Despite a successful political road leading up to becoming President, Buchanan was forced to face some of the worst crises America has ever seen; a ask at which he failed

One must, in some ways, pity the situation James Buchanan, former congressman, senator, minister to Russia, Secretary of State, and minister to England, faced upon winning the election of 1856 and becoming President.

The Greater Context

Under President Franklin Pierce, the sectional crisis facing America had grown to its worst point. With the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, followed by the territorial skirmish in Kansas (resulting in the term Bleeding Kansas) between advocates of slavery and abolitionists, the dispute between north and south seemed nearly impossible to repair.

Buchanan, if it is possible, quickly made things even worse. Declaring in his inaugural address that slavery should be decided by individual states, and that people needn't worry any longer about the issue of slavery in the territories, he proudly proclaimed that the matter was about to be settled once and for all by the Supreme Court.

That decision came down only days later, with the highly infamous Dred Scott decision. Based on a case where a slave had been transported across state lines, from a slave state to a free state, Dred Scott had sued his owner, arguing that by living in a free state he had grounds to claim freedom for himself and his family.

The Supreme Court decision which resulted from this case became one of the most infamous to ever come out of that body of jurists. They claimed, under Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (with only two members dissenting), that the Federal government has no right whatsoever to restrict slavery in the territories.

While Buchanan, a doughface (a northerner with southern leanings) and advocate of slave owners in the south, may have somehow convinced himself that a Supreme Court decision was all it would take to heal the nation, he was surely very mistaken.

Swift Reaction

Appropriately, northern abolitionists reacted with fury to the Dred Scott decision, while southerners lauded it as a triumph of their views. Never before had the nation been more divided.

The majority of the trouble still seemed to be centered in Bleeding Kansas. A pro-slavery constitution (known as the Lecompton constitution) was passed, supported by Buchanan - but it was rightly claimed as having been fraudulent (with pro-slavery advocates fighting their way into Kansas in order to vote for it), as the majority of Kansans had voted against slavery.

Buchanan's support of this constitution led many Democrats to leave the party and join up with the Republicans, which forced a comprimise situation, sending the constitution back to Kansas, where a new vote showed a decisive victory for anti-slavery advocates.

Buchanan (and this is the chief argument made against him to this day) did very little to quell the upcoming crisis, and in fact probably did a great deal to make it worse. He continually called for state sovereignty, claiming that the crisis would work itself out if states were allowed to make their own decisions on the subject. Those who were morally opposed to slavery, however, could not in good conscience accept such a tactic.

Leaving a Divided Nation

Buchanan, having vowed not to run for a second term, saw nothing but chaos as he prepared to leave office. His own party was split between northerns (who leaned toward Stephen Douglas) and southerners (who opted for Vice President John Breckinridge). This division led to a rather easy win for Illinois Senator Abraham Lincoln, despite the fact that he did not even appear on the ballot in the south.

With the election having been chosen entirely by the North, the disenfranchised south began quickly to secede and form their own Confederacy. By the time Buchanan left office, seven states had seceded, and Lincoln was left to deal with the problems of his predecessors.

Sidenotes to the Buchanan Administration

While this issue of slavery in the territories dominated both Buchanan's term as President and the nation at large, it was not the only issue he faced during this time.

Buchanan also faced a rebellion in Utah by Brigham Young's Mormon Church, which he sent an army to quell, as well as a financial panic in 1957 (the third major panic that century, preceded by the Panic of 1819 and thePanic of 1837).

While these events surely cast an even greater shadow upon the four years of Buchanan's Presidency, they surely pale in comparison to the looming war - the bloodiest ever fought on American soil.

References:

"James Buchanan." American President: An Online Reference Resource.

"The Ostend Manifesto."

"Biography of James Buchanan." The White House.