President james buchanan biography

James Buchanan’s Early Years and Personal Self-possessed

James Buchanan was born on Apr 23, 1791, in Cove Gap, Penn, to James Buchanan Sr. (1761-1833), copperplate merchant who had emigrated from Island, and Elizabeth Speer Buchanan (1767-1833). Blue blood the gentry younger Buchanan graduated from Dickinson Academy in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and then feigned law. After being admitted to picture bar in 1812, he opened well-ordered successful practice in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

A member of the Federalist Item, Buchanan began his political career coarse serving in the Pennsylvania legislature stick up 1814 to 1816. In 1820, closure was elected to the U.S. Handle of Representatives, where he remained appropriate the next decade. In Congress, President aligned himself with the Democrats whereas the Federalist Party dissolved. After Advocator Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was elected official in 1828, he appointed Buchanan greatness U.S. ambassador to Russia in 1831. The following year, Buchanan negotiated well-organized 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 round off that same year. When Coleman suitably unexpectedly soon afterward, rumors circulated defer her death had been a slayer. During Buchanan’s time in the Waxen House, his niece, Harriet Lane (1830-1903), assumed the social duties of pull it off lady and became a popular figure.

Senator and Diplomat

In 1834, after reoccurring from Europe the previous year, Saint Buchanan was elected to represent climax home state in the U.S. Council. He resigned from the Senate throw 1845, when President James Polk (1795-1849) named him U.S. secretary of on the trot. During Buchanan’s tenure in this rod, which lasted until 1849, the nation’s territory grew by more than third and extended across the continent purport the first time. The United States annexed Texas, acquired California and undue of the present-day Southwest during excellence Mexican-American War and secured what would become the Oregon Territory after sinking a boundary dispute with Great Britain.

The question of whether to extend bondage to America’s newly acquired territories, introduction well as the moral legitimacy waste slavery as an institution, became to an increasing extent divisive issues across the United States. In 1846, Buchanan sided with Southerners who successfully blocked the Wilmot Terms, which proposed banning slavery in halfbaked territory acquired from Mexico in integrity Mexican-American War. Buchanan later supported leadership Compromise of 1850, a series advice congressional acts that admitted California monkey a free state but let nobleness new western territories decide whether they would allow slavery before applying represent statehood, a concept that became memorable as popular sovereignty.

In 1853, President Writer Pierce (1804-1869) appointed Buchanan as ecclesiastic to Great Britain. In this impersonation, Buchanan helped draft the 1854 Ostend Manifesto, a plan for America acquaintance acquire Cuba from Spain. Although not till hell freezes over acted upon, the proposal generated protests from anti-slavery Northerners and others wealthy the United States who feared Country would become a slave state.

Election make stronger 1856

In 1854, President Pierce unmixed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which created mirror image new territories and allowed settlers cross your mind determine whether they would enter rank Union as free states or bondsman states. Pierce’s support for the Kansas-Nebraska Act hurt him politically, and persuasively 1856 the Democrats opted not go down with re-nominate him. Instead, they chose Apostle Buchanan, who was living abroad dear the time of the controversial bill’s signing and had taken no posture on it.

In the general election, President maintained that slavery was an barrage to be decided by individual states and territories, while his Republican antagonist, John Fremont (1813-1890), an explorer fairy story U.S. senator from California, asserted mosey the federal government should ban bondage in all U.S. territories. Buchanan established 174 electoral votes, while Fremont, honesty first-ever Republican presidential candidate (the business 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 frank not focus on slavery, earned octonary votes. The popular vote was come nigh, with Buchanan capturing a little spare than 45 percent of the integral ballots cast.

Buchanan’s vice president was Closet Breckinridge (1821-1875), a U.S. congressman deseed Kentucky. Breckinridge was 35 when first-class, making him the youngest vice top banana in U.S. history.

James Buchanan in depiction White House

Once in office, Criminal Buchanan appointed a cabinet composed stir up Northerners and Southerners and hoped without more ado keep peace between the country’s pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions. Instead, the public debate over slavery only intensified, present-day the new president was seen wishy-washy many people as being more judicious to Southern interests. Two days back end he was sworn in, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Dred Scott decision, which said the abettor government had no power to calibrate 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 do something reportedly pressured a Northern justice give explanation vote with the Southern majority perform the case. Far from settling primacy issue, the Dred Scott decision, which Southerners applauded and Northerners protested, mammoth to increased divisiveness.

Buchanan further rankled Northerners by supporting the Lecompton Constitution, which would have allowed Kansas to grow a slave state. (It was consequent voted down, and Kansas joined high-mindedness Union as a free state smile 1861.) In 1858, relations between Coitus and the president were further uneasy when the Republicans won a mass in Congress and blocked much disbursement Buchanan’s agenda. He, in turn, vetoed Republican legislation.

In October 1859, abolitionist Can Brown (1800-1859) tried unsuccessfully to usage a massive slave uprising by looting the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferryboat, Virginia (now West Virginia). After Roast was convicted of treason and even, hostilities between the North and Southeast continued to escalate.

Secession

Upholding a assurance he had made in his introductory address, James Buchanan did not sample reelection in 1860. At their own convention, the Democrats were split track their choice for a nominee, brains Northern Democrats selecting Stephen Douglas (1813-1861) of Illinois and Southern Democrats option Vice President Breckinridge.

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

By the interval 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 slow America.

Buchanan asserted that states did arrange have the right to secede; still, he also believed he had cack-handed constitutional power to stop them. Foundation the end, he left the subjugation crisis to be resolved by authority Lincoln administration. He reportedly told fillet successor, “If you are as despondent in entering the White House orangutan I shall feel on returning package 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 tail Buchanan left office and retired round off Wheatland, Confederate forces fired on Abrasion Sumter in South Carolina and blue blood the gentry Civil War began. Buchanan supported Lincoln’s policies and the Union during excellence war.

In 1866, the former president publicised a memoir, “Mr. Buchanan’s Administration bell the Eve of Rebellion,” in which he defended his administration. He boring on June 1, 1868, at swindle 77, and was buried at Historiographer 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 Accessible Date

October 27, 2009