The 15th President of The United States, James Buchanan

James Buchanan: Tall, stocky and very formal in their dress, James Buchanan was the only president who never married. Chairing a nation divided rapidly, Buchanan took inadequately the political realities of the time. Relying on constitutional doctrines to close the agrandante rift over slavery, he failed to understand that the north would not accept the constitutional arguments that favored south. Nor could realize how sectionalism had realigned the political parties: the Democrats were divided; the Whigs were destroyed, leading to the Republicans. Born into a well-formed Pennsylvania family in 1791, Buchanan, a graduate of the University of Dickinson, had the gifts of good debater and very well versed in law. He was elected five times to the House of Representatives; then, after an interlude as Minister to Russia, he served for a decade in the Senate. He became Secretary of State and Minister Polk in Britain under the administracción Pierce. The service provided helped to bring the Democratic nomination for President in 1856 because it had exempted him to implicate him in bitter domestic controversies.

As president-elect, Buchanan thought that the crisis would disappear if he maintained a sectional balance in his remarks and could persuade people to accept the Constitutional Laws in the way the Supreme Court interpreted. The court considered the legality of restricting slavery in the territories, and two justices did Buchanan helped to make a decision. Thus, in his inaugural speech, President referred to the territorial question as "happily, a matter but little practical importance" since the Supreme Court was about to an agreement "quick and final. Two days later, the Head of justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Dred Scott decision, asserting that congress had no constitutional power to deprive people of their property rights over slaves in the territories. Southerners were delighted, but the decision created discomfort in the north. Buchanan decided to end the problems in Kansas driving the admission of the territory as slave state. Although he directed his presidential authority to this goal, later angered the Republicans and alienated members of his own party. Kansas remained a territory.

When Republicans won a majority in the House in 1858, each draft law approved significant fell to the votes of the southerners in the Senate or a presidential veto. The federal government remained in a stalemate. The sectional strife went so far in 1860 that the democratic party split into two wings; northern and southern, each nominating its own candidate for president. Consequently, when the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, it was a far conclusion which was elected even though his name did not appear in any southern ballot. Rather than accept a Republican administration, the southern "fire-eater" clung to secession. President Buchanan, dismayed and hesitant, denied the legal rights of states to access and maintain that the federal government could not legally prevent them. He hoped a compromise, but sectionalism leaders did not want a compromise. Then Buchanan took a more militant attitude. While several Cabinet members resigned, he appointed northerners, and sent the Star of the West to carry reinforcements to Fort Sumter. On January 9, 1861, the vessel was fired and sent away. Buchanan reverted to a policy of inactivity that continued until term in office. In March 1861, he retired to his home in a field of oats grown in Pennsylvania, where he died seven years later, leaving his successor to resolve the frightful issue facing the nation.