James Buchanan

James Buchanan Jr. (/bjuːˈkænən/ ⓘ bew-KAN-ən; April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868) was the 15th president of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. He also served as the secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and represented Pennsylvania in both houses of the U.S. Congress. Buchanan was an advocate for states' rights, particularly regarding slavery, and minimized the role of the federal government preceding the American Civil War. Buchanan was a lawyer in Pennsylvania and won his first election to the state's House of Representatives as a Federalist. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1820 and retained that post for five terms, aligning with Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party. Buchanan served as Jackson's minister to Russia in 1832. He was elected a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania in 1834 and served for 11 years. He was appointed to serve as President James K. Polk's secretary of state in 1845, and eight years later was named as President Franklin Pierce's minister to the United Kingdom. Beginning in 1844, Buchanan became a regular contender for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. He was nominated and won the 1856 presidential election. As President, Buchanan intervened to assure the Supreme Court's majority ruling in the pro-slavery decision in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. He acceded to Southern attempts to engineer the Kansas Territory's entry into the Union as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution, and angered not only Republicans, but also Northern Democrats. Buchanan honored his pledge to serve only one term and supported his Vice President John C. Breckinridge's unsuccessful candidacy in the 1860 presidential election. He failed to reconcile the fractured Democratic Party amid the grudge against Stephen A. Douglas, leading to the election of Republican and former Congressman Abraham Lincoln.