James Buchanan
BIOGRAPHY:
WASHINGTON D.C.
James Buchanan has often been rated as the worst President
in the United States. Many modern historians are writing
from the perspective of seeing what had happen during and
after the Civil War. Buchanan did not have the hindsight
advantage of many historians who judged him poorly. Many
demonstrate little empathy for the tough situation Buchanan
was in after he had lost the nomination of his Democratic
Party in 1960 and Abraham Lincoln had then won the Presidency in November 1860. Buchanan had to serve has President well into March 1861.
Besides dealing with the expansion of slavery issue and
enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, during the 1850s the United
States had hundreds of thousands of Catholic immigrants
pouring in from Ireland and Germany, changing the American
culture in the cities. Nativists (anti Catholic native born
Americans) were rioting and even attacking Catholic churches and nuns’ convents. In other religion-based hostilities, the
nation had even gone to war with Mormon travelers who
invaded the Utah territory and wanting to create a new,
Mormon nation. Buchanan had a lot on his plate.
James Buchanan (1859) by George Healy
as seen in the National Portrait Gallery
in Washington, DC
Slavery and the expansion of slavery had become the big issues before and during Buchannan’s
presidency. As a Democrat, even though he did not personally own slaves, he believed that he had the
Constitutional duty to defend others’ rights to own slaves in order to get the Democratic nomination. In
fact, he had even worked and conspired to have the United States buy Cuba, so the United States could
further expand chattel slavery.
When he was first elected, Buchanan was very optimistic for the prospects of expansion of the United
States. “ It is beyond question, the destiny of our race to spread themselves over the continent of North
America.” Buchanan still wanted to take Cuba but, Republicans blocked him at every turn. He also had
to arrest the adventurer, William Walker who had earlier filibustered and set up a Republic in Nicaragua
in 1857. Central American nations and the American Navy, at American industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt’s insistence, forced Walker to surrender and return to the United States. Walker then returned to
New York where he claimed he was acting as Buchanan’s agent and released by the State Department.
He later returned to Nicaragua and had set up a government on Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast.
He was subsequently captured by the British Navy who turned him over
to the Hondurans, who then executed him. Independent American
filibusters to Central America.
James Buchanan
BIOGRAPHY continued:
WASHINGTON D.C.
There had been a lot of panic in the U.S. after John Brown’s legally treasonous attack on the U.S.
arsenals in Harpers Ferry, (later West) Virginia in 1859. In addition, there had been many lot of
border skirmishes with Mexico and Buchanan looked to invade northern Mexico and set up an
American protectorate to keep Mexican soldiers on their side of the border. Congress would not allow
him to act. The Republicans thought he would expand slavery and the Democrats want to keep troops
in the U.S. in case of another John Brown type attack or a slave revolt. The Senate would also not give
Buchanan to funds to police Mexico and Central America. In addition, they would not pass a
US-Mexican treaty that gave the U.S. transit rights through Mexican territory.
Buchanan, however, did win transit rights in Nicaragua and received reparations from Mexico, Costa
Rico, and Columbia. The fifteenth President’s bullying caused many Latin American countries to resent
the U.S. for years to follow.
As the slavery issue grew, Senator Stephen Douglass of Illinois, the author of the Popular Sovereignty
doctrine challenged Buchanan for a second term. Earlier, Douglas had ruined Buchanan chances to win
the nomination in 1852 and gave the Democratic nomination to Franklin Pierce. Buchanan had defeated
Douglas in 1856, and then defeated the new Republican Party candidate, John Fremont, along with and
the Nativist candidate, President Millard Fillmore in the general election. Douglas had more Northern
Democratic support by 1860. Douglas had advocated Popular Sovereignty, a policy that allowed each
territory to determine for themselves whether to have slavery or not. That may have worked well in
1850, but by 1860, the Supreme Court had already declared that slavery was constitutionally legal in the
territories. Buchanan did have influence on the Dred Scott decision, and he thought it was good for the
Democratic Party and for the nation as a whole. Buchanan supported the Southern Democratic position.
Douglas, however, had divided the Democratic Party, ensuring the election of Abraham Lincoln from the
new, upstart, anti-expansion of slavery and anti-immigrant Republican Party.
When southern states voted to leave the Union because of Lincoln’s election in 1860, Buchanan in his
State of the Union message to Congress, relayed that he believed the South’s secession was not constitutional. Nonetheless, he also believed that the Federal government did not have the power to stop
it. He believed that Northerners, especially Republicans, should not impose their morals on southern
states. “All for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage
their domestic institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they alone, are responsible
before God and the world for the slavery existing among them. For this the people of the North are
not more responsible and have no more right to interfere than with similar institutions in Russia or in
Brazil.”
James Buchanan
BIOGRAPHY continued:
WASHINGTON D.C.
He refused to be actively be involved in the secession battle as President. “It is beyond the power of any
President, no matter what may be his own political proclivities, to restore peace and harmony among
zealously the states. Wisely limited and restrained as is his power under our Constitution and laws, he
alone can accomplish but little for good or for evil on such a momentous question.” He always believed
that the fanatical abolitionists would eventually bring the nation to a horrible war. He was happy,
nevertheless, that the American Army was able to capture the “terrorist,” John Brown, and execute him
before he started a nationwide slave revolt.
Even though he believed he had no power to interfere in succession, as President, he would not
abandon Fort Sumner. Still, he firmly believed that the Federal government did not have any
Constitutional power to end slavery or restrict the expansion of slavery. He believed that Abraham
Lincoln and his Republicans were horribly wrong and unconstitutionally brought the nation to a
horribly brutal war.
Biography written by CICERO Systems
(c) Copyright Madame Tussauds Museum, Washington D.C. and Merlin Entertainment