The call issued by the South Carolina legislature just after the election of Lincoln for a state convention to decide upon the advisability of secession brought forward the most serious question of Buchanan's administration. The part of his annual message of the 4th of December 1860 dealing with it is based upon a report prepared by Attorney-General Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania. He argued that a state had no legal right to secede, but denied that the federal government had any power forcibly to prevent it. At the same time it was the duty of the president to call out the army and navy of the United States to protect federal property or to enforce federal laws. Soon after the secession movement began the Southern members of the cabinet resigned, and the president gradually came under the influence of Black, Stanton, Dix, and other Northern leaders. He continued, however, to work for a peaceful settlement, supporting the Crittenden Compromise and the work of the Peace Congress. He disapproved of Major Anderson's removal of his troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter in December 1860; but there is probably no basis for the charge made by Southern writers that the removal itself was in violation of a pledge given by the president to preserve the status quo in Charleston harbour until the arrival of the South Carolina commissioners in Washington. Equally unfounded is the assertion first made by Thurlow Weed in the London Observer (9th of February 1862) that the president was prevented from ordering Anderson back to Fort Moultrie only by the threat of four members of the cabinet to resign.
On the expiration of his term of office (March 4, 1861) Buchanan retired to his home at Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he died on the 1st of June 1868. His mistakes as president have been so emphasized as to obscure the fact that he was a man of unimpeachable honesty, of the highest patriotism, and of considerable ability. He never married.
See George Ticknor Curtis, The Life of James Buchanan (2 vols., New York, 1883), the standard biography; Curtis, however, was a close personal and political friend, and his work is too eulogistic. More trustworthy, but at times unduly severe, is the account given by James Ford Rhodes in the first two volumes of his History of the United States since the Compromise of 1850 (New York, new edition, 1902-1907). John Bassett Moore has edited The Works of James Buchanan, comprising his Speeches, State Papers, and Private Correspondence (Philadelphia, 1908-1910).
[1] This "manifesto," which was bitterly attacked in the North, was agreed upon (October 18, 1854) by the three ministers after several meetings at Ostend and at Aix-la-Chapelle, arranged in pursuance of instructions to them from President Pierce to "compare opinions, and to adopt measures for perfect concert of action in aid of the negotiations at Madrid" on the subject of reparations demanded from Spain by the United States for alleged injuries to American commerce with Cuba. In the manifesto the three ministers asserted that "from the peculiarity of its geographical position, and the considerations attendant upon it, Cuba is as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present members"; spoke of the danger to the United States of an insurrection in Cuba; asserted that "we should be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second Santo Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend to our own neighboring shores, seriously to endanger or actually destroy the fair fabric of our Union"; and recommended that "the United States ought, if practicable, to purchase Cuba as soon as possible." To Spain, they argued, the sale of the island would be a great advantage. The most startling declaration of the manifesto was that if Spain should refuse to sell "after we shall have offered a price for Cuba far beyond its present value," and if Cuba, in the possession of Spain, should seriously endanger "our internal peace and the existence of our cherished Union," then "by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we have the power."
BUCHANAN, ROBERT WILLIAMS (1841-1901), British poet, novelist and dramatist, son of Robert Buchanan (1813-1866), Owenite lecturer and journalist, was born at Caverswall, Staffordshire, on the 18th of August 1841. His father, a native of Ayr, after living for some years in Manchester, removed to Glasgow, where Buchanan was educated, at the high school and the university, one of his fellow-students being the poet David Gray. His essay on Gray, originally contributed to the Cornhill Magazine, tells the story of their close friendship, and of their journey to London in 1860 in search of fame. After a period of struggle and disappointment Buchanan published Undertones in 1863. This "tentative" volume was followed by Idyls and Legends of Inverburn (1865), London Poems (1866), and North Coast and other Poems (1868), wherein he displayed a faculty for poetic narrative, and a sympathetic insight into the humbler conditions of life. On the whole, Buchanan is at his best in these narrative poems, though he essayed a more ambitious flight in The Book of Orm: A Prelude to the Epic, a study in mysticism, which appeared in 1870. He was a frequent contributor to periodical literature, and obtained notoriety by an article which, under the nom de plume of Thomas Maitland, he contributed to the Contemporary Review for October 1871, entitled "The Fleshly School of Poetry." This article was expanded into a pamphlet (1872), but he subsequently withdrew from the criticisms it contained, and it is chiefly remembered by the replies it evoked from D.G. Rossetti in a letter to the Athenaeum (16th December 1871), entitled "The Stealthy School of Criticism," and from Mr Swinburne in Under the Microscope (1872). Buchanan himself afterwards regretted the violence of his attack, and the "old enemy" to whom God and the Man is dedicated was Rossetti. In 1876 appeared The Shadow of the Sword, the first and one of the best of a long series of novels. Buchanan was also the author of many successful plays, among which may be mentioned Lady Clare, produced in 1883; Sophia (1886), an adaptation of Tom Jones; A Man's Shadow (1890); and The Charlatan (1894). He also wrote, in collaboration with Harriett Jay, the melodrama Alone in London. In 1896 he became, so far as some of his work was concerned, his own publisher. In the autumn of 1900 he had a paralytic seizure, from which he never recovered. He died at Streatham on the 10th of June 1901.
Buchanan's poems were collected into three volumes in 1874, into one volume in 1884; and as Complete Poetical Works (2 vols., 1901). Among his poems should also be mentioned: "The Drama of Kings" (1871); "St Abe and his Seven Wives," a lively tale of Salt Lake City, published anonymously in 1872; and "Balder the Beautiful" (1877); "The City of Dream" (1888); "The Outcast: a Rhyme for the Time" (1891); and "The Wandering Jew" (1893). His earlier novels, The Shadow of the Sword, and God and the Man (1881), a striking tale of a family feud, are distinguished by a certain breadth and simplicity of treatment which is not so noticeable in their successors, among which may be mentioned The Martyrdom of Madeline (1882); Foxglove Manor (1885); Effie Hetherington (1896); and Father Anthony (1898). David Gray and other Essays, chiefly on Poetry (1868); Master Spirits (1873); A Poet's Sketch Book (1883), in which the interesting essay on Gray is reprinted; and A Look round Literature (1887), contain Buchanan's chief contributions to periodical literature. More valuable is The Land of Lorne (2 vols., 1871), a vivid record of yachting experiences on the west coast of Scotland.
See also Harriett Jay, Robert Buchanan; some Account of his Life (1903).
BUCHAREST (Bucuresci), also written Bucarest, Bukarest, Bukharest, Bukorest and Bukhorest, the capital of Rumania, and chief town of the department of Ilfov. Although Bucharest is the conventional English spelling, the forms Bucarest and Bukarest more nearly represent the correct pronunciation. The population in 1900 was 282,071, including 43,274 Jews, and 53,056 aliens, mostly Austro-Hungarian subjects. With its outlying parts, Bucharest covers more than 20 sq. m. It lies in a hollow, traversed from north-west to south-east by the river Dimbovitza (Dâmbovita or Dîmbovita), and is built mainly on the left bank. A range of low hills affords shelter on the west and south-west; but on every other side there are drained, though still unhealthy, marshes, stretching away to meet the central Walachian plains. From a distance, the multitude of its gardens, and the turrets and metal-plated or gilded cupolas of its many churches give Bucharest a certain picturesqueness. In a few of the older districts, too, where land is least valuable, there are antique one-storeyed houses, surrounded by poplars and acacias; while the gipsies and Rumans, wearing their brightly coloured native costumes, the Russian coachmen, or sleigh-drivers, of the banished Lipovan sect, and the pedlars, with their doleful street cries, render Bucharest unlike any western capital. Nevertheless, the city is modern. Until about 1860, indeed, the dimly lit lanes were paved with rough stone blocks, imbedded in the clay soil, which often subsided, so as to leave the surface undulating like a sea. Drains were rare, epidemics common. Owing to the frequency of earthquakes, many houses were built of wood, and in 1847 fully a quarter of the city was laid waste by fire. The plague visited Bucharest in 1718, 1738, 1793, when an earthquake destroyed a number of old buildings, and in 1813, when 70,000 of the inhabitants died in six weeks. From the accession of Prince Charles, in 1866, a gradual reform began. The river was enclosed between stone embankments; sewerage and pure water were supplied, gas and electric light installed; and horse or electric tramways laid down in the principal thoroughfares, which were paved with granite or wood. The older houses are of brick, overlaid with white or tinted plaster, and ornamented with figures or foliage in terra-cotta; but owing to the great changes of temperature in Rumania, the plaster soon cracks and peels off, giving a dilapidated appearance to many streets. The chief modern buildings, such as the Athenaeum, with its Ionic façade and Byzantine dome, are principally on the quays and boulevards, and are constructed of stone.
Bucharest is often called "The Paris of the East," partly from a supposed social resemblance, partly from the number of its boulevards and avenues. Three main thoroughfares, the Plevna, Lipscani, and Vacaresci, skirt the left bank of the river; the Elizabeth Boulevard, and the Calea Victoriei, or "Avenue of Victory," which commemorates the Rumanian success at Plevna, in 1877, radiate east and north, respectively, from the Lipscani, and meet a broad road which surrounds all sides of Bucharest, except the north-west. The Lipscani was originally the street of merchants who obtained their wares from the annual fair at Leipzig; for almost all crafts or gilds, other than the bakers and tavern-keepers, were long confined to separate quarters; and the old names have survived, as in the musicians', furriers', and money-changers' quarters. Continuous with the Calea Victoriei, on the north, is the Kisilev Park, traversed by the Chausée, a favourite drive, leading to the pretty Baneasa race-course, where spring and autumn meetings are held. The Cismegiu or Cismigiu Park, which has a circumference of about 1 m., is laid out between the Plevna road and the Calea Victoriei; and there are botanical and zoological gardens.