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James Buchanan (1857-1861) Vice President: John C. Breckinridge Democrat

Few presidents distinguish themselves as the paragon of sectionalism and disunion as does James Buchanan. Known for his administration partial to succession, James Buchanan occupies the lowest rung of presidential favorablity. Buchanan did not merely watch as the growing regionalism threatened to tear the country in two, but rather played an active roll in its demise. His successor Lincoln would have to clean up much of the mess he made and deal with a bloody Civil War that he invariably helped cause. Therefore, the only reasonable grade to give Buchanan is an “F”.

At the time of 1856, Buchanan seemed at first glance to the best of three evils as well as the best option to keep the nation together. John Fremont, the Republican candidate appeared as the ultimate resignation to disunion. The tattered remains of the Whigs and No Nothings nominated staunch nativist Millard Filmore under the nebulous American Party. The divisive politics of the time gave Buchanan an easy in. Buchanan was a northerner willing to make sweeping concessions to the south. Buchanan's Democratic platform opted for the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the system of popular sovereignty established in the Western territories. The party supported the pro-slavery for Kansas and backed the popular sovereignty system. Also they supported the notion of getting territorial stakes in Cuba so as to acquire for territory for slavery. For this, Buchanan's conciliatory platform won him the presidency. Two days after assuming the Presidency, the news was in. The Dread Scott Case ruled that slaves were considered property of their masters and even when moved to a free-soil state. Buchanan was already proving to be a president with a predilection for the south, and ultimately the Confederacy. Buchanan addressed an already seditious congress saying states lacked the right to secede but held that the Federal Government legally could not prevent them. It proved to be a vain and ambiguous attempt for reconciliation and South Carolina along with six other states left the Union.

Buchanan was able to cooperate with congress up until 1958, when Republicans gained a voting majority hurling the legislative and executive branches were stuck in an unproductive stalemate. Every major bill congressional Republicans passed fell before southern votes in the Senate or a Presidential veto. Buchanan's relation with congress was so sordid, a congressional committee (the Select Committee to Investigate Alleged Corruptions in Government) was established to investigate if there were grounds for the impeachment of the President. Even though the committee could not find any evidence of actions meriting impeachment, the group found the Buchanan administration to be the most corrupt “since the establishment of the US constitution”. Buchanan was successfully breaking the the Democratic party in two polarizing factions. The schism became clear at the Democratic convention in Charleston South Carolina where the de-facto Southern Democrat Party nominated Buchanan's vice president Breckinridge as president to be. His bitter enemy Stephen A. Douglas was nominated as the Northern Democrat spelling disaster for a future Democrat in the White House.

It is much easier to draw upon Buchanan's faults that it is to praise his performance in office. Surely the greatest mistake on Buchanan's part was his stalwart support of the Lecompton Compromise- a document of dubious integrity. The document called for Kansas to be admitted to the United States as a slave state. It was vehemently looked down upon by northern abolitionists and free soilers. To make the document even more frivolous was it's rejection by a majority of Kansas voters almost as a slap in the face to the tried and true methods of popular sovereignty. The bill died in the Senate largely thanks to opposition by Stephen Douglas. Buchanan's follies did not end there. Buchanan believed that the “subversive” Mormons living in the Utah territory were planning a revolt. Such claims were misguided and purported but nevertheless Buchanan sought to replace Mormon governor Brigham Young with a non-Mormon. The Mormons living in the Utah territory took this as an affront and raised a militia to combat the army that Buchanan sent to quell the perceived rebellion. The entire ordeal proved to be misguided, unnecessary, and poorly planned in light of the possible secession, a foolish diversion of military troops. If one good thing can be said of Buchanan is that he was able to stall until the North recovered from the crippling Panic of 1857. Buchanan effectively bought time so that the North's economy could lick its wounds from lost confidence in the Ohio Bank, railroad failure and the closure of some 5,000 businesses. The recovery came right as the first shots were opened in the Civil War. Thanks to this delay the North would be able to effectively use its industrial might against the South.

Buchanan's decisions would serve as precedents for years to come. The greatest came in his backing of the Lecompton Constitution and his dividing of the Democratic party. The Democratic Party during the Civil War would take on three internal sects. The War-Democrats banded with Lincoln to form the proverbial Union Party. The other two sects, Peace Democrats and Radical Copperheads like Buchanan himself wanted to avoid conflict at all costs. They were the “doughfaces” or southern Democrats up north. One could argue that Buchanan's divisions in the party gave the Union Party the extra nudge it needed to keep Lincoln in the White House.

Buchanan left the country in a state rearing for civil war. Not much good can be said of a politician that merely delays the inevitable with partisan “compromises”. Buchanan favored the Southern aristocracy and was willing to fuel the southern desires for more slave states, territory, and congressional representation. In a time when progress and industry should have been embraced, the backward agrarian views were adopted to preserve the institution of slavery. Buchanan's feeble mindedness is embodied in his rejection a a bill to encourage the construction of schools and universities when he said, "there were already too many educated people." Certainly not the kind of person on would want to lead a country especially one on the brink of war. For his incompetence and poor leadership Buchanan gets an F.

Works Cited http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=B001005

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/presidents/buchanan/index.html

http://deila.dickinson.edu/theirownwords/title/0010.htm