Worst Presidents: James Buchanan (1857-1861)
A Pennsylvania-born Democrat, deeply devout in his faith and the only bachelor elected to the presidency, Buchanan rejected slavery as an indefensible evil but, like the majority of his party, refused to challenge the constitutionally established order.
Even before he became president, he supported the various compromises that made it possible for slavery to spread into the western territories acquired by the Lousiana Purchase and the Mexican War. (Particularly hurtful to the cause of restraining slavery's spread was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, for example, allowed settlers to determine the status of slavery in their proposed state constitutions.)
In his inaugural address, the 15th president tacitly encouraged the Supreme Court's forthcoming Dred Scott decision, which ruled that Congress had no power to keep slavery out of the territories.
More damaging to his name, though, was his weak acquiescence before the secessionist tide—an unwillingness to challenge those states that declared their intention to withdraw from the Union after Lincoln's election. Sitting on his hands as the situation spiraled out of control, Buchanan believed that the Constitution gave him no power to act against would-be seceders.
To his dying day, he felt that history would treat him favorably for having performed his constitutional duty. He was wrong.
Reader Comments
just a kid
i am a kid doing research over him and by my research isnt making him sound to bad... at the begining. the more i look the worse he sounds. i thought that he wouldnt be that interesting. man, was i wrong. theonly president to never marry some body. i thought that was pretty sad. i think they were correct to rank him worst.
Worst US President.
James Buchanan is a good choice for worst US president ever. He was inept during the days before the Civil war. The Constitution is silent on the right to suceed. However: The outcome of the Civil War answered that question.
I would add Johnson for getting us in the Vietnam War. He deserves to be on this list. I would also add President Obama. He is going to bankrupt our nation. He was not ready. I wish he would have did something in the senate and ran 8 years later. He would have learned how to govern.
US Constitution
Buchanan acted as he did in the last months of his administration because he sincerely believed that there was nothing in the US Constitution to prevent a state from seceding from the Union. Read the Federalist Papers! Madison did not believe the Constitution prevented secession either!
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