Mr. Soulè were appointed to meet him at Ostend, where the celebrated "Ostend Manifesto" was agreed upon. It was written by Mr. Buchanan, and set forth the importance of Cuba to the United States, by purchase, if it could be so secured, or by conquest, if slavery in it should be interfered with. In his own country or abroad, north or south, in Congress or out, Mr. Buchanan found slavery demanding his service, and he always responded with alacrity. PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. In June, 1856, Mr. Buchanan was nominated for the presidency by the democratic convention, and the next autumn elected, receiving one hundred and seventy-four electoral votes from nineteen states, while his opposing republican candidate, John C. Fremont, received one hundred and fourteen, and Millard Fillmore eight. The anti-slavery agitation had increased more and more for many years. All that had been said and done to make slavery secure and to extend it, had only served to endanger it. The federal party had gone down in its care not to oppose it; the whig party had died in its efforts to treat it respectfully; the democratic party had grown mighty and arrogant in defending it. Now there had come into the field a new party which did not believe in slavery, many of the members of which were in judgment and conscience opposed to it; and yet as a party its one doctrine was non-extension of slavery. It had grown steadily for a number of years and had now cast one hundred and fourteen electoral votes, and had gained a clear majority of about one hundred and ten thousand in the popular vote of the whole country. This looked ominous for the extension of slavery, to prepare for which the whole machinery of the government had been used through several. administrations, and to acccomplish which Mr. Buchanan had been elected. It put Mr. Buchanan in a difficult place. had taken and continued to take the southern side of the Kansas embroglio. In every case he did what he could for slavery, not seeming to see any questions of morality or humanity connected with it, or feeling any pang of pity for the suffering He slaves or the unfortunate whites who held them in bondage to their own harm. A rebellion in Utah broke out, which Mr. Buchanan quelled by sending a wise commissioner to the disaffected. A homestead bill for settlers on the public lands was passed, which he vetoed. It was something for the extension of freedom and the help of freemen. As Mr. Buchanan's troubled administration drew near its close, the great discussion of slavery and the national situation. called out the mighty men of the whole country, and the intellectual battle of the giants was brought on. The rostrum, the lyceum, the press, the pulpit, were all at their best. Over the whole country there was profound study and deep and thorough dicussion. The best was said for both sides. The most notable discussion was that between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln-perhaps the greatest political oral discussion ever held in the world. The country read it with breathless interest. This, together with Mr. Lincoln's great speech in the Cooper Institute, New York, resulted in his nomination for the presidency by the republican party, in 1860, and his election. The pro-slavery leaders of the south had threatened disunion if Mr. Lincoln was elected. The people of the north had but little confidence in or fear of this threat. They believed the people of the south were loyal, and prized the Union more than the extension of slavery. They understood the threat to be that of the political leaders, and not of the considerate people. Indeed, the north has always had far more confidence in the southern people than in their leaders, because political leadership has been almost the only way to notoriety in the south. The last Congress under Mr. Buchanan met early in December. His message was full of weakness. He said the constitution had given him no power to coerce a withdrawing or a withdrawn state; that he could not call out the army except upon the requisition of judicial autnority, and that authority did not exist in a rebellious state. The way was full of lions to the president who was in friendly sympathy with the seceding leaders. South Carolina formally seceded on the twentieth of December, and set up as a separate commonwealth, and sent commissioners to treat with the president. He met them, "but only as private gentlemen of the highest character." The simple fact was, as the French writer, De Tocqueville, had foretold some years before, the doctrine of "State Sovereignty" had sapped the life blood of the loyalty of those who had espoused it as a political truth, and he, like those who went out, had no patriotic soundness in him. Since the days of Calhoun the immoral and dangerous heresy had been growing, and now had brought forth its first bitter fruit. Not Mr Buchanan alone, but all who had joined with him. in the great heresy, were in the fault and jointly responsible for the great disaster. His patriotism was dead, and the moral stamina and the manly courage of the man had died with it. He was a body of political rottenness in the chair of state-a pitiable shame to American manhood. As soon as Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated Mr. Buchanan retired to his home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he lived in quiet obscurity till June 1, 1868, when he passed away, aged seventy-seven years. This wreck of patriotism and loyal manhood seems all the worse as Mr. Buchanan was really a great man, and had risen rapidly from obscurity to the highest place in the gift of the nation. He had many virtues, and some marked excellencies; had a fine physique, a noble face and a manly bearing, and ought to have been among the grand American men. THE GRAVE OF JAMES BUCHANAN. At Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Mr. Buchanan lived from the time he began to study law till the close of his life. His residence was about a mile west of the town on the Marietta road. He called it Wheatland. It is an old-fashioned brick mansion in the midst of a pleasant lawn well supplied with shade and ornamental trees. Not far from the entrance is a fine spring, over shadowed with willows, which was always an object of interest to its owner, and where he often sat on summer days and read, and greeted his neighbors as they passed. It is now owned by his niece, Mrs. Henry E. Johnston (Miss Harriet Lane), of Baltimore, who was reared from childhood by him, and who now makes this her summer residence. Mr. Buchanan's grave is in Woodward Hill cemetery, in the southeastern part of the city, on a somewhat bluffy and fine outlook over the valley of the Conestoga. The cemetery contains twenty-seven acres, tastefully arranged and ornamented for the resting-place of human mortality. A chapel crowns the highest point, not far from the center. Near the chapel and a little down toward the river is the grave of the fifteenth president. The plat of ground enclosed with an iron fence is thirty feet by twelve. The fence is interlaced with thrifty and well-cared-for rose bushes; while the well-kept lawn is dotted over with clumps of rare roses. The one grave is in the center of the lot. The remains rest in a vault of strong masonry, covered with heavy slabs of rock. A base of New Hampshire granite, some seven feet by three and a half, rests on these slabs, and on the base a single block of Italian marble six feet four inches long, two feet ten inches wide, and three feet six inches high, wrought with a heavy moulded cap and base. A branch of oak with leaves and acorns is cut in the cap. On the end of the block next to the chapel is this inscription: HERE REST THE REMAINS OF James Buchanan, FIFTEENTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Born in Franklin County, Pa., April 22, 1791. |