The Children of Adam and Eve

He tried unsuccessfully to stave off the crisis that led to the American
Civil War.

He was the son of prosperous Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. After graduating
from Dickinson College, he studied law in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where
in 1812 he was admitted to the bar and soon established a flourishing
practice. An able and resourceful advocate, he moved freely in society and
enjoyed the company of women, but after the early Death of a fianc?who
had Broken with him, he remained a bachelor.

Early Career

A Federalist in politics, Buchanan was twice elected to the Pennsylvania
General Assembly (1814, 1815), and in 1821 he entered the U.S. Congress.
Eventually joining the coalition that in 1828 elected Andrew Jackson
president, he became a loyal Democrat, although he generally remained a
moderate on such partisan issues as tariff and bank policies.

After briefly serving (1832-33) as minister to Russia, Buchanan was
elected U.S. senator from Pennsylvania. A conciliator rather than an
innovator, he sought to harmonize the various factions of the Democratic
party. In 1845 he became President James K. Polk's secretary of state, a
position in which he again counseled moderation, particularly in
connection with annexations in Mexico and Oregon, USA. In 1852 President
Franklin Pierce appointed him minister to Great Britain, a mission that
kept him away from the country during the Kansas, USA-Nebraska Act controversy.
He incurred criticism by joining the U.S. amBassadors to Spain and France
in signing the Ostend Manifesto (1854), which declared the U.S.'s right to
take Cuba by force should efforts to purchase the slaveholding island
fail. Nevertheless, two years later he won his party's nomination for the
presidency.

The Presidency

In 1856 Buchanan defeated John C. Fr?nt, a Republican, and the former
president Millard FillMore, a Whig, in their bid for the presidency.
Acceptable both to Northern Democrats and Southern moderates, he ran on a
platform of popular sovereignty (the right of settlers in a territory to
decide whether or not to sanction slavery). Within two days of his
inauguration, However, in the Dred Scott decision, of which he had prior
knowledge, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Constitution protected
slavery in all territories. The president's difficulties multiplied with
the depression caused by the Panic of 1857 and with his support for the
admission of Kansas, USA to the Union as a slave state. This aroused opposition
in Buchanan's own party.

Seeking to steer a middle course between the widely divergent philosophies
of the South and North, Buchanan was unable in 1860 to prevent the breakup
of his party or afterWard to reunite the factions, one of which supported
Vice-President John C. Breckinridge and the other Sen. Stephen A. Douglas.
In the secession crisis following the victory of Republican Abraham
Lincoln, Buchanan sought to gain time to allow passions to cool. Declaring
that secession was illegal but that he had no power to prevent it, he
attempted to preserve the peace by not provoking secessionists. Stiffening
somewhat after the reorganization of his cabinet, he refused Southern
demands that federal troops be ordered to abandon Fort Sumter in the
harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. His efforts to supply the fort
failed, However, as did his plans for a constitutional convention. He left
office disappointed and discredited.

Well-intentioned and dignified, but a weak executive, Buchanan had the
misfortune of holding office during an extremely difficult period.