Chapter 22: James Buchanan

Weed’s prediction proves right and Buchanan defeats Fremont with 120 of his 196 Electoral Votes in 1856 coming from the Slave States.

No man is better prepared to be President than Buchanan who has served in both chambers of Congress, as ambassador to Russia and the UK, and as Polk’s Secretary of State. Yet no man will match his record for failure in the office.

As his term begins, he hopes the Dred Scott ruling will end the slavery conflict, but to no avail given dissents by two Justices. He repeatedly blames the North and radical abolitionists for risking the Union, backs the fraudulent elections in Kansas, and then spends the final three years of his term trying to bully Congress into admitting Kansas under the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution, despite its sound rejection by local residents.

Ironically he signs the bill admitting Kansas as a Free State on his last day in office before reportedly saying to Lincoln “If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland (his home), you are a happy man indeed.”