OCR Text |
Show North, South Fought Hard Over President Buchanan By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator, WASHINGTON. Democratic harmony, so far as the Dixie-erat Dixie-erat revolt is concerned, remains an uncertain quantity. Democrats, Demo-crats, basically, are still Democrats, but there will always be certain cer-tain fundamental differences between North and South which existed even before slavery and secession became issues. Beyond that, however, recent clashes with the Dixiecrats are largely only a levelling off process and probably nothing a sensible compromise cannot cure. People outside of Washington are often surprised that differences L. "ssesm still arise between North and South over ancient matters mat-ters which most of the country has forgotten. The country has also forgotten that it was here that the earliest outbreaks of sectional feeling feel-ing took place. As early as 1848, there was a riot following an "un- became Mrs. Harriett Lane Johnston, Johns-ton, lived to an affluent old age and when she died, left the sum of $50,000 (which bought a lot more marble and bronze then than it would now) for the erection of a statue of her uncle. The donation of a site required the approval of congress. This donation was cheap, considering consider-ing that, unlike similar tributes to the nation's hero, all expenses ex-penses were provided. Congress was willing enough, but not that stalwart yankee, Lodge, who lived perhaps nearer to the age of Buchanan to his own generation. genera-tion. He cho to dig up all the unsavory un-savory memories his scholarly brain could muster to block the donation do-nation of the site. Naturally hot southern blood grew hotter, and what some of Mr. Lodge's opponents lacked in data, they more than made up in oratory. The motion was passed, but not until tempers had been thoroughly ruffled. The site chosen for the statue was not conspicuous. In fact, I had never seen it until it was brought to my attention by h gentleman fully conversant con-versant with the details of the dispute dis-pute and likewise familiar with every nook and cranny of the capital capi-tal city. I asked him to show me the statue. He said he knew where it was. In Meridian Park. But just before we arrived at the scene, he paused and said: "It ought to be here." aergrouna siave-BATJKHAGE siave-BATJKHAGE running incident in which 76 household servants were spirited off to freedom. The Abolitionist Abo-litionist Weekly was stormed and the capital suffered the biggest attack at-tack of jitters it had had since the British burned the White House 34 years before. Nine years later a band of armed ruffians from Baltimore entered the city bent on helping help-ing the "Know Nothing" candidates candi-dates in the local election. (We had local elections then.) The marines had to be called out: six men were killed and twice as many wounded. The tide continued to rise and no President, from Tyler to Buchanan, could or would do anything about It. It was an open secret that Buchanan's Bu-chanan's sympathies were largely south of the Mason-Dixon line. Historians agree that he learned in advance the decision in the famous Dred Scott slavery case which was one of the last of the explosions which started the Civil War. Today To-day supreme court secrets are kept secret. But Buchanan knew the court had ruled that Dred Scott was not a citizen under the meaning of the Consitution, and could not be made a citizen; further that the Cohstiution affirmed a property right in slaves, and such slave property prop-erty was protected by the "due process of law" clause. Buchanan realized what the effect of this decision would be, but m his inauguration speech piously advised the country to accept the verdict, no matter what it was. Later when southern sentiment grew in the capital, Buchanan did try to organize a militia, but congress con-gress would have none of it. The regular army troops in the city were known to be of doubtful loyalty. The militia, much larger on paper, could muster only 150 men. Meanwhile the southern group, the Militant Jackson Democratic Demo-cratic association, was drilling 800 men. Finally the militia managed to get a thousand men under arms. But feeling ran high, and on Washington's Washing-ton's birthday following the election of Abraham Lincoln by the electoral elec-toral college but before his inauguration, inaug-uration, the militia paraded. Ex-President Ex-President Tyler, a Virginian, went to Buchanan and protested the fact that they had been allowed to display dis-play the Stars and Stripes, and Buchanan Bu-chanan is said to have apologized. Most people have forgotten the northern animosity toward Buchanan, Buchan-an, but it was to crop up again in my time when it was the subject of one of those asidulous debates for which Sen. Cabot Lodge was notorious. Many Presidents are memorialized in stone in Washington, Washing-ton, but not all, and in Lodge's time, Buchanan was one who was not Buchanan had been a bachelor and had taken his niece with him to the White House as hostess to assist as-sist in the brilliant entertainments for which he was noted. She later It developed that he had never seen it either. It was there in an inconspicuous spot, a huge bronze statue, of good workmanship, backed by a wide exedra which is defined as "a seat with a high back" but this would seat several squads of infantry. It is a huge piece ol stonework flanked by two symbolic figures in classic style, one representing diplomacy, dip-lomacy, in which Buchanan was skilled (he had served well as minister min-ister to Great Britain) and one representing the law in which, if we may judge by his breach of ethics in connection with the supreme su-preme court decision, he was not of equal stature. Perhaps his niece was sensitive on this point for she specified the inscription the only words on the statue beside the dates of his term and the single word "Buchanan" It reads: ' "The incomparable statesman whose walk was upon the mountain moun-tain ranges of the law." (Although (Al-though it isn't indicated, it was Buchanan's own attorney-general who said that. There is a certain ironic touch in the fact that Buchanan's memory had to be perpetuated in stone by family subsidy, for from 1820 to 1830 he was one of the few members of congress who pursued the futile attempt to get congress to approve a suitable memorial in the capitol to George Washington. Efforts in this direction either were circumvented or ignored until 1831,' the centenary of Washington's birth. At that time, the public was so aroused over the indifference of congress that George Watterson. then librarian of congress, formed an association which raised the money for the Washington monument monu-ment which was eventually completed com-pleted on the spot originally chosen for a statue of Washington by Major L' Enfant who drew the plans for the city. The President said recently he didn't depend on opinion polls under un-der any circumstances. Well, if anybody has a reason for that attitude, at-titude, it certainly would be Harry Truman. p., y -. , yyy , p , ' ' ' V ' ' t f I ' ' A if vt $Jf J 7 A 1 BUCHANAN'S ONLY MEMORIAL |