The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1906-04-24
WHY BUCHANAN QUIT.
Ben Hardin's Poor Clothes and Abll
ity Discouraged Future President.

Ben Hardin's Poor Clothes and Abil'
ity Discouraged Future President.
Singular the coincidence and de-
serving mention that three presidents
of the United States elected to the
worlds highest Office at fve success
sive presidential elections should have
had close and direct personal connec-
tion with Kentucky, saws the Louis
vile Herald Abraham Lincoln, elect
ed in. 1860 and in 1864, was born i'll
Hardin county. Ulysses S. Grant,
elected president in 1868 and in 1872,
attended the celebrated Maysville
Academy, conducted by Jacob w.
Rand and William w. Richardson, OF
that beautiful and historic little city.
Among the schoolmates of Gen. Grant
at Marysville we're the late Hon. Wal
ter Newman Haldeman of Louisville,
founder of the Courier Journal; Hon.
Thomas H. Nelson, United States min
lister to Mexico; the Hon. William
Henry Wadsworth of the Mexican
Claims Commission; Richard H. Col
Inns, historian of Kentucky, and many
others Gen. Grant always entertain
ed warm feeling for Kentucky, ana
delighted, when president, to give Of
fetal recognition to sons of the Old
Commonwealth on whose soil he had
spent happy days. So we'll, indeed,
did Gen. Grant think of Kentucky
that as far back as the election of 1860
he voted for John Cabell Breckin-
ridge, then regarded as first of Ken
tucky's favorite sons, for president
of the United States.
Not many are aware that James
Buchanan of Pennsylvania, elected
president in 1856, was a resident dur
ing an interesting period of Hardin
county, which had given birth to the
great American destined to succeed
him in the presidency. 1t was in 1913
that James Buchanan took up resi-
dence at Elizabethtown. Five years
before, in the very county of which
Elizabethtown was then and is now
the county seat, had been born a
child, Abraham Lincoln, destined to
achieve higher honors and a greater
name in history than even Buchanan
himself, considered in his day one OF
the most fortunate of American pub
lie men.
Buchanan's father had purchased as
an investment some property near
Elizabethtown. Giving it to his son
he bade him settle in the new land oil
promise and grow UP with it. Bu-
chanan, then three and twenty. col
fitness for the rough and ready sides
of frontier life. Attending the first
term of court after his arrival, he
noticed among the visiting lawyers
the celebrated Ben Hardin. in a suit
of unbleached tow linen, I'll fitting,
and badly built, giving its gifted
wearer a clownish appearance. Bu-
chanan felt surprised to see this un-
gainly looking person take a seat
among the lawyers.
A case was called the third day OF
the term, in which the pleadings were
very Intricate, anu dlI6T IIl6 SlTlCI-
est English forms before the days OF
Chitty. The future presidents won
der was inexpressible when he saw
Hardin take hold of this case with
astonishing skill and force. The argu-
ments of the rOugh-looking Kentucky
lawyer were masterpieces of learning,
logic and clearness. Before he LETT
the court room that day young Bu-
chanan resolved that where such ill
favored looking lawyers possessed so
much learning and power there was
small show for a budding Pennsylva-
MIA tenderfoot Rather than strug-
gle for success at the bar with such
he would go back to his native Key
stone commonwealth. Meeting Mr..
Hardin afterward in congress, 1921
1928 Mr. Buchanan declared that he
went to Kentucky expecting to be a
great man there, that so many law
yers he came in contact with were
his equals, and SO many again his su-
periors that he gave it up.
Thus Ben Hardin's ill-fitting suit of
unbleached tow-linen may have chang
ed the whole course of American his
tory.
Training Cats in France.