icap was his
wide friendship, which often made it almost impossible to say no,
however much he may have wished to do so. An unknown backwoodsman, like
Andrew Jackson, with no favors to return and no friendships to be
remembered, could have acted far more effectively.

Buchanan's opponent for the presidency was John C. Fremont, and there
was a great stir and bustle among the people who were supposed to
support him, but Buchanan won easily, and at once found himself in the
midst of the most perplexing difficulties. Kansas was in a state of
civil war; two days after his inauguration the Supreme Court handed down
the famous Dred Scott decision, declaring the right of any slave-holder
to take his slaves as property into any territory; while the young
Republican party was siding openly with the abolitionists, and, a very
firebrand in a powder-house, in 1859, John Brown seized Harper's Ferry,
Virginia, and attempted to start a slave insurrection. Now a slave
insurrection was the one thing which the South feared more than any
other--it was the terror which was ever present. And so John Brown's mad
attempt excited a degree of hysteria almost unbelievable.

Small wonder that Buchanan was soon at his wits' ends. His sympathies
were with the slave-holders; he doubted his right to coerce a seceding
state; his friendships were largely with southern statesmen--and yet, to
his credit be it stated, on January 8, 1860, after secession had become
a thing assured, he seems suddenly to have seen his duty clearly, and in
a special message, declared his intention to collect the revenues and
protect public property in all the states, and to use force
if necessary. Taken all in all, his attitude in those trying days was a
creditable one--as creditable as could be expected from any average man.
What the time needed was a genius, and fortunately one rose to the
occasion. Buchanan, harried and despondent, must have breathed a deep
sigh of relief when he surrendered the helm to the man who had been
chosen to succeed him--the man, by some extraordinary chance, in all the
land best fitted to steer the ship of state to safety--the man who was
to be the dominant figure of the century in American history.

SUMMARY

WASHINGTON, GEORGE. Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, February 22
(old style, February 11), 1732; sent on a mission to the French beyond
the Alleghenies, 1753-54; appointed lieutenant-colonel, 1754; defeated
by the French at