Excerpt from Memoir of James Buchanan of Pennsylvania

Men contemplate Mr. Buchanan, at this day, not as one whom envy and wrong have persecuted, but as a great public character, who has passed through the fiery furnace without the smell of smoke upon his garments, and who stands out ready to submit to the test of any scrutiny into his conduct as a citizen and a statesman. The day has come which is to prove that such talents as his, such experience, such integrity, such fixed habits of wise forecast, are essential to the great destiny for which he seems to have been reserved by his countrymen, who always demand the highest qualities of statesmanship in the highest position in their gift. Where, indeed, is there to be found a living public man, who presents so exemplary and so consistent a record, running through so many years?

Even among those who have departed the scene of human action, there were few who could point to a more unbroken series of services in defence of great principles. If we look down the gallery of the long gone past, and take up the por traits of the great actors of other days, how comparatively few there are who exhibited in their lives and in their works a more conscientious and high-souled devotion to the doctrines of the Federal Constitution and to the rights of the States of the American Union! The course of Mr. Buchanan has been nei ther erratic nor irregular; it has harmonized with the purest examples of the past and the present, and with all those saving doctrines which he has devotedly practised and defended; and whether in the House or in the Senate of the American Con gress, whether immersed in foreign relations, whether at the head of the most important department of the government under the memorable administration of Polk, or whether reposing in the calm seclusion of his own home, his well-balanced intellect and his patriotic devotion to the Union, have always been dis played at the right moment, and with the most striking effect. Progressive, not in the spirit of lawlessness, but in harmony with the steady advance of our institutions on this continent, and our example among the nations of the earth; conservative, not in veneration for antiquated abuses, but in sacred regard for rights which cannot be violated without destroying the fundamental law; he fails in no single element of public usefulness, political orthodoxy, or personal character. Such is the impression made upon those who study the history, public and private, of James Buchanan; such the conclusive answer which the Open and spot less volume of his career makes to all who have conceived it necessary to attack his eminent deservings and his lofty capa Cities.

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