V.

Last Years

On inauguration day in March, Buchanan escorted President-elect Lincoln to the ceremonies and then accompanied him to the executive mansion, the White House. Returning to the more peaceful atmosphere of Wheatland, Buchanan told his neighbors that he had parted from Lincoln with the comment: “If you are as happy, my dear sir, on entering this house as I am in leaving it and returning home, you are the happiest man in this country.”

Buchanan was an honest, sincere man, who by hard work achieved the highest offices in the country. Unfortunately he became president at a time when extraordinary leadership was needed if the Southern states were to remain in the Union. Under more normal circumstances his qualities as a hardworking politician of compromise and accommodation would have served the country admirably.

Throughout the war the former president supported Lincoln's administration in its fight for the Union. He lived quietly at Wheatland and wrote a vigorous defense of his own administration. It was first published in 1865 under the title The Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion. Buchanan died at Wheatland on June 1, 1868.