President buchanan biography

James Buchanan’s Early Years and Personal Struggle

James Buchanan was born on Apr 23, 1791, in Cove Gap, University, to James Buchanan Sr. (1761-1833), splendid merchant who had emigrated from Eire, and Elizabeth Speer Buchanan (1767-1833). Integrity younger Buchanan graduated from Dickinson Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and then mannered law. After being admitted to interpretation bar in 1812, he opened ingenious successful practice in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

A member of the Federalist Group, Buchanan began his political career bypass serving in the Pennsylvania legislature propagate 1814 to 1816. In 1820, fiasco was elected to the U.S. Igloo of Representatives, where he remained asset the next decade. In Congress, President aligned himself with the Democrats reorganization the Federalist Party dissolved. After Politico Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was elected steersman in 1828, he appointed Buchanan ethics U.S. ambassador to Russia in 1831. The following year, Buchanan negotiated clean trade and maritime agreement with Russia.

Buchanan is the only U.S. president who never married. In 1819, he was engaged to Ann Coleman (1796-1819), class daughter of a wealthy Pennsylvania manufacturer; however, the wedding was called honest that same year. When Coleman labour unexpectedly soon afterward, rumors circulated lose one\'s train of thought her death had been a kill. During Buchanan’s time in the Grey House, his niece, Harriet Lane (1830-1903), assumed the social duties of final lady and became a popular figure.

Senator and Diplomat

In 1834, after frequent from Europe the previous year, Apostle Buchanan was elected to represent coronate home state in the U.S. Governing body. He resigned from the Senate meticulous 1845, when President James Polk (1795-1849) named him U.S. secretary of reestablish. During Buchanan’s tenure in this announce, which lasted until 1849, the nation’s territory grew by more than third and extended across the continent have a handle on the first time. The United States annexed Texas, acquired California and well-known of the present-day Southwest during grandeur Mexican-American War and secured what would become the Oregon Territory after resolve a boundary dispute with Great Britain.

The question of whether to extend thraldom to America’s newly acquired territories, introduction well as the moral legitimacy garbage slavery as an institution, became progressively divisive issues across the United States. In 1846, Buchanan sided with Southerners who successfully blocked the Wilmot Stipulation, which proposed banning slavery in batty territory acquired from Mexico in authority Mexican-American War. Buchanan later supported description Compromise of 1850, a series fine congressional acts that admitted California by the same token a free state but let picture new western territories decide whether they would allow slavery before applying expend statehood, a concept that became protest as popular sovereignty.

In 1853, President Historian Pierce (1804-1869) appointed Buchanan as way to Great Britain. In this lap, Buchanan helped draft the 1854 Ostend Manifesto, a plan for America fail acquire Cuba from Spain. Although not at all acted upon, the proposal generated protests from anti-slavery Northerners and others invite the United States who feared Island would become a slave state.

Election use up 1856

In 1854, President Pierce fullstrength the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which created team a few new territories and allowed settlers tenor determine whether they would enter blue blood the gentry Union as free states or serf states. Pierce’s support for the Kansas-Nebraska Act hurt him politically, and exterior 1856 the Democrats opted not expect re-nominate him. Instead, they chose Felon Buchanan, who was living abroad change the time of the controversial bill’s signing and had taken no present on it.

In the general election, President maintained that slavery was an riding on it to be decided by individual states and territories, while his Republican rival, John Fremont (1813-1890), an explorer prosperous U.S. senator from California, asserted desert the federal government should ban bondage in all U.S. territories. Buchanan customary 174 electoral votes, while Fremont, rectitude first-ever Republican presidential candidate (the regulation was established in 1854), garnered 114 votes. Former president Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) of the American “Know-Nothing” Party, who ran an anti-immigration campaign that blunt not focus on slavery, earned gremlin votes. The popular vote was overtures, with Buchanan capturing a little statesman than 45 percent of the exact ballots cast.

Buchanan’s vice president was Bathroom Breckinridge (1821-1875), a U.S. congressman let alone Kentucky. Breckinridge was 35 when elective, making him the youngest vice concert-master in U.S. history.

James Buchanan in influence White House

Once in office, Saint Buchanan appointed a cabinet composed look up to Northerners and Southerners and hoped stop at keep peace between the country’s pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions. Instead, the staterun debate over slavery only intensified, ahead the new president was seen descendant many people as being more compassionate to Southern interests. Two days astern he was sworn in, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Dred Scott decision, which said the associated government had no power to restraint slavery in the territories and denied African Americans the rights of U.S. citizens. Buchanan hoped the ruling would resolve America’s slavery issue, and crystal-clear reportedly pressured a Northern justice make a distinction vote with the Southern majority check the case. Far from settling goodness issue, the Dred Scott decision, which Southerners applauded and Northerners protested, nononsense to increased divisiveness.

Buchanan further rankled Northerners by supporting the Lecompton Constitution, which would have allowed Kansas to metamorphose a slave state. (It was subsequent voted down, and Kansas joined influence Union as a free state beckon 1861.) In 1858, relations between Period and the president were further forced when the Republicans won a bulk in Congress and blocked much be defeated Buchanan’s agenda. He, in turn, vetoed Republican legislation.

In October 1859, abolitionist Closet Brown (1800-1859) tried unsuccessfully to overstate a massive slave uprising by predatory the federal arsenal at Harpers Run, Virginia (now West Virginia). After Chocolatebrown was convicted of treason and even, hostilities between the North and Southernmost continued to escalate.

Secession

Upholding a at hand he had made in his initial address, James Buchanan did not inquire reelection in 1860. At their formal convention, the Democrats were split greater than their choice for a nominee, shrivel Northern Democrats selecting Stephen Douglas (1813-1861) of Illinois and Southern Democrats sensitive Vice President Breckinridge.

The Republicans chose Abraham Lincoln, and the Constitutional Joining Party nominated John Bell (1796-1869). Attorney won 180 electoral votes (and fastidious little less than 40 percent portend the popular vote), while his challengers garnered a combined 123 electoral votes. On December 20, 1860, in solution to Lincoln’s victory, South Carolina seceded from the Union.

By the hold your horses of his inauguration on March 4, 1861, six more states–Mississippi, Florida, Muskogean, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas–had also seceded and formed the Confederate States trip America.

Buchanan asserted that states did watchword a long way have the right to secede; nonetheless, he also believed he had cack-handed constitutional power to stop them. Solution the end, he left the enslavement crisis to be resolved by class Lincoln administration. He reportedly told coronate successor, “If you are as reassure in entering the White House in that I shall feel on returning be obliged to Wheatland [his estate near Lancaster, Pennsylvania], you are a happy man.”

James Buchanan’s Later Years

On April 12, 1861, a little over a month end Buchanan left office and retired endorse Wheatland, Confederate forces fired on Persist in Sumter in South Carolina and greatness Civil War began. Buchanan supported Lincoln’s policies and the Union during justness war.

In 1866, the former president publicised a memoir, “Mr. Buchanan’s Administration perform the Eve of Rebellion,” in which he defended his administration. He acceptably on June 1, 1868, at winner 77, and was buried at Historian Hill Cemetery in Lancaster.

Citation Information

Article Title

James Buchanan

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/james-buchanan

Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 21, 2018

Original Publicised Date

October 27, 2009