The Bachelor President's Loyalty To A Memory

________________________________________________
Title:     The Bachelor President's Loyalty To A Memory
Author: Myrtle Reed [More Titles by Reed]

The fifteenth President was remarkable among the men of his time for his lifelong fidelity to one woman, for since the days of knight-errantry such devotion has been as rare as it is beautiful. The young lawyer came of Scotch-Irish parentage, and to this blending of blood were probably in part due his deep love and steadfastness. There was rather more of the Irish than of the Scotch in his face, and when we read that his overflowing spirits were too much for the college in which he had been placed, and that, for "reasons of public policy," the honours which he had earned were on commencement day given to another, it is evident that he may sometimes have felt that he owed allegiance primarily to the Emerald Isle.

Like others, who have been capable of deep and lasting passion, James Buchanan loved his mother. Among his papers there was found a fragment of an autobiography, which ended in 1816, when the writer was only twenty-five years of age. He says his father was "a kind father, a sincere friend, and an honest and religious man," but on the subject of his mother he waxes eloquent:

"Considering her limited opportunities in early life [he
writes], my mother was a remarkable woman. The daughter of a
country farmer, engaged in household employment from early
life until after my father's death, she yet found time to
read much, and to reflect deeply on what she read.

"She had a great fondness for poetry, and could repeat with
ease all the passages in her favorite authors which struck
her fancy. These were Milton, Pope, Young, Cowper, and
Thompson.

"I do not think, at least until a late period in life, she
had ever read a criticism on any one of these authors, and
yet such was the correctness of her natural taste, that she
had selected for herself, and could repeat, every passage
in them which has been admired....

"For her sons, as they grew up successively, she was a
delightful and instructive companion.... She was a woman of
great firmness of character, and bore the afflictions of her
later life with Christian philosophy.... It was chiefly to
her influence, that her sons were indebted for a liberal
education. Under Providence I attribute any little
distinction which I may have acquired in the world to the
blessing which He conferred upon me in granting me such a
mother."

If Elizabeth Buchanan could have read these words, doubtless she would have felt fully repaid for her many years of toil, self-sacrifice, and devotion.

After the young man left the legislature and took up the practice of law, with the intention of spending his life at the bar, he became engaged to Anne Coleman, the daughter of Robert Coleman, of Lancaster.

She is said to have been an unusually beautiful girl, quiet, gentle, modest, womanly, and extremely sensitive. The fine feelings of a delicately organized nature may easily become either a blessing or a curse, and on account of her sensitiveness there was a rupture for which neither can be very greatly blamed.

Mr. Coleman approved of the engagement, and the happy lover worked hard to make a home for the idol of his heart. One day, out of the blue sky a thunderbolt fell. He received a note from Miss Coleman asking him to release her from her engagement.

There was no explanation forthcoming, and it was not until long afterward that he discovered that busy-bodies and gossips had gone to Miss Coleman with stories concerning him which had no foundation save in their mischief-making imaginations, and which she would not repeat to him. After all his efforts at re-establishing the old relations had proved useless, he wrote to her that if it were her wish to be released from her engagement he could but submit, as he had no desire to hold her against her will.

The break came in the latter part of the summer of 1819, when he was twenty-eight years old and she was in her twenty-third year. He threw himself into his work with renewed energy, and later on she went to visit friends in Philadelphia.

Though she was too proud to admit it, there was evidence that the beautiful and high-spirited girl was suffering from heartache. On the ninth of December, she died suddenly, and her body was brought home just a week after she left Lancaster. The funeral took place the next day, Sunday, and to the suffering father of the girl, the heart-broken lover wrote a letter which in simple pathos stands almost alone. It is the only document on this subject which remains, but in these few lines is hidden a tragedy:

"LANCASTER, December 10, 1819.

"MY DEAR SIR:

"You have lost a child, a dear, dear child. I have lost the
only earthly object of my affections, without whom, life now
presents to me a dreary blank. My prospects are all cut off,
and I feel that my happiness will be buried with her in her
grave.

"It is now no time for explanation, but the time will come
when you will discover that she, as well as I, has been
greatly abused. God forgive the authors of it! My feelings
of resentment against them, whoever they may be, are buried
in the dust.

"I have now one request to make, and for the love of God,
and of your dear departed daughter, whom I loved infinitely
more than any human being could love, deny me not. Afford me
the melancholy pleasure of seeing her body before its
interment. I would not, for the world, be denied this
request.

"I might make another, but from the misrepresentations that
have been made to you, I am almost afraid. I would like to
follow her remains, to the grave as a mourner. I would like
to convince the world, I hope yet to convince you, that she
was infinitely dearer to me than life.

"I may sustain the shock of her death, but I feel that
happiness has fled from me forever. The prayer which I make
to God without ceasing is, that I yet may be able to show my
veneration for the memory of my dear, departed saint, by my
respect and attachment for her surviving friends.

"May Heaven bless you and enable you to bear the shock with
the fortitude of a Christian.

"I am forever, your sincere and grateful friend,

"JAMES BUCHANAN."

The father returned the letter unopened and without comment. Death had only widened the breach. It would have been gratifying to know that the two lovers were together for a moment at the end.

For such a meeting as that there are no words but Edwin Arnold's:

"But he--who loved her too well to dread
The sweet, the stately, the beautiful dead--
He lit his lamp, and took the key,
And turn'd it!--alone again--he and she!"

For him there was not even a glimpse of her as she lay in her coffin, nor a whisper that some day, like Evelyn Hope, she might "wake, and remember and understand." With that love that asks only for the right to serve, and feeling perhaps that no pen could do her justice, he obtained permission to write a paragraph for a local paper, which was published unsigned:

"Departed this life, on Thursday morning last, in the
twenty-third year of her age, while on a visit to friends in
the city of Philadelphia, Miss Anne C. Coleman, daughter of
Robert Coleman, Esquire of this city.

"It rarely falls to our lot to shed a tear over the remains
of one so much and so deservedly beloved as was the
deceased. She was everything which the fondest parent, or
the fondest friend could have wished her to be.

"Although she was young and beautiful and accomplished, and
the smiles of fortune shone upon her, yet her native modesty
and worth made her unconscious of her own attractions. Her
heart was the seat of all the softer virtues which ennoble
and dignify the character of woman.

"She has now gone to a world, where, in the bosom of her
God, she will be happy with congenial spirits. May the
memory of her virtues be ever green in the hearts of her
surviving friends. May her mild spirit, which on earth still
breathes peace and good will, be their guardian angel to
preserve them from the faults to which she was ever a
stranger.

"The spider's most attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
On earthly bliss--it breaks at every breeze."

How deeply he felt her death is shown by extracts from a letter written to him by a friend in the latter part of December:

"I am writing, I know not why, and perhaps had better not. I
write only to speak of the awful visitation of Providence
that has fallen upon you, and how deeply I feel it.... I
trust to your philosophy and courage, and to the elasticity
of spirits natural to most young men....

"The sun will shine again, though a man enveloped in gloom
always thinks the darkness is to be eternal. Do you remember
the Spanish anecdote?

"A lady who had lost a favorite child remained for months
sunk in sullen sorrow and despair. Her confessor, one
morning visited her, and found her, as usual immersed in
gloom and grief. 'What,' said he, 'Have you not forgiven God
Almighty?'

"She rose, exerted herself, joined the world again, and
became useful to herself and her friends."

Time's kindly touch heals many wounds, but the years seemed to bring to James Buchanan no surcease of sorrow. He was always under the cloud of that misunderstanding, and during his long political career, the incident frequently served as a butt for the calumnies of his enemies. It was freely used in "campaign documents," perverted, misrepresented, and twisted into every conceivable shape, though it is difficult to conceive how any form of humanity could ever be so base.

Next to the loss of the girl he loved, this was the greatest grief of his life. To see the name of his "dear, departed saint" dragged into newspaper notoriety was absolute torture. Denial was useless, and pleading had no effect. After he had retired to his home at Wheatland, and when he was past seventy--when Anne Coleman's beautiful body had gone back to the dust, there was a long article in a newspaper about the affair, accompanied by the usual misrepresentations.

To a friend, he said, with deep emotion: "In my safety-deposit box in New York there is a sealed package, containing papers and relics which will explain everything. Sometime, when I am dead, the world will know--and absolve."

But after his death, when his executors found the package, there was a direction on the outside: "To be burned unopened at my death."

He chose silence rather than vindication at the risk of having Anne Coleman's name again brought into publicity. In that little parcel there was doubtless full exoneration, but at the end, as always, he nobly bore the blame.

It happened that the letter he had written to her father was not in this package, but among his papers at Wheatland--otherwise that pathetic request would also have been burned.

Through all his life he remained true to Anne's memory. Under the continual public attacks his grief became one that even his friends forebore to speak of, and he had a chivalrous regard for all women, because of his love for one. His social instincts were strong, his nature affectionate and steadfast, yet it was owing to his disappointment that he became President. At one time, when he was in London, he said to an intimate friend: "I never intended to engage in politics, but meant to follow my profession strictly. But my prospects and plans were all changed by a most sad event, which happened at Lancaster when I was a young man. As a distraction from my grief, and because I saw that through a political following I could secure the friends I then needed, I accepted a nomination."

A beautiful side of his character is shown in his devotion to his niece, Harriet Lane. He was to her always a faithful father. When she was away at school or otherwise separated from him, he wrote to her regularly, never failing to assure her of his affection, and received her love and confidence in return. In 1865, when she wrote to him of her engagement, he replied, in part, as follows:

"I believe you say truly that nothing would have induced you to leave me, in good or evil fortune, if I had wished you to remain with me.

"Such a wish on my part would be very selfish. You have long known my desire that you should marry whenever a suitor worthy of you should offer. Indeed, it has been my strong desire to see you settled in the world before my death. You have now made your own unbiased choice; and from the character of Mr. Johnston, I anticipate for you a happy marriage, because I believe from your own good sense, you will conform to your conductor, and make him a good and loving wife."

The days passed in retirement at Wheatland were filled with quiet content. The end came as peacefully as the night itself. He awoke from a gentle sleep, murmured, "O Lord, God Almighty, as Thou wilt!" and passed serenely into that other sleep, which knows not dreams.

The impenetrable veil between us and eternity permits no lifting of its folds; there is no parting of its greyness, save for a passage, but perhaps, in "that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns" Anne Coleman and her lover have met once more, and the long life of faithfulness at last has won her pardon.

[The end]
Myrtle Reed's essay: Bachelor President's Loyalty To A Memory

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN