Ha! I told myself I was going to read an
adult biography of every president by the end of the year. I would only have to read something like 3.58333 a month to make my goal. I thought with enough spare time and the use of audio books, it seemed a very manageable goal.
Again I repeat, HA! Here it is in February and I've just finished my first one! And since yesterday was President's day, I should at least post my first review. I'm reading the biographies in order of the presidents popularity, starting with the least popular and saving "the best for last"
James Buchanan 15th POTUS 43 out of 43
James Buchanan was an experienced politician and well
qualified candidate for president. He had been involved with the admiration of
10 presidents before him in one way or another.
He had severed in the state legislation of Pennsylvania before being
elected as a congressman. President Andrew Jackson appointed him Minister to
Russia. He served as secretary of state under James K. Polk. He was later than
appointed as Minister to Great Britain under the administration of his
predecessor Franklin Pierce.
So how could such an intelligent man with an impressive
resume utterly fail in his duties as President of the United State?
If the presidency were like high school, Buchanan would be
the lowest man on the totem pole. His former allies, the more popular kids
would refuse to acknowledge him. He burned too many bridges during his
presidency. The freaks and geeks wouldn't even let him sit with them at lunch. In my
mind, Buchanan would be that miserable scab eating his lunch in the bathroom
stall, wringing his hands and plotting. “One day, I’ll show them! I’ll show
them all!”
Buchanan had his chance and he really blew it. He is mostly
known for the administration that was responsible for the collapse of the Union
and the start of the Civil War. While he had to deal with a snowball effect of
states’ rights and secessionist issues from previous presidents, his actions
only escalated the foreseeable conflict. Really his in-actions were the main cause.
His other claim to fame was that he was are only bachelor president and also
rumored to be our only gay president.
James Buchanan had grand plans for the country when he took
the oath of office. Unfortunately, none of them seemed to involved taking care
of the problems we already had. The United States at the time in its adolescent.
By that I mean, like a gangly teenager it was growing so fast that you couldn’t
keep them in clothes that fit and your fridge was always empty. During his service on Polk’s cabinet, Buchanan
helped expand US territory by 1.2 million square miles. During his administration, three new states
were added to the Union; Minnesota, Oregon and the notorious “bloody Kansas” Buchanan’s
bungling of the expansion of the Union and the unwillingness to address the
issue of slavery led us into a right kerfuffle.
Some argued that Buchanan’s services to his country overseas
before he became president led him to be out of touch with the slavery issue. He
let the courts tackle the issue of slavery in the infamous Dred Scott decision.
I think Buchanan was very well aware of the issues at hand, but didn’t want to
make a firm statement or action on them to avoid stirring up controversy. That
strategy works pretty well when you are trying to avoid a watercolor debate
about sports teams, or TV shows. But not when you are the leader of the
country. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty.
Buchanan opposed the
idea of slavery. He was determine to uphold the law, even the law of slavery in
the South,(“domestic intuition”) so abolitionists and runaway slave were no
more than law breakers in his eyes. Oh and he really
did not like black people (
“James Buchanan doesn't care about black people.”) And not in the same sense of most whites in the country thought black
and slaves were inferior. In his third address to Congress in December 1859, he
suggested that all black males were no more than “rapists and arsonists “.
Buchanan’s appeasements to the southern states helped the Confederacy grow
stronger and more powerful. If his administration had not been so lax, the
Civil War could have been ended much sooner, if not be avoided entirely.
But if you think Buchanan just sat on his hands and let the
world crash around him, think again. I think it would be easy to say that he
was a bit mad with power. He wanted to expand the United States further
southward including plans to expand into Mexico and buy Cuba. In his last
address to Congress, as several southern states were leaving the Union, he had
the gall to ask for $30 million dollars to purchase Cuba, even though Spain
(who owned it at the time) had no interest in selling it.
He sent troops into Utah in order to expand the territory
and admit it as a state. The problem was the Mormon settlers didn’t want to
give up their land. Too bad there would have been no compromise for Buchanan
because guess what; he really hated Mormons too. He also sent large fleet (19 warships and
several thousand sailors) to “punish” the country of Paraguay for supposedly
firing on an American ship. Obviously, a military force of that magnitude
should have been patrolling the coastal boarder of the southern states as civil
unrest grew.
We might have avoided this all. James Buchanan almost didn’t
live to become president. A few months before his inauguration, he was living
in a Washington hotel where he contracted dysentery. A few of his party died
from the disease, but he survived. Which bring to question, what would happen
if a president elect died before he could take the oath of office? Would the
vice president take over? Would they let the runner up be president, or would
they let the current president stay in office until another special election
was held?
In a trend that continued with presidents after him, Buchanan left the White House and the country in more chaos and trouble than when he entered. He is the definition of a lame duck, as he twiddled his thumbs while states dropped out of the Union and the military was left without leadership and running low on supplies. The cost of running his administration and his crazy ideas took up 15% of the federal budget and when Lincoln was elected, James left his a parting present of a $17 million dollar deficit (oh and a country falling apart)
Buchanan is quoted when addressing Lincoln as he took the White House. "If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man." However no one reports Abe Lincoln's reply. I would guess it went something like this.
"Thanks....you jerk."
