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BUCHANAN. 601 BUCHANAN. by partisan as well as non-partisan historians. In 1.570 Buchanan was appointed tutor to .lames VI. (afterwards .James 1.). who owed to him tlie erudition of which in later life he was so pe- dantically vain. No considerations of the future position of his pupil were allowed to interfere with Buchanan's treatment of him, which was strict, if not even stern. In dcdicatinjr his De lure Regni apud t<rotos to the younj,' monarch in 1579, he warned him against favorites with re- markahle freedom, and his dictum that "Kings existed by the will of the people' was of special import in the succeediuf; century. In 1.570 Bu- chanan was appointed Director of Chancery and Keeper of the Privy Seal. He resigned office in 1.578 and devoted the rest of his life to the com- position of his Historii of Scotland (published in 1582). He died 30 days after its publication, on September 28. 15S2, and received public burial in Greyfriars Churchyard. Edinburgh. As a scholar. Buchanan was unrivaled in liis age, and he wrote Latin poetry 'with the purity and ele- gance of an ancient Koman.' He was alike humorous, sarcastic, and pro- found. His Histori/, written in Latin, is re- markable for the richness, force, and perspicuity of its style, though its narration of contemporary events shows partiality. Two years after the author's death, it. as well as De lure Hermi, etc., was condenmed by the Scottish Parliament, and every person possessed of the copies was ordered to surrender them within 40 days, in order that they might be purged of 'the offensive and ex- traordinary matters' they contained. The latter work was again condemned in 1GG4, and in 1683 was burned by the loyalist scholars of Oxford. Two collected editions of Buchanan's works have been published — one by Ruddiman (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1715) and another by Burmann (2 vols., I.eyden, 1725). Translations that have appeared'do little justice to the original. Con- sult Dr. Irving, iJcmoirs of the Life and Writ- ings of George Buchanan (2d ed. Edinburgh, 1817). BUCHANAN, George (1827—). A Scotch surgeon and autlior. He was appointed surgeon to the Royal Infirmary of Glasgow, accompanied the British forces as a civil surgeon during the Crimean War, was chosen vice-president of the surgical section of the British jledical Associa- tion in 1872, and president of the same in 1888. From 1874 he was professor of clinical surgery in the University of Glasgow, but in 1900 re- signed the chair. He edited the tenth edition of the Anatomist's Tade Mecum, and published On Lithotrity (1880), Talipes Varus (1880), and other technical works, and an important article entitled "Ana-sthesia .Jubilee: a Retrospect" (1807) in the Edinhurgh Medical Journal. BUCHANAN, .James (1791-18G8). The fifteenth President of the United States (1857- 1861). He was born near Mereersburg. Pa., April 23, 1791. graduated at Dickinson College in 1809, was educated for the bar, and began to practice law in Lancaster, Pa., in 1812. Though a professed Federalist, he ser'ed as a private in the second war with England. In 1814, as also in 1815. he was a member of the Pennsylvania I-cgislature, and in 1820 was elected to Congress, where he served through five terms. In 1828 he favored .J.ickson for President, and in the Congress of 1829-1831 made important proposals as chainiian of the Committee on the Judiciary. After leaving Congress he was sent by Jackson as Minister to Russia, where he concluded the first commercial treaty between the two coun- tries, securing valuable privileges in the Black and Baltic seas. Returning home in 1833, he was in the following year chosen to the United States Senate, to which he was twice reelected. He viniformly supported Jackson, especially in the latter's claim that as President he had power to remove executive ollicers without reference to the Senate, and in his financial measures. When it was proposed to exclude from Con- gress petitions for the abolition of slavery, Bu- chanan upheld the right of petition, but declared that Congress had no control over slavery in the States, and that petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia should be uniformly rejected. He favored the bill prohib- iting the use of the mails for the distributiim of abolitionist literature. He supported the 'ex- punging resolution' of Senator Benton, and in the atTair of the American claims on France he supported Jackson's emphatic demand for payment, and his implied threat of war in case of a persistent refiisal on the part of the French Government. During Van Buren's administra- tion Buchanan supported the independent treas- ury scheme and favored the preemption of public lands. He sustained the veto power under Tyler, and opposed the ratification of the Ashburton Treaty, which settled the dispute concerning the northeastern boundary. When the question of the annexation of Texas came to the Senate, Bu- chanan was the only member of the Senate Com- mittee of Foreign Affairs to report in favor of annexation. He had declined the office of At- torney-General in 1839, and in 1844 was men- tioned for the Presidency. Finally he left the Senate in 1845 to become Polk's Secretary of State. In this capacity he had to deal with the northwestern boundary question, whence arose the famous partisan cry "54° 40' or fight." Both England and the United States had for- mally claimed the territory between the Pacific Coast and the Rocl-cy ilountains up to the Rus- sian boundary, but after much negotiation the line of 49° was agreed upon. During the war with ile.xico Buchanan was successful in avoid- ing or preventing the interference of other na- tions. He was in private life during the discus- sion and a<loption of the Compromise Jleasures of 1850, but fully approved them. When Pierce became President, in 1853, Buchanan was sent as Minister to Great Britain, where he was en- gaged in endeavors to settle a series of questions concerning Central American affairs. With .1. . Mason and Pierre Sonic, he signed the Ostcnd Manifesto (q. v.), recommending the acquisition of Cuba, but although the measure was so evi- dently pro-slavery in tendency and unjust to Spain that it met with the disapproval of Marcy, the Secretary of State, nevertheless it helped Bu- chanan to gain the Democratic nomination for President, while his absence in England during the Kansas-Xebraska excitement was also in his favor, and he was nominated in 1856. The elec- toral vote was: For Buchanan, 174: for .John C. Fri-mont (candidate of the newly organized Re- publican Party), 114; for Millard Fillmore (Native American), 8. The popilar vote was: Buchanan, 1.838.169; Fn'-mont, 1.341.264; Fill- more, 874,534; majority against Buchanan, 377,-