Figure 1.--.

James Buchanan was the 15th president of the United States. He groped for compromise as the South advanced toward secession. Tall, stately, 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 which favored the South. Nor did he appreciate how sectionalism had realigned political parties: the Democrats split; the Whigs were destroyed, giving rise to the Republicans. Buchanan is judged by many historians as the worse presudent in American history. Because of his failed policies and refusal to even prepare for military action, the United States came perioously close to breaking up. The consequences of this to the 20th century are unimmaginable.

Childhood

James was born into a well-to-do Pennsylvania family in 1791. I have not yet collected any information on his childhood or the clothes he wore as a boy.

Education

Buchanan, a graduate of Dickinson College, was gifted as a debater and a very knowledgeable legal scholar. This is in sharp contrast to his successor Abraham Lincoln who had virtualy no formal education.

Political Career

Buchanan proved an adroit politician. He not only served in Congress, but held important administrative posts. He ran for Congress and was elected five times to the House of Representatives. He then accepted appointed as American ambassador to Russia. Whe he returned home he ran for an was elected to the Senate andc was reelected after his first term. President Polk appointed him Secretary of State and then President Pierce appointed him Ambassador to Great Britain. This appointment was a factor in his 1856 nomination. While involved in foreign policy and serving abroad he was not involved in the increasingly accrimonious Congressional debates on slavery and other sectional issues. He thus had made fewer enemies, making him an acceptable compromise candidate.

Presidency

America at the time of the 1856 election was rapidly spiraling toward civil war. The major issue was slavery in the western territories that would be soon entering the Union. Buchanan thought the growing sectional rift was still manageable. He conceived a policy of maintaining a a sectional balance in government appointments and using a layerly effort to use constitutional law to prevent a rift. The Supreme Court at the time of Buchanan's election was considering a case which would decide the constitutionality of restricting slavery in the territories. Two of the justices had spoke to President-elect Buchanan as to the forth coming Court decession. Buchanan at his Inaugural thus described the territorial question as "happily, a matter of but little practical importance" since the Supreme Court would settle it "speedily and finally." The Court presided over by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney did precisely that 2 days later. The Court found in rge Dred Scott decision that Congress had no constitutional power to deprive persons of their property rights in the territories. Slaves were considered as property and thus Congress could not regulate slavery in the territories. Rather than settling the issue, the Court by invalidated the Compromise of 1850 threw the devisive issue os slavery in the territories wide open. The South was overyoyed with the decession. The North was appaulled. Fighting was intensifying in Kansas. Buchanan's answer was to bring Kansas into the Union as a slave state. This proved difficult as there were two territoal governments claiming authority. Republican and northern Democrats in Comgress blocked Buchanan's efforts. The Republicans gained ground in the 1858 Congressional elections, gaining a plurality in the Congress. Southern influence in the Senate and Presuidential vetos brought gridlock to the Federal Government. The sectional disfcord broke the Democratic Party in two. Each region of the Party elected a separate candidate. Split the Party could not hope to defeat the rising Republican Party in the 1860 presidential election. Southern radicals began pushing for secession in state legislatures. President Buchanan's policy od constitutional law proved a complete failure. His reaction to threats of secession was inaction. He rejected the legal right of states to secede from the Union, but not prepared to use the power of the Federal Government to forcibly hold the states in the Union. He vainly hoped for compromise, but Southern leaders were not willing to compromise, many were now committed to secession. In the final months of his presidency, Buchanan began to take a stronger position to the Southern secessionists. When Southerners resigned theor cabonent posts to return south, Buchanan appointed northeners to replace them. He also decided to keep Federal troops at Fourt Sumter in Charleston harbor and dispatched the Star of the West to reinforce the garrison. The ship was fired on by South Carolina militias positions and prevented from reaching Fourt Sumter (January 9, 1861). This was Buchanan's only real effort to resist secession. For 3 months he did next to nothing until turning the presidency over to Abraham Lincoln (March 1861).

Assessment

Buchann is arguably the worst president in American history. It cannot be said that he did not attempt to preserve the Union. He did, but it failed. It can be said that he was not prepared to preserve the Union through civil war. Most historians see Buchanan as vascilating and indesive. Some historians have stressed his efforts to prevent both secession and civil war. But political readers are not judged by their sanctity, but by their successes and failure. The indesoutable hisyorical fact is that no other American president presented his successor with a more daunting challenge than Buchanan. Because of his failed policies and refusal to even prepare for military action, the United States came perioously close to breaking up. The consequences of this to the 20th century are unimmaginable.

Final Years

Buchanan left Washington and returned to his Pennsylvania home--Wheatland. He played no further role in public policy. He published his memoirs after the Civil war (1866). The book is defensive abd apologetic in tone, emphasizing his desire to avoid conflict. The country by this time had passed Buchan by. Few copies sold. He died in 1868 with little public notice..

Personal Life

Buchanan was the only president never to marry. He had no children. He did, however, lead an active social life. He was certainly a good host. When England's Prince of Wales came to visit in the fall of 1860, so many guests came with him, it's said the president slept in the hallway!

First Lady: Harriet Lane (1830-1903)

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, her 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 connexions," 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 she 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 the 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.

Lance Children

Hariet Lane married in 1863 after her White House years. She had two boys, both of whom died young.