Linda+N.+-+JB+-+FA12

James Buchanan April 23, 1791, Cove Gap (near Mercersburg), Pennsylvania - June 1, 1868, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania Political Party: Democrat Presidential Term: March 4, 1857 – March 4, 1861 (one term) Vice President: John C. Breckinridge (1857–1861)

Americans during Buchanan’s administration was in a state of disunion. The morality of slavery was deeply questioned. Stark differences of the North and South was a barrier to the united Union. The people, scrambling to establish a foundation of government that they all can rely on, found themselves to be in further, and probably the furthest, into the state of disunity.
 * Thematic Context (American Identity) **

The decision of the Dred Scott vs Sanford case by Chief Justice Taney of the Supreme Court was heard on March 6,1857, leaving the Constitution indecisive on the issue of slavery. The case was about a Missouri slave Dred Scott who claimed to be free because his master had taken him to the free Wisconsin Territory under the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and lived there for five years. Chief Justice Taney, from the slave state of Maryland, discussed three issues regarding the case: black citizenship, the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, and the power of Congress to ban slavery from territories. First he claimed that the Constitution did not recognize slaves as citizens of the United States, therefore they could not sue in a federal court. To take it unnecessarily further, the majority of the Court agreed that since a slave was a private property, the slaveholder could legally take him or her to any territory and he or she will be remained as slave, for the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution forbade Congress to deprive people of their property without due process of law. Finally, Chief Justice Taney declared that the Missouri Compromise 1820 had been repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act three years earlier, which also repealed the principle of popular sovereignty, because Congress now had no power to ban slavery from the territories. The Southerners cherished the ability to take into territories Northerners, aghast with the direct violation of a democratic principle of popular sovereignty, refused to recognize such rights. As the most popular case on the issue of slavery, it exposed the different beliefs on how the North and South wanted to decide on the status of territories without coming up with successful compromise, and later on the horrid Civil War proved that the people were willing to stand tall on their moral.

Another major event that identify the Americans is South Carolina’s Declaration of Causes of Secession. On the same day that Lincoln was elected, secessionists from South Carolina, on November 6,1861, called for a convention to remove their state from the Union. Fears of the sectional Lincoln would threaten their rights as a slaveholding minority was taken into action. On December 1860 South Carolina unanimously voted to secede, and within six weeks of its secession, six other states of the lower South - Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas - followed its footsteps. The rebellious Confederate had taken a bold step against the intention of the Founding Fathers in order to preserve their slaveholding policy, but it was the only chance for the Americans to end slavery once and for all.

Sectionalism in America was deepening, while President James Buchanan consistently forced to confront the disorderly slavery disputes. His conducts that were intended to please both the Northern and Southern rebels ended up pleasing neither sides, including his attempt to include the voices from different regions of the nation in his cabinet. Moreover, Buchanan was not characteristically fit to be president, especially in a crumbling nation ready to be divided into two. The president himself was not much of leader; as a former lawyer, Buchanan believed that the Supreme Law of Land alone was enough to solve all of the issues that were present at the time. However, even the Supreme Law, supposedly established by the divine voice of the people, was not tolerated by all. As the united Union fell further down into the sectionalism sinkhole by the slavery issue, it appeared that Buchanan did not take any serious legal actions to improve the state of division. His skepticism and had led the nation down to a total breakdown, thus earned him a feeble F for his presidency.
 * Thesis paragraph **

Buchanan’s presidency, as noted above, was by far one of the worst. He did not set any specific goals to execute the boiling controversy of slavery. In his inaugural address, Buchanan pledged to support the principle of popular sovereignty and placed all of the responsibility on the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s final say on the issue. This strategy was quite unsuccessful, even contributed to strengthen sectionalism, when the Dred Scott decision was heard. Though slavery was the major conflict revolving throughout his presidency, Buchanan unwisely neglected to compel actions to neutralize slavery in the nation by upholding slavery against the north. He based his decision on the fact that the Constitution indeed allowed and forbade him to interfere with such institution. Although he had followed his guidelines, they were all misleading in improving the nation. Although with his ineffective plans, President Buchanan had certainly complied with his intention of serving for one term without any opposition from the Congressmen.
 * Goals **

President James Buchanan attempted to include a diversity of voices in his cabinet and maintain equal representation of the free and slave states in order to preserve “the sacred balance.” Despite that this organization sounded good in theory, the cabinet turned out to be a discontent group of politicians. The line between the Republican and the Democratic Party was thinning, making it hard for both to withstand each other as a joined section. Buchanan, a Democrat himself, faced a hostile Republican majority in Congress during his last years of his presidency. There was no hope of securing ratification on a law that could be approved by both parties even after negotiation. One example of this federal obstruction was the proposed homestead act of 1860 from Congress, one that made public lands available for a mere twenty five per acre, to comply with the demand from northern farmer. On this matter, President Buchanan flatly vetoed the act with southern sympathizers in his side, fearing the northern farmers would be able to acquire the undetermined territories and made it into a free state, further tipping the political challenge. To make things worse, Buchanan’s “national” Democratic broke into two factions by the time of the Democratic convention in April 1860. As time progressed, Congress came to a total breakdown by the triumphant election of Abraham Lincoln, as South Carolina led secession from the once united Union. By far, Buchanan’s cabinet was a gradual bombshell, ready to be disintegrated by the end of his term.
 * Relationship with Congress **

Of one of the few actions from Buchanan’s administration was the negotiation of the Utah War of 1857. Although the war was sparked by the president himself, Buchanan was able to revert of the possible damaging effect. During that period, Brigham Young was the leader of the Mormons and governor of the Utah territory, where his Mormon followers reside. Acting on rumors that the Mormons were rebelling against federal authority, President Buchanan replaced Young with a new governor Alfred Cumming, whom was assisted to the Utah territory with a 2,500-man military force. Young however refused to accept the newly appointed governor and there the Utah War had started. A bloody might have been fought between the US military and the Mormons, but an unexpected negotiator stepped in. A man named Thomas Kane, a friend of both the president and the President, asked Buchanan to settle the dispute. Not only had Kane stopped the two powers from engaging in combat upon arriving at Salt Lake City, the territory’s capital, but he had also encouraged the discouraged Mormons from leaving their settled home. Kane also went and talked to Cumming; the three parties eventually met up, and compromises were made: Brigham Young continued to lead the Mormon church, but the governor ruled the territorial government. The two jobs were separate and would remain that way. In the end, even though this particular conflict during Buchanan’s term was ignited by the President himself and did not play as a vital role in resolving the dispute, it was a rare occasion under Buchanan’s rule that had yielded a positive outcome.
 * Positive Action **

By the end of Buchanan’s first year in office, the United States fell into the Panic of 1857. many factors contributed to this financial crash. The California gold from the West caused an inflation of currency. The sharp decrease in demands to supply for the Crimean War hit the Northern agriculture the hardest, where most of the grain growers of the country were located. The South, on the other hand, continued to enjoy profitable cotton trade abroad, misleading the Southerners into thinking that cotton was King. While the nation was in turmoil, President on the other hand took no federal action to relieve the victims of the depression. He vetoed the homestead act of 1860 in giving out public domain for a low price, as mentioned above. The northern industrialists also blamed him for aiding the economic turmoil by passing the Tariff of 1857, which reduced duties to only about 20 percent on dutiable goods, a response to the Southern pressure of lowered tariff at the same time angered northern manufacturers with the desire of increased protection. As a result, the Republican party gained two counterattacks for the economic issue in the election of 1860: protection for the unprotected and farm for the farmless. The President, once again, had been divided favoring towards one group of the population.
 * Negative Action **

While the question of slavery in Kansas was lingering, Southern proslaveryites devised the Lecompton Constitution, giving the voters the option of voting for a constitution with or without slavery, but there was not much difference for voting no to slavery, for that constitution would also protect the owners of slaves already in the Kansas territory. Buchanan, under southern influence, threw his full support under the constitution. With the absurd choices that were given, antislaveryites boycotted the poll, leaving the proslaveryites to approve the constitution with slavery late in 1851. To preclude further unfair assaults, Senator Stephen A. Douglas called for a popular vote on the Lecompton Constitution. With the antislaveryites votes included, Kansas was forced to remain a territory until the secession of 1861. As the Kansas issue was temporarily settled, Buchanan had arose an equally notorious conflict: he had split the Democratic party, the only national stand, into the Southern and Northern wings, further deepening sectionalism and took a step closer to the Civil War of 1861, where his successor Abraham Lincoln was to step in and resolve.
 * Decision that impact future administration or generation **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">President James Buchanan undoubtedly was placed in a very critical time of history; it was obvious that he was not meant to be designated as a commander of the pugnacious masses. The country got far worse at the end of his term of office than at the beginning. His indecisiveness and underrated thinking on most of the disputes concerning slavery had failed him to improve the crumbling nation. Judging on his deeply rooted failures, Buchanan deserves an F for his presidency.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Conclusion **

Works Cited

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Bailey, Cohen, and Kennedy. The American Pageant:Twelfth Edition. New York: Houghton Mifflin. 2002. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. New York: Gramercy Books, 2005. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Economy-point.org." Economic Crisis of 1857 / Economic Crisis -. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. < <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.economypoint.org/e/economic-crisis-of-1857.html__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">>. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> "James Buchanan." Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936. Gale U.S. History In Context. Web. 20 Oct. 2012. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> "James Buchanan." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 20 Oct. 2012. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"James Buchanan." The White House. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. < <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/jamesbuchanan__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">>. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Lecompton Constitution." Answers.com. Answers, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. < <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.answers.com/topic/lecompton-constitution__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">>. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Military." Utah War. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. < <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/utah.htm__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">>. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Miller Center." American President: James Buchanan. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. < <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://millercenter.org/president/buchanan__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">>.