James Buchanan
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| “ | I feel that my duty has been faithfully, though it may be imperfectly, performed, and, whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that I at least meant well for my country. | „ |
| ~ Buchanan in a speech to Congress, January 8, 1861 |
James Buchanan Jr. (April 23, 1791 - June 1, 1868) was the 15th President of the United States from 1857-1861. He had previously served as James K. Polk's Secretary of State from 1845 to 1849 and was a representative from Pennsylvania from 1820 to 1831. He was also Ambassador to Russia when Andrew Jackson was president. An advocate for state's rights and slavery, Buchanan was known to be a doughface and infamously failed to prevent secession that led to the American Civil War. At the age of 77, he died of pneumonia and respiratory failure on June 1, 1868.
He is generally regarded as one of the worst presidents in American history.
Biography edit
Buchanan was a prominent lawyer in Pennsylvania and won his first election to the state's House of Representatives as a Federalist. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1820 and retained that post for five terms, aligning with Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party. Buchanan served as Jackson's minister to Russia in 1832.
He won the election in 1834 as a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and continued in that position for 11 years. He was appointed to serve as President James K. Polk's secretary of state in 1845, and eight years later was named as President Franklin Pierce's minister to the United Kingdom.
Beginning in 1844, Buchanan became a regular contender for the Democratic party's presidential nomination. He was finally nominated in 1856, defeating incumbent Franklin Pierce and Senator Stephen A. Douglas at the Democratic National Convention. He benefited from the fact that he had been out of the country as ambassador in London and had not been involved in slavery issues. Buchanan and running mate John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky carried every slave state except Maryland, defeating anti-slavery Republican John Charles Frémont and Know Nothing former president Millard Fillmore to win the 1856 presidential election.
As President, Buchanan intervened to assure the Supreme Court's majority ruling in the pro-slavery decision in the Dred Scott case. He acceded to Southern attempts to engineer Kansas’ entry into the Union as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution, and angered not only Republicans but also Northern Democrats.
Buchanan honored his pledge to serve only one term and supported Breckinridge's unsuccessful candidacy in the 1860 presidential election. He failed to reconcile the fractured Democratic party amid the grudge against Stephen Douglas, leading to the election of Republican and former Congressman Abraham Lincoln.
Buchanan's leadership during his lame duck period, before the American Civil War, has been widely criticized. He simultaneously angered the North by not stopping secession and the South by not yielding to their demands. He supported the ineffective Corwin Amendment in an effort to reconcile the country. He made an unsuccessful attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter, but otherwise refrained from preparing the military. His failure to forestall the Civil War has been described as incompetence, and he spent his last years defending his reputation.
In his personal life, Buchanan never married and was the only U.S. president to remain a lifelong bachelor, leading some historians and authors to question his sexual orientation. Buchanan died of respiratory failure in 1868 and was buried in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he had lived for nearly 60 years.
Villainy edit
- He tried to admit Kansas as a slave state.
- He was a white supremacist
- He was openly supportive of slavery. He failed to address the issue of slavery, morally saying that slavery was wrong yet believing it was protected by the Constitution. He also blamed the Northerners and Abolitionists for the issue of slavery.
- He held a hatred against the Mormons.
- He failed to resolve the economic situation by the Panic of 1857.
- During the Mountain Meadow, he ordered the Mormon leader Brigham Young removed from his position as Governor of Utah.
- He blackmailed the Supreme Court into passing the Dred Scott Decision, which said the the Constitution did not have the right to extend citizenship to African Americans.
- This resulted in dividing the Democratic Party into two bitter factions.
- He attempted to stop Stephen Douglas from winning his seat in Illinois,
- He sent U.S. troops to the Utah territory, which resulted in the Utah War.
- He attempted to annex Cuba and make it as a slave state.
- He failed to pursue peace and prevent Southern secession, which ultimately led to the formation of the Confederacy and the American Civil War.
Trivia edit
- He is often ranked as the worst president in US history by historians. In most presidential surveys, Buchanan is often ranked close to, if not at the very bottom of the rankings.
- As of the 2022 Presidential Expert Poll of the Siena College Research Institute, Buchanan is ranked 44th, the second worst president in the United States, only beating Andrew Johnson.
- He was the only bachelor president, although his niece Harriet Lane, acted as the First Lady and was dubbed the Democratic Queen.
- He was the only President from Pennsylvania until Joe Biden.
- He was the last president who previously served as Secretary of State and the last to serve in the War of 1812.