The life of James Buchanan
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The struggle over slavery continued with increasing fury throughout Buchanan's Administration. He tried to unite Democrats from the North and the South by balancing his appointments to public office. But many persons felt that he favored the Southerners. At White House social functions, Southerners often outnumbered Northerners.
Buchanan's support of the Dred Scott Decision seemed further to hint at Southern favoritism (announced on March 6, 1857, denied U.S. citizenship rights to all blacks and stated that Congress could not prohibit slavery.) Scott claimed that his residence in a "free" state made him a free man. The Court—comprised of five Southerners saw matters otherwise. They claimed that the Constitution did not recognize slaves as citizens of the United States, and they thus had "no rights which any white man was bound to respect," including the right to sue for their freedom in a federal court. A slave, they claimed, was property and nothing more, with no more rights than a horse or a chair. As property, their ownership was protected and guaranteed by the Constitution. Since Scott had been a slave in Missouri, his escape to Illinois could not affect his status as a slave. And Illinois could not emancipate him because no state could deprive a slaveholder of property without violating "due process of law," and therefore violating the Constitution. Thus the Court refused to hear Scott's case. It then stated its non-binding opinion that the Missouri Compromise had been unconstitutional and that slavery could not be banned in the new territories or new states. The Court's decision on this case was influenced by Buchanan, who wrote letters to directly lobby and influence the outcome. The court tipped Buchanan off that it was about to decide in favor of the South, and Buchanan in turn put a clause in his inaugural address declaring that the Supreme Court was about to decide, and urging "all good citizens" to obey the ruling that was to come. Thus Buchanan would be implicated in the decision, and would be vilified by those opposed to it.
Reaction ran swift and loud. Abolitionists, who had come to view the fight against slavery as a holy war, were enraged and vowed to disobey the Dred Scott decision; they claimed that their cause was God's and therefore above man's laws. Most Southerners, of course, were considerably happier, viewing the ruling as a vindication of their way of life. The national controversy was bitter and divisive, yet another rung on the ladder to civil war. For a new president like Buchanan, it made for a difficult start. To cool matters, he tried to appoint moderates to his cabinet and avoided sectional extremists with antagonistic agendas on either side of the issue. The cabinet, however, contained four Southern slaveowners who, as a body, sided repeatedly with the South, thus further upsetting abolitionists. As a result, antislavery Democrats left Buchanan's party in droves. America had become a nation with an utterly divided political system: (1) the Republicans, exclusively Northern and antislavery; (2) the Democrats, essentially comprised of Southerners who defended slavery and states' rights; and (3) "doughfaces" in the North who did not want to break up the Union in order to advance the cause of freedom for slaves.
Bleeding Kansas" had become the focal point for the slavery crisis. The Kansas-Nebraska Act signed three years before Buchanan came to power allowed Kansans to decide by election whether to be a free or slave state. Chaos had ensued, as Missouri "border ruffians" crossed into Kansas to vote for a proslavery territorial government in 1855. "Free-Soilers" opposed to slavery subsequently formed their own government and boycotted a call for a constitutional convention for the new state, which the proslavery forces then dominated. Buchanan, eager to retain the support of proslavery Democrats, endorsed this proslavery constitution—known as the Lecompton Constitution, although the document had been supported by only a minority of whites in Kansas. Even Buchanan's own territorial governor urged him not to accept these results. Instead, Buchanan sent a message to Congress urging acceptance of Kansas as a slave state.In Congress, Senator Stephen Douglas boldly challenged Buchanan's endorsement of the Lecompton plan, and derailed it. He claimed that it was a fraud, passed by only a small minority of the voters in Kansas, and therefore violated the principle of "popular sovereignty." Nevertheless, Buchanan prevailed over Douglas in the Senate. In the House, a prolonged debate led to a compromise solution: the Constitution would be returned to Kansas for another vote. A new election was held in Kansas for a constitutional convention. This new convention soundly rejected slavery and set the stage for Kansas statehood as a free state in June of 1861.The troubled course necessary to resolve the Kansas situation greatly compromised the Buchanan administration's credibility. To some it smacked of tampering, reversing the will of the people; to others, Buchanan simply looked inept. In addition, the economy had sunk into recession the year before. The elections in the middle of the president's term were a disaster for his party: Republicans won control of Congress. Stephen Douglas proved to be a continual thorn in Buchanan's side, undermining both his domestic and foreign policy agendas.
The American South proved as good as its word. Buchanan had promised in his inaugural to serve just one term, and with all the national turmoil over slavery, support for him to serve another ran scarce. No one in the party asked him to rescind his pledge. Southern Democrats demanded a Southerner head the party ticket, and Buchanan acquiesced and did not seek renomination. At Charleston, the Democratic convention did rely on Buchanan's allies to deny Stephen Douglas the nomination. The convention foundered on the slavery issue, however, and could not agree on a platform or a nominee. The Northerners later nominated Douglas, while Southerners bolted from the party and nominated Vice President Breckenridge as their presidential nominee. With the Democrats divided, the 1860 presidential election went to Abraham Lincoln. Six weeks after Lincoln's victory, South Carolina left the Union. Within a month, five other states of the Lower South had joined them.
Buchanan, ever conciliatory, tried yet another compromise strategy to keep the Union whole, but the time for such measures had long passed. The outgoing president seemed at a loss to take any action against the South, which only emboldened the new Confederacy. All Southerners in his cabinet resigned. Secretary of state Lewis Cass quit too, disgusted with Buchanan's inaction in the crisis. The president did little, fearful of provoking the South. While his inaction averted war for the time being, it also gave the South free reign to set up a government and military without worries of federal retribution. Buchanan seemed eager to get out of the White House before the real disasters ensued.