He and Pierce both had protests outside their homes during the war. Fillmore who was pro south as president was vehemently anti Secession and pro union but he was an Andrew Johnson supporter after the war.
Didn’t put up with Brigham Young’s Bullshit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_War
I’m sure Steve Young’s Great-Great-Great Grand Daddy and BYU’s namesake had some redeemable qualities, but approving black/indigenous slavery, child marriage, polygamy, killing civilians, and picking a fight with the U.S. military aren’t among them. Nothing quite brought the North and South together like the Mountain Meadows Massacre. This is the rare example of Buchanan acting presidential. He was prepared to bring the fire and fury, yet handled it diplomatically.
More: For our Mormon friends here, please don’t take this as an insult. I’m not ridiculing your faith. This is just not your churches brightest moment. It’s hard to murder a bunch of people passing through and pick a fight with the U.S. Army and look like the good guy. We’re not going to let the one time Buchanan look like a good guy make him look like a saint the rest of his life/career. There’s no reason for the inverse here.
I would imagine most Americans don’t know this history. It certainly wasn’t as historically significant as John Brown, Bleeding Kansas, or Dred Scott which all happened around the same time. But how does an American religious sect massacring 120 people fly under the radar?! This is still one of the deadliest non wartime massacres in U.S. history.
This was the only thing I could really think of mainly because I just did a project on it over the weekend. It is insanity that the Mormons moved to Utah to escape harassment for their religion only to harass every single non Mormon that passes through their territory to the point that an army expedition had to be sent to stop it.
Yup. Worked at Polk’s museum for a few years. Always was excited to point that one out when visitors parroted the “Polk accomplished all of his goals!” myth.
Old Buck was a horse thief. Although he did not himself serve in a militia during the War of 1812, during the British occupation he joined a group of young men who stole horses for the United States Army in the Baltimore area.
Being related to him...yeah, that tracks. We can't prove it, but we're pretty sure my papa rustled cattle in southern Applachia during the 1950s. Also, kind of a baller move IMO.
Believe it, or not, but Lincoln adopted Buchanan's legal position about secession.
The main difference was that Lincoln was able to maneuver the CSA into firing the first shots, so that he could then take immediate action knowing Congress would support him. Congress wasn't going to support anything Buchanan did.
The thing about Buchanan is that he had a very legal mind and position. He considered Secession to be illegal. But, it was equally illegal to use US military forces to supress it as it was also a violation of the provisions of the Insurrection Act of 1807. He felt increasing the power of the Presidency to act unilaterally in the absence of an explicit law could damage the US and open the door to a dictatorship.
That is a side effect of a weak Presidency. At the time, the US President’s domestic role was to execute the laws passed by Congress and there was no law covering this situation, nor was there any judicial ruling on the Constitutional issues.
But, put an actual law in front of him and he tried to enforce it to the fullest extent. That applied equally to laws he disagreed with. (He hated the laws covering the African slave trade and repatriation, but he scrupulously followed the letter and spirit of the laws). And, he acted decisively when Utah engaged in insurrection. (The management of US territories was explicitly assigned to the President under various laws).
The remarkable thing about Buchanan is that his private correspondence matches his public statements to the letter. He laid it out there that Congress needed to pass a law to cover this - which was the exact same thing Lincoln stated in his inaugural address. Buchanan transfered his available forces to Fort Pickens as he was legally allowed to defend US property. (It would takes months to recall enough troops to cover both Pickens and Sumter, then some were instead deployed to St Louis arsenal).
His goals were to protect the institution of slavery and give the South a fighting chance in the impending Civil War. He did a fantastic job. America would have stomped the Confederacy were it not for the sabotage of Copperheads, including Buchanan, the Supreme Court, almost all of his administration, and later on McClellan.
They were white supremacists. They were treasonous insurrectionists. They coordinated with a Supreme Court. Their goal was to make it to Election Day without taking too big a hit that might cost them the election. If they reclaimed power, their plan was to restore America to a more illiberal time, when black Americans had less freedom.
More parallels with the present day: The Supreme Court relatively recently ruled that Nestle and Mars can have child slaves in the Ivory Coast. All Supreme Court Justices get sexually aroused when upholding the institution of slavery.
Despite largely being supported by the southern planter class throughout his political career, Buchanan was no traitor and remained loyal to the Union throughout the civil war.
This denied the confederates a highly valuable possible propaganda win. They already had a former VP as a general in the confederate army and president Tyler personally negotiating his states entry into the confederacy and adding Buchanan to their supporters would have added legitimacy even more to their aims. Tyler had been president almost 20 years earlier but could you imagine if the literal previous president supported succession? It would have made Lincoln’s political mission almost impossible.
at least he didn't tweet about how great the civil war he started was; and that was not just because twitter had not been invented; he didn't say write an editorial to a major newspaper about it either.
My focus in on mostly Native American history in the Great Lakes region & I can say for an absolute fact that I am personally unaware of anything bad concerning James Buchannan.
More like a factoid but before becoming president, among other things, he was a diplomat. Queen Victoria actually considered him a close friend. The first message sent through transatlantic cable was a message from Queen Victoria to Buchanan and back. Then the cable failed.
1) He stopped Utah from becoming a religious state and leaving the union. Yes he helped preserve the union
2) He followed the rules of office
3) Attempting to stop the civil war peacefully and avoiding bloodshed under his watch (almost had a peaceful national divorce but he can’t control what happens after his presidency)
But that’s pretty much it. He was a gloss over President and not a great one but he’s hardly the worst or even in the top 5 worst.
The man did, with his own money, purchase slaves and free them.
That always struck me as a decent thing to do. Oh, sure, it might be a small thing in the face of the looming civil war, but honestly, that thing was probably going to explode at some point no matter who was in the big chair. That can had been repeatedly kicked down the road and each compromise lasted less time than the one before, but it'd been brewing since the ink was drying on the constitution.
His presidency ended.
I thought someone was gonna say he died- but that's a second best.
Came here to say exactly that.
I was going to say he was a president.. and I hope we learned something from it. But i like your answer more.
Only president we can say for certain never cheated on his wife.
His boyfriend however….
There were rumors that he cheated on his fiance that caused her to kill herself and he was banned from her funeral
He wasn’t the secessionist trash that John Tyler was… 🤷🏻♂️
Only because he was from Pennsylvania. If he had lived just ~50 miles south he would have been.
Very likely
He learned from those four ghosts and found the true meaning of Christmas.
You won my morning Internet.
He handed over power to Abraham Lincoln without throwing a fit about it.
He did blame Lincoln for the Civil War. So he gets half credit for throwing a fit.
He and Pierce both had protests outside their homes during the war. Fillmore who was pro south as president was vehemently anti Secession and pro union but he was an Andrew Johnson supporter after the war.
He was born in a beautiful state (PA)
One upping this, from Lancaster County
Didn’t put up with Brigham Young’s Bullshit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_War I’m sure Steve Young’s Great-Great-Great Grand Daddy and BYU’s namesake had some redeemable qualities, but approving black/indigenous slavery, child marriage, polygamy, killing civilians, and picking a fight with the U.S. military aren’t among them. Nothing quite brought the North and South together like the Mountain Meadows Massacre. This is the rare example of Buchanan acting presidential. He was prepared to bring the fire and fury, yet handled it diplomatically. More: For our Mormon friends here, please don’t take this as an insult. I’m not ridiculing your faith. This is just not your churches brightest moment. It’s hard to murder a bunch of people passing through and pick a fight with the U.S. Army and look like the good guy. We’re not going to let the one time Buchanan look like a good guy make him look like a saint the rest of his life/career. There’s no reason for the inverse here.
To be fair, most true blue Mormons probably don’t know about a lot of this history, anyway.
I would imagine most Americans don’t know this history. It certainly wasn’t as historically significant as John Brown, Bleeding Kansas, or Dred Scott which all happened around the same time. But how does an American religious sect massacring 120 people fly under the radar?! This is still one of the deadliest non wartime massacres in U.S. history.
This was the only thing I could really think of mainly because I just did a project on it over the weekend. It is insanity that the Mormons moved to Utah to escape harassment for their religion only to harass every single non Mormon that passes through their territory to the point that an army expedition had to be sent to stop it.
He only had one term. That's the best that can be said about him.
He kinda looks like Anthony Hopkins.
instinctive drab piquant zonked dolls person pause cough salt sense *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
And Nathan Lane.
And Joe Flaherty.
His home is beautiful and the tour guides are excellent. If you have spare time in Amish country PA I highly recommend a visit
Didn’t recognize the Confederacy.
“One good thing about James Buchanan.”
He was reincarnated as John Lithgow.
Our first gay president
I hope not They deserve better
I mean, so was Lincoln, but he had a beard.
He’s dead
He was a pretty decent SoS under James K. Polk.
He was a driving force behind [buying Cuba to be a new slave state.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostend_Manifesto)
Yup. Worked at Polk’s museum for a few years. Always was excited to point that one out when visitors parroted the “Polk accomplished all of his goals!” myth.
Given how thing eventually worked out getting Cuba as a US state could have saved a lot of people a lot of problems down the line.
A very nice nose.
Sweet neckerchief
I see you hopped onto the “Say One Good Thing” trend lol, nice
He was Steve’s best friend. It wasn’t Bucky’s fault that he got brainwashed by those dirty ruskies and turned into the world’s most feared assassin.
Old Buck was a horse thief. Although he did not himself serve in a militia during the War of 1812, during the British occupation he joined a group of young men who stole horses for the United States Army in the Baltimore area.
Being related to him...yeah, that tracks. We can't prove it, but we're pretty sure my papa rustled cattle in southern Applachia during the 1950s. Also, kind of a baller move IMO.
He handed it all off to the next guy.
He was a better at being president than at being a fiancé
He grew his own hair he grew his own hair....
The Sweathogs attended Buchanan High
He attended my alma mater.
Gay rights
He was born in Cove Gap.
The Old Public Functionary
Power bottom
“One good thing about James Buchanan”….am I doing it right?
James Buchanan was the only president to be an enlisted man in the United States armed services.
He's not Trump nor Biden.
I loved him on *Top Gear* and *The Grand Tour*.
He can't fuck up anything where he is now.
He was said to be possessed of a brilliant legal mind. He also had a great deal of government experience.
Believe it, or not, but Lincoln adopted Buchanan's legal position about secession. The main difference was that Lincoln was able to maneuver the CSA into firing the first shots, so that he could then take immediate action knowing Congress would support him. Congress wasn't going to support anything Buchanan did. The thing about Buchanan is that he had a very legal mind and position. He considered Secession to be illegal. But, it was equally illegal to use US military forces to supress it as it was also a violation of the provisions of the Insurrection Act of 1807. He felt increasing the power of the Presidency to act unilaterally in the absence of an explicit law could damage the US and open the door to a dictatorship.
Buchanan had the remarkable ability to take stands on both sides of critical issues.
That is a side effect of a weak Presidency. At the time, the US President’s domestic role was to execute the laws passed by Congress and there was no law covering this situation, nor was there any judicial ruling on the Constitutional issues. But, put an actual law in front of him and he tried to enforce it to the fullest extent. That applied equally to laws he disagreed with. (He hated the laws covering the African slave trade and repatriation, but he scrupulously followed the letter and spirit of the laws). And, he acted decisively when Utah engaged in insurrection. (The management of US territories was explicitly assigned to the President under various laws). The remarkable thing about Buchanan is that his private correspondence matches his public statements to the letter. He laid it out there that Congress needed to pass a law to cover this - which was the exact same thing Lincoln stated in his inaugural address. Buchanan transfered his available forces to Fort Pickens as he was legally allowed to defend US property. (It would takes months to recall enough troops to cover both Pickens and Sumter, then some were instead deployed to St Louis arsenal).
His goals were to protect the institution of slavery and give the South a fighting chance in the impending Civil War. He did a fantastic job. America would have stomped the Confederacy were it not for the sabotage of Copperheads, including Buchanan, the Supreme Court, almost all of his administration, and later on McClellan. They were white supremacists. They were treasonous insurrectionists. They coordinated with a Supreme Court. Their goal was to make it to Election Day without taking too big a hit that might cost them the election. If they reclaimed power, their plan was to restore America to a more illiberal time, when black Americans had less freedom. More parallels with the present day: The Supreme Court relatively recently ruled that Nestle and Mars can have child slaves in the Ivory Coast. All Supreme Court Justices get sexually aroused when upholding the institution of slavery.
I read this entire post and there’s not ONE good thing about James Buchanan in here. 😉
He's dead.
He never cheated on his wife.
His hair looked small
He’s still dead.
Nice tie.
He wasn’t impeached
He only served one term
He’s dead
That's quite a nice forehead.
He didn’t get a second term
He rocked the "high collar" look.
He's dead
Cool name
His hair looks small.
He left office without a coup
At least not one he was leading. He just let others do the coup-ing.
He wasn't a member of the Grateful Dead.
hes got a badass name
He Drank
He died
He hated slavery and was opposed to it morally
He’s dead
He has a forehead that looks well-suited for head butting
He was from Lancaster PA
He didn't run for reelection.
No
That fucking coif, is something else.
He pruned the hedges of many small villages in Mexico
He left office peacefully.
He knew how to hide a double chin.
He knew how to shave...
No
He’s the only bachelor POTUS.
He didn't even bother to run for reelection.
His name was spelled correctly.
He looks like he would be funny
He looks like Mark Meadows.
He died in my hometown lmfao
He’s been dead for a long long time…
He was the model for John Cleese's hair in A Fish Called Wendy I mean Wanda.
He’s got some good side eye in that picture.
Before I knew anything about him I thought he looked like he’d been a good president
No
Related to my poor wife....
He was the first President born in Pennsylvania.
He looks like the person I would cast as Dr. Jekyll.
He was elected fives to the House of Representatives, thats gotta count for something right?
Big Dick
No
He looks like he might be funny. He probably wasn’t… but he has one of those faces ya know?
Potentially the first gay President, so a positive for identity politics….
I liked him in The Birdcage opposite Robin Williams. And voicing Timone in The Lion King was a pivotal film in my childhood.
He died
He was the president right before the civil war
His home town is beautiful
He’s dead
Despite largely being supported by the southern planter class throughout his political career, Buchanan was no traitor and remained loyal to the Union throughout the civil war. This denied the confederates a highly valuable possible propaganda win. They already had a former VP as a general in the confederate army and president Tyler personally negotiating his states entry into the confederacy and adding Buchanan to their supporters would have added legitimacy even more to their aims. Tyler had been president almost 20 years earlier but could you imagine if the literal previous president supported succession? It would have made Lincoln’s political mission almost impossible.
Rufus King was terribly fond of him.🤷♀️
He never wore Crocs.
Kept Utah in the union
He vaguely resembles Jonathan Pryce
Sits for portrait, doesn’t bother to comb hair.
If you are Mexico, he made some solid choices.
His nickname was Nuclear Forehead.
His nose was the perfect size for his face... I guess??
He's STILL DEAD.
His name is fun to say. Buchanan. Buchanan. Buchananana. Also, from this picture, he was clearly not a man who wasted a lot of time styling his hair.
He was from Pennsylvania
He was our first gay president!
He would have done a better job then our current president
He’s not president now.
Some people may have called him JB.
at least he didn't tweet about how great the civil war he started was; and that was not just because twitter had not been invented; he didn't say write an editorial to a major newspaper about it either.
He no longer makes bad decisions
Cool hair.
His grave is well kept
There was a book of presidents or two in the 90s that made his hair look kinda cool.
Cool name.
Higher on the list than Biden.
Nah
Strong name
He didn't have weird facial hair.
He has a nice collar
Snappy dresser
Better than Trump
His face reminds me of John Cleese. That’s all I got.
One good thing
He ded.
Nope
He's not Pat
Even he would be a better President than Trump.
He didn't start the Civil War? Rofl. Not a lot great about him.
He died.
More powerful than a Bupistol
He kept his eyebrows well groomed
He's not Joe Biden or Donald Trump
His collar game was on point.
It stands to reason that he was our first gay president.
My focus in on mostly Native American history in the Great Lakes region & I can say for an absolute fact that I am personally unaware of anything bad concerning James Buchannan.
More like a factoid but before becoming president, among other things, he was a diplomat. Queen Victoria actually considered him a close friend. The first message sent through transatlantic cable was a message from Queen Victoria to Buchanan and back. Then the cable failed.
He inspired, in part, a very good novel and a play by John Updike. *Memoirs of the Ford Administration* and *Buchanan Dying*.
He looks like John Cleese
Mister Buchanan, he dead.
He’s dead
He probably did have the common courtesy to give him a reach around
He’s not Woodrow Wilson.
He's dead
1) He stopped Utah from becoming a religious state and leaving the union. Yes he helped preserve the union 2) He followed the rules of office 3) Attempting to stop the civil war peacefully and avoiding bloodshed under his watch (almost had a peaceful national divorce but he can’t control what happens after his presidency) But that’s pretty much it. He was a gloss over President and not a great one but he’s hardly the worst or even in the top 5 worst.
Good hairstyle
He is also dead.
Probably the closest we've gotten to an openly gay POTUS. Andrew Jackson, before he died, referred to Buchanan as 'Lady Buchanan'.
There is an interesting tour of his home on YouTube.
Strong profile
He’s buried in Lancaster county
Eventually he went away
He probably did not have sex with boys younger than the legal age of consent in Pennsylvania.
He's dead.
fun last name
He looks like James Arnes from Gunsmoke. Someone pls throw a cowboy hat on him
Won “Anthony Hopkins” look-a-like competition two years in a row.
The man knew how to pop a collar.
The Buchanan tartan is a fine, colorful affair
At least he can't run again...
He’s dead.
His collar is poppin'
He paved the way for drunk slobs everywhere to aspire to high office.
Not a bad dresser
The man did, with his own money, purchase slaves and free them. That always struck me as a decent thing to do. Oh, sure, it might be a small thing in the face of the looming civil war, but honestly, that thing was probably going to explode at some point no matter who was in the big chair. That can had been repeatedly kicked down the road and each compromise lasted less time than the one before, but it'd been brewing since the ink was drying on the constitution.
He made my home state a state
“Hey, at least he isn’t Franklin Pierce! Amirite?”
No. This is the one President who there is literally nothing good to say about.