United StatesWho was James Buchanan?
James Buchanan (1791-1868), the son of Irish immigrants, became a lawyer in Pennsylvania and spent four decades in public life as a congressman, minister to Russia, senator, secretary of state under James K. Polk and minister to Britain under Franklin Pierce. His absence abroad during the Kansas-Nebraska controversy helped him win the Democratic nomination and the presidency in 1856. He hoped the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision would settle the slavery question, but it and his support for a proslavery constitution in Kansas split his party. After Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860, seven Southern states seceded during Buchanan's final months in office while he maintained that he lacked the power to stop them.
Political views
Influenced the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott ruling, which held that Congress could not bar slavery from the territories, by urging Justice Robert Grier to join a broad majority.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgEndorsed the proslavery Lecompton Constitution for Kansas although it had been supported by only a minority of white Kansans.
Source: millercenter.orgSent a federal army to the Utah Territory in 1857 to install a new governor, later offering amnesty to residents who accepted federal authority.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgKept pressing to annex Cuba as president, although Republican opposition in Congress doomed the plans.
Source: millercenter.orgMaintained after Lincoln's election that he lacked the power to stop secession and took no action against it.
Source: millercenter.orgSigned the protective Morrill Tariff in March 1861, one of his last acts in office, because it served Pennsylvania's interests.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Legacy
Historians and presidential rankings consistently place Buchanan at or near the bottom, chiefly for his failure to halt the breakup of the Union and for policies that favored the South in the sectional crisis. Critics argue that his intervention in the Dred Scott case and his support for the Lecompton Constitution, which Senator Stephen Douglas condemned as a fraud, inflamed the North and divided the Democratic Party. Defenders, a minority, argue that he faced an almost impossible situation, that he acted within a narrow reading of his constitutional powers and that he avoided starting a war before Lincoln took office. His Utah expedition also drew criticism as costly and poorly planned. Buchanan himself spent his retirement defending his record.