4/23【历史上的今天】历史上那些不怎么出色的总统 -James Buchanan

美国历史上的今天

James Buchanan

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When: April 23, 1791

What: The 15th President James Buchanan was born on this day in 1791. Buchanan is remembered mostly for his administration’s corruption and his failure to solve the country’s crisis over slavery.

Why significant: The son of wealthy Scottish and Irish immigrant parents, Buchanan became a successful lawyer and entered politics with his election to the Pennsylvania state legislature as a Federalist in 1814. When the Federalist Party later collapsed, he joined Andrew Jackson’s Democratic Party and was elected to Congress in 1820. He served five terms in the House of Representatives until 1831, served as President Jackson’s minister to Russia in 1832 and returned to the U.S. to win a Senate seat in 1833. Buchanan also served as James Polk’s secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and as Franklin Pierce’s minister to Great Britain from 1853 to 1855 before running for the presidency. His overseas duties enabled him to avoid becoming embroiled in the domestic conflict over slavery. That isolation, which ended when he was elected president in 1856, contributed to the failure of his administration.

Buchanan’s ignorance of slavery’s divisive role in American domestic politics became apparent soon after he entered the White House. He actively pressured the Supreme Court to rule in the 1857 Dred Scott case that Congress had no right to outlaw slavery, mistakenly believing that Americans would take the court’s decision as the final word and the debate would end. In addition, Buchanan’s expansionist foreign policy, his mishandling of the 1857 economic depression and his failure to curb rampant corruption within his administration revealed him to be inept and out of touch. His passivity toward southern states who threatened to leave the union alienated half of his own Democratic Party and allowed a united Republican Party under Abraham Lincoln to win the presidential election of 1860.

After serving one disastrous term, Buchanan retired in 1861. In 1866, he published his memoirs, in which he blamed abolitionists for causing the civil war.

Tags: slavery, civil war, President James Buchanan