James Buchanan

B

2

Lecompton Constitution

Under the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Kansas could be organized as a slave or free territory, depending on the choice of its settlers. When the act passed in 1854, settlers on both sides of the issue moved to Kansas to influence the vote. The antislavery forces formed a legislature in Topeka, Kansas, while those favoring slavery made their capital at Lecompton. Both Buchanan and his predecessor, President Pierce, recognized the proslavery territorial legislature in Lecompton as the legitimate government. When the proslavery body drafted its so-called Lecompton Constitution and submitted it to Congress for statehood in 1857, Buchanan pressed for its acceptance, even after the constitution failed a popular vote in Kansas. Douglas protested bitterly that the president was trying to override the will of the people. In an effort to compromise, Congress decided to admit Kansas if another popular vote was taken and the constitution ratified. The vote was taken, the constitution was rejected again, and Kansas remained a territory for the time being.

Meanwhile, the rift between Buchanan and Douglas was putting great strain on the Democratic Party. Buchanan tried in 1858 to block Douglas's candidacy for reelection to the Senate, but offered to reconcile if Douglas would stop attacking him. Douglas reluctantly agreed, and got the nomination. He then went on a campaign tour that included a series of debates with his opponent, Abraham Lincoln. Douglas believed that his position was more popular in the North than Buchanan's, and began to criticize the president again. He spent almost as much time criticizing Buchanan as he did answering Lincoln. Douglas won reelection, but the debates made Lincoln a well-known spokesman for the Republican Party.

B

3

John Brown's Raid

In 1859 an event occurred in Virginia that made many people see the use of force as inevitable. Radical abolitionist John Brown, who had become a fugitive for leading a guerrilla band in Kansas (Buchanan had put a price on his head of $250), had conceived a plot to establish a stronghold and refuge for escaped slaves in the Appalachian Mountains. He needed weapons. On October 16, 1859, with 18 men, he seized the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia), and occupied the U.S. arsenal there. He expected to be joined by other followers, but instead the arsenal was surrounded by the local militia. The militia kept Brown and his men pinned down until a troop of U.S. Marines, led by Colonel Robert E. Lee, attacked and captured them with much bloodshed.

Within six weeks Brown was tried for criminal conspiracy, murder, and treason. He used the trial as a platform for his views, stating eloquently that his action was ordained by God. Brown was convicted and was hanged on December 2, 1859. He immediately became a martyr to the abolitionists, and to the South he was a symbol of the chaos that could occur if the blacks were not held firmly in check.

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C

Election of 1860

The Buchanan-Douglas enmity continued into the presidential election year of 1860, when it had serious consequences for the Democrats. The party nominated Douglas for president at its national convention. However, because the party would not adopt a proslavery platform, most of the Southern Democrats walked out and held a separate convention of their own. They nominated Buchanan's vice president, John C. Breckinridge, for president. The Republicans nominated Lincoln, who was now a national figure, and adopted a platform opposing the spread of, but not seeking to abolish, slavery. A fourth party, the Constitutional Union Party, nominated John Bell of Tennessee on a platform of simply preserving the Union.

Buchanan refused to support Douglas. The resulting split in the Democratic vote gave Lincoln a plurality of the popular vote and a majority of the electoral vote, and he was elected. Despite the moderation of the Republicans' antislavery stand, Southerners had warned that if a Republican became president, they would break away. Within days of the election, Southern legislatures were considering secession.

D

Secession

In his last annual message to Congress, December 3, 1860, the president blamed the abolitionists and the North's unrelenting agitation against the South for the critical condition of the nation. He contended that the South asked only to be let alone to manage its own affairs. Secession, he insisted, was not a remedy.

But it was too late. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina held a state convention and voted to secede from the Union. Mississippi followed on January 9, 1861; Florida on January 10; Alabama on January 11; Georgia on January 19; and Louisiana on January 26. On February 4 delegates from these states met in Montgomery, Alabama, and formed what they declared was a new nation—the Confederate States of America, also called the Confederacy.

As the states of the Deep South seceded, Buchanan found himself at a loss to stop them. He was firmly convinced that any violence toward the South would only precipitate war. A policy of compromise, he believed, would see the nation through the secession crisis. So determined was he that his administration not risk a civil war by committing an overt act that he did nothing. His policy of inaction toward the seceded states averted war for the remainder of his administration, giving various compromise efforts a chance to develop. His policy also offered the incoming Republicans an opportunity to work out their own plans of conciliation, should that be their intention. Avoiding any recognition of the Confederacy, he made no commitments that would seriously embarrass his successor, Lincoln, who the nation assumed would try to preserve the Union.

Meanwhile, Buchanan's Cabinet began to dissolve. Secretary of State Lewis Cass of Michigan resigned because of the president's passive policy toward the South. The Southern members—Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb, a Georgian; Secretary of War John B. Floyd, a Virginian; and Secretary of the Interior Jacob Thompson, a Mississippian—also left and were replaced by strong Unionists.

In January 1861 Buchanan sent a merchant vessel, Star of the West, to Charleston, South Carolina, with supplies for a federal fortress in the harbor, Fort Sumter. Upon arrival there, the ship was fired on by Confederate shore guns and was forced to withdraw. All the while the president eagerly waited for the expiration of his term on March 4.

As Buchanan left office, the crisis was acute. He had permitted the Confederates to occupy the federal forts, arsenals, and navy yards and to take U.S. government property within the seceded states. He did nothing because, as he later explained in his published defense, he had inadequate military forces and personnel. Some army officers and enlisted men had seceded with their states. A good number of regiments and companies were stationed on the nearly inaccessible Western frontier. Although Buchanan's policy was criticized, it was continued without change by President Lincoln until April 12, 1861, when the Confederate guns fired on Fort Sumter itself. Lincoln defined this action as an insurrection that had to be met with force.

V

Last Years

On inauguration day in March, Buchanan escorted President-elect Lincoln to the ceremonies and then accompanied him to the executive mansion, the White House. Returning to the more peaceful atmosphere of Wheatland, Buchanan told his neighbors that he had parted from Lincoln with the comment: “If you are as happy, my dear sir, on entering this house as I am in leaving it and returning home, you are the happiest man in this country.”

Buchanan was an honest, sincere man, who by hard work achieved the highest offices in the country. Unfortunately he became president at a time when extraordinary leadership was needed if the Southern states were to remain in the Union. Under more normal circumstances his qualities as a hardworking politician of compromise and accommodation would have served the country admirably.

Throughout the war the former president supported Lincoln's administration in its fight for the Union. He lived quietly at Wheatland and wrote a vigorous defense of his own administration. It was first published in 1865 under the title The Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion. Buchanan died at Wheatland on June 1, 1868.

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