Transcriber’s Note: This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. Footnotes have been gathered at the end of each chapter. Please consult the note at the end of this text for a discussion of any textual issues encountered in its preparation. [Illustration: James Buchanan] LIFE OF JAMES BUCHANAN FIFTEENTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BY GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS _IN TWO VOLUMES_ VOL. I. NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 1883 Copyright, 1883, by GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS. _All rights reserved._ ------- _Stereotyped by Smith & McDougal._ PREFACE. Notwithstanding the proverbial tendency of biographers to contract what Macaulay has called “the disease of admiration,” no one who can lay claim to any strength of mind need allow the fear of such an imputation to prevent him from doing justice to a public man whose life, for whatever reason, he has undertaken to write. But that my readers may judge of the degree of my exposure to this malady, a frank explanation of the circumstances under which I came to write this work is due both to them and to myself.