Book Description
A provocative reconsideration of a presidency on the brink of Civil War

Almost no president was as well trained and well prepared for the office as James Buchanan. He had served in the Pennsylvania state legislature, the U.S. House, and the U.S. Senate; he was Secretary of State and was even offered a seat on the Supreme Court. And yet, by every measure except his own, James Buchanan was a miserable failure as president, leaving office in disgrace. Virtually all of his intentions were thwarted by his own inability to compromise: he had been unable to resolve issues of slavery, caused his party to split-thereby ensuring the election of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln-and made the Civil War all but inevitable.
Historian Jean H. Baker explains that we have rightly placed Buchanan at the end of the presidential rankings, but his poor presidency should not be an excuse to forget him. To study Buchanan is to consider the implications of weak leadership in a time of national crisis. Elegantly written, Baker's volume offers a balanced look at a crucial moment in our nation's history and explores a man who, when given the opportunity, failed to rise to the challenge.


About the Author
Jean H. Baker is a professor of history at Goucher College. She is the author of several books, including The Stevensons and Mary Todd Lincoln, and is at work on a book about the suffrage movement. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Few politicians came to the White House with as stellar a resume as James Buchanan. In a career spanning more than forty years, he served in the Pennsylvania state legislature, the House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate; he was secretary of state and minister to Great Britain; he was even offered a seat on the Supreme Court. His election in 1856 seemed to hold out some hope for bridging the growing chasm between North and South, for he was a northerner who sympathized with the political claims of his southern compatriots. The hope was that Buchanan would draw on the experience of his long years in public service to reach out to both sides and pull the nation back from the brink." "But, as Jean H. Baker shows in this portrait of our fifteenth president, Buchanan succeeded only in fanning the flames of disunion, allowing his southern sympathies to blind him to the grim consequences for the nation, making the Civil War all but inevitable. While he had served his nation well in subordinate positions, as a leader Buchanan displayed a pronounced inability to compromise, while offering no creative vision to solve the implacable conflicts tearing the country apart. Baker also demonstrated how Buchanan's personality played a critical role in why he failed so abysmally as the nation's leader. The only president never to have married, Buchanan led a circumscribed and lonely emotional life, turning often to his cabinet members and political advisers for social companionship, which in turn meant that he lacked the emotional distance to say no to them when their advice was ill-considered." By the time Buchanan's term ended in 1861, the split in the country had widened into secession and near rebellion, and the president's refusal to take action to preserve the union during his last months in office made a bad situation incalculably worse. It would take the greatness of Abraham Lincoln and four years of civil war to bind the wounds that had festered during Buchanan's

FROM THE CRITICS

Foreign Affairs