Author Buchanan James

s a compromise between the two sides of the slavery issue and occurred while he was away on business. His subsequent election was largely due to the even more divided state of the opposition. As President he was a "doughface", a Northerner with Southern sympathies who battled with Stephen A. Douglas for the control of the Democratic Party. Buchanan's efforts to maintain peace between the North and the South alienated both sides, and as the Southern states declared their secession in the prologue to the American Civil War, Buchanan's opinion was that secession was illegal, but that going to war to stop it was also illegal; hence, he remained inactive. By the time he left office, popular opinion had turned against him, and the Democratic Party had split in two. His handling of the crisis preceding the Civil War has led to his consistent ranking by historians as one of the worst Presidents in American history. James Buchanan, Jr., was born in a log cabin at Cove Gap, near Mercersburg, in what is now James Buchanan Birthplace State Park. Franklin County, Pennsylvania, on April 23, 1791, to James Buchanan, Sr. (1761-1833), and Elizabeth Speer (1767-1833). He was the second of eleven children, three of whom died in infancy. Buchanan had six sisters and four brothers.[1] He spent his childhood living in the James Buchanan Hotel.[2] The Buchanan family claims descent from King James I of Scotland.[3][4] Buchanan attended the village academy and later Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Expelled at one point for poor behavior, after pleading for a second chance, he graduated with honors on September 19, 1809.[5] Later that year, he moved to Lancaster, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1812. A dedicated Federalist, he strongly opposed the War of 1812 on the grounds that it was an unnecessary conflict. Nevertheless, when the British invaded neighboring Maryland, he joined a volunteer light dragoon unit and served in the defense of Baltimore.[6] An active Freemason during his lifetime, he was the Master of Masonic Lodge #43 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a District Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.[7] Buchanan began his political career in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1814–1816, serving as a Federalist.[8] He was elected to the 17th United States Congress and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1821 – March 4, 1831), serving as chairman of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary in the 21st United States Congress. In 1830, he was among the members appointed by the House to conduct impeachment proceedings against James H. Peck, judge of the United States District Court for the District of Missouri, who was ultimately acquitted.[9] Buchanan did not seek reelection, and from 1832 to 1834 he served as ambassador to Russia. With the Federalist Party long defunct, Buchanan was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy and served from December 1834; he was reelected in 1837 and 1843, and resigned in 1845. He was chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations (24th through 26th Congresses). After the death of Supreme Court Justice Henry Baldwin in 1844, Buchanan was nominated by President Polk to serve as a Justice of the Supreme Court. He declined that nomination, and the seat was filled by Robert Cooper Grier. Buchanan served as Secretary of State under James K. Polk from 1845 to 1849, despite objections from Buchanan's rival, Vice President George Dallas.[10] In this capacity, he helped negotiate the 1846 Oregon Treaty establishing the 49th parallel as the northern boundary of the western U.S.[11] No Secretary of State has become President since James Buchanan, although William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States, often served as Acting Secretary of State during the Theodore Roosevelt administration. In 1852, Buchanan was named president of the Board of Trustees of Franklin and Marshall College in his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and he served in this capacity until 1866,[12] despite a false report that he was fired.[13] He served as minister to the Court of St. James's (Britain) from 1853 to 1856, during which time he helped to draft the Ostend Manifesto, which proposed the purchase of Cuba from Spain in order to extend slavery. The Manifesto was a major blunder for the Pierce administration and greatly weakened support for Manifest Destiny. The Democrats nominated Buchanan in 1856 largely because he was in England during the Kansas-Nebraska debate and thus remained untainted by either side of the issue. He was nominated on the 17th ballot and accepted, although he did not want to run. Former president Millard Fillmore's "Know-Nothing" candidacy helped Buchanan defeat John C. Frémont, the first Republican candidate for president in 1856, and he served from March 4, 1857, to March 4, 1861. With regard to the growing schism in the country, as President-elect, Buchanan intended to sit out the crisis by maintaining a sectional balance in his appointments and persuading the people to accept constitutional law as the Supreme Court interpreted it. The court was considering the legality of restricting slavery in the territories, and two justices hinted to Buchanan what the decision would be. In his inaugural address, besides promising not to run again, Buchanan referred to the territorial question as "happily, a matter of but little practical importance" since the Supreme Court was about to settle it "speedily and finally." Two days later, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (a fellow alumnus of Dickinson College) delivered the Dred Scott Decision, asserting that Congress had no constitutional power to exclude slavery in the territories. Much of Taney’s written judgment is widely interpreted as obiter dictum — statements made by a judge that are unnecessary to the outcome of the case, but in this instance they delighted Southerners while creating a furor in the North. Buchanan was widely believed to have been personally involved in the decision, with many Northerners recalling Taney whispering to Buchanan during the inauguration. Buchanan wished to see the territorial question resolved by the Supreme Court. To further this, he personally lobbied his fellow Pennsylvanian Justice Robert Cooper Grier to vote with the majority to uphold the right of owning slave property. Abraham Lincoln denounced him as an accomplice of the Slave Power, which Lincoln saw as a conspiracy of slave owners to seize control of the federal government and nationalize slavery. Buchanan, however, faced further trouble on the territorial question. He threw the full prestige of his administration behind congressional approval of the Lecompton Constitution in Kansas, which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state, going as far as offering patronage appointments and even cash bribes in exchange for votes. The Lecompton government was unpopular among Northerners because it was dominated by slaveholders who had enacted laws curtailing the rights of non-slaveholders. Even though the voters in Kansas had rejected the Lecompton Constitution, Buchanan managed to pass his bill through the House, but it was blocked in the Senate by Northerners led by Stephen A. Douglas. Eventually, Congress voted to call a new vote on the Lecompton Constitution, a move which infuriated Southerners. Buchanan and Douglas engaged in an all-out struggle for control of the party in 1859–60, with Buchanan using his patronage powers and Douglas rallying the grass roots. Buchanan lost control of the greatly weakened party. Buchanan personally favored slaveowners' rights and he sympathized with the slave-expansionists who coveted Cuba. Buchanan despised both abolitionists and free-soil Republicans, lumping the two together. He fought the opponents of the Slave Power. In his third annual message Buchanan claimed that the slaves were "treated with kindness and humanity.... Both the philanthropy and the self-interest of the master have combined to produce this humane result" [14]. Historian Kenneth Stampp wrote: His inactivity was so great, he even vetoed a bill passed by Congress to create more colleges, for he believed that "there were already too many educated people."[16] Economic troubles also plagued Buchanan's administration with the outbreak of the Panic of 1857. The government suddenly faced a shortfall of revenue, partly because of the Democrats' successful push to lower the tariff. At the behest of Treasury Secretary Howell Cobb, Buchanan's administration began issuing deficit financing for the government, a move which flew in the face of two decades of Democratic support for hard money policies and allowed Republicans to attack Buchanan for financial mismanagement. In March 1857, Buchanan received false reports that Governor Brigham Young of the Mormon-dominated Utah Territory was planning a revolt. In November of that year, Buchanan sent the Army to replace Young as Governor with the non-Mormon Alfred Cumming before either confirming the reports or notifying Young that he was about to be replaced. Years of anti-Mormon rhetoric in Washington, combined with denouncements and lurid descriptions of both the Mormon practice of polygamy and the intentions of the President and the Army in eastern newspapers, led the Mormons to expect the worst. Young called up a militia of several thousand men to defend the Territory and sent a small band to harass and delay the Army from entering it. Providentially, the early onset of winter forced the Army to camp in present-day Wyoming, allowing for negotiations between the Territory and the federal government. Poor planning, the Army's inadequate supplies, and the failure of the President to verify the reports of rebellion and warning the territorial government of his intentions led to widespread condemnation of Buchanan from Congress and the press, who labeled the war "Buchanan's Blunder". When Young agreed to be replaced by Cumming and to allow the Army to enter the Utah Territory and establish a base, Buchanan attempted to save face by issuing proclamations detailing his merciful pardoning of the "rebels". These were poorly received by both Congress and the inhabitants of Utah. The troops, in any case, would soon be recalled to the East when the Civil War erupted.