epithets. His is the clear, explicit language of every-day life, and which is most befitting all stations. Every thing about him indicated that he loved order and quiet, and that the tendency of his mind was in favor of utility. . . . His tastes are of the most simple kind, and he lives, like his neighbors, without attempting foolish ostentation or wearisome display. His uniform frugality has crowned his latter years with a liberal competency, never contaminated by parsimony. He has always been liberal and charitable. Poverty and affliction never solicited of him in vain." These are some of the traits in his character that then arrested attention. Mr. Buchanan has the happy faculty of saying much in a few words. When he speaks or writes, he uses not one word more than is necessary, and we seldom find that a necessary one has been omitted. Everybody can perfectly understand him. His conversation is in striking contrast with that of many who cannot be understood except with dictionaries in hand. He is a fast friend to those who secure his confidence, and he seldom mistakes the characters or motives of men.

99.-MR. BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION.

If he was not eminent as a political tactician, Mr. Buchanan was one of the ablest executive officers ever occupying the presidential chair, having clear and exact ideas of constitutional powers and duties, and the force and effect of statutes, and great learning in the law of nations. It was not in his nature to wish to escape the responsibilities of his position. His mind was naturally peaceful and not belligerent, though he was ever prepared to return blows when he received them. He inherited the Kansas difficulties which had sprung up and surrounded Mr. Pierce's Administration, and which entangled his own without any fault of his. He was our minister in London at their inception and early grotwh. Had he abandoned what he believed to be his duty, and played the adroit but unscrupulous politician, he could easily have avoided the difficulties of the situation, and remained unaffected by them. But, as they lay in the path of duty, he cheerfully encountered them. The difficulties were largely increased by Congress being divided into three parties, seeking different

ends, neither having a majority. On the 29th of January, 1861, all difficulties in relation to those matters terminated by Kansas being admitted as a State. But the bitter feelings engendered by them were neither ended nor much softened. Partisans in and out of Congress, who had never before acted together, and between whose principles there was little resemblance, gradually came together, and embarrassed, if they did not directly oppose, Mr. Buchanan's Administration. His most important recommendations, if not directly questioned, were utterly disregarded.

The Democratic National Convention, in the spring of 1860, was held at Charleston, South Carolina. The differences which had separated the Democrats in Congress, and embarrassed the Administration, were soon manifested in the convention, and, without making a nomination, it finally adjourned to Baltimore. When it again assembled, it split, and two nominations-Douglas and Breckenridge-were made. The difficulties, nominally, grew out of framing a platform, and mostly from past questions, but really from personal considerations, having their origin in conflicts arising in Kansas matters. The Democrats went into the contest with a divided front, and, although largely in the majority, were defeated. The Whigs and abolitionists, from the Northern States, calling themselves Republicans, met in convention at Chicago; nominated Abraham Lincoln, and placed him before the country upon issues which were clearly sectional, and hostile to the slaveholding States. That portion of the old Whig party which had not consented to be absorbed by the abolitionists, called a convention at Baltimore, which nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, for President, and Edward Everett for Vice-President, declaring they were supporters of the Constitution, and in favor of enforcing the laws. This ticket received the votes of those Whigs who revered the Constitution, and were unwilling to support the Republican or either of the Democratic tickets. Each of the four tickets received electoral votes-Bell and Everett, those of Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky; Douglas, those of Missouri and New Jersey; Breckenridge, those of the remaining slave States; and Lincoln the residue, who, of course, was elected. Such a result was not calculated to heal the difficulties

in which the country was involved; and, when Congress met in December, it was found that they continued to exist, and were effective for evil. The election of a sectional candidate to the presidency, who had not even an electoral ticket in the field, in the fifteen slave States, and upon issues hostile to them, naturally aroused a deep feeling in those States, whose rights were thought to be in danger. Much had been said during the campaign, calculated to irritate and inflame the public mind, and give force and effect to discontent. Their rights, whatever they might be, were clearly as sacred as those of other States. But the mode of protection selected was a fatal, suicidal one, and destructive to their own, as well as to the interests of the nation. They should have fought the battle for their preservation, in instead of out of the Union, and then the Democracy would have sustained them as far as the Constitution authorized. But the fatal step of secession was resolved upon, to be followed by an appeal to the God of battles, whose decision, they ought to have known, would be against them. Here a new and great danger presented itself, and its manner of treatment by Mr. Buchanan has been grossly misrepresented and misunderstood, which created a false and unjust impression against him. It is the rising, and not the setting sun that is worshipped, and his was the setting. In Congress there were two sections who cherished no kind feelings toward him-one, embracing a portion of the Democratic party, who were willing to see him crucified; and another which were ready for any measures which might result in the triumph of abolition. Neither took one step to prevent or repress secession, or to avoid the conflict of arms which naturally followed. Mr. Lincoln and his leading friends stood pledged to their followers to abolish slavery. This could not be done, in any possible way, under the Constitution, and this could not be amended without the consent of a large portion of the slave States. How, then, was it to be done? The North could not declare war, to enforce abolition in the South. There was no possible way of keeping their promises, but to present such a state of things as to induce the South to become actors in secession, and then to be allowed, on Mr. Greeley's plan, to "go in peace," with slavery, or to

plunge the country into a war, and to secure the extinction of it, as one of the consequences of resorting to arms. Although Republicans did not agree in the mode of freeing the nation from the taint of slavery, they did agree in taking no steps to stifle secession. Both plans were based upon secession movements at the South, and one of them held out encouragement of a bloodless result. Although fearing fatal results, Mr. Buchanan's oft-repeated communications to Congress on the subject produced no action. As President, when Congress was in session, his power of action was limited, and Congress conferred no power-none authorizing action of any kind. The army, on a peace establishment, was almost nominal, and distributed at points of danger; and he had no power to solicit volunteers, or call out the militia. The laws did not provide for the existing state of things, and he could not change them; and Congress declined to act.. The South was encouraged to enter upon her fatal movement by numerous Republican papers, and induced to believe that no efforts would be made to prevent their going in peace, as Chief-Justice Chase suggested, after he came into Lincoln's Cabinet. The responsibility of omitting all action to prevent or meet secession rested, not with Mr. Buchanan, but with Congress, which refused to do any thing. Mr. Buchanan's vindication proves this beyond doubt or question. A careful examination of the journals and debates of Congress, as well as the laws then passed, will incontestibly prove what we assert. No man can point to one law passed by Congress to prevent secession, or to avoid war. Those Republicans who did not go with Greeley and Chief-Justice Chase, in letting the South "go in peace," expected and wished for war, as a means of fulfilling their promises to the abolitionists. This view is supported by high authority. When, in 1866, Mr. Seward was charged with not being sufficiently radical, the Albany Evening Journal, in an article, probably written by him, proceeds to show that he had been a great Radical, and says:

"The Pittsburg Convention and the Philadelphia Convention, which gave shape and crystallization to the sentiment of the North, were both 'radical' bodies, in the sense in which we assume that term to be used by the Times. They proposed

fundamental changes in the policy of our Government. To accomplish these they declared war upon slavery. Instead of 'conserving' that institution, they took measures which every political observer knew must, if successful, result in its ultimate extinction. With full understanding of the fact that their platform, ‘free soil, free speech, free men,' was AN INVITATION TO SOUTHERN REVOLT,

AND THAT THE ELECTION OF THEIR CANDIDATE WOULD PRECIPITATE

A CRISIS, they went into the contest, which had become a necessity of national preservation and integrity. Beaten in the first national canvass, they continued the fight in Kansas and upon the floors of Congress, and, returning to the charge in 1860 with a railsplitter' candidate for the presidency, won a signal triumph."

The truth of this declaration by the Evening Journal has never been denied. It is unquestionably true, and proves two things the real motives in running abolitional and sectional candidates, and why the Republicans in Congress took no steps, under Mr. Buchanan's recommendations, in relation to secession, or made any movement of their own. War was desired by two classes: one who staked every thing on abolition, and the other wishing for rapid and easy means of making fortunes by furnishing supplies for the army and navy. Mr. Buchanan wished to avoid war, but they did not aid him in preventing it, because their hopes of final success in abolition depended upon the nation being plunged into one. Such preventive measures as he could take, were adopted by Mr. Buchanan, under the advice of General Scott, whose autobiography, in this respect, is singularly erroneous. He confided in the honesty of his Cabinet, but dismissed Floyd the moment he detected him in an untruth, without suspecting his loyalty to the Government; and the stories that he had improperly sent the Southern States national arms, were untrue. They had not their share under the law. Up to this period Floyd professed to be an uncompromising Unionist. Mr. Buchanan believed that the fires first kindled in South Carolina, and which were spreading to other States, would burn themselves out in a short time, if no fuel in the shape of blood should be supplied; but when that should be furnished, the flames would be unmanage able. After blood is shed, few men reason. Until Mr. Lincoln