Local figure
James Buchanan, then President of the United States, came to Chapel Hill for the University of North Carolina commencement of June 1859, arriving on June 1 with Governor Ellis and other dignitaries under escort of the Wilmington Light Infantry. The university made him a doctor of laws, and in his remarks he warned that breaking up the Union would be fatal to liberty.
Source: Documenting the American South: Commencement Exercises, North Carolina University Magazine (1859)
1791–1868 · Dates from the Library of Congress · Library of Congress authority record ↗
2 works about James Buchanan are indexed here, as are 2 works by Buchanan.
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Works about or by James Buchanan. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it. Background reading appears below.
Photographic survey of historic buildings, properties and artifacts across North Carolina, made by James 'Buck' Buchanan from 1957 to 1960. Towns covered run from Manteo and Edenton to Asheville and Tryon, with Chapel Hill and Hillsborough among them.
Letter of 21 May 1859 from President James Buchanan in Washington to Congressman Lawrence O'Bryan Branch about his coming visit to Chapel Hill, where he was to give the commencement address at the University of North Carolina. Buchanan sends his warm regard to the people of the state. Branch, a Halifax County native, represented North Carolina in the U.S. House.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
An account of the 1859 commencement at the university in Chapel Hill, when President James Buchanan came as guest speaker and spoke on keeping the Union together, with descriptions and excerpts of the addresses given. The text was transcribed and issued as an electronic edition by the University Library in 2005 within the Documenting the American South collection 'True and candid compositions: the lives and writings of antebellum students in North Carolina'.
Included because: Their name appears in the record.
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