You can make the deed when you think proper, and the affair of the matting may be arranged at any time.

With many thanks for your kindness,

I remain yours very respectfully,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

In the succeeding month of November, the following letters passed between the two gentlemen:

(Private.)

MY DEAR SIR:-

[MR. BUCHANAN TO MR. MEREDITH.]

LANCASTER, November 21, 1848.

I have seen Mr. Fordney since I came here, who read me a part of your second letter. From this I infer that you regret you had parted with Wheatland. Now, my dear sir, if you have the least inclination to retain it, speak the word and our bargain shall be as if it never had been. It will not put me to the least inconvenience, as I have an excellent house in Lancaster. Indeed I feel a personal interest in having you in the midst of our society; and if you should retain Wheatland, I know that after you shall be satisfied with fame and fortune, you will make this beautiful residence your place of permanent abode.

Please to address me at Paradise P. O., Lancaster county, as I shall be at my brother's, near that place, to-morrow evening, where I shall remain until Thursday evening.

From your friend, very respectfully,

[MR. MEREDITHI TO MR. BUCHANAN.]

JAMES BUCHANAN.

PHILADELPHIA, November 23, 1848.

MY DEAR SIR:Your very kind letter was received yesterday, just as I was going to court in the morning, where I was kept without dinner till near six. I was then obliged to attend an evening engagement at seven. I mention these details to excuse myself for the apparent want of promptness in replying. I have in the first place to express to you my deep sense of the courtesy and consideration which induced you to make me the offer which your letter contains. I cannot accept it, because to do so would be to take advantage of your friendly impulses, which I ought not and cannot do. I have no doubt I shall find a place somewhere in the same county, and hope to call neighbors with you yet. I need not say how much I regret that Mr. Fordney should have been so indiscreet as to communicate my letter to you.

My furniture, etc., is now removed, and I will deliver possession at once, and I wish you heartily, my dear sir, many years of happiness there. I am, always your obliged friend and servant,

W. M. MEREDITH.

In December the purchase-money was paid and the deed of the property was executed by Mr. Meredith. Mr. Buchanan soon afterwards transferred his household gods to Wheatland, and from that time until his death it was his permanent abode, when he did not occupy some official residence in Washington or in London. He removed to Wheatland the furniture which he had hitherto used in Washington and Lancaster, and made some new purchases. The style of everything was solid, comfortable, and dignified, without any show. The library was in the eastern wing of the house, and was entered by a hall running transversely from the main hall, which extended through the house from east and west, and was also entered from the principal parlor. At the window of the library farthest from the main hall was Mr. Buchanan's accustomed seat. Long years of honorable public service, however, and sore trials, are to be traced, before we reach the period when he finally retired to the repose of this peaceful retreat. He left office on the 4th of March, 1849, with a fixed purpose not to re-enter public life. But although he held no public position during the four years of General Taylor's and Mr. Fillmore's term, he could not avoid taking an active interest in public affairs; and it will be seen that he was not at liberty to decline all public service when his party in 1853 again came into power.

But it is now necessary to revert to the spring and summer of 1848, and to the state of things consequent upon the treaty which had been concluded with Mexico. The great acquisitions of territory made by the annexation of Texas, and the cession of New Mexico and California to the United States, had opened questions on which the Democratic and the Whig parties occupied very different positions. The acquisition of these countries was a Democratic measure; and had that party retained its control of the Federal Government, it is probable that its Northern and its Southern branches would have united upon some plan for disposing of the question of slavery in these new regions. The Whigs, on the other hand, although constituting the opposition, and as such acting against the administration of Mr. Polk and its measures, were far from being unanimous in their resistance to the treaty which Mr. Polk proposed to make with Mexico. There were very eminent Whigs who were opposed

to all acquisitions of new territory, for various reasons, and especially because of the tendency of such acquisitions to re-open questions about slavery. There were other very prominent men in the Whig party who were willing to have New Mexico and California added to the Union, and to trust to the chances of a harmonious settlement of all questions that might follow in regard to the organization of governments for those extensive regions. It may not only now be seen, but it was apparent to thoughtful observers at the time, that the true course for the Whig party to pursue, was to adopt as its candidate for the Presidency some one of its most eminent and experienced statesmen, who would represent a definite policy on this whole subject, either by an application of the so-called "Wilmot Proviso," or what was far better, considering the sectional feelings involved, by an extension to the Pacific Ocean of the Missouri Compromise line of division between free and slave territory. But there came about in the winter of 1848 one of those states of popular feeling, in which the people of this country have sometimes taken it for granted that military success, united with certain traits of character, is a good ground for assuming fitness of an individual for the highest civil station. Along with this somewhat hazardous assumption there runs at such times the vague and scarcely expressed idea that the Presidency of the United States is to be treated as a reward for distinguished military services. After General Taylor's return from his Mexican campaign, in which a series of brilliant victories were gained, on each occasion with a force numerically inferior to that of the enemy, he became at once a sort of popular idol. There were a good many elements in his personal character, which entitled him to strong esteem, and some which easily account for his sudden popularity. He had a blunt honesty and sincerity of purpose, which were backed by great strength of will, and prodigious energy as a warrior. The appellation of "Old Rough and Ready," bestowed on him by his soldiers, went straight to the popular heart. These indications of what has been called "availability" in the political nomenclature which has acquired a peculiar significance, were not lost upon that class of Whig politicians who were most disposed to be on the lookout for such means of political success. General Taylor,

although never a politician, and although, from his military life, he had rarely even voted at elections, was known to be a Whig, but, as he described himself, not an "Ultra Whig." He was at no pains to seek a nomination for the Presidency, but it was pretty well known that if it came to him unsought, he would accept it. At the same time, with the modesty and sincerity that belonged to his honest nature, he did not affect to conceal his own distrust of his fitness for the office. It was, with him, a matter which the people of the country were to decide. If they chose to call him to the office, he would discharge its duties to the best of his ability. The sagacity of that portion of the Whigs who expected to win a political victory with such a candidate, was not at fault. When the Whig national convention, which was to make the nomination, assembled at Philadelphia in June, (1848), it was found that both Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster were to be disregarded; and on the fourth ballotting General Taylor received 171 votes out of 279. It is a remarkable fact, that although this nomination was made by a national convention of all the Whigs, several attempts to have it declared by resolution that it must be accepted as a "Whig" nomination, and to declare what the principles of the Whig party were, were voted down. One proposal was to have it declared that Whig principles were "no extension of slavery— no acquisition of foreign territory-protection to American industry, and opposition to executive usurpation." But singularly enough, these propositions were ruled to be out of order: and although the nomination of Millard Fillmore of New York, as Vice President, might seem to give the whole proceeding a Whig aspect, Mr. Fillmore's name, unconnected with any annunciation of a distinctive Whig policy, to be upheld in the election, could do nothing more than to acquire for the "ticket" such weight as his personal character, not then very extensively known, could give to it. It was plain enough, therefore, that the election of General Taylor as President, if it should occur, would settle nothing in regard to the very serious questions that were already resulting from the Mexican war.

It was this step on the part of the Whigs-nominating a candidate without any declared policy-that entailed upon that party, at the beginning of General Taylor's administration, the

most embarrassing questions, and increased the danger of the formation of a third party, on the subject of slavery, whose sphere of operations would be confined to the Northern States, and which might, for the first time in our political history, lead to a sectional division between the North and the South.

On the other hand, the Democratic party had to nominate a candidate for the Presidency who, besides being of sufficient consideration throughout the country to counteract the popular furore about General Taylor, would represent some distinctive policy in regard to the new territories and the questions growing out of their acquisition. The friends of General Cass, who, although he wore a military title, was not in the category of military heroes, claimed that his party services and public position entitled him to the nomination. Mr. Buchanan was by far the fittest candidate whom the Democrats could have adopted; but he had made it a rule not to press his claims upon the consideration of his party, at the risk of impairing its harmony and efficiency. He had adhered to this rule on more than one previous occasion, and he did not now depart from it. General Cass was nominated by the Democratic Convention, and along with the candidate for the Vice-Presidency, W. O. Butler of Kentucky, he was vigorously supported in the canvass by Mr. Buchanan.* But the Whig candidates, Taylor and Fillmore, received one hundred and sixty-three electoral votes, being seventeen more than were necessary to a choice. General Taylor was inaugurated as President on the 4th of March, 1849. Although he was a citizen of Louisiana and a slaveholder, he had received the electoral votes of the free States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. These, with the votes of Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana,

The "platform" of the Democratic party contained the following resolution: "That Congress has no power, under the Constitution, to interfere with, or control the domestic institutions of the several States; and that such States are the sole and proper judges of verything pertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts, by abolitionists or others, made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend to our political institutions." Excepting in an indirect manner, this resolution did not enunciate any specific policy in regard to the newly acquired territories.