The decision gave slaveholders the right to transport their human property wherever they wanted, declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional because Congress had no power to regulate slavery in the territories, and blocked any person of African descent from ever attaining citizenship. Only two days after he took office, the Supreme Court delivered the Dred Scott decision, which Buchanan favored and possibly influenced. In his inaugural address, Buchanan called the question of slavery in the territories "happily, a matter of but little practical importance." Still hoping for compromise, he appointed a Cabinet representing all parts of the country. President Buchanan held tightly to his conviction that although slavery might be morally wrong, the Federal Government lacked the right to interfere with States’ rights. In many places, Buchanan supporters formed "Wheatland Clubs" to promote his election. Wheatland became the symbol of Buchanan’s "front porch" presidential campaign. Buchanan made three unsuccessful bids for the presidency, but in 1856, his absence from the country during the turmoil over the Kansas-Nebraska Act and his reputation as a compromiser made him a more acceptable Democratic candidate than either Franklin Pierce or Stephen A. He became President Polk's secretary of state and President Pierce's minister to Great Britain. After an interlude as minister to Russia, he served for a decade in the United States Senate. After serving briefly in the military during the War of 1812, he served two years in the Pennsylvania legislature after his election in 1814.Įlected five times to the United States House of Representatives, Buchanan was a gifted debater and well versed in the law.
Establishing a very successful legal practice, he soon became involved in politics.
He died there in 1868 and lies buried in the local Woodward Hill Cemetery.īorn in 1791 near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania and educated at Dickinson College, Buchanan studied law and passed the bar in Lancaster, which would be his home for the rest of his life. He returned to Wheatland at the end of his term of office. Buchanan, who thought secession was unconstitutional but that the government had no authority to stop it, could only watch as the Union splintered. His term began with the divisive Dred Scott decision and ended with southern States seceding from the Union after the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln in November 1860. A Unionist and moderate Democrat, Buchanan won the presidential election in 1856, because voters held the futile hope that he could calm the bitter disputes between the North and South about slavery. James Buchanan, 15th president of the United States, purchased this large Federal style house and its 22 acres of land near Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1848.
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