Lane spent a great deal of time reading to James Buchanan from news- papers and discussing with him current political matters. Mrs. Ellet does not give the source of her information but writes as follows: At Wheatland she [Harriet Lane] entertained her uncle's friends and foreign visitors, with lady

informally at Wheatland a few weeks after the election, he confided that "the object of my administration will be to destroy any sectional party, North or South, and harmonize all sections of the Union under a national and conservative govern- ment, as it was fifty years ago."10 This, then was the problem