Buchanan’s address opened with a question that captured the perplexity many felt about Southern unrest. After observing that the country had experienced a greater surge in prosperity than any nation before it, Buchanan asked: “Why is it, then, that discontent now so extensively prevails, and the Union of the States, which is the source of all these blessings, is threatened with destruction?” He promptly answered: It was all the North’s fault. What caused the current crisis, he said, was Northern antislavery agitation that had inspired “vague notions of freedom” among enslaved people.
