A young woman, to whom Buchanan was engaged in early manhood, a daughter of the wealthiest family in the county, wrote him a letter of dismissal under the spell of jealousy which had been aroused by gossips. Pride on both sides kept the two apart until their separation was made irrevocable by her sudden death. In grief and horror, the young lover wrote to the father of the dead girl, begging the privilege of looking upon her remains and of following them to the grave. But the letter was returned to him unopened.
Four and forty years passed, and Buchanan went to his grave without ever having taken any other woman to his heart.
To help him forget his grief, Buchanan accepted the nomination for Congress. He did not expect to win but did, and his career thenceforward became political. He served five terms and at the end of his service the Democrats of Pennsylvania brought forward his name for the vice presidency. Then President Jackson appointed him Minister to Russia. In this position he concluded the first commercial treaty between the United States and Russia, securing to our seamen important privileges in the Baltic and Black Seas.
In 1833, on his return to the United States, he was elected United States Senator, taking his seat December 15, 1834.
President Van Buren offered Buchanan the place of Attorney General, but it was declined. When Polk became President, the post of Secretary of State was offered and accepted. The most pressing question Buchanan had before him was the northern boundary of the Oregon Territory. Buchanan closed this transaction with Great Britain in 1846, and completed our boundary line to the Pacific.
At the close of Polk’s Administration, Buchanan retired to private life at his country home, called Wheatland, just outside of Lancaster. A niece and nephew were taken into his home and raised as his own children.
When Pierce became President, on March 4, 1853, Buchanan was sent as United States Minister to England. On his return from this mission he was nominated and elected to the presidency, and inaugurated March 4, 1857.
Buchanan clung to the idea that freedom rather than slavery was to blame for all the trouble. He believed that since this Government had permitted slavery when the Union was formed, the Nation had no right to interfere with it in States already in the Union.
When South Carolina seceded he was within ten weeks of the end of his term, with a hostile Congress in front of him and behind him a country as resolute as himself.
Buchanan lived quietly at Wheatland and saw the Rebellion begin and triumphantly end.