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- Bachelor President. James Buchanan was the only president who was never married. He had been engaged to a woman named Anne Colman. However, in 1819 after a fight, she called off the engagement.
- Fought in the War of 1812. Buchanan began his professional career as a lawyer but decided to volunteer for a company of dragoons to fight in the War of 1812.
- Supporter of Andrew Jackson. Buchanan was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives after the War of 1812. He was not reelected after serving one term and instead returned to his law practice.
- Key Diplomat. Buchanan was seen as a key diplomat by a number of presidents. Jackson rewarded Buchanan's loyalty by making him the minister to Russia in 1831.
- Overview
- Origins and bachelorhood
- Early political career
James Buchanan was the 15th president of the United States (1857–61). A moderate Democrat well endowed with legal knowledge and experience in government, he lacked the soundness of judgment and conciliatory personality to deal effectively with the slavery crisis and failed to avert the American Civil War (1861–65).
What was James Buchanan’s occupation?
James Buchanan was a lawyer whose gift for oratory led him to politics. He served in the Pennsylvania legislature (1814–16), the U.S. House of Representatives (1821–31), and the U.S. Senate (1834–45). He also served in the presidential administrations of Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Franklin Pierce before becoming president himself in 1857.
What did James Buchanan do as president?
James Buchanan unsuccessfully attempted to preserve the Union by preventing Northern antislavery agitation and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act (1850), and tensions rose. Following Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election, Southern states began to secede while Buchanan was still in office, a move he denounced but was powerless to stop.
James Buchanan (born April 23, 1791, near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died June 1, 1868, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania) 15th president of the United States (1857–61), a moderate Democrat whose efforts to find a compromise in the conflict between the North and the South failed to avert the Civil War (1861–65).
Buchanan was the son of James Buchanan and Elizabeth Speer, both of Scottish Presbyterian stock from the north of Ireland. His father had immigrated to the United States in 1783 and worked as a storekeeper. Buchanan was educated at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1809, and studied law in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He was admitted to the bar in 1812 and soon established a successful law practice. His gift for oratory led him to politics.
Buchanan never married and remains the only bachelor president. In 1819, when he was 28 years old, he became engaged to Anne C. Coleman, the daughter of a wealthy Pennsylvania family. He broke off the engagement for an undisclosed reason, and shortly afterward Coleman died, possibly a suicide. While Buchanan was a senator, he shared lodgings with another bachelor, Sen. William R. King of Alabama, causing some tongues in Washington to wag, but, in conformity with the mores of the time, the relationship was not a public matter. When Buchanan became president, he made his 27-year-old niece, Harriet Lane, his hostess. Buchanan had served as her guardian, and he had overseen her education since she was 12 years old, when her mother, Buchanan’s sister, died. He took her to England with him when he was minister to Great Britain, where she became accustomed to being in the limelight. In the U.S. capital she was a popular figure, even dubbed the “Democratic Queen.”
A Federalist, Buchanan served in the Pennsylvania legislature (1814–16) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (1821–31). When his party disintegrated in the 1820s, Buchanan associated himself with the emerging Democratic Party. He served as U.S. minister to St. Petersburg (1831–33) for the Andrew Jackson administration, U.S. senator (1834–45), and secretary of state (1845–49) in the cabinet of Pres. James K. Polk. The annexation of Texas and subsequent Mexican-American War took place during Buchanan’s tenure as secretary of state. Buchanan’s role in the war was limited, but he played a more active part in the border dispute with Britain over Oregon. Despite the 1844 campaign slogan of “Fifty-four forty or fight,” the matter was settled peaceably by treaty. In both situations the United States gained large tracts of territory. Buchanan had sought the nomination for president in 1844 but had ultimately thrown his support to Polk. Failing to receive the presidential nomination in 1848, Buchanan retired from public service until 1853, when he was appointed minister to Britain by Pres. Franklin Pierce.
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In Congress, Buchanan tended to side with the South, and, although he felt that slavery was morally wrong, he did not want the country to eliminate the institution by the “introduction of evils infinitely greater.” From his perspective, a greater evil would be freeing the slaves and making them the new masters, “abolishing slavery by the massacre of the high-minded, and the chivalrous race of men in the South.” He therefore tried to impress the Southern party leadership with his respect for the constitutional safeguards for the practice. Thus in 1846 he opposed the Wilmot Proviso, which would have prohibited the extension of slavery into the U.S. territories, and he supported the Compromise of 1850, which attempted to maintain a balance of Senate seats between slave and free states. While in Europe as minister to Britain he played a large part in drafting the Ostend Manifesto (October 18, 1854), a diplomatic report recommending that the United States acquire Cuba from Spain to forestall any possibility of a slave uprising there. Buchanan’s support for the manifesto stemmed not only from his fear that such an uprising might have an inflammatory effect on slaves in the United States but also from his basic belief in American imperialism. “It is, beyond question,” he wrote to Congress in 1858, “the destiny of our race to spread themselves over the continent of North America, and this at no distant day.”
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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- James Buchanan’s Early Years and Personal Life. James Buchanan was born on April 23, 1791, in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania, to James Buchanan Sr. (1761-1833), a merchant who had emigrated from Ireland, and Elizabeth Speer Buchanan (1767-1833).
- Senator and Diplomat. In 1834, after returning from Europe the previous year, James Buchanan was elected to represent his home state in the U.S. Senate.
- Election of 1856. In 1854, President Pierce signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which created two new territories and allowed settlers to determine whether they would enter the Union as free states or slave states.
- James Buchanan in the White House. Once in office, James Buchanan appointed a cabinet composed of Northerners and Southerners and hoped to keep peace between the country’s pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions.
Apr 2, 2014 · Learn about James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States who served from 1857 to 1861, during the lead-up to the Civil War. Find out about his early life, political career, diplomatic missions, slavery views, and retirement.
James Buchanan Jr. (/ b j uː ˈ k æ n ə n / bew-KAN-ən; April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868) was an American lawyer, diplomat, and politician. He served as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861, as the secretary of State from 1845 to 1849, and represented Pennsylvania in both houses of the U.S. Congress .
Learn about the life and presidency of James Buchanan, the 15th President of the United States who served before the Civil War. Find out how he failed to prevent the sectional crisis, the Dred Scott decision, and secession.
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Feb 2, 2024 · James Buchanan was the fifteenth President of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. He was the only president from the state of Pennsylvania and the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor.
