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James Buchanan (1791-1868)
James Buchanan was born in a log cabin in Pennsylvania and graduated Dickinson College in 1809. He apprenticed with a lawyer in Lancaster and opened his own practice after he was admitted to the bar in 1812. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1820, he later joined Andrew Jackson in organizing the Democratic Party and was rewarded with the position of Ambassador to Russia in 1832.
Buchanan was elected to the Senate in 1836. He served for eight years before President James K. Polk selected him as Secretary of State in 1845. He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1848 and 1852, when Franklin Pierce was selected as the Democratic nominee. After serving as Pierce’s Ambassador to Great Britain, Buchanan wrested the Democratic nomination from him in 1856. He won 174 of 296 electoral votes in a three-way race to become president in 1857. A supporter of slavery, he helped Chief Justice Taney gain support for his opinion in Scott v. Sanford and ended his presidency by refusing to intervene in the secession of seven southern states.
State of the Union Address (1860)
In the 19th century, it was customary for presidents to give their State of the Union Address in December, at the beginning of the congressional session. When this time came, the election of Lincoln was certain, and several states had already called secession conventions, though none had yet seceded. Buchanan argued that the Constitution has no provision for secession, and therefore it is not a choice that states could make. However, he admitted that he had no power to take military action to stop their secession without the authorization of Congress, something he knew that he could never obtain.
Buchanan’s support for the southern states is clearly conveyed by his admonition that the slavery question can be settled peacefully if the northern states accepted the Supreme Court’s decision in Scott v. Sanford. He urged states to comply with the Fugitive Slave Act, which required them to return all runaway slaves to their owners. He suggested that if incoming President Lincoln was unwilling to enforce this law, the southern states would be justified in leaving the Union.
Throughout the year since our last meeting the country has been eminently prosperous in all its material interests. The general health has been excellent, our harvests have been abundant, and plenty smiles throughout the laud. Our commerce and manufactures have been prosecuted with energy and industry, and have yielded fair and ample returns. In short, no nation in the tide of time has ever presented a spectacle of greater material prosperity than we have done until within a very recent period.
Why is it, then, that discontent now so extensively prevails, and the Union of the States, which is the source of all these blessings, is threatened with destruction?
The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Sou