minister at the English court, at periods of exciting
and critical questions between the two nations, is
very likely to experience a considerable variation
in the social barometer. But the strength of Mr.
Buchanan's character, and the agreeable personal
qualities which were in him united with the gravity
of years and an experience of a very uncommon
kind, overcame at all times any tendency to social
unpleasantness that might have been caused by
national feelings excited by temporary causes.
Throughout his residence in England Mr. Buchanan
was treated with marked attention, not only by
society in general, but by the queen and the prince
consort. Miss Lane joined him in the spring of 1854,
and remained with him until the autumn of 1855.
Mr. Buchanan arrived in New York in April, 1856,
and there met with a public reception from the
authorities and people of the city, that evinced the
interest that now began to be everywhere
manifested in him as the probable future president.
Prior to the meeting of the national democratic
convention at Cincinnati in June, 1856, there was
lack of organization on the part of Mr. Buchanan's
political friends; and Mr. Buchanan
himself, though willing to accept the nomination, made
no efforts to secure it, and did not believe that he
would receive it. The rival claimants were President
Pierce and Senator Douglas, of Illinois.
Chiefly through the efforts of Mr. Slidell, Mr.
Buchanan was nominated. By this time the whig
party had disappeared, the old party lines were
obliterated, and the main political issue had come to
be the question of slavery or no slavery in the
territories. The anti-slavery party now called
themselves republicans, and their candidate was Gen.
Fremont. The result of the election shows, with
great distinctness, the following facts: 1. That
Mr. Buchanan was chosen president because he
received the electoral votes of the five free states of
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois, and
California (sixty-two in all), and that without them
he could not have been elected. 2. That his southern
vote (that of every slave-holding state excepting
Maryland) was partly given to him because of
his conservative opinions and position, and partly
because the candidate for the vice-presidency, Mr.
Breckinridge, was a southern man. 3. That Gen.
Fremont received the electoral vote of no southern
state, and that this was due partly to the character
of the republican party, and partly to the fact
that the republican candidate for the vice-presidency,
Mr. Dayton, of New Jersey, was a citizen
of a non-slaveholding state. Gen. Fremont
himself was nominally a citizen of California.
This election, therefore, foreshadowed the sectional
division that would be almost certain to happen
in the next one if the four years of Mr.
Buchanan's administration should not witness a
subsidence in the sectional feelings between the north
and the south. It would only be necessary for
the republicans to wrest from the democratic party
the five free states that had voted for Mr.
Buchanan, and they would elect the president in
1800. Whether this was to happen would depend
upon the ability of the democratic party to avoid a
rupture into factions that would themselves be
representatives of irreconcilable dogmas on the
subject of slavery in the territories. Hence it is that
Mr. Buchanan's course as president, for the first
three years of his term, is to be judged with reference
to the responsibility that was upon him so to
conduct the government as to disarm, if possible,
the antagonism of section to section. His
administration of affairs after the election of Mr. Lincoln
is to be judged simply by his duty as the executive
in the most extraordinary and anomalous crisis in
which the country had ever been placed.
Mr. Buchanan was inaugurated on 4 March, 1857. The cabinet, which was confirmed by the senate on 6 March, consisted of Lewis Cass, of Michigan, secretary of state; Howell Cobb, of Georgia, secretary of the treasury; John B. Floyd, of Virginia, secretary of war; Isaac Toucey, of Connecticut, secretary of the navy; Aaron V. Brown, of Tennessee, postmaster-general; Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, secretary of the interior; and Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, attorney-general. The internal affairs of the country during Buchanan's administration occupied so much of the public attention at the time, and have since been a subject of so much interest, that his management of our foreign relations has been quite obscured. The wisdom displayed in this branch of his duties was such as might have been expected from one who had had his previous experience in the state department and in important diplomatic posts. His only equals in the executive office in this respect have been Mr. Jefferson and Mr. John Quincy Adams. During an administration fraught with the most serious hazards to the internal relations of the states with each other, he kept steadily in view the preservation of peace and good will between the United States and Great Britain, while he abated nothing from our just claims or our national dignity. He left to his successor no unsettled question between these two nations that was of any immediate importance, and he also left the feeling between them and their respective governments in a far better condition than he found it on his accession to the presidency. The long-standing and dangerous question of British dominion in Central America, in the hope of settling which Mr. Buchanan had accepted the mission to England, was still pending, but it was at length amicably and honorably settled, under his advice and approbation after he became president, by treaties between Great Britain and the two Central American states, in accordance with the American construction of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. Another subject of contention that had long existed between the two countries was removed by President Buchanan in a summary and dignified way. The belligerent right of search had been exercised by Great Britain in the maritime war of 1812. In process of time she undertook to assert a right to detain and search, on the high seas, in time of peace, merchantmen suspected of being engaged in the slave-trade. In 1858 she despatched some cruisers with such orders to the coast of Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico. President Buchanan, always vigilant in protecting the commerce of the country, but mindful of the importance of preventing any necessity for war, remonstrated to the English government against this violation of the freedom of the seas. Then he sent a large naval force to the neighborhood of Cuba with instructions “to protect all vessels of the United States on the high seas from search or detention by the vessels of war of any other nation.” The effect was most salutary. The British government receded, abandoned the claim of the right of search, and recognized the principle of international law in favor of the freedom of the seas. During the whole of Mr. Buchanan's administration our relations with Mexico were in a complicated and critical position, in consequence of the internal condition of that country and of the danger of interference by European powers. Great outrages were committed in Mexico upon our citizens and their property, and their claims against that government exceeded
