BUCHANAN 



971 



BUCHANAN 



ADMINISTRATION OF BUCHANAN 



1857^ 



1861 



Confederate States Organized 



Oil Discovered in Pennsylvania 



1858 



Lincoln -Douglas Debates 



Three States 

 Admitted to the Union 



John Brown's Raid, 1859 



1857 

 First Atlantic Cable Laid 



coin "had no alternative but to accept the war 

 initiated by South Carolina or the Southern 

 Confederacy." When his term ended he was 

 within a few weeks of being seventy years old, 

 and it was with great relief that he retired 

 to Wheatlands, his little estate a mile from 

 Lancaster, Pa. There he died, on June 1, 1868, 

 and was buried in the local cemetery. 



Summary of His Career. Under normal con- 

 ditions Buchanan might have been a President 

 of distinction. But in 1860 he allied himself 

 with the extremists of his party and when the 

 crisis came failed to show self-confidence and 

 energy. The mistakes and weakness of his last 

 year in office have overshadowed his earlier 

 achievements. The President tried to reflect 

 the divided sentiment of the country. On 

 one side he believed that a state had no 

 right to secede ; on the other, he said that the 

 United States had no right to force a state to 

 remain in the Union. His moral scruples 

 prevented him from taking any decisive steps, 

 and brought on him general disapproval. The 

 most bitter of his Southern critics charged him 

 with treachery, and some of his Northern op- 

 ponents accused him of treason. Like most 

 men who seek to compromise, he was disliked 

 by extremists on both sides. A.B.H . 



Other Items of Interest. Every slave-hold- 

 ing state except Maryland gave Buchanan its 

 electoral vote in 1856. 



When, on the eve of his return from Russia 

 to the United States, Buchanan paid his fare- 

 well visit to the imperial palace, the emperor 

 asked him to request the President to "send 

 another minister exactly like himself." 



After his retirement from office he published 

 Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve oj 

 the Rebellion, a defense of his policies. 



Buchanan never married, but he was not a 

 lonely man, for he took into his household a 

 niece and a nephew, to whom he gave a beauti- 

 ful devotion. When his niece was absent from 

 him he wrote to her nearly every day. 



A man of very simple tastes, the formalities 

 and etiquette of court life were very disagree- 

 able to him, and only his sense of duty to his 

 country caused him to accept his appointment 

 to Saint Petersburg and later to London. 



Authorities hold that of all the American 

 Presidents only Jefferson and John Quincy 

 Adams have equaled Buchanan in the adminis- 

 tration of foreign affairs. 



It was during this administration that the 

 first Atlantic cable, from Newfoundland to 

 Ireland, was laid. 



