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**//James Buchanan, Jr. April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868 Terms of office: March 4, 1857 – March 4, 1861 Vice President: John C. Breckinridge Political Party: Democratic //**
James Buchanan was the 15th president of the United States. In my opinion he deserves the grade of D because he did one of the biggest mistakes in the history of presidency in the United States. 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 could he realize how sectionalism had realigned political parties: the Democrats split; the Whigs were destroyed, giving rise to the Republicans. Buchanan's goals as President were to diminish sectional antagonism and to strengthen the Democratic party, his presidency was marred by controversy. On the question of slavery in the territories, Buchanan endorsed the southern position that slaveholders had a right to hold slaves throughout the territorial stage. Taking an excessively legalistic view of the situation in Kansas, he urged that Kansas be admitted to the Union under the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution. He reasoned that the antislavery forces in Kansas, who constituted the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants, could eliminate slavery after statehood. As President-elect, Buchanan thought the crisis would disappear if he maintained a sectional balance in his appointments and could persuade the people to accept constitutional law as the Supreme Court interpreted it. The Court was considering the legality of restricting slavery in the territories, and two justices hinted to Buchanan what the decision would be. I think that the most negative outcome during his presidential career was Bleeding Kansas. Buchanan decided to end the troubles in Kansas by urging the admission of the territory as a slave state. Although he directed his Presidential authority to this goal, he further angered the Republicans and alienated members of his own party. Kansas remained a territory. When Republicans won a plurality in the House in 1858, every significant bill they passed fell before southern votes in the Senate or a Presidential veto. The Federal Government reached a stalemate. Sectional strife rose to such a pitch in 1860 that the Democratic Party split into northern and southern wings, each nominating its own candidate for the Presidency. Consequently, when the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, it was a foregone conclusion that he would be elected even though his name appeared on no southern ballot. Rather than accept a Republican administration, the southern "fire-eaters" advocated secession. President Buchanan, dismayed and hesitant, denied the legal right of states to secede but held that the Federal Government legally could not prevent them. He hoped for compromise, but secessionist leaders did not want compromise. Then Buchanan took a more militant tack. As several Cabinet members resigned, he appointed northerners, and sent the Star of the West to carry reinforcements to Fort Sumter. On January 9, 1861, the vessel was far away. Economic troubles also plagued Buchanan's administration with the outbreak of the Panic of 1857. The government suddenly faced a shortfall of revenue, partly because of the Democrats' successful push to lower the tariff. At the behest of Treasury Secretary Howell Cobb, Buchanan's administration began issuing deficit financing for the government, a move which flew in the face of two decades of Democratic support for hard money policies and allowed Republicans to attack Buchanan for financial mismanagement. All in all by the end of his presidency the country was almost in chaos and on its way to the civil war, that's why president James Buchanan deserves the D grade.

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=B001005 http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/jamesbuchanan