Life of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States. v. 1 (of 2)Curtis, George Ticknor
History
Life of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States. v. 1 (of 2)
Curtis, George Ticknor
Buchanan, James, 1791-1868
I shall not have time to write to Mr. Reynolds. Please to deliver him
the enclosed, and tell him that I have no journal later than the 10th
August, although my other papers have arrived up till the middle of
September. You may also say to him, _but to him alone_ and caution him
not to repeat it, that the prospects of success in my mission, after
many difficulties, now begin to appear bright. I have received no letter
from him lately. Mr. Clay will not leave this for a fortnight yet, and I
shall send this letter by another opportunity to London.
As the reader has already learned, Mr. Buchanan had two very promising
younger brothers, one of whom died five years before he went abroad, and
the other was living and in apparently good health when he left the
country. The elder of these two, William Speer Buchanan, died at
Chambersburg in his 22d year, on the nineteenth of December, 1827, a few
months after his admission to the bar. He had graduated at Princeton in
1822, and studied his profession at Chambersburg and at the law school
in Litchfield, Connecticut. His father died while he was still at
Princeton: and a letter from his mother to his brother James, written in
1821, which lies before me, gives indications of his early
character.[31]
William Buchanan did not, like his next youngest brother, live to show
what he might have become. This other, and perhaps more brilliant member
of the family, George W. Buchanan, graduated at Dickinson college in
Carlisle, in 1826, at the age of eighteen, with the highest honors of
his class. Being nearly twenty years younger than James, the latter,
after the death of their father, took a parental interest in promoting
his prospects, and guiding his professional education, he studied law in
Chambersburg and Pittsburgh, and being admitted to the bar in Pittsburgh
in 1828, he began to practise there. In the autumn of 1830, as the
reader has seen, he was, doubtless on his brother’s request, appointed
by President Jackson United States District Attorney for the Western
District of Pennsylvania. Probably no man ever received a similar
appointment at so early an age; he was only two and twenty; but his
letters, some of which have been quoted, show great maturity of
character; and as his application for the appointment must have been
supported by the influence of other persons as well as by that of his
brother, it is safe to assume that the office was intrusted to fit
hands. He was already acquiring a lucrative private practice, when, in
the summer of 1832, his health began to fail. He died in November of
that year, and the following letter of Mr. Buchanan to his brother
Edward relates to the sad termination of his illness:
ST. PETERSBURG, Jan. 9th, N. S. 1832.
MY DEAR BROTHER:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account