Marcus Parrott wrote from Washington, D.C., to his brother, Edwin Parrott, in Dayton, Ohio, regarding Congress' apparent lack of efficiency, acting as a "circumlocution office", in which little is accomplished in the way of policy-making towards resolution of the Kansas question. Marcus described his private interview with President Buchanan, who did not seem to impress him, and mentioned that the President's party [Democratic] seemed to be "thinning" in the South.