legions, marched them in military array into Kansas, took possession of the polls, drove away the citizens, deposited their own votes by handfuls, went through the farce of counting them, and then declared, that, by an overwhelming majority, slavery was es tablished in Kansas. These facts nobody denied; and yet President Pierce's administration felt bound to respect the decision obtained by such votes.

This armed mob from other States then chose a legislature of strong proslavery men; convened them in a small town near Missouri, where they could be protected from any opposition from the free-soil citizens of the State; and called this band, thus fraudulently elected, the "Legislature of Kansas." No one could deny these facts; and yet President Pierce deemed it his duty to recog nize this body as the lawful legislature.

This bogus legislature met, and enacted a code of proslavery laws which would have disgraced savages. Neither freedom of speech nor of the press was allowed, and death was the doom of any one who should speak or write against slavery; and yet. President Pierce assumed that these laws were binding upon the community.

The armed mob of invasion consisted of nearly seven thousand men. As they commenced their march, one of their leaders thus addressed them:

"To those who have qualms of conscience as to violating laws, State or National, the time has come when such impositions must be disregarded, as your rights and property are in danger. I advise you, one and all, to enter every election district in Kansas, and vote at the point of the bowie-knife and revolver. Neither give nor take quarter, as our case demands it. It is enough that the slaveholding interest wills it, from which there is no appeal."

They marched with artillery, banners, music, and mounted horsemen. By such a force, infant Kansas was subjugated, and the most sacred rights of American freemen were trampled in the dust. When the army returned to the city of Independence in Missouri, the "squatter sovereign" of that place said, "They report that not a single antislavery man will be in the Legislature of Kansas."

The citizens of Kansas, the great majority of whom were freeState men, met in convention, and adopted the following resolve:"Resolved, That the body of men, who, for the past two months,

have been passing laws for the people of our Territory, moved, counselled, and dictated to by the demagogues of Missouri, are to us a foreign body, representing only the lawless invaders who elected them, and not the people of the territory; that we repu diate their action as the monstrous consummation of an act of violence, usurpation, and fraud, unparalleled in the history of the Union."

The free-State people of Kansas also sent a petition to the General Government, imploring its protection. In reply, the President issued a proclamation, declaring that the legislature thus created must be recognized as the legitimate legislature of Kansas, and that its laws were binding upon the people; and that, if necessary, the whole force of the governmental arm would be put forth to enforce those laws.

Such was the condition of affairs when President Pierce approached the close of his four-years' term of office. The North had become thoroughly alienated from him. The antislavery sentiment, goaded by these outrages, had been rapidly increasing; and all the intellectual ability and social worth of President Pierce were forgotten in deep reprehension of these administrative acts. The slaveholders of the South also, unmindful of the fidelity with which he had advocated those measures of Government which they approved, and perhaps, also, feeling that he had rendered himself so unpopular as no longer to be able acceptably to serve them, ungratefully dropped him, and nominated James Buchanan as the Democratic candidate to succeed him in the presidency. John C. Frémont was the candidate of the Free-soil party.

James Buchanan was the successful candidate. He had pledged himself to stand upon the same platform which his predecessor had occupied, "lowered never an inch." On the 4th of March, 1857, President Pierce retired to his home in Concord, N.H. Of three children, two had died, and his only surviving child had been killed before his eyes by a railroad accident; and his wife, one of the most estimable and accomplished of ladies, was rapidly sinking in consumption. The hour of dreadful gloom soon came, and he was left alone in the world, without wife or child.

When the terrible Rebellion burst forth, which divided our country into two parties, and two only, Mr. Pierce remained steadfast in the principles which he had always cherished, and gave his sympathies to that proslavery party with which he had ever been

allied. He declined to do any thing, either by voice or pen, to strengthen the hands of the National Government. He still lives, in the autumn of 1866, in Concord, N.H., one of the most genial and social of men, an honored communicant in the Episcopal Church, and one of the kindest of neighbors and best of friends.

His Childhood's Home. - Devotion to Study.- Scholarship, and Purity of Character. - Congressional Career. - Political Views. - Secretary of State. - Minister to the Court of St. James. Ostend Manifesto. -Elected to the Presidency. - The New-Haven Correspondence. Disasters of his Administration. - Retirement.

JAMES BUCHANAN, the fifteenth President of the United States, was born in a small frontier town, at the foot of the eastern ridge

of the Alleghanies, in Franklin County, Penn., on the 23d of April, 1791. The place where the humble cabin of his father stood was called Stony Batter. It was a wild and romantic spot in a gorge of the mountains, with towering summits rising grandly

all around. His father was a native of the north of Ireland; a poor man, who had emigrated in 1783, with little property save his own strong arms. Five years after his arrival in this country, he married Elizabeth Spear, the daughter of a respectable farmer, and, with his young bride, plunged into the wilderness, staked his claim, reared his log-hut, opened a clearing with his axe, and settled down there to perform his obscure part in the drama of life.

In this secluded home, where James was born, he remained for eight years, enjoying but few social or ntellectual advantages. His father was industrious, frugal, and prosperous, and was unusually intelligent for a man in his situation. His mother also was a woman of superior character, possessing sound judgment, and a keen appreciation of the beautiful in nature and in art. When James was eight years of age, his father removed to the village of Mercersburg, where his son was placed at school, and commenced a course of study in English, Latin, and Greek. His progress was rapid; and, at the age of fourteen, he entered Dickinson College, at Carlisle. Here he developed remarkable talent, and took his stand among the first scholars in the institution. His application to study was intense, and yet his native powers enabled him to master the most abstruse subjects with facility.

In the year 1809, he graduated with the highest honors of his class. He was then eighteen years of age; tall and graceful, vigorous in health, fond of athletic sports, an unerring shot, and enlivened with an exuberant flow of animal spirits. He immediately commenced the study of law in the city of Lancaster, and was admitted to the bar in 1812, when he was but twenty-one years of age. Very rapidly he rose in his profession, and at once took undisputed stand with the ablest lawyers of the State. When but twenty-six years of age, unaided by counsel, he successfully defended before the State Senate one of the judges of the State, who was tried upon articles of impeachment. At the age of thirty, it was generally admitted that he stood at the head of the bar; and there was no lawyer in the State who had a more extensive or a more lucrative practice.

Reluctantly, he then, in 1820, consented to stand a candidate for Congress. He was elected; and, for ten years, he remained a member of the Lower House. During the vacations of Congress, he occasionally tried some important cause. In 1831, he retired