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James Buchanan
I INTRODUCTION
James Buchanan (1791-1868), 15th president of the United States (1857-1861). He was a prominent figure in American political life for nearly half a century, holding some of the nation's highest offices. As president he played a role in the split that developed in his own Democratic Party. The split allowed the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860.
Buchanan tried to conciliate the Southern states to keep them from seceding from the federal Union over the issue of slavery. He failed, and his term in office was followed by the Civil War between the North and the South. He has been criticized ever since for not taking a more active stand against secession. However, although Buchanan was not a heroic figure, his policy of compromise was not unreasonable. Most presidents before him had taken the same approach, and even his decisive successor, Lincoln, tried conciliation as long as he could. Buchanan hoped that his policy would at least prevent the border states—the northern tier of slave states—from seceding. It is perhaps to his credit that, indeed, the states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri and the western part of Virginia (which split off as the state of West Virginia) did not join the Southern cause.
II EARLY LIFE
Buchanan was born on April 23, 1791, near Mercersburg in south-central Pennsylvania. He was the son of James Buchanan, a well-to-do businessman, and Elizabeth Speer Buchanan. He attended school in Mercersburg, and in 1807 he entered Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He graduated two years later and began the study of law. In 1812 Buchanan was admitted to practice. Before long, he was a prosperous lawyer in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
During this period, Buchanan fell in love and became engaged to be married. However, his fiancee, Ann Coleman, died suddenly after breaking off the engagement, and he remained a bachelor all his life.
III POLITICAL AND DIPLOMATIC CAREER
A State Legislator
Buchanan held his first public office at the age of 23, when he was elected to the Pennsylvania state legislature. He also served as a volunteer in the defense of Baltimore, Maryland, against the British during the War of 1812.
In 1818 Buchanan ran as a Federalist Party candidate for U.S. congressman. He was defeated in his first attempt, but two years later he won the election. When the Federalist Party disintegrated in the 1820s, Buchanan became a supporter of General Andrew Jackson and a leader in the political faction that became the Democratic Party. Relations between the two men became strained, however, during the election of of 1824. Jackson received the most popular votes in the presidential election that year, but, because no candidate got a majority, the election was decided by the House of Representatives. House supporters of candidate Henry Clay shifted their votes to John Quincy Adams, which gave Adams enough votes to defeat Jackson. Later, Jackson charged that Clay had entered into a “corrupt bargain” with Adams and that Buchanan had been involved in it.
B Diplomat to Russia
Buchanan was such an efficient organizer of the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania that the grievance against him was soon forgotten. After ten years in the House of Representatives, Buchanan planned to retire from politics, but Jackson, who had been elected president in 1828, persuaded him to accept the post of U.S. diplomatic representative to Russia in 1831. Buchanan served at Saint Petersburg (then the Russian capital) from 1832 to 1833. During that time he negotiated a valuable commercial treaty with Russia.
C United States Senator
After returning to the United States in 1833, Buchanan was elected to the U.S. Senate (the upper chamber of the Congress of the United States) by the Pennsylvania legislature. He told the legislators that it was “the only public position I desire to occupy.” He became a leading spokesman for the Democratic Party in the Senate and consistently supported the policies of Jackson and, later, of President Martin Van Buren. Van Buren offered him an appointment as U.S. attorney general in 1839, but Buchanan refused. Instead he remained in the Senate where, after 1841, he opposed the Whig Party administrations of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler.
At this time, Buchanan took his stand on slavery, the most controversial issue of the day. He maintained that slavery was morally wrong, but he also believed that the federal government had an obligation to protect it in the Southern states where it already existed. In this view he differed from the abolitionists, who demanded an end to slavery and whom he despised as fanatics. Buchanan tolerated the existence of slavery on the grounds that the Constitution of the United States permitted it. Therefore, he argued, it was the duty of the federal government to protect the institution of slavery wherever it existed in the country.
D Secretary of State
In the election year of 1844, Buchanan hoped to receive the Democratic nomination for president. He was disappointed when James Knox Polk was nominated instead, but he supported Polk in his successful campaign. After taking office, Polk appointed Buchanan as secretary of state. Buchanan had been reelected to the Senate, but he resigned to accept the new post in 1845. Buchanan made significant contributions to U.S. foreign affairs, particularly with regard to two major problems facing the country: the Oregon boundary claim and the dispute with Mexico over Texas.
D1 Oregon Boundary Claim
An agreement between the United States and Britain, the Convention of 1818, had provided for joint occupation of the Oregon country. Within a few years, however, many Americans began to demand that the U.S. government claim all of the territory north to the latitude of 5440', even if it meant war with Britain. One of Polk's most effective campaign slogans had been “54-40 or fight!” Buchanan showed diplomatic skill in negotiating a compromise treaty that gave the United States most of the territory south of 49 north latitude.
D2 Texas Question
In the dispute with Mexico, Buchanan carried out the president's orders that the U.S. envoy to Mexico take a firm stand. Buchanan wrote the instructions for the envoy, John Slidell. Slidell was instructed to insist that Mexico recognize the annexation of its former province, Texas, and that it pay certain long-standing claims of United States citizens. As payment for the claims, Slidell was told to press for the Mexican territory lying between Texas and the Pacific Ocean. The American demands were not met, and soon afterward the Mexican War broke out in 1846.
D3 Cuba
While secretary of state, Buchanan also tried to further one of his favorite projects, the purchase of Cuba from Spain. Spain turned down his offer of $120 million. However, for the remainder of his public career, Buchanan continued to urge that the United States acquire Cuba.
E Diplomatic Representative to Britain
When Polk's administration ended, Buchanan retired to his home at Wheatland, a country mansion outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He worked unsparingly to win the presidential nomination in 1852 and was the leading contender at the Democratic national convention that year. But the weary, deadlocked delegates nominated Franklin Pierce for president on the 49th ballot. In 1853 President Pierce appointed Buchanan as U.S. envoy to Britain.
The following year Secretary of State William L. Marcy instructed Buchanan to meet with the envoy to Spain, Pierre Soulé, and the envoy to France, John Y. Mason. The envoys met at Ostend (Oostende), Belgium, and later at Aachen, Germany, and exchanged views on the best way to convince Spain to sell Cuba to the United States. They drafted their recommendations in a diplomatic dispatch that became known as the Ostend Manifesto. It declared that if Spain refused to sell Cuba, “then, by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we possess the power.” Word of the Ostend Manifesto reached the American press and became an effective campaign document against the Democratic Party. It was an explosive issue because Cuba, if it became a U.S. possession, would presumably be admitted to the Union as a slave state.
F Election of 1856
Buchanan returned from his diplomatic post in London to take part in the Democratic national convention of 1856. His political strength was formidable. He had become well known because of the many high offices he had held. Because he had been abroad, Buchanan had not been involved in the dispute over the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which opened new territories in the West to slavery. Other leading Democrats, especially Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, were no longer considered potential presidential candidates because they had supported the act. Buchanan had the full backing of his home state, Pennsylvania, then the second largest state in the Union. Moreover, his record of compromise on the slavery issue made him acceptable to the South.
Aided by the strong and skillful support of his Southern backers, Buchanan gained the Democratic nomination. He campaigned on a conservative platform, stressing his belief that Congress should not interfere with slavery in the territories. His major opponent was John C. Frémont, the first presidential candidate of the newly organized Republican Party. Frémont campaigned on the principle that Congress should prohibit slavery in the territories. A third candidate was Millard Fillmore, a former president and now the candidate of the American Party.
Although the combined popular vote of his two opponents was greater than his own, Buchanan won the election. He polled 174 electoral and 1,832,955 popular votes, compared to 114 electoral and 1,339,932 popular votes for Frémont and 8 electoral and 871,731 popular votes for Fillmore. Buchanan owed his election to the support he received from the South and from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois, and California. John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky became Buchanan's vice president.
IV PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
A Panic of 1857
During Buchanan's administration the country suffered a short but severe economic depression. The South escaped the worst effects of the so-called Panic of 1857, and this convinced many Southerners of the superiority of their slave-supported economic system. Senator James Hammond of South Carolina claimed triumphantly, “Cotton is King.” The panic heightened the conflict between the North and South.
B Slavery Controversy
The most important issue during Buchanan's presidency was the growing division between the North and the South over slavery. On this issue, Buchanan followed the recommendations of the members of his Cabinet, who supported the South. Although he defended the rights of the states and declared that continued agitation by abolitionists would justify secession, at the same time he believed in the Union and sought to prevent secession. His general policy for resolving the conflict was one of compromise and conciliation, and he hoped that by these means the question could be settled peacefully. Unfortunately his efforts at compromise were inadequate, and he only aggravated an already explosive situation.
B1 The Dred Scott Decision
Only two days after Buchanan's inauguration, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its decision in the Dred Scott Case, which Buchanan in his inaugural speech had predicted would lay to rest the question of slavery in the territories. It did not do so. The case was a test of congressional power to restrict slavery. One of the chief questions was whether Scott, a black slave, had become a free man when his owner took him to reside in a territory (Minnesota) where Congress had barred slavery. The answer, in the opinion by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (each justice wrote a separate opinion), was no, because slaves were property and the U.S. Constitution forbade Congress to deprive persons of their property without due process of law.
This answer did not settle the political and moral questions. The Republican Party vigorously attacked the decision and the court. Many antislavery Democrats deserted the Democratic Party, leaving it more in the hands of proslavery elements than it had been before. The decision made the breach between North and South wider, and thus brought the nation closer to war.
B2 Lecompton Constitution
Under the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Kansas could be organized as a slave or free territory, depending on the choice of its settlers. When the act passed in 1854, settlers on both sides of the issue moved to Kansas to influence the vote. The antislavery forces formed a legislature in Topeka, Kansas, while those favoring slavery made their capital at Lecompton. Both Buchanan and his predecessor, President Pierce, recognized the proslavery territorial legislature in Lecompton as the legitimate government. When the proslavery body drafted its so-called Lecompton Constitution and submitted it to Congress for statehood in 1857, Buchanan pressed for its acceptance, even after the constitution failed a popular vote in Kansas. Douglas protested bitterly that the president was trying to override the will of the people. In an effort to compromise, Congress decided to admit Kansas if another popular vote was taken and the constitution ratified. The vote was taken, the constitution was rejected again, and Kansas remained a territory for the time being.
Meanwhile, the rift between Buchanan and Douglas was putting great strain on the Democratic Party. Buchanan tried in 1858 to block Douglas's candidacy for reelection to the Senate, but offered to reconcile if Douglas would stop attacking him. Douglas reluctantly agreed, and got the nomination. He then went on a campaign tour that included a series of debates with his opponent, Abraham Lincoln. Douglas believed that his position was more popular in the North than Buchanan's, and began to criticize the president again. He spent almost as much time criticizing Buchanan as he did answering Lincoln. Douglas won reelection, but the debates made Lincoln a well-known spokesman for the Republican Party.
B3 John Brown's Raid
In 1859 an event occurred in Virginia that made many people see the use of force as inevitable. Radical abolitionist John Brown, who had become a fugitive for leading a guerrilla band in Kansas (Buchanan had put a price on his head of $250), had conceived a plot to establish a stronghold and refuge for escaped slaves in the Appalachian Mountains. He needed weapons. On October 16, 1859, with 18 men, he seized the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia), and occupied the U.S. arsenal there. He expected to be joined by other followers, but instead the arsenal was surrounded by the local militia. The militia kept Brown and his men pinned down until a troop of U.S. Marines, led by Colonel Robert E. Lee, attacked and captured them with much bloodshed.
Within six weeks Brown was tried for criminal conspiracy, murder, and treason. He used the trial as a platform for his views, stating eloquently that his action was ordained by God. Brown was convicted and was hanged on December 2, 1859. He immediately became a martyr to the abolitionists, and to the South he was a symbol of the chaos that could occur if the blacks were not held firmly in check.
C Election of 1860
The Buchanan-Douglas enmity continued into the presidential election year of 1860, when it had serious consequences for the Democrats. The party nominated Douglas for president at its national convention. However, because the party would not adopt a proslavery platform, most of the Southern Democrats walked out and held a separate convention of their own. They nominated Buchanan's vice president, John C. Breckinridge, for president. The Republicans nominated Lincoln, who was now a national figure, and adopted a platform opposing the spread of, but not seeking to abolish, slavery. A fourth party, the Constitutional Union Party, nominated John Bell of Tennessee on a platform of simply preserving the Union.
Buchanan refused to support Douglas. The resulting split in the Democratic vote gave Lincoln a plurality of the popular vote and a majority of the electoral vote, and he was elected. Despite the moderation of the Republicans' antislavery stand, Southerners had warned that if a Republican became president, they would break away. Within days of the election, Southern legislatures were considering secession.
D Secession
In his last annual message to Congress, December 3, 1860, the president blamed the abolitionists and the North's unrelenting agitation against the South for the critical condition of the nation. He contended that the South asked only to be let alone to manage its own affairs. Secession, he insisted, was not a remedy.
But it was too late. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina held a state convention and voted to secede from the Union. Mississippi followed on January 9, 1861; Florida on January 10; Alabama on January 11; Georgia on January 19; and Louisiana on January 26. On February 4 delegates from these states met in Montgomery, Alabama, and formed what they declared was a new nation—the Confederate States of America, also called the Confederacy.
As the states of the Deep South seceded, Buchanan found himself at a loss to stop them. He was firmly convinced that any violence toward the South would only precipitate war. A policy of compromise, he believed, would see the nation through the secession crisis. So determined was he that his administration not risk a civil war by committing an overt act that he did nothing. His policy of inaction toward the seceded states averted war for the remainder of his administration, giving various compromise efforts a chance to develop. His policy also offered the incoming Republicans an opportunity to work out their own plans of conciliation, should that be their intention. Avoiding any recognition of the Confederacy, he made no commitments that would seriously embarrass his successor, Lincoln, who the nation assumed would try to preserve the Union.
Meanwhile, Buchanan's Cabinet began to dissolve. Secretary of State Lewis Cass of Michigan resigned because of the president's passive policy toward the South. The Southern members—Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb, a Georgian; Secretary of War John B. Floyd, a Virginian; and Secretary of the Interior Jacob Thompson, a Mississippian—also left and were replaced by strong Unionists.
In January 1861 Buchanan sent a merchant vessel, Star of the West, to Charleston, South Carolina, with supplies for a federal fortress in the harbor, Fort Sumter. Upon arrival there, the ship was fired on by Confederate shore guns and was forced to withdraw. All the while the president eagerly waited for the expiration of his term on March 4.
As Buchanan left office, the crisis was acute. He had permitted the Confederates to occupy the federal forts, arsenals, and navy yards and to take U.S. government property within the seceded states. He did nothing because, as he later explained in his published defense, he had inadequate military forces and personnel. Some army officers and enlisted men had seceded with their states. A good number of regiments and companies were stationed on the nearly inaccessible Western frontier. Although Buchanan's policy was criticized, it was continued without change by President Lincoln until April 12, 1861, when the Confederate guns fired on Fort Sumter itself. Lincoln defined this action as an insurrection that had to be met with force.
V LAST YEARS
On inauguration day in March, Buchanan escorted President-elect Lincoln to the ceremonies and then accompanied him to the executive mansion, the White House. Returning to the more peaceful atmosphere of Wheatland, Buchanan told his neighbors that he had parted from Lincoln with the comment: “If you are as happy, my dear sir, on entering this house as I am in leaving it and returning home, you are the happiest man in this country.”
Buchanan was an honest, sincere man, who by hard work achieved the highest offices in the country. Unfortunately he became president at a time when extraordinary leadership was needed if the Southern states were to remain in the Union. Under more normal circumstances his qualities as a hardworking politician of compromise and accommodation would have served the country admirably.
Throughout the war the former president supported Lincoln's administration in its fight for the Union. He lived quietly at Wheatland and wrote a vigorous defense of his own administration. It was first published in 1865 under the title The Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion. Buchanan died at Wheatland on June 1, 1868.
James BuchananJames Buchanan, a lifelong bachelor, was the 15th president of the United States. Serving only one term, Buchanan tried in vain to unite a nation divided by slavery and an economic depression.
Hulton Deutsch
