Line #20 UsefulNotes/JamesBuchanan


1	[[quoteright:315:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/james_buchanan.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:315:''"If you are as happy to be accepting this office as I am to be leaving it, then you are a very happy man."''[[note]]Yes, that was what Buchanan said while "welcoming" UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln.[[/note]]]]
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4	->''"I feel that my duty has been faithfully, though it may be imperfectly, performed, and, whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that I at least meant well for my country."''
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6	%%One quote is enough. Others can go on the Quotes page.
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8	James Buchanan Jr. (April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868) was the [[UsefulNotes/ThePresidentsOfTheUnitedStates fifteenth president]] of the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates, serving from [[TheWildWest 1857 to 1861]], and the fifth representing the Democratic Party. He immediately followed UsefulNotes/FranklinPierce, but, more notably, preceded UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln. He was the last president born in the 18th century and the only president[[note]]If you don't count UsefulNotes/JoeBiden, who was born and raised in Scranton but moved to Delaware when he was eleven and subsequently made his political career there.[[/note]] from UsefulNotes/{{Pennsylvania}}, although that state currently isn't very proud of that.
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10	Buchanan remains the only president [[ConfirmedBachelor never to marry]] and one of only two bachelors elected president, the other being UsefulNotes/GroverCleveland. He ''was'' engaged at one point, to Anne Caroline Coleman, but they broke up, in part because she felt that he wasn't as interested in her as he was in his career, and she died shortly after in 1819. Historians remain divided as to whether her death was an accident or suicide. Buchanan wrote to ask Anne's father, Robert Coleman, a wealthy iron manufacturer, for permission to attend Anne's funeral, but her father refused to allow it; indeed, the Coleman family never forgave James for Anne's death, and made it their mission to ruin his law practice in Lancaster, which was a factor in his decision to go into politics.
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12	With Buchanan being one of the most famous examples of a ConfirmedBachelor in American history, there has been much discussion of his sexual orientation. The official line when he was alive was that the broken Coleman engagement devastated him so much that he avoided relationships with women, but solid cases can also be made for his being closeted gay or even UsefulNotes/{{Asexual}}. An often-cited piece of evidence for his being gay is his long friendship with Alabama senator William Rufus King, who died six weeks into his term as Franklin Pierce's vice president. King happens to have been the only Vice President to never marry. It's been reported that when attending social functions together, UsefulNotes/AndrewJackson called King "Miss Nancy", and Democrat Aaron V. Brown referred to King as Buchanan's "better half", "wife", and "Aunt Fancy", the last being a 19th-century euphemism for an effeminate man. Buchanan described King as "among the best, the purest and most consistent public men I have known." The truth died with Buchanan, since his relatives burned his diaries and personal documents upon his death, as per his request.
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14	Following the deaths of his sister Jane and her husband, Buchanan became the guardian of his favorite niece, [[https://www.whitehousehistory.org/bios/harriet-lane Harriet Lane]], whom he rather insistently described as his adopted daughter for the rest of his life. Harriet and Buchanan, whom she called "Nunc," were devoted to one another. When he became president, Harriet served as the White House hostess and bore the official title of First Lady, which was somewhat invented for her as she was not the President's wife.[[note]]The full phrase, "first lady in the land," was applied to Harriet by ''Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper'' in 1860. UsefulNotes/ZacharyTaylor had previously used the expression to describe UsefulNotes/JamesMadison's wife Dolley, in his speech at her funeral, but Harriet Lane was the first person to be called that officially.[[/note]] Intellectual, fashionable, and pretty, she was wildly popular both at home and abroad, and a close friend of UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria. Buchanan similarly adopted an orphaned nephew, James Buchanan "Buck" Henry, who served as the first presidential private secretary after the federal government recognized it as a publicly funded office. (In those days, the Private Secretary fulfilled the duties of what would today be the White House Chief of Staff.)
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16	Buchanan began his political career in the House of Representatives in 1814. He was not popular with fellow politicians. UsefulNotes/AndrewJackson gave him the position of [[ReassignedToAntarctica Minister (i.e.: ambassador) to Russia]] in an attempt to [[KickedUpstairs keep him out of the country]], where he would, in Jackson's words, "do the least harm. I would have sent him to the North Pole if we had kept a minister there." [[ReassignmentBackfire Unfortunately]], this led to the impression that he had serious diplomatic/political credentials and skills. This post was followed by time in the Senate, as Secretary of State under UsefulNotes/JamesKPolk -- generally considered to have been the highlight of Buchanan's political career, to the point where his effectiveness in the role actually saved him from being fired after he went against Polk by publicly arguing for the annexation of Cuba -- and as Minister to Great Britain. Part of the reason he was elected in 1856 was because he was out of the country during the unpopular presidency of UsefulNotes/FranklinPierce and couldn't be blamed for any of the administration's hated policies, particularly the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. It also helped that the main opposition party of the last two decades, the Whigs, had disintegrated since Pierce's {{landslide\|Election}} victory in the previous election, and the vote against the Democrats was divided between former president UsefulNotes/MillardFillmore's American (colloquially, "Know Nothing") Party and the new Republican Party. The Republicans also hurt their chances by running a relatively unknown Radical who had made his name in the West: John C. Frémont, who was such a boogeyman that even UsefulNotes/UlyssesSGrant voted for Buchanan, saying later he feared Frémont's election would lead to civil war. At 65 years old, Buchanan was the oldest president since UsefulNotes/WilliamHenryHarrison, while his vice president, John C. Breckinridge, was and still is the youngest-ever VP, at 35 years old (the minimum age required; he turned 36 just before he and Buchanan were inaugurated).
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18	Those who know their American history dates know full well what happened during his presidency. Tensions between the North and the South reached their peak, and it would have taken a skilled executive to reach a compromise that could have avoided conflict. Buchanan was not that executive. His policy was, to put it bluntly, [[HeadInTheSandManagement to do nothing and either let everyone calm down or wait until someone else came up with a solution]]. Naturally, [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar it didn't work]]. He was a notorious doughface (a Northerner who supported the South) and his Cabinet was dominated by Southerners, with War Secretary John Floyd and Treasury Secretary Howell Cobb becoming Confederate generals and Interior Secretary Jacob Thompson later becoming Confederate inspector general. After UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln defeated Breckinridge and two other candidates in the 1860 presidential election, seven southern states (UsefulNotes/SouthCarolina, Mississippi, UsefulNotes/{{Florida}}, Alabama, UsefulNotes/{{Georgia\|USA}}, Louisiana, and UsefulNotes/{{Texas}}) seceded from the Union during the last few months of Buchanan's presidency, and four more (UsefulNotes/{{Virginia}}, Arkansas, UsefulNotes/NorthCarolina, and UsefulNotes/{{Tennessee}}) would later follow. Although each of the three previous presidents had played a part in creating the circumstances that led to the Civil War (UsefulNotes/ZacharyTaylor's belligerent approach to the slave states got things off on the wrong foot, Fillmore signed an ultimately ill-advised compromise agreement, and Pierce pissed off the free states by breaking the terms of said agreement), the final, fatal lurch towards the conflict happened on Buchanan's watch. It didn't help that he ordered the invasion of UsefulNotes/{{Utah}} for the purpose of persecuting [[UsefulNotes/{{Mormonism}} an unpopular Christian denomination]] (to be fair, he did this after receiving false information about Mormons taking over every post in the territory), or that the economy entered a panic the year he entered office.
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20	Shortly before his death in 1868, Buchanan said, "History will vindicate my memory from every unjust aspersion." It didn't. Buchanan's desire to maintain the mere status quo (he said that secession was illegal, but that using military force to stop secession was ''also'' illegal) [[NeutralityBacklash did nothing to mend a bitterly divided nation]]. By the end he was only interested in holding off the by-now inevitable civil war long enough for him to get out of office and leave the problems to the next president. He also once admitted after he left office that he didn't try to stop the South because he was afraid that hostile African Americans would try to take over the nation. Today, he is considered to be one of the worst presidents in US history, if not the absolute worst. His biggest rivals for that particular MedalOfDishonor are UsefulNotes/AndrewJohnson (Lincoln's authoritarian successor who went out of his way and driven by his selfish ego for his selfish desires to disregard Lincoln's achievements, arguing with the Radical Republicans and members of Congress about Reconstruction and civil rights for the black former slaves, and ruined his own reputation and career after being impeached for violating the Tenure of Office Act and other abuses of presidential powers) and -- arguably -- UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump (certainly one of the country's most polarizing leaders and for being the first and only president ever to be impeached ''twice''[[note]]The second time he was impeached was for refusing to concede defeat of the 2020 presidential election to UsefulNotes/JoeBiden that led to a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and the specific charge was "incitement of insurrection." So, alongside with Buchanan, Trump shares the dubious distinction of seeing to it that his immediate successor didn't take office under peaceful conditions at home.[[/note]]). While Buchanan's "wait and see" approach ''might'' be excusable in not wanting to saddle a successor with a war he started as a lame duck, his absolute unwillingness to do anything to counter his all but openly treasonous secretary of war or to protect federal property in the South that Southerners took over is ''not''. Not only that, but he ignored advice to move weapons and ammunition stores out of the South "just in case".
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22	Even before his infamous last months in office, however, he earned the justified scorn of modern historians by constantly interfering the Supreme Court into passing the outrageously racist ''Dred Scott'' v. ''Sandford'' decision -- which declared that African Americans neither had nor deserved any rights as citizens and legalized slavery in all the territories that had yet to gain statehood -- before it was issued, after Chief Justice Roger B. Taney told him how the verdict would go at his inauguration. Worse, it emerged years later that the Supreme Court had ''planned'' to rule only that enslaved people could not be automatically freed in territories where slavery was outlawed, due to the lack of majoritarian support for a more expansive decision... until Buchanan persuaded Justice Robert C. Grier, who was also from Pennsylvania, to support the decision that was eventually made. In retrospect, many historians see the decision as the point when the Civil War became truly inevitable, driving virtually the entire North to the abolitionist cause, and causing supporters of slavery to go from merely advocating its continual existence to demanding that it be legalized throughout the country.[[note]]In fact, Buchanan was allegedly leaning on the Supreme Court to make such a decision in another case (''Lemmon'' v. ''New York''), but the Civil War ended up breaking out before it could be heard.[[/note]] Meanwhile, the ''Dred Scott'' decision only worsened the "Bleeding Kansas" mess that Buchanan had inherited from Pierce, as he took the ruling to mean that all future states should be admitted as slave states, and spent his entire administration trying to force the admission of Kansas with a pro-slavery constitution despite there clearly being no support for it from the residents of the territory.[[note]]To wit, supporters of slavery had to [[AstroTurf move in en masse from the adjacent slave state of Missouri to try to engineer one]].[[/note]] Eventually, Kansas was admitted as a free state a couple of months before he left office. UsefulNotes/{{Minnesota}} and UsefulNotes/{{Oregon}} were also admitted as free states during his presidency, though they had both applied for statehood before the ''Dred Scott'' decision was made, meaning they would have been covered by the GrandfatherClause regardless.
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24	Following his presidency, Buchanan retired with his niece to Wheatland, his Federal-style mansion in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he lived out the rest of his days in relative quiet. Harriet remained with him as his companion until she eventually married (at age 36, which was late for the time period) and moved with her husband to Baltimore; uncle and niece continued to be close, however, and she named her eldest son after him. Buchanan is buried in Lancaster, whose historical society maintains the house and grounds as a museum.
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26	Fun fact: He was near-sighted in one eye and long-sighted in the other and one sat higher in the socket than the other. Whenever he had to focus on something, he had to tilt his head and shut the appropriate eye.
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28	%%!!Tropes as portrayed in fiction:
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30	!!In fiction:
31	* Both Buchanan and his niece Harriet are characters in the play ''Buchanan Dying'', by Creator/JohnUpdike. The play is meant more to be read than performed; Buchanan, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin on his deathbed]], looks back at the major events of his life. Updike (who, perhaps not coincidentally, was also a native of Pennsylvania) treats Buchanan more sympathetically than most writers have done, while at the same time being honest about his flaws.
32	* One measure of Buchanan's reputation is the paucity of cultural depictions: prior to 2019, he had never been portrayed in film, even as a background character, and has only appeared on page in a handful of historical novels like Creator/GoreVidal's ''Lincoln''. In 2019 he finally received a biopic ... kind of: a comedy called ''Raising Buchanan'' where Creator/ReneAuberjonois plays Buchanan's resurrected corpse. And the whole plot centers around Buchanan being so worthless that when the film's protagonist kidnaps him, no one cares about getting Buchanan back. Ouch.[[note]]This was in fact Auberjonois's final major film role before his death in December 2019.[[/note]]
33	* Before that, the closest thing he had to a cultural depiction was sharing a name with superhero [[Characters/MarvelComicsBuckyBarnes James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes]], which was a case of writer Joe Simon naming the character after his friend, Bucky Pierson, then later writers came up with a middle name to justify the nickname.
34	* The encyclopedia parody ''Literature/TheOnionBookOfKnownKnowledge'' portrays Buchanan as TheCaligula who "enthroned himself on a golden ziggurat and brutally ruled the nation in a debauched phantasmagoria of sex, blood, and madness that nearly destroyed the republic". After Buchanan's term expired, he was tortured to death by members of his own cabinet.
35	* He shows up in ''Literature/UntilEveryDropOfBloodIsPaid'' as the president between 1856 and 1860, only that here he makes even more of a bungle due to the more politically charged environment, such as forcing Kansas to take a pro-slavery state constitution (something he didn't manage to do in RealLife).

Context UsefulNotes / JamesBuchanan