BUCHANAN, JAMES (1791-1868), fifteenth president of the United States, was born near Foltz, Franklin county, Pa., on April 23, 1791. Both parents were of Scottish-Irish Presbyterian descent. He graduated at Dickinson college, Carlisle, Pa., in 1809 and studied law at Lancaster for two years. He was admitted to the bar in 1812 and served in the lower house of the State legis lature, 1814-16. From 1821 to 1831 he was a representative in Congress where as chairman of the judiciary committee he con ducted the impeachment trial (183o) of Judge James H. Peck, led an unsuccessful movement to increase the number of Supreme Court judges and to relieve them of their circuit duties, and suc ceeded in defeating an attempt to repeal the 25th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which gave the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction by writ of error to the State courts in cases where Federal laws and treaties were in question. After the dissolution of the Federalist Party, of which he had been a member, he came to be definitely associated with the Democrats. He represented the United States at the court of St. Petersburg from 1832 to 1833 and there negotiated an important commercial treaty. He was a Democratic member of the U.S. Senate from Dec. 1834 until March 1845, ardently supporting President Jackson, and was secretary of State in the cabinet of President Polk from 1845 to 1849—a period marked by the annexation of Texas, the Mexican War and negotiations with Great Britain relative to the Oregon question. After four years of retirement, following his failure to secure the Democratic nomination for president, he was ap pointed by President Pierce minister to Great Britain in 1853. By this time Buchanan had changed his attitude of 1819 on the slavery question. He felt that the institution was morally wrong, but held that Congress could not interfere with it in the States in which it existed, and ought not to hinder the natural tendency toward territorial expansion through a fear that the evil would spread. He voted for the bill to exclude anti-slavery literature from the mails and for the Compromise of 185o and disapproved of the Wilmot Proviso. Fortunately for his career he was abroad during the Kansas-Nebraska debates, hence did not share in the unpopularity which attached to Stephen A. Douglas as the author of the bill and to President Pierce as the executive who was called upon to enforce it. At the same time, by joining with J. Y. Mason and Pierre Soule in issuing the Ostend Manifesto in 1854, he re tained the good will of the South. This "manifesto" which was bitterly attacked in the North, was agreed upon (Oct. 18, 1854) by the three ministers after several meetings at Ostend and at Aix-la-Chapelle, arranged in pursuance of instructions to them from President Pierce to "compare opinions, and to adopt meas ures for perfect concert of action in aid of the negotiations at Madrid" on the subject of reparations demanded from Spain by the United States for alleged injuries to American commerce with Cuba. In the manifesto the three ministers asserted that "from the peculiarity of its geographical position, and the considerations attendant upon it, Cuba is as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present members" ; spoke of the danger to the United States of an insurrection in Cuba; asserted that "we should be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant fore fathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Af ricanized" ; and recommended that "the United States ought, if practicable, to purchase Cuba as soon as possible." The most startling declaration of the manifesto was that if Spain should refuse to sell "af ter we shall have offered a price for Cuba far beyond its present value," and if Cuba, in the possession of Spain, should seriously endanger "our internal peace and the existence of our cherished Union," then "by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we have the power." On his return from England in 1856 he was nominated by the Democrats as a compromise candidate for president and was elected, receiving 174 electoral votes to 114 for J. C. Fremont, Re publican, and 8 for Millard Fillmore, American or "Know-Noth ing." Buchanan's character, the breadth of his legal knowledge, and his experience as congressman, cabinet member and diplomat, would have made him an excellent president in ordinary times; but he lacked the soundness of judgment, the self-reliance and the moral courage needed to face the slavery crisis. His idea of sav ing the Union was to prevent Northern agitation and to enforce the fugitive slave law. At the beginning of his administration he appointed Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, Territorial governor of Kansas, and Frederick P. Stanton, of Tennessee, secretary, and assured them of his determination to adhere to the popular sovereignty principle, but soon began to use his influence to force the admission of Kansas into the Union under the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution, contrary to the wishes of the majority of the settlers. Stanton was removed from office for opposing the scheme, and Walker resigned in disgust. This change of policy was doubtless the result of timidity and his inability to realize the strength and determination .of the Abolitionists; after every slavery crisis he considered the issue settled. Under the influence of Howell Cobb of Georgia, secretary of the Treasury, and Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, secretary of the interior, the president was convinced that his action was the only way to avoid civil war. Federal patronage was freely used to advance the Lecompton measure and the compromise English bill, and to prevent Douglas's election to the Senate in 1858. Some of these facts were brought out in the famous but partisan and possibly unconstitutional Covode investigation conducted by a committee of the House of Representatives in 186o.
The call issued by the South Carolina legislature just after the election of Lincoln for a State convention to decide upon the advisability of secession brought forward the most serious matter in Buchanan's administration. The part of his annual message of Dec. 4, 186o, dealing with it, argued that a State had no legal right to secede, but denied that the Federal Government had any power forcibly to prevent it. At the same time it was the duty of the president to call out the army and navy of the United States to protect Federal property and to enforce Federal laws. Soon after the secession movement began the Southern members of the cabinet resigned, and the president gradually came under the influence of Black, Stanton, Dix and other Northern leaders but continued to work for a peaceful settlement, supporting the Crittenden Com promise and the work of the Peace Congress. He disapproved of Major Anderson's removal of his troops from Ft. Moultrie to Ft. Sumter in Dec. 186o, though the removal itself probably was not in violation of a pledge given by the president to preserve the status quo in Charleston harbour until the arrival of the South Carolina commissioners in Washington. The assertion that the president was prevented from ordering Anderson back to Ft. Moultrie only by the threat of four members of the cabinet to resign was unfounded.
On the expiration of his term of office (March 4, 1861) Bu chanan retired to his home at Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pa., where he actively supported the Union until his death on June 1, 1868. His mistakes as president have been so emphasized as to obscure the fact that he was a man of unimpeachable honesty, of the highest patriotism and of considerable ability.