“I have not language to express the feelings which swell in my heart on this occasion: but I do most cordially thank you for this demonstration of your personal kindness to an old man, who comes back to you ere long to go to his final rest. And here let me say that, having visited many foreign climes, my heart has ever turned to Lancaster as the spot where I would wish to live and die. When yet a young man, in far remote Russia, my heart was still with friends and neighbors in good old Lancaster. [Applause.]
“Although I have always been true to you, I have not been so true to you as you have been to me. Your fathers took me up when a young man, fostered and cherished me through many long years. All of them have passed away, and I stand before you to-day in the midst of a new generation. [A voice in the crowd—“I saw you mount your horse when you marched to Baltimore in the War of 1812.”] The friendship of the fathers for myself has descended on their children. Generations of mortal men rise, and sink, and are forgotten, but the kindness of the past generation to me, now so conspicuous in the present, can never be forgotten.
“I have come to lay my bones among you, and during the brief, intermediate period which Heaven may allot me, I shall endeavor to perform the duties of a good citizen, and a kind friend and neighbor. My advice shall be cheerfully extended to all who may seek it, and my sympathy and support shall never be withheld from the widow and the orphan. [Loud applause.] All political aspirations have departed. What I have done, during a somewhat protracted public life, has passed into history. If, at any time, I have done aught to offend a single citizen, I now sincerely ask his pardon, while from my heart I declare that I have no feeling but that of kindness to any individual in this county.
“I came to this city in 1809, more than half a century ago, and am, therefore, I may say, among your oldest citizens. When I parted from President Lincoln, on introducing him to the Executive Mansion, according to custom, I said to him: “If you are as happy, my dear sir, on entering this house as I am in leaving it and returning home, you are the happiest man in this country!” I was then thinking of the comforts and tranquillity of home, as contrasted with the troubles, perplexities, and difficulties inseparable from the Presidential office. Since leaving Washington, I have briefly addressed my friends on two or three occasions, but have purposely avoided all allusions to party politics, and I shall do so here.
“There is one aspiration, however, which is never absent from my mind for a single moment, and which will meet with a unanimous response from every individual here present, and that is, may God preserve the Constitution and the Union, and in His good providence dispel the shadows, clouds, and darkness which have now cast a gloom over the land! Under that benign influence we have advanced more rapidly in prosperity, greatness and glory than any other nation in the tide of time. Indeed, we had become either the envy or admiration of the whole world. May all our troubles end in a peaceful solution, and may the good old times return to bless us and our posterity! [Loud and prolonged applause.]”
At the conclusion of his remarks, he seated himself in his carriage, and was escorted out through the main street leading westward to Wheatland, on the way passing under an arch spanning the street, and with other signs of popular enthusiasm attending the occasion. When the procession reached Wheatland, the city guards were drawn up in front of the house, and to the music of “Home, Sweet Home,” he ascended the portico and re-entered upon the scenes of that tranquillity in which it was his desire to spend the rest of his days. Briefly addressing the military company drawn up in review before him he said, that he regarded that day as one of the proudest of his life. He thanked the officers and members for their handsome escort, so freely tendered him, and held it especially significant, as he was now a private citizen only. He regretted that having just reached his home, he was not prepared to entertain them. The doors of his house had been always open, the latch-string was out. At any other time when they felt disposed to call, either as a company or individuals, they should receive a very cordial welcome. On behalf of the guards, Mr. Preston responded at length, expressing their gratification at having the privilege of attending the President, and witnessing the cordiality and universal honor with which he had been received here. Late at night Mr. Buchanan was serenaded by the musical bodies of Lancaster.
And now that he had reached his home among those who best knew and who venerated him, and had sate himself down for whatever enjoyment of private life remained to him, it would seem that at least the respect and the forbearance of all his countrymen, if not their gratitude and applause, would have followed him in his retreat. He had been “so clear in his great office;” he had so wisely and conscientiously discharged its most important trusts; he had been so free from the corruption that assails the supreme dispenser of patronage and power; he had so well expounded the fundamental law that must govern the course of public affairs in the perilous condition that awaited them; he had done so much to secure for his successor a safe path in which to walk; he had left to that successor so little that could embarrass and so much that could guide him, that it would seem as if his errors would have been outweighed by the good that he had tried to do, as if all the virtuous and noble of the land would have interposed to shield him from censure. Nay, it would seem that he had accumulated a claim for tender consideration, large beyond the ordinary measure of such a fund. He had sacrificed on the altar of his country friendships of long years of mutual confidence and service; of that confidence and service which unite, in the strong bond of such a connection, the lofty spirits who lead together the political parties of a great and free country. In the discharge of his public duty, he had wounded and alienated hearts in which he had ever been held, and hoped always to be held, in affection and honor. To a man in the decline of life, such losses are serious things; and this man had more of them, far more, than usually falls to the lot of a statesman, even in the changing fortunes of the longest public life. His countrymen in general knew little of what his Presidency had cost him, or, if they knew anything of the rupture of such ties, they gave him no credit for the sacrifice.
Human nature, at its best, has enormous weaknesses, even if it has also great strength. Those who succeeded to the control of the Federal Government could not resist the temptation to assail their predecessors; as if the shortcomings of predecessors could excuse their own mistakes; as if crimination of those who had laid down responsibility could help those who had taken it up. But such is the natural, perhaps the inevitable course of things in free governments when a change of parties takes place, and especially in times of extreme public danger. Mr. Buchanan was pursued in his retirement with more than usual ferocity. The example that was set in high places infected those of low degree. Men said that he was a secessionist. He was a traitor. He had given away the authority of the Government. He had been weak and vacillating. He had shut his eyes when men about him, the very ministers of his cabinet, were plotting the destruction of the Union. He was old and timid. He might have crushed an incipient rebellion, and he had encouraged it. He had been bullied at his own council board by a courageous minister who had rebuked his policy and stayed him from a pernicious step. He had carried off from the official palace of the Republic ornaments that belonged to the nation. He had foolishly endeavored to have a member of his family catalogued among the royal families of the world.
Some of these slanders were low enough in their origin, but not too low to be echoed by a careless or a shameless press. Some of them began in high quarters, and spread through all ranks of society. Some would have been of moment, if they had been true; some had only their own frivolity and falsehood to give them currency; but when do frivolity and falsehood arrest the currency of a lie?
The reader who has followed me through the foregoing pages, has been enabled to pass judgment upon some of the most serious of the reproaches with which this statesman was visited. But there are other specific charges which remain to be noticed: and if, in this final refutation, I begin with an accusation that borrowed some dignity from its source, and then have to descend to things that no origin and no authority could dignify, I must plead the simple nature of my duty as the excuse. If I seem to the reader to pile Pelion upon Ossa, he must not forget the sources from which have been derived the erroneous popular impressions which have so long prevailed concerning these affairs.