Buchanan, James

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

James (1791-1868), the fifteenth president of the United States . Born at Stony Batter, Pennsylvania, April 22, 1791; died at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, June 1, 1868. He was of Irish parentage and was educated at Dickinson College. He was admitted to the bar in 1812. In politics he was a pro-slavery Democrat. In 1814 he was sent to the state legislature; in 1821 to Congress; in 1831 to Russia to negotiate a commercial treaty; and in 1833 to the United States Senate. In 1845 he was made secretary of state under President Polk; in 1853 he was sent as ambassador to London. In 1856 he was elected to the presidency by the Democrats, defeating Fremont by a large majority. Whatever of reputation as a man of affairs he had gained during all these years of office-holding was lost by a vacillating policy when the Civil War broke out. He held that, while the states had no right to leave the Union, the government had no right to interfere. After Lincoln's inauguration, however, he was loyal to the new administration. No one ever questioned Buchanan's honesty or patriotism; but his reputation is far from that of a strenuous man. Buchanan was the first and only native of Pennsylvania to attain the presidency. The old Buchanan cabin still stands at Stony Batter, high up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Near by stands a unique monument to mark the birthplace. It is pyramidal in shape, thirty-one feet in height, and thirty-eight feet square at the base. The body of the monument is composed of rough native stones weather-marked, and many of them covered with moss. They are set in cement, of which more than four carloads were used. The inscription-plate and seat are of hammered granite. President Buchanan's tomb is to be seen in the old churchyard of Wheatland near Lancaster. See Dix ; President