Buchanan and the Slavery Question His next attempt to pacify the South was his efforts to win acceptance for the Dred Scott Decision as a final settlement of the slavery question. This also was a failure, for the whole North, even to Stephen A. Douglas, refused to agree with Chief Justice Roger B. Taney and the majority of the Supreme Court.
These questions were serious, and Buchanan's handling of them failed to satisfy the North. But they were insignificant when compared with the crisis of 1860, between the election and the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, as a Republican President on a platform opposed to slavery extension. President Buchanan's efforts to please both sides were even more pitiable at this time than before.
He declared on the one hand that a state had no right to with draw from the Union; but in the same message to Congress he said that there was no way to prevent a state from seceding if it wanted to, for the consti tution did not give the national government the right to make war on a state. His acts were as contradictory as his words.
At first he did nothing to uphold the Union. He had followed for so long the dictates of the South ern leaders that he lacked the courage to oppose them in this critical time. After the resigna tion of the Southern members of his cabinet, he was induced to send a steamship to Charleston, S.C., with supplies for Major Anderson at Fort Sumter. But the expedition was not allowed to land, and Buchanan made no other attempt to relieve the fort—leaving it to Lincoln, the incoming President, to manage the situation. War supplies were allowed unchecked to fall into the hands of the seceding states.
Buchanan blamed the Repub licans of the North for the war, because they refused to abide by the Dred Scott Decision and to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. Also, he was anxious that it could not be said that war between the states had been started by a Democratic President.
Buchanan's policy was generally condemned in the North, and he was called "the most perfect imbecile that ever held office." It is no wonder that he said to Lincoln on March 4, 1861, "If you are as happy to come into the White House as I am to leave it, this is certainly the happiest day of your life." This was the end of Buchanan's public career. He retired to his farm near Lancaster, Pa., where he died seven years later. He is the only President who lived and died unmarried. His last years were spent in trying to justify his actions while president, the books embodying his defense bearing the title, Mr.
Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of the Rebel lion'. Though he upheld Lincoln and claimed that the war had been forced on the North by South Carolina and the Secessionists, he still maintained that as President he could not have acted otherwise than he did. No one today approves of the charge that Bu chanan was " a traitor to his coun try," which was made before he retired from office; nevertheless he is still regarded as probably the least successful president that the country has ever had.