THE INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT JAMES BUCHANAN One hundred years ago, today, in the stately mansion just a stone's throw from the building where we are gathered, James Buchanan clad in a dressing gown and slippers, sat alone in his study trying to calm his nerves and to itemize a list of incidentals

in 1840, returned as General in Command of the troops from Georgia, and ordered the destruction of the tracks and culverts he had helped construct almost a quarter century before. Then, General Jubal Early ruined the vital link with the South, which James Buchanan had been so anxious to have his road

1868 ; and finally during the few months after the publication of George Ticknor Curtis, biography of Buchanan in July, 1883. Most of the stories show some similarity in broad outline, but they vary greatly in detail and none of them make clear the sources of in- formation. Let me emphasize, before

immediately before, during, and after the Civil War. He became, at a period of crisis, a strong supporter of Lincoln,, and the Union cause. He was, as we shall see, a counselor of the sixteenth President, advising him even on the selection of cabinet officers.3 The so-called "Copperhead Press" in the North