James Buchanan, Jr. (/bjuːˈkænən/; April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868) was the 15th President of the United States (1857–1861), serving immediately prior to the American Civil War. He is, to date, the only president from Pennsylvania and the only president to remain a lifelong bachelor.
He represented Pennsylvania in the United States House of Representatives and later the Senate and served as Minister to Russia under President Andrew Jackson. He was also Secretary of State under President James K. Polk. After he turned down an offer for an appointment to the Supreme Court, President Franklin Pierce appointed him minister to the Court of St. James's, in which capacity he helped draft the Ostend Manifesto.
Buchanan was nominated by the Democratic Party in the 1856 Presidential election. Throughout most of Pierce's term, he was stationed in London as a minister to the Court of St. James's and therefore was not caught up in the crossfire of sectional politics that dominated the country. His subsequent election victory took place in a three-man race with John C. Frémont and Millard Fillmore. As President, he was often called a "doughface", a Northerner with Southern sympathies, who battled with Stephen A. Douglas for the control of the Democratic Party. Buchanan's efforts to maintain peace between the North and the South alienated both sides, and the Southern states declared their secession in the prologue to the American Civil War. Buchanan's view of record was that secession was illegal, but that going to war to stop it was also illegal. Buchanan, an attorney, was noted for his mantra, "I acknowledge no master but the law."[1]
By the time he left office, popular opinion was against him, and the Democratic Party had split. Buchanan had once aspired to a presidency that would rank in history with that of George Washington.[2] However, his inability to impose peace on sharply divided partisans on the brink of the Civil War has led to his consistent ranking by historians as one of the worst presidents in American history. Historians in both 2006 and 2009 voted his failure to deal with secession the worst presidential mistake ever made.[3]
Contents [show]
Early life[edit]
Buchanan was born in a log cabin in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania (now Buchanan's Birthplace State Park), in Franklin County, on April 23, 1791, to James Buchanan, Sr. (1761–1821), a businessman, merchant, and farmer, and Elizabeth Speer, an educated woman (1767–1833).[4] His parents were both of Ulster Scots descent, the father having emigrated from Donegal, Ireland in 1783. Buchanan had six sisters and four brothers.[4]
In 1797, the family moved to nearby Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. The home in Mercersburg was later turned into the James Buchanan Hotel.[5]
Buchanan attended the village academy (Old Stone Academy) and later Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Though he was nearly expelled at one point for poor behavior, he pleaded for a second chance and subsequently graduated with honors on September 19, 1809.[6] Later that year, he moved to Lancaster, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1812.
A dedicated Federalist, he initially opposed the War of 1812 because he believed it was an unnecessary conflict. When the British invaded neighboring Maryland, he joined a volunteer light dragoon unit as a private and served in the defense of Baltimore.[7] Buchanan is the only president with military experience who did not, at some point, serve as an officer.[8]
An active Freemason, he was the Master of Masonic Lodge No. 43 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a District Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.[9]
Political career[edit]
Buchanan began his political career in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1814 to 1816 as a member of the Federalist Party.[10] He was elected to the 17th United States Congress and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1821 – March 4, 1831), serving as chairman of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary in the 21st United States Congress. In 1830, he was among the members appointed by the House to conduct impeachment proceedings against James H. Peck, judge of the United States District Court for the District of Missouri. Peck was charged with abuse of the contempt power, but was ultimately acquitted.[11] Buchanan did not seek reelection and from 1832 to 1833 he served as Minister to Russia, appointed by Andrew Jackson.
With the Federalist Party long defunct, Buchanan was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy and served from December 1834; he was reelected in 1837 and 1843, and resigned in 1845 to accept nomination of him as Secretary of State by President James K. Polk. He was chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations from 1836 to 1841.[12]
After the death of Supreme Court Justice Henry Baldwin in 1844, Polk nominated Buchanan to fill the vacancy in March 1845, but he declined that nomination because he felt compelled to complete his collaboration on the Oregon Treaty negotiations. The seat was eventually filled by Robert Cooper Grier.[13]
Buchanan served as Secretary of State under Polk from 1845 to 1849, despite objections from Buchanan's rival, Vice President George Dallas.[14] In this capacity, he helped negotiate the 1846 Oregon Treaty establishing the 49th parallel as the northern boundary of the western United States.[15] No Secretary of State has become President since Buchanan, although William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States, often served as Acting Secretary of State during the Theodore Roosevelt administration.
In 1852, Buchanan was named president of the Board of Trustees of Franklin and Marshall College in his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and he served in this capacity until 1866,[16] despite a false report that he was fired.[17]
He served as minister to the Court of St. James's (Britain) from 1853 to 1856, during which time he helped to draft a memorandum that became known as the Ostend Manifesto. He signed the memorandum along with Pierre Soulé and John Mason. This document proposed the purchase from Spain of Cuba, then in the midst of revolution and near bankruptcy, declaring the island "as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present ... family of states." Against Buchanan's recommendation, the final draft of the Manifesto suggested that "wresting it from Spain" if Spain refused to sell would be justified "by every law, human and Divine".[18] The Manifesto, generally considered a blunder overall, was never acted upon but weakened the Pierce administration and support for Manifest Destiny.[18][19]
Presidential election of 1856[edit]
Results by county explicitly indicating the percentage for Buchanan in each county.
Main article: United States presidential election, 1856
Democrats nominated Buchanan in 1856 as their nominee for President of the United States. He had been in England during the Kansas-Nebraska debate and thus remained untainted by either side.[20] Pennsylvania, which had three times failed Buchanan, now gave him full support in its state convention. Though he never declared his candidacy, it is apparent from all his correspondence that he was aware of the distinct possibility of his nomination by the Democratic convention in Cincinnati, even before heading home at the finish of his work as Minister to the Court of St. James in the United Kingdom. Writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, then serving as American Consul in Liverpool, recorded in his diary that Buchanan visited him in January 1855:
He returns to America, he says, next October, and then retires forever from public life... as regards his prospects for the Presidency, [h]e said that his mind was fully made up, and that he would never be a candidate, and that he had expressed this decision to his friends in such a way as to put it out of his own power to change it... that it was now too late, and that he was too old... although, really, he is the only Democrat, at this moment, whom it would not be absurd to talk of for the office.... I wonder whether he can have had any object in saying all this to me. He might see that it would be perfectly natural for me to tell it to General Pierce.[21]
Jonathan Foltz told Buchanan in November 1855, "The people have taken the next presidency out of the hands of the politicians...the people and not your political friends will place you there." While Buchanan did not overtly seek the office, he most deliberately chose not to discourage the movement on his behalf, something that was well within his power on many occasions.[22]
An anti-Buchanan political cartoon from the 1856 election
Former president Millard Fillmore's "Know-Nothing" candidacy helped Buchanan defeat John C. Frémont, the first Republican candidate for president in 1856. He served as president from March 4, 1857, to March 4, 1861. Buchanan remains the most recent of the two Democrats (the other being Martin Van Buren) to succeed a fellow Democrat to the Presidency by election in his own right. President-elect Buchanan stated about the growing schism in the country: "The object of my administration will be to destroy sectional party, North or South, and to restore harmony to the Union under a national and conservative government."[23] He set about this initially by maintaining a sectional balance in his appointments and persuading 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 had hinted to Buchanan their findings.[citation needed]
Buchanan was the last president born in the 18th century and, at age 65, was the second-oldest man to be elected President at the time.
Presidency 1857–1861[edit]
Inauguration of James Buchanan, March 4, 1857, from a photograph by John Wood. Buchanan's Inauguration was the first one to be recorded in photographs.
Dred Scott case[edit]
In his inaugural address, besides promising not to run again, Buchanan 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", and proclaimed that when the decision came he would "cheerfully submit, whatever this may be". Two days later, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Dred Scott Decision, asserting that Congress had no constitutional power to exclude slavery in the territories. Such comments delighted Southerners and incited anger in the North.[24]
Buchanan preferred to see the territorial question resolved by the Supreme Court. He wrote to Justice John Catron in January 1857, inquiring about the outcome of the case and suggesting that a broader decision would be more prudent.[25] Catron, who was from Tennessee, replied on February 10 that the Supreme Court's southern majority would decide against Scott, but would likely have to publish the decision on narrow grounds if there was no support from the Court's northern justices—unless Buchanan could convince his fellow Pennsylvanian, Justice Robert Cooper Grier, to join the majority.[26][27] Buchanan then wrote to Grier and successfully prevailed upon him, allowing the majority leverage to issue a broad-ranging decision that transcended the specific circumstances of Scott's case to declare the Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional.[28][29] The correspondence was not public at the time; however, at his inauguration, Buchanan was seen in whispered conversation with Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. When the decision was issued two days later, Republicans began spreading word that Taney had revealed to Buchanan the forthcoming result.[29] Abraham Lincoln, in his 1858 House Divided Speech, denounced Buchanan, Taney, Stephen A. Douglas and Franklin Pierce as accomplices of the Slave Power, a supposed conspiracy to eliminate legal barriers to slavery.[30]
Chaos in Kansas; Buchanan breaks with Stephen Douglas[edit]
This section of a biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2013)
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 created Kansas Territory, and allowed the settlers there to choose whether to allow slavery. This resulted in violence between "Free-Soil" (anti-slavery) and pro-slavery settlers (see "Bleeding Kansas").
The anti-slavery settlers organized a government in Topeka, while pro-slavery settlers established a seat of government in Lecompton, Kansas. For Kansas to be admitted to statehood, a state constitution had to be submitted to Congress with the approval of a majority of residents.
Toward this end, Buchanan appointed Robert J. Walker as territorial Governor, with the mission of reconciling the settler factions and approving a constitution. Walker, who was from Mississippi, was expected to assist the pro-slavery faction in gaining approval of their Lecompton Constitution. However, most Kansas settlers were Free-Soilers. The Lecomptonites held a referendum, which Free-Soilers boycotted, with trick terms and claimed their constitution was adopted. Walker resigned in disgust.[31]
Nevertheless, Buchanan now pushed for Congressional approval of Kansas statehood under the Lecompton Constitution. Buchanan made every effort to secure Congressional approval, offering favors, patronage appointments and even cash for votes. The Lecompton bill passed through the House of Representatives, but failed in the Senate, where it was opposed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, leader of the northern Democrats. Douglas advocated "popular sovereignty" (letting settlers decide on slavery—nicknamed "squatter sovereignty" by Douglas' opponents); he rejected the fraudulent way the Lecompton Constitution was supposedly adopted.[citation needed]
The battle over Kansas escalated into a battle for control of the Democratic Party. On one side were Buchanan, most Southern Democrats, and northern Democrats allied to the Southerners ("Doughfaces"); on the other side, Douglas and most northern Democrats plus a few Southerners. The struggle lasted from 1857 to 1860. Buchanan used all his patronage powers to weaken Douglas.[citation needed]
Douglas's Senate term ended in 1859; so the Illinois legislature elected in 1858 had to choose whether or not to re-elect him. The Senate choice was the primary issue of the legislative election, marked by the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Buchanan, working through Federal patronage appointees in Illinois, ran candidates for the legislature in competition with both the Republicans and the Douglas Democrats. (They were known as "Danites".) This could easily have thrown the election to the Republicans—which showed the depth of Buchanan's animosity toward Douglas.[citation needed]
In the end, however, the Danite vote was insignificant. Douglas Democrats won the legislative election and Douglas was re-elected to the Senate. Douglas forces took control throughout the North, except in Buchanan's home state of Pennsylvania. Buchanan was reduced to a narrow base of southern supporters.[31][32]
Buchanan's political views[edit]
James Buchanan (1859) by George Healy as seen in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Buchanan considered the essence of good self-government to be founded on restraint. The constitution he considered to be "...restraints, imposed not by arbitrary authority, but by the people upon themselves and their representatives.... In an enlarged view, the people's interests may seem identical, but "to the eye of local and sectional prejudice, they always appear to be conflicting ... and the jealousies that will perpetually arise can be repressed only by the mutual forbearance which pervades the constitution."[33]
One of the greatest issues of the day was tariffs. Buchanan condemned both free trade and prohibitive tariffs, since either would benefit one section of the country to the detriment of the other. As the Senator from Pennsylvania, he thought: "I am viewed as the strongest advocate of protection in other states, whilst I am denounced as its enemy in Pennsylvania."[34]
Buchanan, like many of his time, was torn between his desire to expand the country for the benefit of all and his insistence on guaranteeing to the people settling the expanded areas their rights, including slavery. On territorial expansion, he said, "What, sir? Prevent the people from crossing the Rocky Mountains? You might just as well command the Niagara not to flow. We must fulfill our destiny."[35] On the resulting spread of slavery, through unconditional expansion, he stated: "I feel a strong repugnance by any act of mine to extend the present limits of the Union over a new slave-holding territory." For instance, he hoped the acquisition of Texas would "be the means of limiting, not enlarging, the dominion of slavery".[35]
Nevertheless, in deference to the intentions of the typical slaveholder, he was quick to provide the benefit of much doubt. In his third annual message Buchanan claimed that the slaves were "treated with kindness and humanity.... Both the philanthropy and the self-interest of the master have combined to produce this humane result."[36]
Historian Kenneth Stampp wrote: "Shortly after his election, he assured a southern Senator that the "great object" of his administration would be "to arrest, if possible, the agitation of the Slavery question in the North and to destroy sectional parties. Should a kind Providence enable me to succeed in my efforts to restore harmony to the Union, I shall feel that I have not lived in vain." In the northern anti-slavery idiom of his day, Buchanan was often considered a "doughface", a northern man with southern principles.[37]
The President, however, also felt that "this question of domestic slavery is the weak point in our institutions, touch this question seriously ... and the Union is from that moment dissolved. Although in Pennsylvania we are all opposed to slavery in the abstract, we can never violate the constitutional compact we have with our sister states. Their rights will be held sacred by us. Under the constitution it is their own question; and there let it remain."[38]
Buchanan was irked that the abolitionists, in his view, were preventing the solution to the slavery problem. He stated, "Before [the abolitionists] commenced this agitation, a very large and growing party existed in several of the slave states in favor of the gradual abolition of slavery; and now not a voice is heard there in support of such a measure. The abolitionists have postponed the emancipation of the slaves in three or four states for at least half a century."[38]
Buchanan's indifference to educational issues was demonstrated by his veto of a bill passed by Congress to create more colleges, for he believed that "there were already too many educated people."[39]
Near the end of his administration he had a serious exchange with the Rev. William Paxton. After what Paxton described as quite a probative discussion, Buchanan said, " Well, sir ... I hope I am a Christian. I have much of the experience you have described, and as soon as I retire, I will unite with the Presbyterian Church." Paxton asked why he delayed, to which he replied, "I must delay for the honor of religion. If I were to unite with the church now, they would say 'hypocrite' from Maine to Georgia."[40]
Panic of 1857[edit]
The Panic of 1857 began in summer of that year, brought on mostly by the people's over-consumption of goods from Europe to such an extent that the Union's specie was drained off, overbuilding by competing railroads, and rampant land speculation in the west. Most of the state banks had overextended credit, to more than $7.00 for each dollar of gold or silver. The Republicans considered the Congress to be the culprit for having recently reduced tariffs.
Buchanan's response, outlined in his first Annual Message to Congress, was "reform not relief". While the government was "without the power to extend relief",[41] it would continue to pay its debts in specie, and while it would not curtail public works, none would be added. He urged the states to restrict the banks to a credit level of $3 to $1 of specie, and discouraged the use of federal or state bonds as security for bank note issues. The economy did eventually recover, though many Americans suffered as a result of the panic.[42] The South, due to an agriculture-based economy, was considered to have been less severely affected than the North, where manufacturers were hardest hit. Buchanan, by the time he left office in 1861, had accumulated a federal deficit of $17 million.[41]
Utah War[edit]
Main articles: Utah War and Runaway Officials of 1851
In March 1857, Buchanan received conflicting reports from federal judges in the Utah Territory that their offices had been disrupted and they had been driven from their posts by the Mormons. He knew that the Pierce administration had refused to facilitate Utah being granted statehood and the Mormons feared the loss of their property rights. Accepting the wildest rumors and believing the Mormons to be in open rebellion against the United States, Buchanan sent the Army in November of that year to replace Brigham Young as Governor with the non-Mormon Alfred Cumming. While the Mormons' defiance of federal authority in the past had become traditional, some question whether Buchanan's action was a justifiable or prudent response to uncorroborated reports.[24] Complicating matters, Young's notice of his replacement was not delivered because the Pierce administration had annulled the Utah mail contract.[24] After Young reacted to the military action by mustering a two-week expedition destroying wagon trains, oxen and other Army property, Buchanan dispatched Thomas L. Kane as a private agent to negotiate peace. The mission succeeded, the new governor was shortly placed in office, and the Utah War ended. The President granted amnesty to all inhabitants who would respect the authority of the government, and moved the federal troops to a non-threatening distance for the balance of his administration.[43]
Partisan deadlock[edit]
The division between northern and southern Democrats allowed the Republicans to win a plurality in the House in the election of 1858. Their control of the chamber allowed the Republicans to block most of Buchanan's agenda (including his proposals for expansion of influence in Central America, and for the purchase of Cuba). Buchanan thought the ideologies of the United States would bring peace and prosperity to these neighboring lands as they had in the Northwest and that without U.S. influence, the major European powers would intervene. The imperative of safe and speedy travel from east to west was of strategic importance to the country. These goals would not be reached. Buchanan, in turn, vetoed six substantial pieces of Republican legislation, causing further hostility between Congress and the White House.[44]
Covode Committee[edit]
In March 1860, the House created the Covode Committee to investigate the administration for evidence of offenses, some impeachable, such as bribery and extortion of Representatives in exchange for their votes. The Committee, with three Republicans and two Democrats, was accused by Buchanan's supporters of being nakedly partisan; they also charged its chairman, Republican Rep. John Covode, with acting on a personal grudge (since the president had vetoed a bill that was fashioned as a land grant for new agricultural colleges, but was designed to benefit Covode's railroad company[45]). However, the Democratic committee members, as well as Democratic witnesses, were equally enthusiastic in their pursuit of Buchanan, and as pointed in their condemnations, as the Republicans.[46][47]
The committee was unable to establish grounds for impeaching Buchanan; however, the majority report issued on June 17 exposed corruption and abuse of power among members of his Cabinet as well as allegations (if not impeachable evidence) from the Republican members of the Committee, that Buchanan had attempted to bribe members of Congress in connection with the Lecompton constitution. (The Democratic report, issued separately the same day, pointed out that evidence was scarce but did not refute the allegations; one of the Democratic members, Rep. James Robinson, stated publicly that he agreed with the Republican report even though he did not sign it.[47])
Buchanan claimed to have "passed triumphantly through this ordeal" with complete vindication. Nonetheless, Republican operatives distributed thousands of copies of the Covode Committee report throughout the nation as campaign material in that year's presidential election.[48][49]
He represented Pennsylvania in the United States House of Representatives and later the Senate and served as Minister to Russia under President Andrew Jackson. He was also Secretary of State under President James K. Polk. After he turned down an offer for an appointment to the Supreme Court, President Franklin Pierce appointed him minister to the Court of St. James's, in which capacity he helped draft the Ostend Manifesto.
Buchanan was nominated by the Democratic Party in the 1856 Presidential election. Throughout most of Pierce's term, he was stationed in London as a minister to the Court of St. James's and therefore was not caught up in the crossfire of sectional politics that dominated the country. His subsequent election victory took place in a three-man race with John C. Frémont and Millard Fillmore. As President, he was often called a "doughface", a Northerner with Southern sympathies, who battled with Stephen A. Douglas for the control of the Democratic Party. Buchanan's efforts to maintain peace between the North and the South alienated both sides, and the Southern states declared their secession in the prologue to the American Civil War. Buchanan's view of record was that secession was illegal, but that going to war to stop it was also illegal. Buchanan, an attorney, was noted for his mantra, "I acknowledge no master but the law."[1]
By the time he left office, popular opinion was against him, and the Democratic Party had split. Buchanan had once aspired to a presidency that would rank in history with that of George Washington.[2] However, his inability to impose peace on sharply divided partisans on the brink of the Civil War has led to his consistent ranking by historians as one of the worst presidents in American history. Historians in both 2006 and 2009 voted his failure to deal with secession the worst presidential mistake ever made.[3]
Contents [show]
Early life[edit]
Buchanan was born in a log cabin in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania (now Buchanan's Birthplace State Park), in Franklin County, on April 23, 1791, to James Buchanan, Sr. (1761–1821), a businessman, merchant, and farmer, and Elizabeth Speer, an educated woman (1767–1833).[4] His parents were both of Ulster Scots descent, the father having emigrated from Donegal, Ireland in 1783. Buchanan had six sisters and four brothers.[4]
In 1797, the family moved to nearby Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. The home in Mercersburg was later turned into the James Buchanan Hotel.[5]
Buchanan attended the village academy (Old Stone Academy) and later Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Though he was nearly expelled at one point for poor behavior, he pleaded for a second chance and subsequently graduated with honors on September 19, 1809.[6] Later that year, he moved to Lancaster, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1812.
A dedicated Federalist, he initially opposed the War of 1812 because he believed it was an unnecessary conflict. When the British invaded neighboring Maryland, he joined a volunteer light dragoon unit as a private and served in the defense of Baltimore.[7] Buchanan is the only president with military experience who did not, at some point, serve as an officer.[8]
An active Freemason, he was the Master of Masonic Lodge No. 43 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a District Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.[9]
Political career[edit]
Buchanan began his political career in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1814 to 1816 as a member of the Federalist Party.[10] He was elected to the 17th United States Congress and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1821 – March 4, 1831), serving as chairman of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary in the 21st United States Congress. In 1830, he was among the members appointed by the House to conduct impeachment proceedings against James H. Peck, judge of the United States District Court for the District of Missouri. Peck was charged with abuse of the contempt power, but was ultimately acquitted.[11] Buchanan did not seek reelection and from 1832 to 1833 he served as Minister to Russia, appointed by Andrew Jackson.
With the Federalist Party long defunct, Buchanan was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy and served from December 1834; he was reelected in 1837 and 1843, and resigned in 1845 to accept nomination of him as Secretary of State by President James K. Polk. He was chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations from 1836 to 1841.[12]
After the death of Supreme Court Justice Henry Baldwin in 1844, Polk nominated Buchanan to fill the vacancy in March 1845, but he declined that nomination because he felt compelled to complete his collaboration on the Oregon Treaty negotiations. The seat was eventually filled by Robert Cooper Grier.[13]
Buchanan served as Secretary of State under Polk from 1845 to 1849, despite objections from Buchanan's rival, Vice President George Dallas.[14] In this capacity, he helped negotiate the 1846 Oregon Treaty establishing the 49th parallel as the northern boundary of the western United States.[15] No Secretary of State has become President since Buchanan, although William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States, often served as Acting Secretary of State during the Theodore Roosevelt administration.
In 1852, Buchanan was named president of the Board of Trustees of Franklin and Marshall College in his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and he served in this capacity until 1866,[16] despite a false report that he was fired.[17]
He served as minister to the Court of St. James's (Britain) from 1853 to 1856, during which time he helped to draft a memorandum that became known as the Ostend Manifesto. He signed the memorandum along with Pierre Soulé and John Mason. This document proposed the purchase from Spain of Cuba, then in the midst of revolution and near bankruptcy, declaring the island "as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present ... family of states." Against Buchanan's recommendation, the final draft of the Manifesto suggested that "wresting it from Spain" if Spain refused to sell would be justified "by every law, human and Divine".[18] The Manifesto, generally considered a blunder overall, was never acted upon but weakened the Pierce administration and support for Manifest Destiny.[18][19]
Presidential election of 1856[edit]
Results by county explicitly indicating the percentage for Buchanan in each county.
Main article: United States presidential election, 1856
Democrats nominated Buchanan in 1856 as their nominee for President of the United States. He had been in England during the Kansas-Nebraska debate and thus remained untainted by either side.[20] Pennsylvania, which had three times failed Buchanan, now gave him full support in its state convention. Though he never declared his candidacy, it is apparent from all his correspondence that he was aware of the distinct possibility of his nomination by the Democratic convention in Cincinnati, even before heading home at the finish of his work as Minister to the Court of St. James in the United Kingdom. Writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, then serving as American Consul in Liverpool, recorded in his diary that Buchanan visited him in January 1855:
He returns to America, he says, next October, and then retires forever from public life... as regards his prospects for the Presidency, [h]e said that his mind was fully made up, and that he would never be a candidate, and that he had expressed this decision to his friends in such a way as to put it out of his own power to change it... that it was now too late, and that he was too old... although, really, he is the only Democrat, at this moment, whom it would not be absurd to talk of for the office.... I wonder whether he can have had any object in saying all this to me. He might see that it would be perfectly natural for me to tell it to General Pierce.[21]
Jonathan Foltz told Buchanan in November 1855, "The people have taken the next presidency out of the hands of the politicians...the people and not your political friends will place you there." While Buchanan did not overtly seek the office, he most deliberately chose not to discourage the movement on his behalf, something that was well within his power on many occasions.[22]
An anti-Buchanan political cartoon from the 1856 election
Former president Millard Fillmore's "Know-Nothing" candidacy helped Buchanan defeat John C. Frémont, the first Republican candidate for president in 1856. He served as president from March 4, 1857, to March 4, 1861. Buchanan remains the most recent of the two Democrats (the other being Martin Van Buren) to succeed a fellow Democrat to the Presidency by election in his own right. President-elect Buchanan stated about the growing schism in the country: "The object of my administration will be to destroy sectional party, North or South, and to restore harmony to the Union under a national and conservative government."[23] He set about this initially by maintaining a sectional balance in his appointments and persuading 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 had hinted to Buchanan their findings.[citation needed]
Buchanan was the last president born in the 18th century and, at age 65, was the second-oldest man to be elected President at the time.
Presidency 1857–1861[edit]
Inauguration of James Buchanan, March 4, 1857, from a photograph by John Wood. Buchanan's Inauguration was the first one to be recorded in photographs.
Dred Scott case[edit]
In his inaugural address, besides promising not to run again, Buchanan 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", and proclaimed that when the decision came he would "cheerfully submit, whatever this may be". Two days later, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Dred Scott Decision, asserting that Congress had no constitutional power to exclude slavery in the territories. Such comments delighted Southerners and incited anger in the North.[24]
Buchanan preferred to see the territorial question resolved by the Supreme Court. He wrote to Justice John Catron in January 1857, inquiring about the outcome of the case and suggesting that a broader decision would be more prudent.[25] Catron, who was from Tennessee, replied on February 10 that the Supreme Court's southern majority would decide against Scott, but would likely have to publish the decision on narrow grounds if there was no support from the Court's northern justices—unless Buchanan could convince his fellow Pennsylvanian, Justice Robert Cooper Grier, to join the majority.[26][27] Buchanan then wrote to Grier and successfully prevailed upon him, allowing the majority leverage to issue a broad-ranging decision that transcended the specific circumstances of Scott's case to declare the Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional.[28][29] The correspondence was not public at the time; however, at his inauguration, Buchanan was seen in whispered conversation with Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. When the decision was issued two days later, Republicans began spreading word that Taney had revealed to Buchanan the forthcoming result.[29] Abraham Lincoln, in his 1858 House Divided Speech, denounced Buchanan, Taney, Stephen A. Douglas and Franklin Pierce as accomplices of the Slave Power, a supposed conspiracy to eliminate legal barriers to slavery.[30]
Chaos in Kansas; Buchanan breaks with Stephen Douglas[edit]
This section of a biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2013)
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 created Kansas Territory, and allowed the settlers there to choose whether to allow slavery. This resulted in violence between "Free-Soil" (anti-slavery) and pro-slavery settlers (see "Bleeding Kansas").
The anti-slavery settlers organized a government in Topeka, while pro-slavery settlers established a seat of government in Lecompton, Kansas. For Kansas to be admitted to statehood, a state constitution had to be submitted to Congress with the approval of a majority of residents.
Toward this end, Buchanan appointed Robert J. Walker as territorial Governor, with the mission of reconciling the settler factions and approving a constitution. Walker, who was from Mississippi, was expected to assist the pro-slavery faction in gaining approval of their Lecompton Constitution. However, most Kansas settlers were Free-Soilers. The Lecomptonites held a referendum, which Free-Soilers boycotted, with trick terms and claimed their constitution was adopted. Walker resigned in disgust.[31]
Nevertheless, Buchanan now pushed for Congressional approval of Kansas statehood under the Lecompton Constitution. Buchanan made every effort to secure Congressional approval, offering favors, patronage appointments and even cash for votes. The Lecompton bill passed through the House of Representatives, but failed in the Senate, where it was opposed by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, leader of the northern Democrats. Douglas advocated "popular sovereignty" (letting settlers decide on slavery—nicknamed "squatter sovereignty" by Douglas' opponents); he rejected the fraudulent way the Lecompton Constitution was supposedly adopted.[citation needed]
The battle over Kansas escalated into a battle for control of the Democratic Party. On one side were Buchanan, most Southern Democrats, and northern Democrats allied to the Southerners ("Doughfaces"); on the other side, Douglas and most northern Democrats plus a few Southerners. The struggle lasted from 1857 to 1860. Buchanan used all his patronage powers to weaken Douglas.[citation needed]
Douglas's Senate term ended in 1859; so the Illinois legislature elected in 1858 had to choose whether or not to re-elect him. The Senate choice was the primary issue of the legislative election, marked by the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Buchanan, working through Federal patronage appointees in Illinois, ran candidates for the legislature in competition with both the Republicans and the Douglas Democrats. (They were known as "Danites".) This could easily have thrown the election to the Republicans—which showed the depth of Buchanan's animosity toward Douglas.[citation needed]
In the end, however, the Danite vote was insignificant. Douglas Democrats won the legislative election and Douglas was re-elected to the Senate. Douglas forces took control throughout the North, except in Buchanan's home state of Pennsylvania. Buchanan was reduced to a narrow base of southern supporters.[31][32]
Buchanan's political views[edit]
James Buchanan (1859) by George Healy as seen in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Buchanan considered the essence of good self-government to be founded on restraint. The constitution he considered to be "...restraints, imposed not by arbitrary authority, but by the people upon themselves and their representatives.... In an enlarged view, the people's interests may seem identical, but "to the eye of local and sectional prejudice, they always appear to be conflicting ... and the jealousies that will perpetually arise can be repressed only by the mutual forbearance which pervades the constitution."[33]
One of the greatest issues of the day was tariffs. Buchanan condemned both free trade and prohibitive tariffs, since either would benefit one section of the country to the detriment of the other. As the Senator from Pennsylvania, he thought: "I am viewed as the strongest advocate of protection in other states, whilst I am denounced as its enemy in Pennsylvania."[34]
Buchanan, like many of his time, was torn between his desire to expand the country for the benefit of all and his insistence on guaranteeing to the people settling the expanded areas their rights, including slavery. On territorial expansion, he said, "What, sir? Prevent the people from crossing the Rocky Mountains? You might just as well command the Niagara not to flow. We must fulfill our destiny."[35] On the resulting spread of slavery, through unconditional expansion, he stated: "I feel a strong repugnance by any act of mine to extend the present limits of the Union over a new slave-holding territory." For instance, he hoped the acquisition of Texas would "be the means of limiting, not enlarging, the dominion of slavery".[35]
Nevertheless, in deference to the intentions of the typical slaveholder, he was quick to provide the benefit of much doubt. In his third annual message Buchanan claimed that the slaves were "treated with kindness and humanity.... Both the philanthropy and the self-interest of the master have combined to produce this humane result."[36]
Historian Kenneth Stampp wrote: "Shortly after his election, he assured a southern Senator that the "great object" of his administration would be "to arrest, if possible, the agitation of the Slavery question in the North and to destroy sectional parties. Should a kind Providence enable me to succeed in my efforts to restore harmony to the Union, I shall feel that I have not lived in vain." In the northern anti-slavery idiom of his day, Buchanan was often considered a "doughface", a northern man with southern principles.[37]
The President, however, also felt that "this question of domestic slavery is the weak point in our institutions, touch this question seriously ... and the Union is from that moment dissolved. Although in Pennsylvania we are all opposed to slavery in the abstract, we can never violate the constitutional compact we have with our sister states. Their rights will be held sacred by us. Under the constitution it is their own question; and there let it remain."[38]
Buchanan was irked that the abolitionists, in his view, were preventing the solution to the slavery problem. He stated, "Before [the abolitionists] commenced this agitation, a very large and growing party existed in several of the slave states in favor of the gradual abolition of slavery; and now not a voice is heard there in support of such a measure. The abolitionists have postponed the emancipation of the slaves in three or four states for at least half a century."[38]
Buchanan's indifference to educational issues was demonstrated by his veto of a bill passed by Congress to create more colleges, for he believed that "there were already too many educated people."[39]
Near the end of his administration he had a serious exchange with the Rev. William Paxton. After what Paxton described as quite a probative discussion, Buchanan said, " Well, sir ... I hope I am a Christian. I have much of the experience you have described, and as soon as I retire, I will unite with the Presbyterian Church." Paxton asked why he delayed, to which he replied, "I must delay for the honor of religion. If I were to unite with the church now, they would say 'hypocrite' from Maine to Georgia."[40]
Panic of 1857[edit]
The Panic of 1857 began in summer of that year, brought on mostly by the people's over-consumption of goods from Europe to such an extent that the Union's specie was drained off, overbuilding by competing railroads, and rampant land speculation in the west. Most of the state banks had overextended credit, to more than $7.00 for each dollar of gold or silver. The Republicans considered the Congress to be the culprit for having recently reduced tariffs.
Buchanan's response, outlined in his first Annual Message to Congress, was "reform not relief". While the government was "without the power to extend relief",[41] it would continue to pay its debts in specie, and while it would not curtail public works, none would be added. He urged the states to restrict the banks to a credit level of $3 to $1 of specie, and discouraged the use of federal or state bonds as security for bank note issues. The economy did eventually recover, though many Americans suffered as a result of the panic.[42] The South, due to an agriculture-based economy, was considered to have been less severely affected than the North, where manufacturers were hardest hit. Buchanan, by the time he left office in 1861, had accumulated a federal deficit of $17 million.[41]
Utah War[edit]
Main articles: Utah War and Runaway Officials of 1851
In March 1857, Buchanan received conflicting reports from federal judges in the Utah Territory that their offices had been disrupted and they had been driven from their posts by the Mormons. He knew that the Pierce administration had refused to facilitate Utah being granted statehood and the Mormons feared the loss of their property rights. Accepting the wildest rumors and believing the Mormons to be in open rebellion against the United States, Buchanan sent the Army in November of that year to replace Brigham Young as Governor with the non-Mormon Alfred Cumming. While the Mormons' defiance of federal authority in the past had become traditional, some question whether Buchanan's action was a justifiable or prudent response to uncorroborated reports.[24] Complicating matters, Young's notice of his replacement was not delivered because the Pierce administration had annulled the Utah mail contract.[24] After Young reacted to the military action by mustering a two-week expedition destroying wagon trains, oxen and other Army property, Buchanan dispatched Thomas L. Kane as a private agent to negotiate peace. The mission succeeded, the new governor was shortly placed in office, and the Utah War ended. The President granted amnesty to all inhabitants who would respect the authority of the government, and moved the federal troops to a non-threatening distance for the balance of his administration.[43]
Partisan deadlock[edit]
The division between northern and southern Democrats allowed the Republicans to win a plurality in the House in the election of 1858. Their control of the chamber allowed the Republicans to block most of Buchanan's agenda (including his proposals for expansion of influence in Central America, and for the purchase of Cuba). Buchanan thought the ideologies of the United States would bring peace and prosperity to these neighboring lands as they had in the Northwest and that without U.S. influence, the major European powers would intervene. The imperative of safe and speedy travel from east to west was of strategic importance to the country. These goals would not be reached. Buchanan, in turn, vetoed six substantial pieces of Republican legislation, causing further hostility between Congress and the White House.[44]
Covode Committee[edit]
In March 1860, the House created the Covode Committee to investigate the administration for evidence of offenses, some impeachable, such as bribery and extortion of Representatives in exchange for their votes. The Committee, with three Republicans and two Democrats, was accused by Buchanan's supporters of being nakedly partisan; they also charged its chairman, Republican Rep. John Covode, with acting on a personal grudge (since the president had vetoed a bill that was fashioned as a land grant for new agricultural colleges, but was designed to benefit Covode's railroad company[45]). However, the Democratic committee members, as well as Democratic witnesses, were equally enthusiastic in their pursuit of Buchanan, and as pointed in their condemnations, as the Republicans.[46][47]
The committee was unable to establish grounds for impeaching Buchanan; however, the majority report issued on June 17 exposed corruption and abuse of power among members of his Cabinet as well as allegations (if not impeachable evidence) from the Republican members of the Committee, that Buchanan had attempted to bribe members of Congress in connection with the Lecompton constitution. (The Democratic report, issued separately the same day, pointed out that evidence was scarce but did not refute the allegations; one of the Democratic members, Rep. James Robinson, stated publicly that he agreed with the Republican report even though he did not sign it.[47])
Buchanan claimed to have "passed triumphantly through this ordeal" with complete vindication. Nonetheless, Republican operatives distributed thousands of copies of the Covode Committee report throughout the nation as campaign material in that year's presidential election.[48][49]
No comments:
Post a Comment