James Buchanan

15th President of the United States

### Political party

Federalist (1814–1824); Democratic-Republican (1824–1828); Democratic (1828–1868)

### Parents

James Buchanan Sr. (father)Elizabeth Speer (mother)

### Siblings

George Washington Buchanan (brother), William Speer Buchanan (brother), Maria Buchanan (sister), Elizabeth E. Buchanan (sister), Edward Young Buchanan (brother), John Buchanan (brother), Jane Ann Buchanan (sister), Sarah Buchanan (sister), Mary Buchanan (sister), Harriet E. Buchanan (sister)

### Relatives

Harriet Lane (niece)James Buchanan Henry (nephew)

### Hair color

Fair

**James Buchanan**, the 15th President of the United States (1857-1861), served immediately prior to the American Civil War. He remains the only President to be elected from Pennsylvania and to remain a lifelong bachelor.

*The Presidency of James Buchanan spanned the period in United States history that encompasses the events of the Secession Era. President James Buchanan represented the Democratic political party which influenced the domestic and foreign policies of his presidency.*

## Biography

Tall, stately, stiffly formal in the high stock he wore around his jowls, James Buchanan was the only President who never married.

Presiding over a rapidly dividing Nation, Buchanan grasped inadequately the political realities of the time. Relying on constitutional doctrines to close the widening rift over slavery, he failed to understand that the North would not accept constitutional arguments which favored the South. Nor could he realize how sectionalism had realigned political parties: the Democrats split; the Whigs were destroyed, giving rise to the Republicans.

Born into a well-to-do Pennsylvania family in 1791, Buchanan, a graduate of Dickinson College, was gifted as a debater and learned in the law.

He was elected five times to the House of Representatives; then, after an interlude as Minister to Russia, served for a decade in the Senate. He became Polk’s Secretary of State and Pierce’s Minister to Great Britain. Service abroad helped to bring him the Democratic nomination in 1856 because it had exempted him from involvement in bitter domestic controversies.

As President-elect, Buchanan thought the crisis would disappear if he maintained a sectional balance in his appointments and could persuade 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.

Thus, in his Inaugural the President 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 delivered the Dred Scott decision, asserting that Congress had no constitutional power to deprive persons of their property rights in slaves in the territories. Southerners were delighted, but the decision created a furor in the North.

Buchanan decided to end the troubles in Kansas by urging the admission of the territory as a slave state. Although he directed his Presidential authority to this goal, he further angered the Republicans and alienated members of his own party. Kansas remained a territory.

When Republicans won a plurality in the House in 1858, every significant bill they passed fell before southern votes in the Senate or a Presidential veto. The Federal Government reached a stalemate.

Sectional strife rose to such a pitch in 1860 that the Democratic Party split into northern and southern wings, each nominating its own candidate for the Presidency. Consequently, when the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, it was a foregone conclusion that he would be elected even though his name appeared on no southern ballot. Rather than accept a Republican administration, the southern “fire-eaters” advocated secession.

President Buchanan, dismayed and hesitant, denied the legal right of states to secede but held that the Federal Government legally could not prevent them. He hoped for compromise, but secessionist leaders did not want compromise.

Then Buchanan took a more militant tack. As several Cabinet members resigned, he appointed northerners, and sent the Star of the West to carry reinforcements to Fort Sumter. On January 9, 1861, the vessel was far away.

Buchanan reverted to a policy of inactivity that continued until he left office. In March 1861 he retired to his Pennsylvania home Wheatland–where he died seven years later–leaving his successor to resolve the frightful issue facing the Nation.

## Personality

The character traits of President James Buchanan can be described as outgoing, genial, generous, dignified, loyal and highly principled. It has been speculated that the Myers-Briggs personality type for James Buchanan is an ESTP (introversion, intuition, thinking, perceiving). An outgoing, active, influential and resourceful character with the ability to improvise to achieve desired results. James Buchanan Personality type: Socially sophisticated, persuasive, competitive and easily bored.

## Nicknames

* "The Do-Nothing President"
* "Old Buck"
* "Ten-Cent Jimmy"

*Meaning: The nickname of President James Buchanan provides an insight into how the man was viewed by the American public during his presidency. The meaning of the James Buchanan nickname "Do-Nothing President" refers to his belief that secession was illegal and that the federal government were unable to prevent states from seceding - thereby earning the nickname 'The Do-Nothing President'. The meaning of his other derogatory nickname "Ten-Cent Jimmy" is in reference to his statement that ten cents a day was a fair wage for manual laborers.*

## Inauguration

The **inauguration of James Buchanan** as the 15th president of the United States was held on Wednesday, March 4, 1857, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 18th inauguration and marked the commencement of the only four-year term of both James Buchanan as president and John C. Breckinridge as vice president. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney administered the presidential oath of office. This was the first inauguration ceremony known to be photographed.

## Presidents born during his Presidency

* Theodore Roosevelt
* William Howard Taft

## Accomplishments and major events

*The major accomplishments and the famous, main events that occurred during the time that James Buchanan was president included the establishment of the short-lived Pony Express, the Panic of 1857 and the Dred Scott Decision (1857). In 1859 John Brown seized the Southern town of Harpers Ferry. Other main events included the Crittenden Compromise (1860), the Fort Sumpter Incident (1861). The 1860 Crittenden Compromise failed and the Southern States begin secession which led to the Civil War.*

**The Panic of 1857**

Summary: The Panic of 1857 was a national depression that engulfed the country for nearly three years. It was triggered by the collapse of  a banking institution, the Cincinnati's Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company which together with a fall in land prices, failures of railroad companies and falling wheat prices led to the depression.

**The Harris Treaty**

Summary: The Treaty of Amity and Commerce aka the Harris Treaty was signed on July 29, 1858. It contained additional provisions to the final Kanagawa Treaty, concentrating on trade and commerce with Japan.

**The Dred Scott Decision**

Summary: Dred Scott was an African-American slave who attempted to sue for his freedom because he had been taken by his owners to free states and territories. The Dred Scott Decision was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court in 1857 that ruled that slaves were property and also found that Congress could not prohibit slavery from spreading into the western territories.

**John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry**

Summary: John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry, on October 16, 1859, consisted of 21 men who were led by militant anti-slavery activist John Brown who tried to seize ammunition from an armory at Harpers Ferry with the intention of equipping an army and leading a slave rebellion in the south. John Brown was executed and proclaimed a martyr of the anti-slavery cause. John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry ultimately hastened the advent of the Civil War and was one of the Causes of the Civil War

**The Pony Express**

Summary: The legendary Pony Express was a mail service that covered 2000 miles in 10 days from Missouri to California. The Pony Express began in April 3, 1860 and ended in October 24, 1861. The Pony Express was surprisingly only in operation for 18 months but the exploits of its riders, such as William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill", live on in the legends of the Wild West.

**Central Park**

Summary: The New York State legislature initially acquired 778 acres of land and construction work on Central Park began in 1857 and was the first landscaped public park in the United States. The winners of the design contest for Central Park were park superintendent, Frederick Law Olmsted and architect Calvert Vaux.

**Ordinance of Secession**

Summary: An Ordinance of Secession was the name given to multiple resolutions drafted and ratified in 1860 and 1861, at or near the beginning of the Civil War, by which each seceding Southern state or territory formally declared secession from the United States of America. South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas also issued separate documents purporting to justify secession.

## Post Presidency

The Civil War erupted within two months of Buchanan's retirement. He supported the Union and the war effort, writing to former colleagues that, "the assault upon Sumter was the commencement of war by the Confederate states, and no alternative was left but to prosecute it with vigor on our part." He also wrote a letter to his fellow Pennsylvania Democrats, urging them to "join the many thousands of brave & patriotic volunteers who are already in the field."

Buchanan was dedicated to defending his actions prior to the Civil War, which was referred to by some as "Buchanan's War". He received threatening letters daily, and stores displayed Buchanan's likeness with the eyes inked red, a noose drawn around his neck and the word "TRAITOR" written across his forehead. The Senate proposed a resolution of condemnation which ultimately failed, and newspapers accused him of colluding with the Confederacy. His former cabinet members, five of whom had been given jobs in the Lincoln administration, refused to defend Buchanan publicly.

Buchanan became distraught by the vitriolic attacks levied against him, and fell sick and depressed. In October 1862, he defended himself in an exchange of letters with Winfield Scott, published in the *National Intelligencer*. He soon began writing his fullest public defense, in the form of his memoir *Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of Rebellion*, which was published in 1866.

## Death

Soon after the publication of the memoir, Buchanan caught a cold in May 1868, which quickly worsened due to his advanced age. He died on June 1, 1868, of respiratory failure at the age of 77 at his home at Wheatland. He was interred in Woodward Hill Cemetery in Lancaster.

## Facts and trivia

* James Buchanan was the only president who was never married, leading some to question his sexual orientation.
* Buchanan's parents were both of Ulster Scot descent, and his father emigrated from Ramelton, Ireland in 1783. Shortly after Buchanan's birth, the family moved to a farm near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, and in 1794 the family moved into the town. His father became the wealthiest resident there, working as a merchant, farmer, and real estate investor.
* Buchanan attended the Old Stone Academy in Mercersburg, and then Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He was nearly expelled for bad behavior, but pleaded for a second chance and ultimately graduated with honors in 1809.
* After college, Buchanan moved to the state capital at Lancaster. James Hopkins, a leading lawyer there, accepted Buchanan as an apprentice, and in 1812 he was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar. Many other lawyers moved to Harrisburg when it became the state capital in 1812, but Buchanan made Lancaster his lifelong home.
* Buchanan's income income rapidly rose after he established his practice, and by 1821 he was earning over $11,000 per year (equivalent to $220,000 in 2021). He handled various types of cases, including a much-publicized impeachment trial, where he successfully defended Pennsylvania Judge Walter Franklin.
* When the British invaded neighboring Maryland in 1814, Buchanan served in the defense of Baltimore as a private in Henry Shippen's Company, 1st Brigade, 4th Division, Pennsylvania Militia, a unit of yagers. Buchanan is the only president with military experience who was not an officer. He is also the last president who served in the War of 1812.
* Buchanan was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives after the War of 1812. He was not reelected after serving one term and instead returned to his law practice. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1821 to 1831 first as a Federalist and then as a Democrat. He staunchly supported Andrew Jackson and was outspoken against the 'corrupt bargain' that gave the 1824 election to John Quincy Adams over Jackson.
* Buchanan served as Jackson's minister to Russia in 1832. He won 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 C. Frémont and Know-Nothing former president Millard Fillmore to win the 1856 presidential election.
* Buchanan was inaugurated on March 4, 1857, taking the oath of office from Chief Justice Roger B. Taney.
* In his inaugural address, Buchanan committed himself to serving only one term, as his predecessor had done. He expressed an abhorrence for the growing divisions over slavery and its status in the territories, while saying that Congress should play no role in determining the status of slavery in the states or territories. He also declared his support for popular sovereignty.
* As his inauguration approached, Buchanan sought to establish an obedient, harmonious cabinet, to avoid the in-fighting that had plagued Andrew Jackson's administration. He chose four Southerners and three Northerners, the latter of whom were all considered to be doughfaces (Southern sympathizers). His objective was to dominate the cabinet, and he chose men who would agree with his views.
* As President, Buchanan intervened to assure the Supreme Court's majority ruling in the pro-slavery decision in the *Dred Scott* case, 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.
* During Buchanan's adminstration, his niece, Harriet Lane, served as the acting First Lady and White House hostess.
* 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 retired upon leaving presidential office. He supported Lincoln and his actions throughout the war. He wrote, *Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion*, to defend his actions when secession occurred.
* Buchanan became distraught by the vitriolic attacks levied against him, and fell sick and depressed. In October 1862, he defended himself in an exchange of letters with Winfield Scott, published in the *National Intelligencer*. He soon began writing his fullest public defense, in the form of his memoir *Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of Rebellion*, which was published in 1866.
* Soon after the publication of the memoir, Buchanan caught a cold in May 1868, which quickly worsened due to his advanced age. He died on June 1, 1868, of respiratory failure at the age of 77 at his home at Wheatland. He was interred in Woodward Hill Cemetery in Lancaster.
* 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.
* Buchanan 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.
* Buchanan's failure to forestall the Civil War has been described as incompetency, and he spent his last years defending his reputation.
* Historians and scholars consistently rank Buchanan as one of the worst presidents in American history.

## References

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James\_Buchanan#Post-presidency\_(1861%E2%80%931868)
* https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/james-buchanan/
* https://www.american-historama.org/presidents-united-states/james-buchanan.htm
* https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Buchanan-787