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President James Buchanan Inaugural Address, March 4, 1857 John Bassett Moore, ed., The Works of James Buchanan Comprising his Speeches, State Papers, and Private Correspondence (New York: Antiquarian Press, 1960), 10:105–13. In terms of experience at the federal level and in foreign policy, perhaps no person arrived better prepared for the presidency than James Buchanan. On one hand a talented attorney, Buchanan had served in the Pennsylvania state house, in Congress, and as a senator . President Andrew Jackson appointed him United States Minister to Russia, and later President Franklin Pierce named him Minister to the United Kingdom. Additionally, Buchanan served in President James K. Polk’s cabinet as secretary of state. In 1856, the Democratic Party nominated him for the presidency; he won the general election against Know-Nothing Party candidate Millard Fillmore and the new Republican Party, led by General John C. Frémont. Nevertheless, on the other hand, Buchanan’s legacy is one of a failed presidency. Historians often list Buchanan as the worst president in the history of the United States because of his actions (and mostly inaction) during the election of 1860 and the secession winter of 1860–1861. His reputation as a “doughface”— a northern man with southern sympathies, whom southerners could push and pull into any position they wished—hurt his effectiveness at the time and also his reputation since. Buchanan did not help himself or his administration when, in his inaugural, he spoke positively about the situation in “Bleeding Kansas.” He supported the idea that popular sovereignty was working in settling the toughest political question before the country —the expansion of slavery into the western federal territories— when many in the country believed popular sovereignty to be a proslavery expansionist policy. Buchanan then dismissed the issue, claiming that the question of slavery’s expansion was a judicial one that would be decided by the federal courts. As he stated, “This is, happily, a matter of but little practical importance. Besides, it Documentary History of the American Civil War Era 194 is a judicial question, which legitimately belongs to the Supreme Court of the United States, before whom it is now pending, and will, it is understood, be speedily and finally settled. To their decision , in common with all good citizens, I shall cheerfully submit, whatever this may be . . .” Unbeknownst to the rest of the country , Buchanan and the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney, had been in discussion about a pending Court decision. Taney had told Buchanan that the Supreme Court’s ruling would remove the slavery issue from the national political discussion. When the Court handed down their decision in the case, Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), not only did the slavery issue not cease in United States politics, the decision increased the growing political crisis. Dred Scott became a litmus test for all politicians on whether or not to support the Supreme Court’s controversial and flawed decision, as seen in the famous 1858 Illinois senate debates between Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas and his Republican Party opponent, Abraham Lincoln. Buchanan’s inaugural cemented in the minds of many in the North and Midwest the existence of a southern “Slave Power Conspiracy,” backed by northern doughfaces, that sought to expand the institution of slavery into the federal territories at all costs. Buchanan’s inappropriate conversations with Taney and his imprudent statements in his inaugural, together with a sharp economic recession that started in 1857, hurt his presidency; Buchanan’s handling of the crisis of the Union from the general election of 1860 to March 4, 1861, sealed his poor reputation at the time, and since. fellow-citizens: I appear before you this day to take the solemn oath “that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” In entering upon this great office I must humbly invoke the God of our fathers for wisdom and firmness to execute its high and responsible duties in such a manner as to restore harmony and ancient friendship among the people of the several States and to preserve our free institutions throughout many generations. Convinced that I owe my election to the inherent love for the Constitution and the Union which still animates the hearts of the American people, let me earnestly ask their powerful support in sustaining all just measures calculated to perpetuate these, the...

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