James Buchanan served as president from 1857 to 1861, during one of the
most difficult periods in American history. When he took office, the
nation was already deeply divided over slavery and states’ rights.
Violence had broken out in Kansas, and debates in Congress sometimes
turned into fistfights. Supporters who see Buchanan as misunderstood
argue that he inherited a crisis that no single leader could easily
solve. They believe he tried, in his own cautious way, to keep the
Union together and avoid a bloody civil war.
Buchanan believed strongly in following the Constitution as he
understood it. He thought the federal government had limited power to
interfere with slavery in states where it already existed. In his mind,
only the Supreme Court or a new constitutional amendment could settle
the issue. When the Dred Scott decision came out during his
presidency, he accepted it as the law of the land, hoping it might calm
the debate. He also encouraged compromise plans in Congress that aimed
to give both North and South some of what they wanted, even though
none of these plans fully succeeded.
Defenders of Buchanan point out that he faced problems that had been
building for decades. They argue that by the time several Southern
states decided to secede, anger and mistrust were already too strong.
From this perspective, Buchanan was not an evil or lazy leader, but a
cautious, old-fashioned president trapped between powerful forces. His
failure to stop the Civil War, they say, shows the limits of what any
one person could do in a country that had grown so divided over
slavery and the future of the Union.
While some people try to defend James Buchanan, many historians rank
him as one of the worst—if not the worst—president in American history.
They argue that at a time when strong leadership was desperately
needed, Buchanan did very little to solve the nation’s problems. As
tensions over slavery and states’ rights grew, he often chose to wait,
hesitate, or pass responsibility to others. Instead of calming the
crisis, his actions and inaction helped push the country closer to
civil war.
Critics point to several key decisions. Buchanan openly supported the
pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution in Kansas, even though many settlers
there had voted against it. This made Northerners feel that the federal
government favored slaveholders. His acceptance of the Dred Scott
decision, which stated that African Americans could not be citizens and
that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories, made the North
even angrier. When Southern states began to secede after Abraham
Lincoln’s election, Buchanan claimed that secession was illegal—but also
insisted that the federal government had no power to stop it. To many,
this sounded like admitting the Union was breaking apart while refusing
to act.
From this point of view, Buchanan failed in the most basic duty of a
president: to protect the nation and its government. Instead of using
his office to stand firmly against secession and defend the Union, he
left the crisis for the next president to handle. In the eyes of his
harshest critics, Buchanan’s weak and confusing leadership allowed the
country to slide into a devastating war that might have been at least
partly prevented with clearer, stronger action.