III.

Political and Diplomatic Career

A.

State and Federal Legislator

Buchanan held his first public office at the age of 23, when he was elected to the Pennsylvania state legislature. He also served as a volunteer in the defense of Baltimore, Maryland, against the British during the War of 1812.

In 1818 Buchanan ran as a Federalist Party candidate for U.S. congressman. He was defeated in his first attempt, but two years later he won the election. When the Federalist Party disintegrated in the 1820s, Buchanan became a supporter of General Andrew Jackson and a leader in the political faction that became the Democratic Party. Relations between the two men became strained, however, during the election of 1824. Jackson received the most popular votes in the presidential election that year, but, because no candidate got a majority, the election was decided by the House of Representatives. House supporters of candidate Henry Clay shifted their votes to John Quincy Adams, which gave Adams enough votes to defeat Jackson. Later, Jackson charged that Clay had entered into a “corrupt bargain” with Adams and that Buchanan had been involved in it.

B.

Diplomat to Russia

Buchanan was such an efficient organizer of the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania that the grievance against him was soon forgotten. After ten years in the House of Representatives, Buchanan planned to retire from politics, but Jackson, who had been elected president in 1828, persuaded him to accept the post of U.S. diplomatic representative to Russia in 1831. Buchanan served at Saint Petersburg (then the Russian capital) from 1832 to 1833. During that time he negotiated a valuable commercial treaty with Russia.

C.

United States Senator

After returning to the United States in 1833, Buchanan was elected to the U.S. Senate (the upper chamber of the Congress of the United States) by the Pennsylvania legislature. He told the legislators that it was “the only public position I desire to occupy.” He became a leading spokesman for the Democratic Party in the Senate and consistently supported the policies of Jackson and, later, of President Martin Van Buren. Van Buren offered him an appointment as U.S. attorney general in 1839, but Buchanan refused. Instead he remained in the Senate where, after 1841, he opposed the Whig Party administrations of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler.

At this time, Buchanan took his stand on slavery, the most controversial issue of the day. He maintained that slavery was morally wrong, but he also believed that the federal government had an obligation to protect it in the Southern states where it already existed. In this view he differed from the abolitionists, who demanded an end to slavery and whom he despised as fanatics. Buchanan tolerated the existence of slavery on the grounds that the Constitution of the United States permitted it. Therefore, he argued, it was the duty of the federal government to protect the institution of slavery wherever it existed in the country.

D.

Secretary of State

In the election year of 1844, Buchanan hoped to receive the Democratic nomination for president. He was disappointed when James Knox Polk was nominated instead, but he supported Polk in his successful campaign. After taking office, Polk appointed Buchanan as secretary of state. Buchanan had been reelected to the Senate, but he resigned to accept the new post in 1845. Buchanan made significant contributions to U.S. foreign affairs, particularly with regard to two major problems facing the country: the Oregon boundary claim and the dispute with Mexico over Texas.

D.1.

Oregon Boundary Claim

An agreement between the United States and Britain, the Convention of 1818, had provided for joint occupation of the Oregon country. Within a few years, however, many Americans began to demand that the U.S. government claim all of the territory north to the latitude of 54º40', even if it meant war with Britain. One of Polk's most effective campaign slogans had been “54-40 or fight!” Buchanan showed diplomatic skill in negotiating a compromise treaty that gave the United States most of the territory south of 49º north latitude.

D.2.

Texas Question

In the dispute with Mexico, Buchanan carried out the president's orders that the U.S. envoy to Mexico take a firm stand. Buchanan wrote the instructions for the envoy, John Slidell. Slidell was instructed to insist that Mexico recognize the annexation of its former province, Texas, and that it pay certain long-standing claims of United States citizens. As payment for the claims, Slidell was told to press for the Mexican territory lying between Texas and the Pacific Ocean. The American demands were not met, and soon afterward the Mexican War broke out in 1846.

D.3.

Cuba

While secretary of state, Buchanan also tried to further one of his favorite projects, the purchase of Cuba from Spain. Spain turned down his offer of $120 million. However, for the remainder of his public career, Buchanan continued to urge that the United States acquire Cuba.

E.

Diplomatic Representative to Britain

When Polk's administration ended, Buchanan retired to his home at Wheatland, a country mansion outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He worked unsparingly to win the presidential nomination in 1852 and was the leading contender at the Democratic national convention that year. But the weary, deadlocked delegates nominated Franklin Pierce for president on the 49th ballot. In 1853 President Pierce appointed Buchanan as U.S. envoy to Britain.

The following year Secretary of State William L. Marcy instructed Buchanan to meet with the envoy to Spain, Pierre Soulé, and the envoy to France, John Y. Mason. The envoys met at Ostend (Oostende), Belgium, and later at Aachen, Germany, and exchanged views on the best way to convince Spain to sell Cuba to the United States. They drafted their recommendations in a diplomatic dispatch that became known as the Ostend Manifesto. It declared that if Spain refused to sell Cuba, “then, by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we possess the power.” Word of the Ostend Manifesto reached the American press and became an effective campaign document against the Democratic Party. It was an explosive issue because Cuba, if it became a U.S. possession, would presumably be admitted to the Union as a slave state.

F.

Election of 1856

Buchanan returned from his diplomatic post in London to take part in the Democratic national convention of 1856. His political strength was formidable. He had become well known because of the many high offices he had held. Because he had been abroad, Buchanan had not been involved in the dispute over the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which opened new territories in the West to slavery. Other leading Democrats, especially Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, were no longer considered potential presidential candidates because they had supported the act. Buchanan had the full backing of his home state, Pennsylvania, then the second largest state in the Union. Moreover, his record of compromise on the slavery issue made him acceptable to the South.

Aided by the strong and skillful support of his Southern backers, Buchanan gained the Democratic nomination. He campaigned on a conservative platform, stressing his belief that Congress should not interfere with slavery in the territories. His major opponent was John C. Frémont, the first presidential candidate of the newly organized Republican Party. Frémont campaigned on the principle that Congress should prohibit slavery in the territories. A third candidate was Millard Fillmore, a former president and now the candidate of the American Party.

Although the combined popular vote of his two opponents was greater than his own, Buchanan won the election. He polled 174 electoral and 1,832,955 popular votes, compared to 114 electoral and 1,339,932 popular votes for Frémont and 8 electoral and 871,731 popular votes for Fillmore. Buchanan owed his election to the support he received from the South and from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois, and California. John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky became Buchanan's vice president.