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U.S Presidents — James Buchanan

OVERVIEW Name: James Buchanan President: # 15 Term Number(s): 18 Term Length: 4 Took Office: March 4, 1857 Left Office: March 4, 1861 Age when Elected: 65 Party: Democratic Also Known As: "Old Buck, Ten-Cent Jimmy" BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION Education: Dickinson College Occupation: Lawyer, Diplomat Other Governmental Position: 17th United States Secretary of State, United States Senator from Pennsylvania, 9th United States Minister to Russia, 14th United States Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James's, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 4th District, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 3rd District, Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary. Military Service: None Religion: Presbyterian Spouse(s): None (Never Married) Children: None Birthdate: April 23, 1791 Birthplace: Mercersburg, Pennsylvania Deathdate: June 1, 1868 Deathplace: Lancaster, Pennsylvania Age at Death: 77 Cause of Death: respiratory failure, rheumatic gout Place of Internment: Woodward Hill Cemetery in Lancaster, Pennsylvania Signature FIRST ELECTION Election Year: 1856 Main Opponent: John C. Frémont Voter Participation: 78.90%   Electoral Popular States Click for larger image Winner 174 (59.00%) 1,836,072 (45.30%) 19 Main Opponent 114 (38.51%) 1342345 (33.10%) 11 total 296 4,054,647 31 CABINET AND COURT APPOINTMENTS Vice President: John C. Breckinridge Secretary of State: Lewis Cass (1857–1860), Jeremiah S. Black (1860–1861) Secretary of the Treasury: Howell Cobb (1857–1860), Philip Francis Thomas (1860–1861), John Adams Dix (1861) Secretary of War: John B. Floyd (1857–1860), Joseph Holt (1860–1861) Secretary of the Navy: Isaac Toucey (1857–1861) Secretary of the Interior: Jacob Thompson (1857–1861) Attorney General: Jeremiah S. Black (1857–1860), Edwin M. Stanton (1860–1861) Postmaster General: Aaron V. Brown (1857–1859), Joseph Holt (1859–1860), Horatio King (1861) Supreme Court Assignments: Nathan Clifford (1858) PRESIDENT'S BIOGRAPHY Tall, stately, and 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 that 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 address, 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. (ACTING) FIRST LADY'S BIOGRAPHY Unique among first ladies, Harriet Lane acted as hostess for the only president who never married: James Buchanan, her favorite uncle and her guardian after she was orphaned at the age of eleven. And of all the ladies of the White House, few achieved such great success in deeply troubled times as this polished young woman in her twenties. In the rich farming country of Franklin County, Pennsylvania, Harriet's family had prospered as merchants. Her uncle supervised her sound education in private school, completed by two years at the Visitation Convent in Georgetown. By this time, "Nunc" was Secretary of State, and he introduced her to fashionable circles as he had promised, "in the best manner." In 1854 she joined him in London, where he was minister to the Court of St. James. Queen Victoria gave "dear Miss Lane" the rank of ambassador's wife; admiring suitors gave her the fame of a beauty. In appearance, "Hal" Lane was of medium height, with masses of light hair almost golden. In manner she enlivened social gatherings with a captivating mixture of spontaneity and poise. After the sadness of the Pierce administration, the capital eagerly welcomed its new "Democratic Queen" in 1857. Harriet Lane filled the White House with gaiety and flowers, and guided its social life with enthusiasm and discretion, winning national popularity. As sectional tensions increased, she worked out seating arrangements for her weekly formal dinner parties with special care, to give dignitaries their proper precedence and still keep political foes apart. Her tact did not falter, but her task became impossible—as did her uncle's. Seven states had seceded by the time Buchanan retired from office and thankfully returned with his niece to his spacious country home, Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. From her teenage years, the popular Miss Lane flirted happily with numerous beaux, calling them "pleasant but dreadfully troublesome." Buchanan often warned her against "rushing precipitately into matrimonial connections," and she waited until she was almost 36 to marry. She chose, with her uncle's approval, Henry Elliott Johnston, a Baltimore banker. Within the next 18 years she faced one sorrow after another: the loss of her uncle, her two fine young sons, and her husband. Thereafter Harriet decided to live in Washington, among friends made during years of happiness. She had acquired a sizable art collection, largely of European works, which she bequeathed to the government. Accepted after her death in 1903, it inspired an official of the Smithsonian Institution to call her "First Lady of the National Collection of Fine Arts." In addition, she had dedicated a generous sum to endow a home for invalid children at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. It became an outstanding pediatric facility, and its national reputation is a fitting memorial to the young lady who presided at the White House with such dignity and charm. The Harriet Lane Outpatient Clinics serve thousands of children today. MAJOR EVENTS 1857: Dred Scott Decision. A pro-slavery leaning Supreme Court finds that African Americans are not citizens, the Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional and that slavery is not restricted in the territories. 1858: Minnesota joins the Union. 1859: Oregon joins the Union. 1859: Southern slave owners suggest the African slave trade is reopened. 1859: John Brown raids Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to form an abolitionist republic in the Appalachians. He is captured and hanged but is hailed as a martyr by the North and his actions defended by Lincoln, Thoreau, and Longfellow. 1861: Kansas joins the Union. TRIVIA 1. James Buchanan was a lifelong bachelor and his niece served as the White House hostess. 2. The first president to send a transatlantic telegram, Buchanan exchanged greetings with Queen Victoria of Great Britain on August 16, 1858. 3. When England’s Prince of Wales visited the White House in 1860, so many guests accompanied him that Buchanan had to sleep in the hall.