Wyoming democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Wyoming Co., Pa.) 1867-1940, 1868-06-10
DEATH OF JAMES BUCHANAN.
Sketch of his Life and Public Services.

The fifteenth President of the United
States is dead. After an illness of lit
tie more than four weeks-though there
have been reports of bis failing health fol
year past-Ja ames Buchanan died al
Wheatland, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, al
| 81 o'clock on the morning of June 1st.-
He was born at Stony Batter, Franklin
County, Pennsylvania, April 22nd, 1891
and had filed the measure of seventy-Sev
en- useful years when he died. His father
was an immigrant from Ireland, coming
to this country in 1888, marrying Eliza
beth Spear, the daughter of PennsyIva-
MIA farmer, and laboring honestly and hon
orably to acquire the competence which
enabled him to give his son the advantage
of liberal education. James Buchanan
was entered at Dickinson College, Carlisle,
where he was graduated high in his class
in 1909, thereafter entering the law office
of James Hopkins, in Lancaster, and at
tanning admission to the bar, November
II, 1912, when he was little more than
twenty-one years old. After only four
years standing at the bar be was employ
ed, with another counsel, in defending, as
he did with success, judge who was i'm
peached before the Pennsylvania State
Senate, in the session Of l8I6-17. From
that time his reputation as a lawyer was
made, and his practice and professional
profits so increased with his years, that at
the age of forty he was enabled to retire
from the bar and to devote himself entire
to the political career in which he sub
sequently became so prominent. Once
only after his relinquishments of the law
was he induced to reappear at the bar,
and that was in case involving consider
able technical difficulties, which neverthe-
less, he gained for his client. But early
in his legal career he had already wooed
the more tickle favors which the arena Of
politics promises far oftcner than it con-
fers, and had wooed with success that
Won. When he was twenty-three years
old he was a member of the State Legisla-
ture. lie was reelected to the same po-
sition in 1915, and, although a Federalist,
during the war of 1912, with Great Brit
ain he warmly espoGsed the war side. en-
listing as private in company that
marched to the defence of Washing ton,
and advocating from that time till 1915
every measure in and out the Legislature
that looked to national defence and the
relief of the patriots who bad engaged in
the war. In 1929, when Mr.. Buchanan
was twenty-nine years old, he was elected
TO Congress, and two years afterwards
made his first elaborate speech, on the
Military Appropriation Bill, and in defence
Of the then Secretary of the Treasury, Mr..
Crawford. His speech in March OF the
same year was on the Bankrupt Law, which
as proposed, limited the benefits Of the act
ment produced its extension to all classes
This amendment Mr. Buchanan offered
solely that it would extend'' demorali-
zing influence over the whole surface of
society, and the bill was defeated by
a vote of 90 to y, Whenever the tariff
question came up, Mr.. Buchanan express
ed, by vote and voice, the preferences he
always retained for a system of duties
looking to revenue rather than protection.
He was opposed to legislation for bcne
fit Of a section. In one of his speeches
on the tariff question he said: "If /
know myself, am politician neither of
the East nor the West. of the North nor
South, | therefore shall forever avoid any
expression the direct tendency of which
must be to create sectional jealousies, Sec
tional divisions, and, at length, disunion,
that most and last of all political calami-
ties" How faithfully he clung to this
course through his whole political and
public career bis record shows. He, how.
ever, voted in the next session of Congress
for the newly y-christened "American Sys-
tem," but solely as revenue measure,
and. for the benefit of the then nearly eX-
hausted Treasury. In 1928, after an &C
tive participation in the campa gn which
resulted in the election of President jack
son, Mr.. Buchanan was re elected to Con
gress, and during the following session
succeeded Daniel Webster at the head of
the Judiciary Committee. During this
session, James Ii. Peck, Judge of the
United States District Court of Missouri,
was tried upon articles of impeachment
before the United States Senate. The
House Managers were James Buchanan,
Henry r. Storrs, George McDntfie. Am
brose Spencer, and Charles Wickliffe.-
Judge Peck was defended by William
Writ and Jonathan Meredith. The case was
conducted with great ability and excited
much attention. Mr.. Buchanan closed
for the prosecution, bnt the Senate refused
to convict by vote of % to 2l. At the
close of his fifth Congressional term, in
1881, Mr.. Buchanan temporarily with
drew from the field Of politics; but was
soon after nominated by President Jack
son as Minister Plenipotentiary at the
Court of St. Petersburg. In this mission
he concluded the first commercial treaty
between this country and Russia, securing
important privileges to American com
merce to the Baltic, and on his return in
1888, he was chosen to the United States
Senate. Il was the first time, not the last
that Mr.. Buchanan had been fortunate
enough to be removed from an immediate
connection with home pnlitics at precisely
the right time, so far as his own personal
interests and prospects were concerned -
During his absence 10 Russia, a new tariff