James Buchanan

The American Presidents #15

by Jean H. Baker, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (Editor)

A provocative reconsideration of a presidency on the brink of Civil War

Almost no president was as well trained and well prepared for the office as James Buchanan. He had served in the Pennsylvania state legislature, the U.S. House, and the U.S. Senate; he was Secretary of State and was even offered a seat on the Supreme Court. And yet, by every measure except his own, James Buchanan was a miserable failure as president, leaving office in disgrace. Virtually all of his intentions were thwarted by his own inability to compromise: he had been unable to resolve issues of slavery, caused his party to split-thereby ensuring the election of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln-and made the Civil War all but inevitable.

Historian Jean H. Baker explains that we have rightly placed Buchanan at the end of the presidential rankings, but his poor presidency should not be an excuse to forget him. To study Buchanan is to consider the implications of weak leadership in a time of national crisis. Elegantly written, Baker's volume offers a balanced look at a crucial moment in our nation's history and explores a man who, when given the opportunity, failed to rise to the challenge.

Genres: Presidents, Biography, History, Nonfiction, American History, Us Presidents, Politics

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Jean H. Baker is a professor of history at Goucher College. A graduate of Goucher College, she earned her doctorate at Johns Hopkins University.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Buchanan is considered by many to be America’s worst president. (At least he was considered America’s worst president until July 17, 2018, the day Putin’s Orange Puppet danced his little Helsinki dance.) But is that fair to Buchanan? Was the old man really that bad?

After reading Jean H. Baker’s well-written, informative biography, I’ve decided Buchanan does deserve the honor, but for reasons different from the ones customarily given. Buchanan is usually portrayed as a half-senile, weak-willed, old dandy, indecisive and vacillating, who frittered away his presidency trying to appease the South while the nation grew closer and closer to civil war.

It is true that Buchanan was old—sixty-six was very old in 1856—and he certainly was a dandy (he continued to sport a white Regency neck scarf when the Washington fashion was black bow-ties), but he was neither half-senile nor weak-willed. His contemporaries, who thought him effeminate, possibly homosexual, and ridiculed his old-fashioned manners, made the mistake of assuming—as did some historians--that his “old nancy” ways indicated a weakness of will.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Buchanan was a political veteran who worked forcefully to achieve his objective: to preserve the economic health and sophisticated lifestyle of the American South. This may seem strange for a native of Pennsylvania, but Buchanan was a lover of the South through and through. When in Washington, he preferred the company of Southerners, admired their elegant manners and conversational skills, ate at a Southern boarding house, and for years he shared rooms with a Southerner, the elegant dandy Senator William Rufus Devane King of Alabama.

Buchanan was vigorous and uncompromising in his enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act and the Dredd Scott Decision, in his refusal to provide relief during the Panic of ‘57 (which hurt the North but not the South), in his efforts to acquire Cuba (as a possible slave state), and in his support for the clearly dishonest Lecompton pro-slavery elements in Kansas. His pro-Southern policy helped split the Democratic party, and made the election of Lincoln all but inevitable.

The worst period of Buchanan’s presidency, though, was his “lame-duck” period after the election of Lincoln. He avoided decisive action when South Carolina seceded, emboldening other states to join them. He kept Southerners in his cabinet—Jacob Thompson and John B. Floyd—even after they had literally become agents for their seceding states. (Floyd, the Secretary of War, used his position to send shipments of arms to the South.) Perhaps worse, Buchanan deliberately failed to protect Fort Sumter, and left the newly inaugurated Lincoln to deal with the crisis that remained.

There it is. A president so in love with a foreign power—the emerging Confederate States of America—that his conduct in office came close to treason. How could there ever be a president worse than this?

The jury of history is still to make a decision. But if you're looking for recent evidence, just read The Mueller Report.

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Buchanan In The American Presidents Series

About three miles north of the White House in Washington, D.C. there is a beautiful park known as Meridian Hill Park. Among other things, the park features a large memorial to the 15th president of the United States, James Buchanan. The Memorial was approved by Congress in 1918 but not built until 1930 after substantial controversy. The memorial is composed of bronze and granite with Buchanan at the center and the inscription "The incorruptible statesman whose walk was upon the mountain ranges of the law".

I visited the park and the Buchanan Memorial a few months ago and was reminded of my visit in reading Jean Baker's book "James Buchanan" (2004) written as part of the American Presidents Series of brief but substantial biographies of each American president. Baker, a professor of history at Goucher College, has written extensively on American history. Although short and written for non-specialists, her book on Buchanan is thoughtful indeed and helps the reader understand his failed presidency.

The Pennsylvanian James Buchanan (1791 -- 1868) served as the 15th president from 1857-1861 immediately prior to the Civil War. Buchanan came to the presidency after a long career in public life, including terms in the House and the Senate, and service as Secretary of State and as Minister to Russia and to Great Britain. Buchanan was the only bachelor president and rumors during his lifetime up to the present have abounded regarding his sexual orientation.

With his devotion to the country and his extensive experience, historians have tried to understand why Buchanan's presidency failed. Baker shares the widely accepted view that his presidency was a failure and expands upon the reasons for the failure. Many historians have attributed the failure to Buchanan's advanced age and to his vacillations as president and the attendant inability to take a strong position on pressing issues involving the preservation of the Union. Baker disagrees. She finds the source of Buchanan's failure in his strong sympathies for the South which he developed from his earliest years in public service. During his presidency, Baker argues, Buchanan worked vigorously and aggressively to promote southern interests. She points to his meddling in the Supreme Court on the Dred Scott decision, to his support for the pro-slavery Lecompton faction in Kansas, and most importantly, to his inactivity and attempted support for the South during the three-month period between Lincoln's election and his assumption of the presidency. Baker argues that some of Buchanan's actions during this period led him "closer to committing treason than any other president in American history." (p.142) Baker goes further and also attributes Buchanan's failure to the arrogance he developed during his long public career and to his tendency to demonize his political opponents, especially the Republican Party. She finds Buchanan's southern sympathies and the loneliness resulting from his bachelor life led his to rely too closely on the southern members of his cabinet who worked behind Buchanan's back with the southern rebels and led the president astray.

Baker's book combines a close study of the Buchanan presidency with her own analysis and conclusions about why the presidency failed. The book increased my understanding of Buchanan, the presidency, and the Civil War era.

Baker's book does not mention the Buchanan Memorial in Meridian Hill Park with which this review began. Congress had serious doubts before finally authorizing and constructing the Memorial. After reading Baker's book and being largely convinced by her discussion, I thought again about the Buchanan Memorial and about my visit earlier this year. The Memorial commemorates a failed presidency but a president who thought he was acting in the interests of the country and a patriot. He served at a pivotal moment in American history. The Buchanan Memorial is a tribute to the breadth and continuity of American experience and of the presidency which is part of the experience. Buchanan was a leader of our country and tried to serve it under his lights even though he is regarded, with great justification, as grievously wrong. He has his place here. As a servant of our country and as showing part of its character as it has evolved, Buchanan deserves his monument as well as the trenchant historical criticism of Baker and other scholars.

Robin Friedman

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Twenty-Three of my Presidential Challenge.

"He was the most dangerous of chief executives, a stubborn, mistaken ideologue whose principles held no room for compromise. His experience in government had only rendered him too self-confident to consider other views. In his betrayal of the national trust, Buchanan came closer to committing treason than any other president in American history."

What makes a president a bad president? More to the point, what makes a bad president, the worst president? I'm a little over half-way through my presidential challenge and I find it hard to believe I will find a worse president than James Buchanan.

I had always assumed that his horrible reputation was unearned. Sour grapes, I thought. The Civil War was inevitable, he was just the one standing when the music stopped. Could have happened to anyone.

Oh, no, no, no, good sirs and ladies, not true. Buchanan was bad in absolutely every way that a president could be. He had horrible instincts (he allowed the South to build its army and steal supplies from America), he constantly backed the wrong horse (The South, again), fundamentally misunderstood the Slavery Issue, was thick-headed and slow to act, used his political capital to attempt to expand slavery, I mean the list goes on and on and on.

I mean, absolutely every decision Buchanan made had me shaking my head and muttering out loud, "You've GOT to be kidding me?!" The way he attempted to strong arm Kansas into the Union as a slave state made me sick.

Worst of all, were his actions after Lincoln was voted into office. Between November and March when Lincoln took office, Buchanan quite literally let the nation go to hell. The first thing about this period of time is to realize that the Civil was was NOT inevitable. Let me repeat that: THE CIVIL WAR WAS NOT INEVITABLE!!! He could have stopped the uprising when it was just South Carolina. He could have stopped southern sympathizers in the North from supplying them with GUNS! He could have sent in the Army to stop them from taking forts. But no, he gave them valuable time to get their s#!t together.

Maybe even worse, Buchanan basically acknowledged that the South had the right to do what it was doing and treated it like a sovereign nation long before it even considered itself as one!

Jeez, I'm getting all worked up even now thinking about it! Okay, let's lighten the mood a bit with some fun facts:

1. He had one eye that was far-sighted and one that was near-sighted so that's why he was always looking at people like he is on the cover of this book. It was kind of a "And who ARE you" look.
2. He was a "confirmed" bachelor who never married and is suspected of being the first (only?) gay president.
4. I didn't realize that when the Civil War began, the South only made up approximately 20% of the country's population. I don't know why I had always assumed it was a 50/50 thing.
3. He couldn't grow facial hair on his face. I don't mean it came in patchy or something...the guy literally couldn't grow facial hair.

This book was great. Baker really takes Buchanan to task but still shows every facet of the story. At times it felt like a train wreck but it was fascinating and educational. Once you read this book, when somebody says "W was the worst president!" or "Obama was the worst president!" you can say "Friends, friends, please...Buchanan was the worst fucking president of all time." and you'll know that you're right.

Quotable Quotes:

"James Buchanan drew the wind for southern sails by his complacent attitude."

"To be sure, to do nothing was to do much, because Buchanan was granting the future Confederate States of America precious time to organize and prepare for war. By no means inevitable, the American Civil War remained contingent on various episodes, to which this intended peacemaker contributed as much as anyone. With Buchanan's mistakes, a confrontation that might have dwindled away into a minro action against one state became more certain. In this crisis three presidential failings - Buchanan's arrogance that he could achieve peace by being a partisan of the South, his ideological commitment to southern values, and his vision of the future with slavery gradually dying out - all came together to buttress a terrible presidential miscalculation."

"Ultimately Buchanan failed to interpret the United States."

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m less disposed than the author to lay blame for the Civil War on James Buchanan. The larger contour of the story must be considered and when it is her arguments do not stand up to scrutiny. One of Baker’s main themes is that Buchanan was a major cause of the Civil War because of his inaction and vacillation on slavery and states rights issues particularly during the four months between Lincoln’s election and his inauguration. Within that period seven states seceded from the Union and upon Lincoln taking office another four states joined the rebellion. They left because of Lincoln’s election and stated positions not because of Buchanan.

James Buchanan -- he had no middle name -- our 15th and the only bachelor President was a Pennsylvanian with pro southern sympathies who appointed several southerners to his cabinet. His experience and credentials were extensive, was generally deemed a strong executive although not as strong as some that went before or came after. The irony is that Baker asserts that Buchanan was never a man of great imagination or creativity but then expects him with his northern background and southern favoritism to bring both sides back from the brink and solve the greatest issues of the century. The nation found itself teetering on events beyond human control and fast approaching the precipice of inevitable war.

In my opinion Buchanan applied the principle of “Benign Neglect” to the flames he found engulfing him. “Benign Neglect” was a phrase coined by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a democrat and urban affairs advisor in the Nixon administration. Moynihan was a thinker like Lincoln, a Jeffersonian, a Hamiltonian, a liberal/conservative all wrapped into one. His concept of laissez-faire under the banner of “Benign Neglect” was offered to ease tensions following the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1960’s. This is precisely the course Buchanan pursued some 110 years before Moynihan gave a name to it.

Could the recalcitrant Buchanan have done more? Yes, probably. Would it have made a difference? Definitely not!! We must remember that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence did not include equality for blacks, Indians or women and crafted a fragile and precarious balance of power between a strong central government and the rights of states. For decades neither the laws enacted nor the court decisions rendered provided a sustained resolution acceptable to both sides. Scholars and partisans alike, North and South continued their deliberations on and on and on until finally Lincoln’s 1858 prescient truth “…that a house divided against itself cannot stand…” came to brutal fruition.

Baker and other historians rank Buchanan in the bottom three of our Presidents but look at what it took and who it took to save the Republic; nothing less than the Civil War and nothing less than our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://bestpresidentialbios.com/2014/...

“James Buchanan“ is Jean Baker’s 2004 addition to The American Presidents Series. Baker is a history professor at Goucher College in Maryland where she previously received an undergraduate degree. She earned a Masters and PhD at Johns Hopkins and has written several books, the best known being “Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography.”

As the fifth book from The American Presidents Series I’ve read so far, “James Buchanan” meets or exceeds most of my expectations for members of this series: it is concise, deliberate, extremely accessible and very time-efficient. In addition, the storyline is consistently clear and important themes never get lost in a sea of unwanted detail.

Unfortunately, Baker’s strong negative opinion of her subject eventually detracts from what would have otherwise been a more compelling biography. While the author has every right to critically examine Buchanan’s presidential performance, her criticism often feels mean-spirited and personal. Rather than simply being tough-but-fair she needlessly overplays her hand.

In stark contrast to Philip Klein’s detailed study of Buchanan four decades earlier (where the topic received barely a mention), Baker spends an excessive amount of time pondering Buchanan’s sexuality and reflecting on his choice to remain a lifelong bachelor. Baker eventually draws a connection between Buchanan’s lifestyle preferences and his failure to succeed in the White House, but the linkage appears tenuous at best.

The best aspect of the book (other than its brevity and ability to hold my interest) is probably its final chapter. Here, Baker ponders Buchanan’s legacy and examines his failure to excel at a job for which he seemed so well prepared. Although the author’s analysis seems inequitable and unbalanced, I always appreciate an effort to explicitly assess a president’s effectiveness and diagnose success or failure.

To her credit, Jean Baker has written an interesting and informative biography about an unpopular and obscure president. Her biography of James Buchanan is lively, fast-flowing, entertaining and easy to read. But while she articulately and passionately shares her perspectives of Buchanan, the book lacks needed balance. Not intended for a serious Buchanan scholar (who would find it superficial and light on original research), this biography seems ideal for someone interested in learning about one of our least successful presidents as painlessly as possible.

Overall rating: 3½ stars

[Doreen Petersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think the author did a really good job explaining all the facets of Buchanan's personality as well as his presidency. Buchanan was, without a doubt, one of the worst presidents the US has ever seen. To understand how easily the Civil War occurred this is a must read book.

[Fred Kohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a bit surprised at the rather low average rating of this book. This is the fourteenth book I have read in the series and the only one so far that has gotten five stars from me. Writing a book about a figure as important as an American president in a target of about 150 pages is a daunting task. I think Jean Baker did it brilliantly. Other books put in way too many personal details, taking away from the important story of the politician and leader, and others put in all the personal details up front, which made those books tedious to read. This book was very well balanced and, as far as I could tell, did as objective job as possible of telling the story of an almost universally reviled president.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

After visiting Buchanan's home (Wheatland, in Lancaster PA), I had to find out if he was really the worst president ever, or if he was just an unfortunate victim of timing. Would anyone who happened to fill the White House 1856-1860 have been doomed? Jean Baker writes convincingly that Buchanan's reputation was well-earned. Baker identifies his personal shortcomings, including a fundamentally pessimistic nature, a pro-Southern bias that left him blind to the evils of slavery and to the momentum of the abolitionist movement, a failure to discipline the most corrupt cabinet in history, the destruction of his own Democratic Party, and a response to South Carolina's secession that bordered on treason. Fascinating!

[Sean Chick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A somewhat pedestrian look at the man often considered our worst president, although the claim that Buchanan was borderline traitorous is spicy and wholly disproved by the book itself. A smarter take by Baker is that Buchanan's bachelor life made him emotionally stunted and overly reliant on friends who he was less likely to punish for their errors. Case and point is Buchanan's treatment of Floyd. Baker is best at describing Buchanan's life before 1856.

There are some odd digs at other historians and at Nixon, neither of which I cared for. Still, it's worth it to get a short and very negative take on Buchanan.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve not been too impressed by the books I’ve read in this American Presidents series - they’re short and superficial, which is what they’re meant to be, but they’re also very uneven in tone and often just plain inaccurate and specious.

But this one was actually pretty darned good, for what it is.

Jean Baker’s Buchanan biography provides an ideal combination of brevity and depth, providing relevant facts and insightful analysis without the cheap and easy condemnation that a brief biography of a failed president would otherwise invite.

Baker refutes the traditional view that Buchanan was a flailing, do-nothing president, instead painting a portrait of a man who was active and engaged - but terribly misguided and ultimately ineffective. He “aspired to be a decisive, aggressive president," she writes, but he was too focused on the wrong issues, preferring to pursue his foreign policy goals instead of addressing the slavery and secession crises, and ultimately succeeding at neither.

Good writing and an economy of words is crucial in a short biography like this, and Baker manages to provide many good, astute, cut-to-the-chase observations. In tracing Buchanan’s rise from savvy young politico to past-his-prime president, she notes that "he had changed from an energetic party enthusiast into an overweight, ambivalently ambitious politician.” She even thoughtfully attempts to connect his famous bachelorhood to his personality and views, saying "he absorbed from his unmarried state certain priestly characteristics" like dogmatism, aloofness and "a dependence on the literal word" - not the Bible, in his case, but in the laws as written and in the Constitution.

While older books on Buchanan tend to ignore or dismiss innuendo about Buchanan’s sexuality, Baker dives right in. The results come across a little gossipy and silly, however, as she muses that Buchanan certainly "knew that men occasionally had sex with each other," since it was written about "in the sex manuals of the period.” I’m not sure which is less appealing - picturing James Buchanan having intimate relations with anyone, or picturing him sitting down in his book-lined study, glass of Madeira in hand, to read a “sex manual of the period.” After a few pages of cringey analysis, Baker concludes that Buchanan was likely asexual, and then we thankfully move on to other matters.

Sometimes the required succinctness of the entries in this series can cause this book to lose some important context. Baker’s Buchanan often seems to make decisions in a vacuum, such as the time he decided against reinforcing federal forts in the south with troops from western outposts in response to secession threats, so he simply “did nothing.” Biographers like Philip Klein do a better job explaining things from Buchanan’s perspective in order to better appreciate the dilemmas he faced - in this case, redeploying troops from the west would have left settlers unprotected and vulnerable to Native American attacks. Not to excuse Buchanan’s actions, or inaction, but it’s a little more complex than just Buchanan being a negligent southern appeaser deciding to “do nothing.”

But, in the end, a negligent appeaser he was. While the book does have a point of view in that Baker does not hold Buchanan in high regard, she is fair in her analysis and she attempts to explain why Buchanan did what he did instead of just gratuitously condemning him. The book is far from the most in-depth study of the man and his presidency, but for a general audience who just wants to read 150 or so pages on a particular president and not a massive, dated tome that gets into far more detail than they’d like, this book serves its purpose better than any book in this series I’ve read so far.

[Andy Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a thoughtful, well written biography of James Buchanan that focuses on his Presidency, the four years immediately preceding the civil war. The author dispels many of the myths of the time, one being that the political debate was about state's rights and not slavery. Of course, the South's political efforts, with Buchanan's support, in the 1850's were against state's rights, instead they for a national "right to slavery" that would trump efforts by northern states to thwart slavery even within their own states, Of course the fugitive slave act was an affront to state's rights, giving federal government the power to force states to return slaves who were considered free under the laws of the free states.

Buchanan's lack of integrity was shown in his direct lobbying of the Supreme Court justices during their deliberation in the Dred Scott case, something that is very improper and was kept hidden at the time, Buchanan wanted a broad, proslavery holding in Dred Scott to provide national support from slavery, something that he obtained

Another myth was that Buchanan was simply a weak caretaker who was hamstrung by his belief in very limited government. However, his disapproval of the Mormon religion during the Presidency caused him to send federal troops to Utah during his Presidency among other federal interventions that he refused to use when southern states were taking steps to secede.

The author, Jean Baker, does an excellent job of examining Buchanan's handling of the Kansas question. Buchanan actively supports the pro slavery government in territorial Kansas ignoring his own territorial governor's, and preceding territorial governor's concern about the anti slavery government having more popular support. Buchanan ignored the evidence and tried to force admission of the pro slavery government and constitution through Congress even though the evidence was that it was supported by a small minority. Buchanan's administration then used federal contracts and money to try to bribe congressmen into supporting the slavery slide; his efforts were repudiated by the 1858 off year elections and eventually by the Kansas voters themselves

Most telling were Buchanan's actions after Lincoln was elected President. Not only was Buchanan's cabinet dominated by Southerners who would eventually secede, he took their advice in not mobilizing federal forces or taking any actions against the early states to secede. He even ordered the military commander at Ft Sumter to leave fortifications which would have led to military defeat and was borderline treasonous.

All in all, a great book about perhaps the worst President we have ever had

[John Seymour · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent short biography of our worst President. Buchanan saw that slavery was the great issue that could divide or even destroy the Union, but rather than resolving the problem in a way that aligned American practices and institutions with its founding principles, Buchanan just wanted the issue to go away. Even before he took his oath of office he intervened in the Dred Scott case, causing it to be issued in a stronger form than had been likely and with the support of six justices, including Justice Grier (a fellow Pennsylvanian). Absent this support from a Northerner, the decision would have been weaker and would have been seen as an illegitimate attempt by the five Southerners on the bench to impose their "peculiar institution" on the rest of the country.

Although a Northerner himself, Buchanan enjoyed the style and culture of the South and most of his friends in Washington were Southerners. At a time of sectional crisis he filled his cabinet with like-minded Southerners, he saw the biggest problem with slavery not in slavery itself, but in the radical rabble-rousing of the abolitionists and Republicans. His campaigns against Republicans confirmed and strengthened the fears and biases of the South so that when Lincoln was elected secession of at least South Carolina was all but certain.

He intervened in the Kansas troubles to try to force a slave constitution on the people of Kansas through an obviously corrupt and fraudulent process, even though the overwhelming majority of Kansans were opposed to slavery.

Finally, when South Carolina seceded, instead of reacting strongly as Jackson did in the Nullification crises, and as Buchanan himself did in the Utah crises, Buchanan dithered and did nothing, worse, he spoke and acted in ways that supported the South, so that when Lincoln was sworn in he faced, not a weak, unorganized and mostly unarmed scattering of states, but a united and armed Confederacy, with the results that we know if. There is no other President who has acted in a way so clearly contrary to his oath and his duty to his country.

And yet, slavery was probably not going to go away without war, so in bringing on the Civil War, with its resulting emancipation, did indeed resolve the crises of slavery, though not in the way Buchanan intended.

[Felix · Rating 3 out of 5]

Americans have conveniently misled themselves about the presidency of James Buchanan, preferring to classify him as indecisive and inactive. According to historian Samuel Eliot Morison, “He prayed, and frittered and did nothing.” In fact Buchanan’s failing during the crisis over the Union was not inactivity, but rather his partiality for the South, a favoritism that bordered on disloyalty in an officer pledged to defend all the United States. He was that most dangerous of chief executives, a stubborn, mistaken ideologue whose principles held no room for compromise. His experience in government had only rendered him too self-confident to consider other views. In his betrayal of the national trust, Buchanan came closer to committing treason than any other president in American history.

This quote represents more or less the conclusion of this book - or at least my reading of it. I had always seen Buchanan as a fundamentally incompetent leader. Until I read this, I never realized quite how competent and skilled, but short-sighted and prejudiced he really was. Baker makes a strong case that Buchanan is more or less exclusively responsible for the outbreak of the civil war. Certain logic suggests that the war was inevitable and that Buchanan was simply the hapless man at the wheel when it began, but Baker presents a compelling arguent that this was not the case.

This book is quite short and doesn't dive into any great deal of depth, but it's not a bad read if you're interested in the subject. Biographies of James Buchanan are quite few and far between.

[Miles Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an exceptional biography that I highly recommend. Baker provides a clear indictment of the basic failures of Buchanan as a politicians, until she gets to the Secession Crisis. Her nationalism, prejudice against the South, and constant tendency to anthropomorphize the Federal Union into a "nation" with a "soul" and a romanticized "presence" detract from an otherwise good biography. There are good reasons to criticize Buchanan, but his unwillingness to start a war remains, in this reader's mind, a singular virtue in a president who indeed committed major blunders. Baker's assertion that Buchanan flirted with treason is irresponsible. Buchanan failed as a president, but Michael Holt, Philip Klein, and others offered more realistic criticisms that leave depart from Baker's sensationalism. Baker's thesis is intentionally provocative, and this book is very good precisely because she succeeds rather convincingly by proving her thesis, even if it is wrong in many places.

[John Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jean writes an excellent, succinct analysis especially of James Buchanan’s lame duck period in which he helped the South prepare to wage a Civil War.

[Judy Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

James Buchanan consistently is rated as one of the worst of the American presidents. Jean Baker in her biography of the man shares that view: the focus of her book is to identify how a man who had Buchanan's qualifications and experience in the political realm could fail so miserably. James Buchanan was an experienced politician of uncertain sexual orientation, who seems to have identified himself with the aristocratic southern slave owner. She notes that his stubbornness, arrogance, and pessimism all unite to work against him. She identifies three particular "lowlights" of his administration: the Kansas crisis, which if it had been 150 years later might have been dubbed Lecompton-gate, in which he backed a minority pro-slavery territorial government that had been set up through intimidation and election fraud; his strong pro-slavery views that resulted in the weakening of the Democratic Party, splitting it into North versus South, allowing the Black Republican Party to be victorious in the 1860 election; and finally, his mishandling of Fort Sumter by ordering Major Anderson to Fort Moultrie and not responding with a strong Federal presence in SC, giving the South time to establish and arm itself as a new government.
The book was easy to read and the arguments compelling. I did find it somewhat depressing to read, understanding the slope down which the nation was sliding, one of the few disadvantages of hindsight. For all that is said of Buchanan, I don't believe he is solely responsible for the Civil War. For a nation who declared that "all men are equal", slavery was an anathema. By 1856, the country was so polarized and the pro-slavery and abolitionist camps so fanatical that compromise only seemed to delay (and confound) the issue, not solve it. Our present polarized political situation shows some uncanny similarities. If only we would listen carefully and try to understand those with whom we disagree, and work to identify some common ground upon which we do agree, we may become like those who don't learn from history: doomed to repeat it
I spent all of my childhood and much of my adulthood living in Pennsylvania and now understand why so little is said of Buchanan, the only Pennsylvanian President. Not much to brag about there!!!

[Elaine Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up after reading a blog entry that claimed that Bush couldn't be called the worst president ever as long as there was Buchanan.

And I think the guy had a point, although it may be that only the existence of the slavery problem made that so. (Ie, a problem so huge that it was already tearing the country in two before Buchanan ever got there; except for 9/11, Bush seems to have manufactured all this sh*t himself.)

Because otherwise, the failings of the 2 administrations feel quite similar. In particular, a blind devotion to a particular ideology and to particular advisers. (Neocons = Southerners?)

Sometimes he seems to have acted beyond his own perceived limitations (in re: Kansas -- the section on the statehood battle was fascinating), and in other moments chosen not to act and let let things get substantially worse, esp with the situation in South Carolina after the 1860 election.

Apparently the usual judgment is that he dithered, but this author thinks it was more deliberate than that, a choice not to act because his sympathies were essentially traitorous. (Holy moly!) She makes a decent case, I think, highlighting his behavior throughout his life in public service. It's one of those stories that almost automatically draws out the "what if." And it's a sad, sad story, ultimately, both for Buchanan himself and for our country.

The book is also a very quick and lively read! Well worth a couple of afternoons.

[William Shep · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another excellent contribution to this presidential series, with Goucher College historian Jean Baker a good choice to write this volume. She covers all the basics about this relatively unknown president, the only one from my native Pennsylvania, and rightly argues that his failure in office was not due to incompetence (the common perception) but rather due to his wrong headed and treasonous devotion to the south. Buchanan was not the only Doughface president, that is one who hailed from the north but was otherwise slavishly loyal to southern interests (Pierce, Fillmore), but he was probably the most destructive. His other great love was the Democratic Party yet his devotion to that organization as well as the south ironically resulted in the split and near destruction of both. My only real complaint with Baker is that when comparing Buchanan to other presidents she mentions the obligatory Warren Harding and Richard Nixon but, as is common with liberal leaning historians, can not bring herself to lump Jimmy Carter into this nefarious club where he belongs.

[Louis Picone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I opened this book with the popular belief that Buchanan's presidency was a failure because he did nothing to stop the dissolution of the Union. What I learned was that he was much more pro-Southern than I understood (surprising since he was a Pennsylvanian) and his policies contributed to Southern secession, leaving Lincoln a much bigger mess than he should have inherited. I only knocked the book down from 5 to 4 stars because I found the author was a little petty with Buchanan's appearance and alleged homosexuality. If she tied it back to his policies it would be better understood, but instead it just came off like cheap shots (she called him “eunuchlike” and wrote his hairline was characteristic of "asexual men"). All in all I recommend it, especially given the dearth pf books on Buchanan

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I was expecting an average biography of one of America's most inept Presidents, but this is a thoroughly researched and well-written book that shows Buchanan as an activist President who used his authority to please the South whenever he could and, in, effect helped bring about the Civil War. Jean Baker's writing style was enjoyable; she provides a narrative with a good balance between Buchanan's personal background, his personality, and his political career. I especially appreciated her afterward discussing Buchanan's motives and exploring the consequences of the choices he made.

[Jennifer Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

A pretty dry read on a pretty terrible president. Buchanan came into office with a wealth of experience in a vast variety of political positions he had held. Then he basicly stood by and did nothing about the impending sessesion of the southern states. It makes you wonder if we had a stronger 15th president, could the Civil War been avoided? Honestly, I was more interested in his possible homosexuality which was briefly touched on. I'm pretty sure he was our first gay president. In the words of Jerry Seinfeld, "NOt that there's anything wrong with that."

[Alex Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good entry in this series of short presidential biographies, this one on the much maligned James Buchanan. There's a tendency to view Buchanan as a doddering, indecisive Jimmy Carter figure but this book argues that this was not the case, that Buchanan's actions (his blinding devotion to the South, doing nothing to stop the Confederacy prepare for treason, etc) actively set the stage for the Civil War. Worse than Nixon!

[Vicki Gibson · Rating 3 out of 5]

At last, I have come to the end of my wandering through the metaphorical desert of US presidents from Martin Van Buren to James Buchanan, having finally reached the promised land of Abraham Lincoln.

As with all of the books in The American Presidents series, this 192-page volume is an efficiently told biography. It has an exceptionally good Afterword which attempts to answer the question of why such an experienced and intelligent politician failed so miserably as president. On that point, there are some parallels between James Buchanan and John Quincy Adams. Both were extraordinarily well prepared for the presidency. Both served as diplomats, cabinet members, and senators. Both were highly intelligent (although, JQA more so) and both utterly failed at being president.

"Buchanan makes up the third member of that feckless triumvirate of antebellum presidential losers, along with Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce. but more failed even than they, he is usually placed among the very worst of our presidents - an irredeemable group that includes Richard Nixon, Warren Harding, and, in some polls, Ulysses S. Grant."

The author offers three crucial mistakes which put Buchanan in the category of worst presidents.
1) His mishandling of the Kansas crisis.
2) His refusal to act when South Carolina initiated the process of secession in November of 1860
3) His December 1860 decision to order Major Anderson to leave Fort Sumter and return to the indefensible Ft. Moultrie where federal troops would have been overrun by the SC militia. (Buchanan eventually reversed this decision.)

But those weren't his only mistakes. There were many, many more. Buchanan was a Pennsylvanian, but in his heart, he was a southern gentleman. Although loyal to the Union, in the end, he utterly failed to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and a month before he left office seven southern states seceded from the Union and the country was on the brink of Civil War. His "doughfaced" allegiance to the south was his downfall.

"In his long speech on the advisability of the mission [to Pananma], Buchanan digressed, holding slavery to be a political and moral evil, but an evil without a remedy. Emancipate the slaves in the US and "they would become masters... Is there any man in this Union who could for a moment indulge the horrible idea of abolishing slavery by the massacre of the high-minded and the chivalrous race of men in the South?" Buchanan had already chosen sides. He would never desert the "chivalrous race" of white men in the South. Thirty years before the coming of the Civil War he had "buckled on [his] knapsack and marched in defense of [the white southern] cause" by opposing any interference with slavery."

"He was the most dangerous of chief executives, a stubborn, mistaken ideologue whose principles held no room for compromise. His experience in government had only rendered him too self-confident to consider other views. In his betrayal of the national trust, Buchanan came closer to committing treason than any other president in American history."

Interesting tidbits and big bits about Buchanan:

He is one of the few American presidents without a nickname or a middle name.

He lacked the hopeful optimism of successful political leaders and did not have a sense of humor.

He was handsome, blonde, six feet tall, and whiskerless. (He never had to shave).

He had exodeviation which is an abnormal alignment of the eyes and he was also nearsighted in one eye and farsighted in the other. This caused him to lean his head forward and cock it to one side to compensate for the defect in his eyes.

He never married and many historians suspect Buchanan was gay. He had a special relationship with handsome Alabama Senator William King (nicknamed "Aunt Fancy" in DC) which was so intimate one congressman referred to the two men as "Buchanan & his wife." They remained close until King's death in 1853. Buchanan remains the only bachelor among the American presidents.

Politically, James Buchanan was an unwavering Democrat whose hero was Andrew Jackson. "I am a states rights man, and in favor of a strict construction of the Constitution. "He held that all powers not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the states, remained with the states and the people."

He served five terms in the House of Representatives where he immediately and unwaveringly gravitated toward southerners and away from New Englanders even though he represented Pennsylvania. He viewed New Englanders as radical extremists.

In the Senate, he was the most fervent of the territorial expansionists and his speeches have come to summarize what we now call "manifest destiny." He fought for territory everywhere. Canada, Texas, Mexico, Central America, and Cuba.

He was nominated to the Supreme Court by President James K Polk but he withdrew his nomination for fear he might not be confirmed - only to change his mind later, but it was too late. Instead, he served as Polk's Secretary of State.

He vigorously supported the Fugitive Slave law and the Compromise of 1850.

During his time as Minister to Great Britain, he endeared himself to the American public when he refused to appear in "full court dress" at the opening of Parliment. Instead, he stayed home, and at the next opportunity - dinner with Queen Victoria - he dressed like a simple American citizen. Black coat, white waistcoat, cravat, black pantaloons, dress boots, and a very plain black handled and black hilted sword. The London Herald was outraged by Buchanan's dress code violation, but Americans back home loved it.

In a three-way race for the presidency in 1856, Buchanan carried every slaveholding state except for Maryland, plus five northern states (including Pennsylvania). "In his desire to end division between the North and South, the president-elect moved beyond the tradition of permissible institutionalized antagonism between political organizations. The concept of the loyal opposition, inherited from Great Britain, sanctioned criticism of administrations and the presentation of alternative policies. What it did not permit was the castigation of another party as disloyal and un-American, as Buchanan held the Republicans." Thus, Buchanan's hatred for the other party set the stage for the South to secede.

A few weeks before his inauguration he traveled to DC where he contracted a debilitating dysentery called the National Hotel disease which was the result of frozen pipes spilling fecal matter into the hotel's kitchen and cooking water. Several guests died and Buchanan was sick for months. He worried he might faint - or worse - during his inaugural speech so a doctor sat in the front row with brandy and smelling salts.

Buchanan's cabinet choices were disastrous. Unlike Lincoln's "team of rivals," Buchanan wanted no firm alternative voice. He preferred yes men. Four of his cabinet members were future Confederates and three were northern doughfaced Democrats.

Buchanan's third annual message to Congress (Dec 1859) he promoted the view that black males were potential rapists and arsonists. Throughout his term, Buchanan promoted rigorous enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law requiring the return of slaves from the North to their masters in the South.

The Supreme Court ruled on the infamous Dred Scott case during Buchanan's term in office. As president-elect, Buchanan wrote to the justices urging a comprehensive judgment that moved beyond Dred Scott's individual status and asked that they rule on the status of all blacks, free and slave. The landmark case held that "a negro, whose ancestors were imported into the US and sold as slaves," whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. Buchanan saw this ruling as an opportunity to end forever the slave issue in the US. One of the disastrous results of the ruling, among other things, was to nullify the Missouri Compromise and its prohibition of slavery north of the 36-degree line.

After the midterm elections, Republicans (now the House majority) established a special committee to investigate corruption in Buchanan's administration. Although Buchanan himself may have been above reproach, his cabinet officers were among the most corrupt in American history. No criminal charges were brought, but the public was shocked by the amount of graft permeating all agencies and levels of the Buchanan administration.

In the last year of his presidency, Buchanan tried to pivot to foreign policy. Not only did he have his eye on the purchase of Cuba (which would have made the 16th slave state with its 400,000 slaves), he also sought an American "protectorate" over parts of northwest Mexico in Chihuahua and Sonora. He requested permission of Congress to invade Mexico without a declaration of war. In the end, no legislation ever came to a vote on his Mexican or Cuban proposals.

Buchanan kept his promise to not run for reelection, but because of his siding with the South in his terrible mishandling of the entry of Kansas to the Union, Buchanan split the Democrats. In the midterm elections, a disproportionate number of northern Democrats lost their elections to doughfaces loyal to Buchanan. In the end, Buchanan's splitting of the party ensured the election of the Republicans in 1860 and turned the Democratic party into a southern organization. In the 1860 election, the Republican Abraham Lincoln won both the electoral and popular vote in a four-way election. Buchanan was the last Democratic president for 24 years until Grover Cleveland was elected in 1884.

Despite Buchanan's plans for a balanced budget, he left Lincoln with a deficit of more than $17 million

For two months after Lincoln's election in November 1860, Buchanan did nothing. South Carolina seceded from the Union and Buchanan basically had no response. Six more states left the Union in January and February of 1861. While this was going on, Buchanan continued to surround himself with southerners and had nothing to do with Republican leaders. Both his cabinet and his informal circle of counselors were overwhelmingly from the Deep South. Some of these advisors reported their conversations with the president and administration plans to southern governors, politicians, and military men. For example, they advised southern governors as to how to buy arms from local arsenals and private arms dealers. "No new government ever had so effective an information system about its future enemy."

In his last (and possibly worst) bad act as president, Buchanan tried to abandon Fort Sumter and cede it to South Carolina. Fortunately, three cabinet members argued that ordering Major Anderson back to Fort Moultrie (thus ceding Fort Sumter) was treasonous and they would resign if Buchanan did not reverse his orders to Major Anderson. Buchanan acquiesced but was so despondent he asked Attorney General Jeremiah Black to clean up his mess and rewrite the orders.

After the Fort Sumter debacle, Buchanan faced a crossroads in his life. He became a staunch defender of the Union, but it was too little, too late. Lincoln inherited Buchanan's mess which included a Confederacy stronger than it would have been had Buchanan acted more firmly and quickly when things started to fall apart. "To be sure, to do nothing was to do much, because Buchanan was granting the future Confederate States of America precious time to organize and prepare for war. By no means inevitable, the American Civil War remained contingent on various episodes, to which this intended peacemaker contributed as much as anyone. With Buchanan's mistakes, a confrontation that might have dwindled away into a minor action against one state became more certain. In this crisis three presidential failings - Buchanan's arrogance that he could achieve peace by being a partisan of the South, his ideological commitment to southern values, and his vision of the future with slavery gradually dying out - all came together to buttress a terrible presidential miscalculation."

Throughout the Civil War Buchanan was (mostly) a good Unionist. He supported the draft, but not the Emancipation Proclamation. He joined the Presbyterian Church in 1865 after previously refusing to do so because the Presbyterians were too abolitionist.

In his retirement, he wrote a 300-page defense of his presidency (Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion) which highlighted his foreign policy successes and blamed antislavery agitation and the Republican party for the Civil War. He pronounced himself "completely satisfied" with his actions during his administration.

Seven years after leaving office and two years after publishing his memoir, James Buchanan died of pneumonia in 1868 at the age of 77.

So, that's James Buchanan in a nutshell. It's interesting that America's greatest president was immediately preceded by the worst American president. I look forward to reading the details of how Lincoln untangled Buchanan's mess.

I'm going to give this book 3.5 stars. Jean Baker does a very good job of presenting Buchanan in a balanced way. She managed (as far as I can tell) to hit all the important highlights in just 192 pages which is no small feat. Her focus included facts but also delved into why this highly qualified man turned out to be a failure as president. That made for an interesting and entertaining narrative.

Next up, Lincoln!

[David Anthony Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, brief biography of the worst president in US history, and nearly a traitor at that.

[Stephen]

What do I know about Mr. James Buchanan? Well, he’s our only bachelor president, leaning on his niece to be his hostess at White House functions; he was very chummy with the founder of my hometown, William Rufus King, and supposedly when the South seceded he simply shrugged and said “Yeah, that’s an 1861 problem, not an 1860 problem.” Jean H. Baker argues that Buchanan was by no means passive; he was, in fact, quite an activist — but he acted in favor of his friends, with extreme partiality towards the South, and was so confident in his abilities and self-absorbed in his own desires that he treated his responsibilities toward the country rather shabbily.

There were few men more qualified to serve as president than James Buchanan, Jean Baker declares by way of opening. He had served ably in both houses of Congress for decades and been nominated to the Supreme Court more than once. (He kept withdrawing his name for consideration, desirous of the ultimate prize — the presidency.) And yet his administration is universally regarded as the worst in American history, ending with seven states having seceded from the Union and numerous others on the fence about it. Excoriated in his own lifetime, Buchanan protested that he did take action — he ordered one of the two forts that hadn’t surrendered, Fort Sumter, to be resupplied. So there! And he even made a speech that secession is something we mustn’t do, though — dear me, dear me — there’s nothing to be done about it if you were to happen to secede. Nothing in the Constitution, you see? Never mind that Buchanan had gotten aggressive domestically before, in Kansas — though Baker oddly ignores his actions in Panama, another testament to the fact that Jimmy was no shrinking violet.

Baker attributes Buchanan’s inconsistent actions in office to two things: one, he inculcated the formal, procedural nature of the law into his personality. He was not dynamic, able to roll with the changes, and once he’d rendered a judgment or settled on an opinion there was no changing it. He expected that, the law having been issued, it was The Law. If you wanted to change it, there were ways to do that, but they didn’t involve ignoring the law or subverting it. The Lecompton Constitution, for instance, was a travesty, a mean joke — drawn up by an extreme minority of Kansans and sent to Congress to debate. It was, frankly, unconstitutional, containing measures to persecute the free speech of those who opposed slavery — but Buchanan accepted and endorsed it because the Lecompton legislature which had drawn it up was the officially recognized legislature of Kansas, not the freesoiler one in Topeka.

More importantly, however, was Buchanan’s deep investment in Southern social society. Although he’d been raised with a story that Abe Lincoln would appreciate — born to a poor family that turned hard work into success and thriving businesses — Buchanan was no hardscrabble Yankee. He studied law and was deeply appreciative of his southern friends’ more laid-back approach to life. They too, studied law and practiced it and politics, but they were more men of leisure and arts rather than bank books and real estate speculation. Baker writes that Buchanan found their company deeply attractive — far more so than pushy Puritans. He surrounded himself in the White House by men of the South, and his cabinet remained mostly southern even after South Carolina had seceded and men in other states were actively preparing for their self-defense in case Lincoln decided to take the Andrew Jackson approach to secession.

I half-expected when I began this book to end it viewing Buchanan more sympathetically, as happened with my reading of Franklin Pierce. That was not the case, though it’s not necessarily Baker’s fault even though she was clearly not a fan. There was some bleedover from my reading 1858 at the same time and seeing Buchanan’s obsession with Cuba and pushing around Paraguay, and then seeing him here trying to will the slavery issue away — adding fuel to the fire through such aggressive support, feeding more aggression from abolitionists — he strikes me as a man with the wrong priorities. Being a southerner, I suppose I should like him for his partiality towards the South, but his indulging the plantation elite proved not only immoral, but not in the South’s best interests. It probably would have been best for everyone if Buchanan had accepted earlier offers to join the Supreme Court.

Although Baker is definitely not an impartial biographer, I enjoyed learning about Buchanan’s early life, and this combined with the other two works I was reading gave me a better appreciation of how a duck he truly was. Of the three, this is the best for a survey of his life and work, since 1858 and Bosom Friends are more focused in scope. Given that Bosom Friends focuses on Buchanan’s social life, particularly the “Bachelor’s Mess” he kept with William Rufus King and several other legislators, I’m hoping to end this miniseries within my larger “impending crisis” obsession on a slightly more charitable note.

[Shay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at one of America’s little-known presidents, generally overshadowed by his illustrious successor Abraham Lincoln. The book makes the case that Buchanan’s strongly pro-Southern views, and his resulting anti-Northern and anti-Republican Party tendencies were principal factors in his complete failure to rise to the same challenge which Lincoln stepped up to.

As the book says, ‘Only if the supposition that the existence of two nations, one holding slaves from shore to shining shore, is justified are Buchanan’s policies commendable.’

Often portrayed as indecisive, the book makes the case that he was actually strong-willed and displayed partisan and poor judgement. Despite being incredibly well-qualified to be President, his presidency was an unmitigated disaster, and one which history condemns even more unequivocally than his largely unimpressed contemporaries.

[Jliongrrrl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am sad that the only president from Pennsylvania is so poorly regarded. James Buchanan has long topped the worst president lists and was expecting something malicious to be revealed in his biography. Turns out, it was his inaction and attempt to keep the peace instead of standing up for what is right that had gotten him so prominently featured on the worst in history lists. This should be a lesson to all of us.
I lived a mile from Wheatland and have never toured the home. I plan to remedy that this summer.

[Betty Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my Covid projects is reading biographies of those obscure and/or labeled worst presidents. I have done Martin Van Buren and Zachary Taylor. This biography amply makes the case for James Buchanan, possibly the first gay president, to be the worst of PAST presidents. He was not weak willed but rather a idealogue whose pro-Southern sympathies and stubborn insistence on his way being the only way hastened the Civil War. The author writes persuasively as to the corruption of his administration, his dogged pessimism, and particularly his role in Bloody Kansas, which was appalling.

[Matt Davenport · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent short biography of one of our worst presidents, James Buchanan. Jean H. Baker does a great job chronicling Buchanan’s journey as a career doughface Democrat who supported the Democratic dominance of the federal government from the 1820-1850s to his own belated presidency, where Buchanan’s unbendingly staunch pro-south policy, unbending stubbornness and indecisiveness, and lastly his lack of foresight or empathy for the nation as a whole helped contribute to the outbreak of the Civil War.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent overview of an awful president. The Civil War was likely inevitable, but Buchanan's utter lack of vision and leadership (and extreme pro-Southernism) led to the disintegration of our nation. Thank the lord for Honest Abe.