country," 

 and in 1814 he volunteered as a private for the 

 defense of Baltimore. Buchanan was already 

 known locally as an orator, and in the autumn 

 elections was chosen to the legislature, where 

 he served two terms. 



Political Career. It was then his intention 

 to remain in private life, but the sudden death 

 of his fiancee altered his resolve and he became 

 active politically. He was first elected to the 

 national House of Representatives in 1820, 

 and served from 1821 to 1831 without a break. 

 President Jackson then appointed him minister 

 to Russia, where he negotiated the first com- 

 mercial treaty between the United States and 

 that country. This treaty of 1832 remained in 

 force for eighty years, for it was not abrogated 

 until President Taft's administration. 



On his return to the United States, Buchanan 

 lived quietly for a year, but in 1834 was 

 elected to fill a vacancy in the United States 

 Senate. The Pennsylvania legislature twice 

 reflected him, but he resigned before the end 

 of his third term in order to become Secretary 

 of State under Polk. In the Senate, as 

 previously in the House, Buchanan was a lead- 

 ing supporter of Jackson, especially on the issue 

 of the President's right to remove executive 

 officers without explaining his reasons to the 



