Part 15 of My Presidential Review Series
Continuing from Pierce, we reach James Buchanan. Buchanan was the first president to run against the Republican party. During his election, former president Fillmore also ran under the Know-Nothing party. In an ironic twist of fate, the defunct Whig party that refused to nominate Fillmore in 1852 backed him in 1856. Buchanan was one of the few presidents to lose territory during his term. Taking into consideration his unpopularity and the fact he could not solve the sectional crisis, Buchanan declined to seek a second term. He served March 4, 1857 to March 3, 1861.
Shortly after Buchanan was sworn in, the Supreme Court handed down the Dred Scott decision. It maintained that slavery was rooted in the Constitution and could not be legislated out of existence, even in the territories. In Kansas, the debate over slavery had grown violent by that time. Feeling constitutionally bound to uphold slavery, Buchanan appointed the proslavery Robert J. Walker as territorial governor. With him in control, the Lecompton constitution was written, which, if approved, would make Kansas a slave state. Supported by Buchanan, it was defeated in Congress by forces led by Senator Stephen Douglas, on the grounds that the people of Kansas did not get to vote on it. A referendum was held in 1858, and the Lecompton constitution was overwhelmingly rejected. A second referendum was held at Buchanan's insistence, and once again it was defeated by a large margin. Antislavery forces then gained the initiative, and Kansas was admitted as a free state in 1861.
In 1857 a panic started. Its proximate cause was the collapse of the Ohio Life Insurance Company of Cincinatti. Underlying causes were: overexpansion of the railroads; rapid growth of state banks operating under flimsy state banking laws; end of the Crimean War in Europe, which prompted nations to buy less foodstuffs; drop in the price of gold after the California Gold Rush. The North and West were hit the hardest, while the South managed well, since European demand for cotton was undeterred. Buchanan followed conventional wisdom of the day in taking no action.
With Abraham Lincoln's election, the South prepared to secede. By the time Buchanan stepped down, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas had formed the Confederate States of America under President Jefferson Davis. Buchanan maintained that secession was illegal but the federal government could not force a state to stay in the Union. He was perfectly content to just stand by as the Union fell apart, taking only enough action to protect federal property. He adopted a concilliatory attitude to the secesionists, fearing that confrontation would lead to civil war. In 1861 he sent an unarmed merchant ship to Fort Sumter to reinforce the garrison there. Confederate shore batteries shot at it, forcing it to abandon its mission. Buchanan overlooked this blatant aggression and took no more action to help Fort Sumter, which fell to the South, marking the beginning of the Civil War. Buchanan blamed Northern abolitionists for the war, claiming they needlessly pushed the nation towards it in their attempts to eradicate slavery. However, he also warned the South that secession was unconstitutional, though he also said that the states could resist federal oppression.
Buchanan died on June 1, 1868.
It is a cruel twist of fate that we sought to replace the awful Pierce and ended up with Buchanan. The Buchanan administration was the worst scandal-free administration ever. In the months before the Lincoln presidency, he did absolutely nothing to deter the Confederacy. If he had taken a strong stand, if he denounced them further, if he had attacked, if he had done ANYTHING, the Civil War would not have been so bloody and so bitter. Buchanan's spinelessness and cowardice is the only legacy he left, and the only one he will be remembered for.
Overall Ranking: 38
To Abraham Lincoln: "Dear sir, if you are as happy on entering the White House as I on leaving, you are a very happy man indeed."