James Buchanan, the fifteenth president, was never married. Some claim he was gay. As he is usually listed as the worst President America has ever had, one understands why the gay community does not claim him.

Engaged in 1819 to Ann Caroline Coleman, the daughter of
a wealthy iron manufacturing businessman, Buchanan spent
little time with her, which gave rise to all sorts of rumours.

Ann broke the engagement and died soon after, her physician, Doctor Chapman, stating this is; “the first instance he ever knew of hysteria producing death”.

The Coleman family denied Buchanan a place at Ann’s funeral. He vowed he would never marry. He never did.

For 15 years prior to his Presidency, he lived in Washington, D.C., with Alabama Senator William Rufus King.

Buchanan and King’s close relationship prompted Andrew Jackson to refer to King as “Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy”, while others spoke of them as “Buchanan and his wife“.

Most of their correspondence was destroyed on their deaths, though a few letters survive. Considering the length and intimacy….?

When Buchanan, a Democrat, became President in 1857, the Republicans had a plurality in the House. Every significant bill they passed fell before Southern votes in the Senate or was discarded by Presidential veto.

The Federal Government was at a dead stop. Hostility between Republicans and Southern Democrats prevailed on the floor of Congress. Sectional strife caused the Democratic Party to split in 1860. Buchanan played little part, as he was not a candidate for reelection.

The southern wing of the Democratic Party nominated incumbent Vice President John C. Breckinridge, whom Buchanan refused to support, the remainder of the party finally nominated Buchanan’s archenemy, Stephen Douglas.

When the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, it was a foregone conclusion that he would be elected even though his name appeared on the ballot only in the free states, Delaware, and a handful of other border states.

So what did President Buchanan do that not only split his own party, caused the Southern states to succeed from the Union, and result in the Civil War?

Firstly, he was a ‘doughface’ a Northerner with Southern sympathies.

Secondly, he was corrupt.

Two days after his inauguration, Chief Justice Taney delivered the Dred Scott Decision, asserting that Congress had no constitutional power to exclude slavery in the territories.

Northerners recalled Taney whispering to Buchanan during the inauguration. Further, Buchanan had personally asked Justice Robert Cooper Grier to vote with the majority to uphold the right of slave owners.

No less than Abraham Lincoln denounced Buchanan as an accomplice of the Slave Power and part of a conspiracy of slave owners to seize control of the federal government and nationalise slavery.

So pro slavery was Buchanan that he offered bribes to those in Kansas to vote to enter the Union as a slave state.

In his third annual message Buchanan claimed slaves were “treated with kindness and humanity…. Both the philanthropy and the self-interest of the master have combined to produce this humane result“

(I am NOT making this up.)

The Panic of 1857 saw the Government facing a shortfall of revenue. Then there was the Utah War.

Having received false reports that Governor Brigham Young of the Mormons was planning a revolt, Buchanan sent in the Calvary. Young called up a militia of several thousand men.

Providentially, the early onset of winter forced the Army to camp in present-day Wyoming, allowing for negotiations between the Territory and the federal government.

The failure of Buchanan to verify the reports of rebellion before acting led to widespread condemnation from Congress and the press, who labeled the war “Buchanan’s Blunder”.

Before Buchanan left office, all arsenals and forts in the seceded states were lost (except Fort Sumter and two lesser outposts), and a fourth of all federal soldiers surrendered to Texas troops.

On January 5, Buchanan sent a civilian steamer, Star of the West, to carry reinforcements and supplies to Fort Sumter.

On January 9, 1861, South Carolina state batteries opened fire on the Star of the West, which returned to New York.

On Buchanan’s final day as president, he remarked to the incoming Lincoln, “If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man.”

Rankings of United States Presidents by scholars consider presidential achievements, leadership qualities, failures and faults (such as corruption), consistently place Buchanan in the first or second position rivaled only by Andrew Johnson as the Worst President.