JAMES Buchanan was a native of Pennsylvania, born on the 13th of April, 1791. In 1831 he was appointed Minister to Russia, was afterwards senator of the United States, and Secretary of State under President Polk. In 1853 he received the appointment of Minister to Great Britain. As Secretary of State in the new cabinet, General Lewis Cass of Michigan was chosen.

2. In the first year of Buchanan's administration, serious trouble occurred with the Mormons concerning the enforcement of the authority of the United States over Utah. An army was sent to the Territory in 1857 to compel obedience. For awhile the Mormons resisted; but when the President proclaimed a pardon to all who would submit, they yielded; and order was restored.

3. The 5th of August, 1858, was noted for the completion of the FIRST TELEGRAPHIC CABLE across the Atlantic. The success of this great work was due to the genius of Cyrus W. Field of New York. The cable was stretched from Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, to Valencia Bay, Ireland. After successful operation for a few weeks the cable ceased to work. In 1858 Minnesota was added to the Union. The population of the new State was a hundred and fifty thousand. In the next year, Oregon, the thirty-third State, was admitted, with a population of forty-eight thousand.

4. The slavery question continued to vex the nation. In 1857 the Supreme Court of the United States, after hearing the cause of Dred Scott, formerly a slave, decided that negroes are not and can not become citizens. Thereupon, in several of the free States, Personal Liberty Bills were passed, to defeat the Fugitive Slave Law. In the fall of 1859, John Brown of Kansas, with a party of twenty-one daring men, captured the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and held his ground for two days. The national troops were called out to suppress the revolt. Thirteen of Brown's men were killed, two made their escape, and the rest were captured. The leader and his six companions were tried by the authorities of Virginia, condemned and hanged.

5. In the presidential canvass of 1860 the candidate of the Republican party was Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. The distinct principle of this party was opposition to the extension of slavery. In April the Democratic convention assembled at Charleston; but the Southern delegates withdrew from the assembly. The rest adjourned to Baltimore and chose Douglas as their standard-bearer. There, also, the delegates from the South reassembled in June, and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The American party chose as their candidate John Bell of Tennessee. The contest resulted in the election of Mr. Lincoln.

6. The leaders of the South had declared that the choice of Lincoln for the presidency would be a just cause for the dissolution of the Union. A majority of the cabinet, and a large number of senators and representatives in Congress, were advocates of disunion. It was seen that all the departments of the government would shortly pass under the control of the Republican party. President Buchanan was not himself a disunionist; but he declared himself not armed with the constitutional power to prevent secession by force.

7. On the 17th of December, 1860, a convention met at Charleston, and after three days passed a resolution that the union hitherto existing between South Carolina and the other States was dissolved. The sentiment of disunion spread with great rapidity. By the first of February, 1861, six other States—Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—had all passed ordinances of secession. Nearly all the senators and representatives of those States resigned their seats in Congress and gave themselves to the disunion cause.

8. In the secession conventions a few of the speakers denounced disunion as bad and ruinous. In the convention of Georgia, Alexander H. Stephens delivered a powerful oration in which he defended the theory of secession, but urged that the measure was impolitic, unwise, disastrous.

9. On the 4th of February, 1861, delegates from six of the seceded States assembled at Montgomery, Alabama, and formed a new government, called the Confederate States of America. On the 8th, the government was organized by the election of Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, as provisional President, and Alexander H. Stephens, as Vice-president. A few days previous a peace conference met at Washington, and proposed certain amendments to the Constitution. But Congress gave little heed; and the conference adjourned.

10. The country seemed on the verge of ruin. The army was on remote frontiers—the fleet in distant seas. With the exception of Forts Sumter, Moultrie, Pickens, and Monroe, all the important posts in the seceded States had been seized by the Confederate authorities. Early in January, the President sent the Star of the West to reinforce Fort Sumter. But the ship was fired on, and not allowed to land.