James Buchanan

BUCHANAN, JAMES

James Buchanan achieved prominence as a statesman and as the fifteenth president of the United States.

Buchanan was born April 23, 1791, near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. A graduate of Dickinson College in 1809, Buchanan was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1812 before serving a tour of duty in the militia during the WAR OF 1812. After the war, he entered politics and joined the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1814.

In 1821 Buchanan began his career in federal
politics, representing Pennsylvania in the U.S.
House of Representatives until 1831. Later that
year, he extended his interests to the field of foreign
service and performed the duties of U.S.
minister to Russia for a two-year period. He
returned to Congress in 1834 and represented
Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate for the next
eleven years. From 1845 to 1849, he served as
U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE and reentered foreign
service in 1853 as U.S. minister to Great Britain
until 1856.
Buchanan became unpopular in 1854 with
his involvement in the creation of the Ostend
Manifesto, which provided for the purchase by
the United States of Cuba from Spain; if Spain
refused to sell, the manifesto gave the United
States the right to seize the country forcibly.
Cuba would then become a slave state, which
was viewed favorably by Southerners, but which
met with vehement opposition by abolitionists.
The manifesto was eventually rejected by the
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE.
As a presidential candidate in 1857,
Buchanan adopted a moderate attitude toward
SLAVERY and worked to establish a balance
between the proslavery forces and the abolitionists.
He believed that slavery was immoral, but
that the Constitution provided for the protection
of the practice in areas where it already
existed. New states, he believed, should have the
right to choose whether to be free or slave.
He won great support from the South, and
after his election in 1857, Buchanan unsuccessfully
attempted to reconcile the strife between
the warring factions. He again advocated the acquisition of Cuba and favored the admission
of Kansas as a slave state, which earned him disfavor
with the northern free states. The strife
between North and South continued, and
Buchanan was unable to prevent the secession of
South Carolina that led to the outbreak of the
Civil War. He opposed secession but believed
that he did not possess the power to compel
states to remain faithful to the Union. When
ABRAHAM LINCOLN succeeded Buchanan as
president in 1861 the country was ready for civil
war. Buchanan retired to Pennsylvania where he
died June 1, 1868, in Lancaster.