James Buchanan

James Buchanan Jr. ( bew-KAN-ən; April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868) was the 15th president of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. He also served as the 17th United States secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and represented Pennsylvania in both houses of the U.S. Congress. Buchanan was an advocate for states' rights, particularly regarding slavery, and argued for limiting the role of the federal government preceding the American Civil War. Born in Pennsylvania, Buchanan was a lawyer and won his first election to the state's House of Representatives as a member of the Federalist Party. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1820 and served for five terms, aligning with Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party. Buchanan served as Jackson's minister to Russia in 1832. He was elected a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania in 1834 and served for 11 years. He was appointed as President James K. Polk's secretary of state in 1845, and eight years later was appointed 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 nominated and won the 1856 presidential election. As President, Buchanan supported the Supreme Court's majority ruling in the pro-slavery decision in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. He supported efforts to admit the Kansas Territory into the Union as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution. Buchanan honored his pledge to serve only one term and supported his Vice President John C. Breckinridge's unsuccessful candidacy in the 1860 presidential election. He did not reconcile the fractured Democratic Party amid divisions involving Stephen A. Douglas, contributing 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 faced criticism from both the North and South during the secession crisis. Buchanan supported the Corwin Amendment in an effort to reconcile the country. He made an unsuccessful attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter, but otherwise took limited action to prepare the military. His failure to forestall the Civil War has been widely criticized, and he spent his last years defending his reputation. Historians and scholars rank him as among the worst presidents in American history. ### Early life === Childhood and education === James Buchanan Jr. was born into a Scotch-Irish family on April 23, 1791, in a log cabin at the Stony Batter farm, near Cove Gap in the Allegheny Mountains of southern Pennsylvania. He was the second of eleven children, with six sisters and four brothers, and was the eldest son of James Buchanan Sr. and Elizabeth Speer. James Buchanan Sr. was an Ulster-Scot from just outside Ramelton, a small town in County Donegal, Ireland, who emigrated to the newly formed United States in 1783. He belonged to the Clan Buchanan, whose members had emigrated in large numbers from the Scottish Highlands to Ulster during the Plantation of Ulster. Shortly after Buchanan's birth, the family relocated to a farm near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, and later settled in the town in 1794. His father became the area's wealthiest resident, working as a merchant, farmer, and real estate investor. Buchanan attributed his early education primarily to his mother, whereas his father had a greater influence on his character. His mother discussed politics with him as a child and had an interest in poetry, often quoting John Milton and William Shakespeare. Buchanan attended the Old Stone Academy in Mercersburg and then Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In 1808, he was nearly expelled for disorderly conduct. He and other students attracted attention for drinking in local taverns, disturbing the peace at night, and committing acts of vandalism, but he pleaded for a second chance and ultimately graduated with honors in 1809. Later that year, Buchanan moved to the state capital at Lancaster, to train as a lawyer for two and a half years with James Hopkins. He studied the United States Code and the Constitution of the United States as well as legal authorities such as William Blackstone during his education. === Early law practice and Pennsylvania House of Representatives === In 1812, Buchanan passed the bar exam and remained in Lancaster when Harrisburg became the new capital of Pennsylvania. He established a successful legal practice in the city. His income increased after he established his practice, and by 1821 he was earning over $11,000 per year (equivalent to $270,000 in 2025). Buchanan became a Freemason and served as Worshipful Master of Masonic Lodge No. 43 in Lancaster and as a District Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. He also served as chairman of the Lancaster chapter of the Federalist Party. Like his father, Buchanan supported the party's program, which provided federal funds for building projects and import duties as well as the re-establishment of a central bank after the First Bank of the United States' license expired in 1811. He became a strong critic of Democratic-Republican President James Madison during the War of 1812. Although he did not serve in a militia during the War of 1812, he joined a group of young men who seized horses for the United States Army in the Baltimore area during the British occupation. Buchanan was the last president involved in the War of 1812. In 1814, he was elected as a Federalist to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and became its youngest member. He held this seat until 1816. Since sessions in the Pennsylvania General Assembly lasted only three months, Buchanan continued practicing law, and his service helped him acquire more clients. In 1815, he defended District Judge Walter Franklin in an impeachment trial before the Pennsylvania Senate, over alleged judicial misconduct. Buchanan persuaded the senators that only judicial crimes and clear violations of the law justified impeachment. ### Presidency === Inauguration === Buchanan was inaugurated on March 4, 1857, taking the oath of office from Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. In his lengthy inaugural address, Buchanan committed himself to serving only one term. He abhorred the growing divisions over slavery and its status in the territories, saying that Congress should play no role in determining the status of slavery in the states or territories. He proposed a solution based on the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which stated that the principle of popular sovereignty was decisive, and Congress had no say in the matter. Buchanan recommended that a federal slave code be enacted to protect the rights of slaveowners in federal territories. He alluded to a then-pending Supreme Court case, Dred Scott v. Sandford, which he said would permanently settle the issue of slavery. Dred Scott was a slave who was temporarily taken from a slave state to a free territory by his owner, John F. A. Sanford. After Scott returned to the slave state, he filed a petition for his freedom based on his time in the free territory. Associate Justice Robert Cooper Grier leaked the decision in the Dred Scott case early to Buchanan. In his inaugural address, Buchanan declared that the issue of slavery in the territories would be "speedily and finally settled" by the Supreme Court. According to historian Paul Finkelman: Buchanan already knew what the Court was going to decide. In a major breach of Court etiquette, Justice Grier, who, like Buchanan, was from Pennsylvania, had kept the President-elect fully informed about the progress of the case and the internal debates within the Court. When Buchanan urged the nation to support the decision, he already knew what Taney would say. Republican suspicions of impropriety turned out to be fully justified. Historians agree that the court decision was a major disaster because it dramatically inflamed tensions, leading to the Civil War. In 2022, historian David W. Blight argued that the year 1857 was, "the great pivot on the road to disunion ... largely because of the Dred Scott case, which stoked the fear, distrust and conspiratorial hatred already common in both the North and the South to new levels of intensity." === Personnel === ==== Cabinet and administration ==== As his inauguration approached, Buchanan sought to establish an obedient, harmonious cabinet to avoid the in-fighting that had plagued Andrew Jackson's presidency. The cabinet's composition had to do justice to the proportional representation within the party and between the regions of the country. Buchanan first worked on this task in Wheatland until he traveled to the capital in January 1857. There, like many other guests at the National Hotel, he contracted severe dysentery, from which he did not fully recover until several months later. Dozens of those who fell ill died, including Buchanan's nephew and private secretary Eskridge Lane. Historian William G. Shade described the composition of Buchanan’s cabinet as a "disaster", noting that four Southern members were slaveholders who later supported the Confederate States of America. Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb was considered the greatest political talent in the Cabinet, while the three department heads from the northern states were all considered to be doughfaces. His objective…