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The presidency of James Buchanan began on March 4, 1857, when James Buchanan was inaugurated as 15th president of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1861.
- Overview
- Origins and bachelorhood
- Early political career
James Buchanan was the 15th president of the United States (1857–61). A moderate Democrat well endowed with legal knowledge and experience in government, he lacked the soundness of judgment and conciliatory personality to deal effectively with the slavery crisis and failed to avert the American Civil War (1861–65).
What was James Buchanan’s occupation?
James Buchanan was a lawyer whose gift for oratory led him to politics. He served in the Pennsylvania legislature (1814–16), the U.S. House of Representatives (1821–31), and the U.S. Senate (1834–45). He also served in the presidential administrations of Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Franklin Pierce before becoming president himself in 1857.
What did James Buchanan do as president?
James Buchanan unsuccessfully attempted to preserve the Union by preventing Northern antislavery agitation and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act (1850), and tensions rose. Following Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election, Southern states began to secede while Buchanan was still in office, a move he denounced but was powerless to stop.
James Buchanan (born April 23, 1791, near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died June 1, 1868, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania) 15th president of the United States (1857–61), a moderate Democrat whose efforts to find a compromise in the conflict between the North and the South failed to avert the Civil War (1861–65).
Buchanan was the son of James Buchanan and Elizabeth Speer, both of Scottish Presbyterian stock from the north of Ireland. His father had immigrated to the United States in 1783 and worked as a storekeeper. Buchanan was educated at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1809, and studied law in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He was admitted to the bar in 1812 and soon established a successful law practice. His gift for oratory led him to politics.
Buchanan never married and remains the only bachelor president. In 1819, when he was 28 years old, he became engaged to Anne C. Coleman, the daughter of a wealthy Pennsylvania family. He broke off the engagement for an undisclosed reason, and shortly afterward Coleman died, possibly a suicide. While Buchanan was a senator, he shared lodgings with another bachelor, Sen. William R. King of Alabama, causing some tongues in Washington to wag, but, in conformity with the mores of the time, the relationship was not a public matter. When Buchanan became president, he made his 27-year-old niece, Harriet Lane, his hostess. Buchanan had served as her guardian, and he had overseen her education since she was 12 years old, when her mother, Buchanan’s sister, died. He took her to England with him when he was minister to Great Britain, where she became accustomed to being in the limelight. In the U.S. capital she was a popular figure, even dubbed the “Democratic Queen.”
A Federalist, Buchanan served in the Pennsylvania legislature (1814–16) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (1821–31). When his party disintegrated in the 1820s, Buchanan associated himself with the emerging Democratic Party. He served as U.S. minister to St. Petersburg (1831–33) for the Andrew Jackson administration, U.S. senator (1834–45), and secretary of state (1845–49) in the cabinet of Pres. James K. Polk. The annexation of Texas and subsequent Mexican-American War took place during Buchanan’s tenure as secretary of state. Buchanan’s role in the war was limited, but he played a more active part in the border dispute with Britain over Oregon. Despite the 1844 campaign slogan of “Fifty-four forty or fight,” the matter was settled peaceably by treaty. In both situations the United States gained large tracts of territory. Buchanan had sought the nomination for president in 1844 but had ultimately thrown his support to Polk. Failing to receive the presidential nomination in 1848, Buchanan retired from public service until 1853, when he was appointed minister to Britain by Pres. Franklin Pierce.
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In Congress, Buchanan tended to side with the South, and, although he felt that slavery was morally wrong, he did not want the country to eliminate the institution by the “introduction of evils infinitely greater.” From his perspective, a greater evil would be freeing the slaves and making them the new masters, “abolishing slavery by the massacre of the high-minded, and the chivalrous race of men in the South.” He therefore tried to impress the Southern party leadership with his respect for the constitutional safeguards for the practice. Thus in 1846 he opposed the Wilmot Proviso, which would have prohibited the extension of slavery into the U.S. territories, and he supported the Compromise of 1850, which attempted to maintain a balance of Senate seats between slave and free states. While in Europe as minister to Britain he played a large part in drafting the Ostend Manifesto (October 18, 1854), a diplomatic report recommending that the United States acquire Cuba from Spain to forestall any possibility of a slave uprising there. Buchanan’s support for the manifesto stemmed not only from his fear that such an uprising might have an inflammatory effect on slaves in the United States but also from his basic belief in American imperialism. “It is, beyond question,” he wrote to Congress in 1858, “the destiny of our race to spread themselves over the continent of North America, and this at no distant day.”
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
When Buchanan considered surrendering Fort Sumter, the new cabinet members threatened to resign, and Buchanan relented. On January 5, Buchanan decided to reinforce Fort Sumter, sending the Star of the West with 250 men and supplies.
Sep 12, 2024 · The economic panic of 1857 and the raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859 by the abolitionist John Brown added to the national turmoil. Buchanan’s position was further weakened by scandals over financial improprieties within his administration.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Feb 24, 2019 · One of its senators, James Chesnut, resigned from the U.S. Senate on November 10, 1860, only four days after Lincoln’s election. His state's other senator resigned the next day. Buchanan's Message to Congress Did Nothing to Hold the Union Together.
Oct 27, 2009 · Senator and Diplomat. In 1834, after returning from Europe the previous year, James Buchanan was elected to represent his home state in the U.S. Senate. He resigned from the Senate in 1845,...
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Apr 2, 2014 · In 1834 Buchanan returned to the United States and won a seat in Senate as a Democrat, a position he would hold for the next 10 years, until, in 1845, he resigned to serve as James K. Polk 's...
