Note 1 — Chapter I · 1791–1820.

Under the date of September 13, 1813, Mr. Buchanan’s father writes to him: “Yesterday the fast day was kept here pretty unanimously. Mr. Elliot gave us an excellent sermon, and spoke of the war as a judgment, and the greatest calamity that could befall a people. He showed it to be worse than the famine or the pestilence. In the two latter cases, he said God acted as the immediate agent: in that of war he acted by subordinate agents; therefore the calamity was the greater.” This was the tone of many Federalist sermons.