favored a tariff for revenue but not for the protection of manufacturers, which would promote the interests of the few at the expense of the many. The debates on the subject were sometimes very warm, and suggestions of the right and expediency of resistance to the National authority fell from the lips of some. These utterances aroused the patriotic indignation of Mr. Buchanan, and in one of his speeches after alluding to them he said:

"I confess I never did expect to hear inflammatory speeches of this kind within these walls which ought to be sacred to union. I never did expect to hear the east counseling the south to resistance, that we might thus be deterred from prosecuting a measure of policy urged upon us by the necessities of the country. If I know myself, I am a politician neither of the east nor of the west, of the north nor of the south. I therefore shall ever avoid any expression, the direct tendency of which must be to create sectional jealousies, sectional divisions, and at length disunion, that worst and last of all political calamities." Of this pledge he was a faithful observer all through his life.

Mr. Buchanan took his seat for a second term in December, 1823. There he became a compeer of men of intellectual might. Among them in the lower house were Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. The former had been absent from the National legislature for two years and the latter about seven years. In the senate, Mr. Thomas H. Benton represented the newly admitted state of Missouri, lying upon the borders of civilization at the west; also General Jackson, garlanded with civic and military honors. These men regarded the young Pennsylvanian with peculiar interest as a rising statesman, destined to win renown. "You have sent one of your brightest young men to congress," says Webster to Governor Shulze of Pennsylvania, "Buchanan is the wisest man on my committee [the judiciary], and does most of the work. He will reach a high station in life." When Webster was transferred to the senate, Buchanan was made chairman of the judiciary committee.

When, in the fall of 1824, there were four candidates for the office of President of the United States and neither of them received a majority of the electoral votes, the choice devolved upon the house of representatives A debate arose in the house respecting the rules to be observed at that election. It was proposed to hold secret sessions for the purpose. This proposal brought Mr. Buchanan to his feet. He vehemently protested against secret sessions, for he had a trustful confidence in the popular intelligence and wisdom.

"The American people," said Buchanan, “have a right to be present and inspect all of the proceedings of their representatives unless their interests forbid it. In electing a President of the United States we are, in my opinion, peculiarly the representatives of the people. On that important occasion we shall emphatically represent their majority. We

do not make a President for ourselves only, but also for the whole people of the United States. They have a right that it shall be done in public.

Mr. Buchanan persisted against going into a secret conclave. His arguments were effective and the election was carried on in open session.

During his ten years' service in congress, Mr. Buchanan was ever watchful of the public interest, and was always foremost in promoting thorough investigations into alleged malfeasance in public office without. regard to persons or party. He was a foe to all concealments on such occasions. When very serious charges were made against his friend General Jackson, concerning his conduct in Florida, he was the most earnest advocate of a searching investigation; and when in 1828, some of the friends of John Quincy Adams opposed making an investigation as to his management of public affairs during his administration, suggested by a resolution, Mr. Buchanan indignantly protested saying :

"What, sir, are we told that we shall not inquire into the existence of abuse in this government, because such an inquiry might tend to make. the government less popular? This is new doctrine to me-doctrine that I never heard before on this floor. Liberty, sirs, is a precious gift which can never be long enjoyed by any people without the most watchful jealousy. It is Hesperian fruit which the ever-wakeful jealousy of the people can alone preserve. If the government has been administered upon correct principles, an intelligent people will do justice to their rulers; if not they will take care that every abuse shall be corrected."

Mr. Buchanan sympathized with aspirants for freedom and the rights of man everywhere, but his feelings were always subservient to his judgment and conservative common sense. He warmly advocated the acknowledgment by the United States, of the independence of the revolted Spanish provinces in Central and South America, which had formed independent republics; but he vehemently opposed Mr. Clay's proposition for an alliance between them and our country.

"We know not the virtue or the intelligence of the people of those countries," he said, "and such an alliance might be hurtful to our own Republic, which should be the object of our first care."

The forecast and sagacity of the young statesman at that time has been remarkably attested by the records of history, for, almost to the present hour, those republics have been more conspicuous before the nations as centers of revolution and civil war on the western continent, than for anything else.

Throughout his whole congressional career, Mr. Buchanan exhibited the characteristics of independence of thought and action and reliance upon the virtue and intelligence of the people, to which allusion has been made. He was an ardent admirer of the character of General Jackson because

of these qualities, and was an active and efficient promoter of his election to the Presidency of the United States in 1828.

Jackson's elevation to the chief magistracy was the beginning of a new era in the political aspect of the Nation. The change in public sentiment was wonderful. "Hurrah for Jackson!" was an effective pibroch. The enthusiasm of the people was like a sweeping tornado in its effects. It carried everything before it. The halls of legislation at the capitol, in 1829, were filled with new men, and Buchanan found himself, at the age of thirty-eight, a veteran among the National legislators. From that body he retired in March, 1831, and also from the practice of law at the same time, having acquired a competency.

Mr. Buchanan sought repose at Lancaster, but it was denied him. The President, fully appreciating his worth, appointed him minister plenipotentiary at the Russian court, where he performed faithful and important services for about two years. He negotiated the first commercial treaty between the United States and Russia. When he returned home, he was chosen to fill the seat in the senate of the United States vacated by Judge Wilkins. They exchanged positions, Wilkins being sent to St. Petersburg as American minister.

Buchanan took his seat in the senate at near the close of 1834, and retained it ten years consecutively. There he again became the compeer of Clay and Webster, also of John C. Calhoun and Silas Wright, all of them intellectual giants. During his absence from congress the Nation had passed through the perilous nullification excitement, and the most furious tilts in the President's warfare against the United States bank; but other grave topics continually presented themselves. In stormy debates Clay and Buchanan often crossed lances.

Mr. Clay was a continual thorn in the side of President Jackson. He had procured the passage of a resolution of censure of the chief magistrate by the senate. He introduced a bill for the restriction of the power of the President to make removals from office, and advocated it with great force, but Mr. Buchanan opposed it with such cogent arguments and common sense views of the functions of the Executive, that the bill was defeated. He took a prominent part in the debates on Mr. Benton's resolution to expunge from the journals of the senate the resolution of censure, and he had the pleasure of seeing black lines drawn around it, and the words "expunged by order of the senate," written across it. His speech on that occasion was very powerful and his defense of President Jackson won for him the love and esteem of the whole Democratic party. Organized opposition to slavery and efforts for its abolition now began to disturb the public mind. Numerous petitions were presented to congress by the Friends or Quakers and others, for the abolition of slavery generally, and in the District of Columbia particularly. The mails were burdened