[19]. The copy of this little biography which is before me is entitled, The Life and Public Services of James Buchanan of Pennsylvania. Twentieth thousand. New York: Published by Livermore & Rudd, 310 Broadway, 1856. It was published anonymously, but I am informed that the name of the author was Edward F. Underhill.
[20]. On their return home from that drawing-room, Mr. Buchanan said to his niece: “Well, a person would have supposed you were a great beauty, to have heard the way you were talked of to-day. I was asked if we had many such handsome ladies in America. I answered, ‘Yes, and many much handsomer. She would scarcely be remarked there for her beauty.’” This anecdote is taken from a book published at New York in 1870, entitled, Ladies of the White House, by Laura Carter Holloway. Deducting a little from the somewhat gushing style in which the biographical sketches in this book are written, it is reliable in its main facts, and it does no more than justice to Miss Lane’s attractions and to the high consideration in which she was held in English society.
[21]. This mention of the Commemoration Day at Oxford, where Mr. Buchanan, along with the poet Tennyson, received the degree of D. C. L., does not do justice to the scene. The students, after their fashion, greeted Miss Lane’s appearance with loud cheers, and on her uncle they bestowed their applause vociferously.
[22]. The Honorable Abbot Lawrence, of Boston.
[23]. Miss Lane’s English maid.
[24]. Mrs. Russell Sturgis.
[25]. Mrs. Baker.
[26]. James MacGregor, Esq., M. P.
[27]. The prominence given by Mr. Barlow to Mr. Slidell, as an active and earnest friend of Mr. Buchanan, led me to ask him to add a sketch of that distinguished man; and I have been at the greater pains to show the strong friendship that subsisted between Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Slidell, because, as will be seen hereafter, when the secession troubles of the last year of Mr. Buchanan’s administration came on, this friendship was one of the first sacrifices made by him to his public duty, for he did not allow it to influence his course in the slightest degree; and although he had to accept with pain the alienation which Mr. Slidell and all his other Southern friends, in the ardor of their feelings, deemed unavoidable, he accepted it as one of the sad necessities of his position and of the time. I think he and Mr. Slidell never met, after the month of January, 1861. The following is Mr. Barlow’s sketch of John Slidell:—
“He was born in the city of New York in 1795; was graduated at Columbia College in 1810, and entered commercial life, which he soon abandoned for the study of the law. He removed to Louisiana in 1825, and was shortly afterwards admitted to the bar of that State. In 1829 he was appointed United States district attorney for the Louisiana district by President Jackson, and from that time took an active part in the politics of the State. He was soon recognized, not only as one of the ablest and most careful lawyers, but as the practical political head of the Democratic party of the Southwest.