The North Carolinian

Mr. Buchanan, the nominee of the Cincinnati Convention, is in the 65th year of his age; a hale hearty man still in the full vigor of life, intellectually and physically. He was born in the county of Franklin, in the State of Pennsylvania, of comparatively humble, but honest and industrious parents. Though his parents were able to give him a good classical and academical education, he may be called the architect of his own fortunes. After completing his school education he studied law in Lancaster county in the same State, which has ever since been his home. In 1814 and 1815 he was elected to the State Legislature, and in succeeding years, rose to high rank among the eminent lawyers which Pennsylvania could boast.

In 1820, Mr. Buchanan was elected to Congress and remained a member of the House of Representatives during ten years voluntarily retiring after the first Congress under General Jackson's administration. He was a warm supporter of the administration of President Monroe, and was one of Gen. Jackson's earliest, steadfast and most trusted friends. Mr. Buchanan again entered Congress in 1829, and as Chairman of the Judiciary committee displayed eminent fitness for the position. After retiring from Congress in 1831, Gen. Jackson, without solicitation, tendered him the mission to Russia which he accepted and filled with signal ability. Among other services, he negotiated the commercial treaty between the U. S. and Russia which opened the Russian ports in the Baltic Sea.

Shortly after Mr. Buchanan's return from Russia, the democrats in the Pennsylvania Legislature made him their candidate for United States Senator and elected him. He was twice re-elected to the Senate and remained in that body until his resignation in March, 1845, when he accepted from President Polk the first seat in his Cabinet as Secretary of State. The ability with which he discharged the duties of that important period in our history, is well known to his fellow-citizens. At the close of the Polk administration, he retired again to his home in Pennsylvania but continued to take an active interest in the political events and questions of the times.

On the accession of Pierce to the Presidency, Mr. Buchanan was selected to fill the leading foreign mission--that to the Court of St. James. How he has acquitted himself as the representative of the Republic in England, with what plain republican dignity and attention to his country's interest and honor, and with what prudent, consummate diplomatic skill he met and mastered the arts and cunning of Palmerston and Clarendon, are matters of too recent occurrence and of too notorious a character to require a detailed statement. The distinguished manner in which he conducted the difficult and delicate questions committed to his care, raised him even higher than he had been in the estimation of his countrymen, and pointed him out as the man qualified to hold the helm and guide the ship of State.-Rich. Enquirer.