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On the list of worst US presidents, James Buchanan often sits at the top. Most of this comes down to the fact that it was under his watch that the political fabric keeping the United States together finally ripped. It was during the final months of his presidency that it became clear that the South was going to secede, that there would likely be a civil war to keep the Union together. And his response was to do very little. Which raises the obvious question, why? Why didn't James Buchanan do more to prevent the Civil War or at the very least make it easier for the United States to fight it when it began? So Buchanan became president in 1857 and promised to do two things. Serve only one term and use said term to settle the
slavery debate forever. Shockingly, he was only successful in doing one of those things. His presidency was not a smooth one. 2 days after he became president, the Supreme Court ruled in the Dread Scott case. it under some pressure from Buchanan as president-elect ruled that Dread Scott and by extension all other slaves were still slaves even if they were taken to free states and that furthermore black Americans were never intended to be citizens anyway and Buchanan had hoped that such a wide sweeping ruling would force Americans to just accept slavery's position as settled but fun fact no so when plan A hope hoped that anti-slavery Americans just sort of forget about it didn't work Buchanan was all out of
ideas as such he continued to push for popular sovereignty whereby a new state's population could decide on whether it permitted slavery or not irrespective of previous agreements. Shockingly, not everyone agreed with this and so as a result Buchanan just sort of waited out his term and towards its end the Democratic Party of which Buchanan was a member split between pro-slavery and slightly less proslavery factions. As a result, the Republicans led by Abraham Lincoln had a good shot of winning. Buchanan was warned though that if Lincoln were to win, there would likely be a wave of secessions. So what did President Buchanan do about it?
Well, he had a very clever plan. He politely asked that the southern states don't secede, but he told them that if they were to do so, he would do nothing to stop them after Lincoln's victory. But before he took office, Buchanan was told that secessions were now imminent and that as a result, he should probably do something. He did not. This was mostly because his chosen advisers, such as loyal American patriot Jefferson Davis, told him it would be a violation of states rights to send troops. This opinion was backed up by his cabinet, many of whom were coincidentally slaveowning southerners. And collectively, they suggested that it was up to Congress to take the lead, and that it had to pass a constitutional
amendment to protect slavery and thus end the crisis. And whilst crisis was growing, many of his cabinet aided the soon-to-be Confederate states by moving guns and money down south and also spying on the president. Soon, Buchanan became aware that things were getting bad and so under a lot of pressure began to take secession seriously. He pushed for a ban on federal intervention concerning slavery. But before this could get off the ground, these states were out. Buchanan asked Lincoln to publicly express that he wasn't going to threaten slavery, but Lincoln refused. Lincoln refused to do this because one, he knew that the South wouldn't trust him, and two, that any reassurances he
gave would only anger the North, and three, he was ideologically opposed to the expansion of slavery, which many southerners and northerners saw as vital for its continued existence. And so, he didn't want to openly lie about it. With Lincoln being silent, Buchanan maintained a policy of not upsetting the South in case more states succeeded. Spoiler alert, they did. This might seem like it did nothing, but Buchanan knew that he was so unpopular, his input would only make things worse. And after the numerous conventions and congressional attempts at maintaining the union failed, he was only going to stay in office for another couple of days, at which point it was no longer his problem. I hope you enjoyed this
episode with a special thanks to my patrons James Bizernet, Sky Chappelle, Carttoka, Udwan Wang, Wyan Hockey, Anthony Beckett, Blue Cardinal, Alex Schwin, a Firefly, Spencer Lightfoot, Captain Sydog, the McWer, the Flying Deutschand, Gustav Swan, Robert C. Perkins, Shuen, Michael Halbert, Castle Bravo, Marvin Cassau, Winston Caywood, Rod D. Martin, spinning three plates, Andy McGee, Kimoon, Yun, Danny Atanasio, Murza Ahmed, Copper Tone, Maggie, Pascowski, Hy from Starv, Arthur Hosi Jr., Kitro, Remco, Hoistman, Jim Sternberg, Bet Kabot, Charles I, and Lord Beak.
