JAMES BUCHANAN. A1 Ta very early period, districts on the western coasts of Scotland received an infusion of English people, who carried with them Christianity and some of the refinements of a rude civilization. Late in the reign of good King St. David, of Scotland, an Irish clan, led by their brave young chief Fergus Buchanan, crossed the North Channel from eastern Ulster to the peninsula of Cantyre, and seated themselves among the mountains of Argyle. Fergus married Mary, the second daughter of Donald McLeod, the principal laird of Skye. The clan Buchanan became one of the most numerous and powerful of the Scottish septs. Nearly five centuries after their advent in Scotland, two descendants of the chief made their way to Ulster. They were a part of the famous Scotch Presbyterian emigration to the North of Ireland in the reign of the first King James of England, from whom came the sturdy Scotch-Irish element of our National life. The two emigrants were brothers-stalwart yoemen with buxom wives and many brawny bairns-lads and lassies. They were stout, supporting pillars of the church, and were devoted disciples of Calvin. These brothers had very little "siller" in their pouches, but they possessed vigorous bodies, strong wills, and industrious and frugal habits. One of the families bought a small farm in Tyrone at the center of the province of Ulster; the other journeyed further westward into Donegal where he became a thrifty husbandman. Near Ballyshan, now in that county, the father of the fifteenth President of the United States was born. He came to America in his young manhood, late in 1783, at the close of our old war for independence, and settled in Adams county, Pennsylvania, with no fortune but robust health and willing hands. There he labored on a farm for about five years, saved money, and married Elizabeth Speer, a daughter of a farmer, a young woman of uncommon strength of intellect but little cultivated. Soon after the marriage young Buchanan and his wife took up their abode in a fertile valley in the adjoining county of Franklin, then almost a wilderness. His strong arm soon made a clearing. Together they built a rude log-cabin, and there they began their wedded-life career. In that humble dwelling their son, James, was born on the twenty-third of April, 1791. He was an obscure heir to the struggle for the prize of exalted station in life for which every American citizen may contend, and which James Buchanan finally won. The family prospered, and in 1798 removed to the village of Mercersburg, where James received his earlier lessons in the English and classic languages. His school days were ended at Dickinson college, where he was graduated at the age of eighteen years. He was then a tall, slender, vigorous youth, graceful in figure and bouyant in spirits. He had been accustomed to field sports from his childhood, and was as expert in the use of the rifle as any backwoodsman. He cultivated his powers of endurance in all his recreations, and this acquirement was conspicuous at every period of his life. Young Buchanan chose the profession of the law as a life avocation, and began the study of the science with James Hopkins, at Lancaster, at near the close of 1809. In 1812, when six months past his majority, he was admitted to the bar. He made rapid progress in his profession and soon became distinguished among the able lawyers of his native state. He was engaged in many important cases before he reached the age of twenty-five. At twenty-six he stood before the senate of Pennsylvania pleading the cause of an eminent jurist of that state who had been impeached. Mr. Buchanan's patriotism flamed out brightly, when, late in the summer of 1814, tidings of the burning of the public buildings at Washington by British invaders, spread over the land, and created hot indignation among the people. At a public meeting at Lancaster, he made a strong. appeal to the citizens in favor of a rigorous prosecution of the war. He attested his sincerity and patriotism by volunteering as a private soldier in a home regiment and marching for Baltimore, where he participated in the active scenes of the expulsion of the invaders from that city and the harbor at the middle of September. Then he was honorably discharged. In October, 1814, Mr. Buchanan was elected by the Federalists to a seat in the legislature of Pennsylvania. He was soon acknowleged to be the most logical and fluent debater in that body. In every speech he betrayed his intense love of country and his abiding confidence in the general wisdom and fidelity of the people. He was elected to the same seat the next year. It was during that session that the question of the re-charter of the United States bank was agitated. Mr. Buchanan then clearly foresaw what President Jackson declared fourteen years afterwards with practical emphasis, namely: the danger to the public welfare inherent in the power possessed by such a huge and influential moneyed institution. against the re-charter of the bank on all proper occasions. He spoke Mr. Buchanan prosecuted his legal business for five years, without interruption, when in 1820, on the earnest solicitation of his friends, he became a successful candidate for a seat in the lower house of the National congress. He first occupied that seat in December 1821, and filled it for ten years consecutively, when he declined a reëlection. With his maiden. speech in that body at the beginning of 1822, Mr. Buchanan fairly began his remarkable career as a statesman, for the space of about forty years. The Nation had then just passed a most important crisis in its political. history. The old Federal party was then expiring. The Democratic party was sadly rent by factions. The finances and business of the country, deranged by the operation of the late war, were in a deplorable condition. The first great battle between the supporters and opponents of the system of human slavery in the Republic, had just been fought and temporarily suspended by the always uncertain and frequently unwise truce of a compromise. The contest was begun by the movement for the admission of the territory of Missouri into the Union as a state. It raged furiously in and out of congress for many months, and ceased by the adoption of the famous " Missouri Compromise," in February, 1821. The people unwisely regarded the calm that succeeded the tempest of passion as a token that the political atmosphere would never again be disturbed by the "slavery agitation." Wise thinkers knew better. Mr. Buchanan's activity, industry and fidelity to his trust, was conspicuous while in congress, and while he was ever mindful of the special interests of his immediate constituents, he never forgot that all the people of the Union formed his constituency-that he was a representative of the Nation. He never allowed personal considerations to have the least weight in the performance of his public duties. He was a diligent student of men and methods, in the work of legislation in which he was engaged -the essential lessons to be learned in acquiring the art of statesmanship. Our young Pennsylvanian was self-reliant. He believed in himself. His opinions were the product of careful investigation and reflection, and he uttered them freely and effectively on all proper occasions. Loyal to his convictions, he was frequently in opposition to some of the most distinguished members of the house. When, early in his second term, Henry Clay advocated, with great enthusiasm and ability his tariff scheme known as "the American System," Mr. Buchanan boldly encountered the veteran orator and statesman with effective logic and eloquence which elicited expressions of admiration. Не |