removed to Wheatland with Mr. Buchanan. He also took away from the White House a large number of the Chinese or Japanese curiosities, intended, upon presentation, for the mansion. All these are missing." According to my recollection, the Prince of Wales presented to Miss Lane three engravings, one of his mother, another of his father, and the third of himself. They were hung in the Red Room. Whether Miss Lane took them with her to Wheatland I cannot say, but presume she did, as they were her property. There were no Chinese curiosities presented during your administration. The Japanese curiosities presented, I believe, through the late Commodore Perry to ex-President Pierce, remained in the house when I ceased to be Commissioner of Public Buildings. The presents made to you by the Japanese embassy were, by your directions, deposited by me in the Patent Office, with the original list of the articles. I took a receipt for them from the proper officer, which I delivered to you, and doubt not you still have it in your possession. My first impulse on reading the base insinuation of the -'s correspondent, was to publish immediately a flat and indignant contradiction of it; but on consultation with a friend, who seemed to consider it unworthy of notice, I concluded I had better write to you and learn from you whether silent contempt, or a publication stamping it with falsehood, would be the most proper method of treating the slanderous imputation. Very truly yours, JNO. B. BLAKE. [MR. BUCHANAN TO DR. BLAKE.] WHEATLAND, December 19, 1861. MY DEAR SIR: of yesterday, I observe that his In looking over the New York Washington correspondent states that I took away from the White House the pictures of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and other members of the royal family, presented to me for the Presidential mansion by the Prince of Wales. I trust that neither the President nor Mrs. Lincoln had any connection with this statement. Likenesses of the Queen and Prince, with four of the children of the royal family, were sent to Miss Lane in loose sheets, with many kind messages, by the Prince of Wales, immediately before he left for England. I think they were borne by Lord Lyons. Miss Lane had them plainly framed at her own expense, and hung them up in the Red Room until she should return to Wheatland. I am also charged with having taken away from the White House a large number of Chinese and Japanese curiosities intended upon presentation for the mansion. You are aware that after the Japanese embassadors left, I sent everything that had been presented by them to me to the Patent Office. There were at the time two young ladies staying at the White House, and before the embassadors left they presented Miss Lane and each of them some trifling Japanese curiosities. What they received I do not know, but since the receipt of the I have inquired of Miss Hetty, and I certainly would not give twenty dollars for the whole lot. Miss Lane is absent in New York, and I cannot find her keys. . . . I send you the enclosed as something like what might be published. If you would call on Lord Lyons, to whom I enclose a letter, and say you called at my request, he would tell you all about the pictures of the Queen and Prince Albert, and their children. Thank God! my health I may say is entirely restored. How glad I should be to see you! Miss Lane has been absent in New York for some time, and I do not expect her home until after New Year. From your friend, JAMES BUCHANAN. [TO DR. BLAKE.] MY DEAR SIR:- LANCASTER, December 20, 1861. I have this moment received your favor of yesterday. I wrote to you yesterday on the subject of your letter, and suggested a mode of contradiction. I now find that you took the precaution of having a list made of the Japanese articles, and obtaining a receipt from the Patent Office. The statement may, therefore, be made still stronger.* The friend who advised you not to publish a contradiction committed a great mistake. The charge is mean and contemptible, as well as false, and if it were true, it would make me a mean and contemptible fellow. It is just the thing to circulate freely. I have no doubt Lord Lyons will give you a statement in writing concerning the pictures. Wishing you many a merry Christmas, and many a happy New Year, I remain always your friend, JAMES BUCHANAN. One other charge of a similar nature must now be intruded upon the notice of the reader. The following contradiction of it was drawn up by Mr. Buchanan himself for publication, but I do not know whether it was in fact published. EX-PRESIDENT BUCHANAN. There has recently been published in the New York Tribune a letter dated at Gotha on the 12th August, and purporting to have been written by Bayard Taylor, which contains the following: "In this place is published the Almanach de Gotha, the most aristocratic calendar in the world, containing the only reliable pedigrees and portraits of the crowned heads. Well, last summer the publisher was surprised by the reception of a portrait of Miss Harriet Lane, forwarded by her uncle, with a request that it be engraved for next year's * The Patent Office receipts are now before me. The work entitled "Ladies of the White House," contains a letter from Lord Lyons about the trifling presents made by the Prince of Wales to Miss Lane. Almanach, as our Republican rulers had a right to appear in the company of the reigning families." We are authorized to say that this statement in regard to Ex-President Buchanan is without the least shadow of foundation. He never forwarded such a portrait to the publisher of the Gotha Almanach; never made such a request, and never had any correspondence of any kind, directly or indirectly, with that gentleman. He was, therefore, surprised when this absurd charge was a few days ago brought to his notice by a friend. I might multiply these misrepresentations of Mr. Buchanan's acts, his sentiments and opinions, into a catalogue that would only disgust the reader. The sanctity of his domestic circle at Wheatland, after his retirement from the Presidency, and during the early stages of the civil war, was invaded by pretended accounts of his conversation, which were circulated in the issues of newspapers that were unfriendly to him, and which fed a diseased appetite for scandal that could only have existed in a state of unexampled excitement produced by the varying fortunes of the Federal arms. It was indeed a wild and phrensied credulity that could give currency to such falsehoods as were told of him, falsehoods that had no excuse for their origin, or for the credence which they received. It was a state of things which those who are too young to remember it can scarcely conceive, and which those who lived through it must now look back upon with horror. How he bore himself through all this flood of detraction and abuse; how he never wavered amid disaster or victory, in his firm determination to uphold with all his influence the just authority of the Federal Government; how he prayed for the restoration of the Union and the preservation of the Constitution; how he opened his purse to relieve the suffering and cheer the hearts of the brave men who were fighting the battles of their country, his private correspondence abundantly proves. In the seven years which intervened between the end of his Presidency and his death, he had, besides the occupation of preparing the defence of his administration, and of entertaining friends, the occupation of writing letters. He was not one of those statesmen who, after a long life of great activity in the excitements of politics and the business of office, cannot be happy in retirement. He had many resources, and one of the chief of them was his pen. Letter-writing was a sort of necessity of his mind, and it is now well that he indulged it. It is in his familiar letters during these last seven years of his life that his character comes out most vividly and attractively, and in nothing does it appear more winning, or more worthy of admiration than it does in the steadfast evenness of temper with which he bore unmerited and unprovoked calumny, and the serenity with which he looked to the future for vindication. CHAPTER XXVII. 1861. CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. STANTON, MR. HOLT, GENERAL DIX AF FTER his retirement to Wheatland, Mr. Buchanan received many letters from three members of his cabinet, all of whom afterwards held high office under President Lincoln, namely, Mr. Stanton, Mr. Holt, and General Dix. His relations with Judge Black, Mr. Toucey and Mr. King continued to be very intimate, but the letters of the three other gentlemen should specially receive the attention of the reader, because their subsequent positions render them peculiarly important witnesses to the course of Mr. Buchanan's administration. The letters received or written by Mr. Buchanan during the remainder of the year 1861, are here given in their chronological order; but it should be noted that this period is divided by the bombardment of Fort Sumter, which began on the 11th of April, 1861. MY DEAR SIR: [MR. STANTON TO MR. BUCHANAN.] WASHINGTON, Sunday, March 10, 1861. The dangerous illness of my youngest child for the last three days must be my apology for not writing to you until to-day. I shall now endeavor to give you as full information as I possess of the state of public affairs in Washington. At the depot, on the afternoon of your departure, I parted with Mr. Holt and Mr. Toucey, and have not seen them since then. The cabinet was, as you know, nominated and confirmed that day. The next morning Mr. Seward took possession of the State Department, and Mr. Bates was shortly afterwards qualified and commissioned as Attorney General. Before this was done, Mr. Seward sent for me and requested me to draw up a nomination of Mr. Crittenden for Judge of the United States Court. I did so, and gave it to him. My understanding was that the nomination would be immediately sent in. But it has not been sent, and the general understanding is that it will not |