Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/259

 JAMES BUCHANAN JAMES BUCHANAN, fifteenth president of the United States, born near Mercersburg, Pa., April 23, 1791; died in Lancaster, Pa., June 1, 1868. The days of his youth were those of the nation s youth; his public career of forty years saw all our great extensions of boundary on the south and west, acquired from foreign powers, the admission of thirteen new states, the development of many im portant questions of internal and foreign policy, and the gradual rise and final culmination of a great and disastrous insurrection. He was edu cated at a school in Mercersburg and at Dickinson college, Pa., where he was graduated in 1809. He began to practise law in Lancaster in 1812. His early political principles were those of the feder alists, who disapproved of the war; yet, as he him self said, &quot;he thought it was the duty of every patriot to defend the country, while the war was raging, against a foreign enemy.&quot; His first pub lic address was made at the age of twenty-three, on the occasion of a popular meeting in Lancaster after the capture of Washington by the British in 1814. He urged the enlistment of volunteers for 205