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President_of_the_United_States | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States | [
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States",
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] | The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.
The power of the presidency has grown substantially since the first president, George Washington, took office in 1789. While presidential power has ebbed and flowed over time, the presidency has played an increasingly significant role in American political life since the beginning of the 20th century, carrying over into the 21st century with notable expansions during the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush. In modern times, the president is one of the world's most powerful political figures and the leader of the world's only remaining superpower. As the leader of the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP, the president possesses significant domestic and international hard and soft power. For much of the 20th century, especially during the Cold War, the U.S. president was often called "the leader of the free world".
Article II of the Constitution establishes the executive branch of the federal government and vests executive power in the president. The power includes the execution and enforcement of federal law and the responsibility to appoint federal executive, diplomatic, regulatory, and judicial officers. Based on constitutional provisions empowering the president to appoint and receive ambassadors and conclude treaties with foreign powers, and on subsequent laws enacted by Congress, the modern presidency has primary responsibility for conducting U.S. foreign policy. The role includes responsibility for directing the world's most expensive military, which has the second-largest nuclear arsenal.
The president also plays a leading role in federal legislation and domestic policymaking. As part of the system of separation of powers, Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution gives the president the power to sign or veto federal legislation. Since modern presidents are typically viewed as leaders of their political parties, major policymaking is significantly shaped by the outcome of presidential elections, with presidents taking an active role in promoting their policy priorities to members of Congress who are often electorally dependent on the president. In recent decades, presidents have also made increasing use of executive orders, agency regulations, and judicial appointments to shape domestic policy.
The president is elected indirectly through the Electoral College to a four-year term, along with the vice president. Under the Twenty-second Amendment, ratified in 1951, no person who has been elected to two presidential terms may be elected to a third. In addition, nine vice presidents have become president by virtue of a president's intra-term death or resignation. In all, 45 individuals have served 46 presidencies spanning 58 four-year terms. Joe Biden is the 46th and current president, having assumed office on January 20, 2021.
History and development
Origins
During the American Revolutionary War, the Thirteen Colonies, represented by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, declared themselves to be independent sovereign states and no longer under British rule. The affirmation was made in the Declaration of Independence, which was written predominantly by Thomas Jefferson and adopted unanimously on July 4, 1776, by the Second Continental Congress. Recognizing the necessity of closely coordinating their efforts against the British, the Continental Congress simultaneously began the process of drafting a constitution that would bind the states together. There were long debates on a number of issues, including representation and voting, and the exact powers to be given the central government. Congress finished work on the Articles of Confederation to establish a perpetual union between the states in November 1777 and sent it to the states for ratification.
Under the Articles, which took effect on March 1, 1781, the Congress of the Confederation was a central political authority without any legislative power. It could make its own resolutions, determinations, and regulations, but not any laws, and could not impose any taxes or enforce local commercial regulations upon its citizens. This institutional design reflected how Americans believed the deposed British system of Crown and Parliament ought to have functioned with respect to the royal dominion: a superintending body for matters that concerned the entire empire. The states were out from under any monarchy and assigned some formerly royal prerogatives (e.g., making war, receiving ambassadors, etc.) to Congress; the remaining prerogatives were lodged within their own respective state governments. The members of Congress elected a president of the United States in Congress Assembled to preside over its deliberation as a neutral discussion moderator. Unrelated to and quite dissimilar from the later office of president of the United States, it was a largely ceremonial position without much influence.
In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies. With peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. By 1786, Americans found their continental borders besieged and weak and their respective economies in crises as neighboring states agitated trade rivalries with one another. They witnessed their hard currency pouring into foreign markets to pay for imports, their Mediterranean commerce preyed upon by North African pirates, and their foreign-financed Revolutionary War debts unpaid and accruing interest. Civil and political unrest loomed. Events such as the Newburgh Conspiracy and Shays' Rebellion demonstrated that the Articles of Confederation were not working.
Following the successful resolution of commercial and fishing disputes between Virginia and Maryland at the Mount Vernon Conference in 1785, Virginia called for a trade conference between all the states, set for September 1786 in Annapolis, Maryland, with an aim toward resolving further-reaching interstate commercial antagonisms. When the convention failed for lack of attendance due to suspicions among most of the other states, Alexander Hamilton of New York led the Annapolis delegates in a call for a convention to offer revisions to the Articles, to be held the next spring in Philadelphia. Prospects for the next convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washington's attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia.
When the Constitutional Convention convened in May 1787, the 12 state delegations in attendance (Rhode Island did not send delegates) brought with them an accumulated experience over a diverse set of institutional arrangements between legislative and executive branches from within their respective state governments. Most states maintained a weak executive without veto or appointment powers, elected annually by the legislature to a single term only, sharing power with an executive council, and countered by a strong legislature. New York offered the greatest exception, having a strong, unitary governor with veto and appointment power elected to a three-year term, and eligible for reelection to an indefinite number of terms thereafter. It was through the closed-door negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U.S. Constitution emerged.
1789–1933
As the nation's first president, George Washington established many norms that would come to define the office. His decision to retire after two terms helped address fears that the nation would devolve into monarchy, and established a precedent that would not be broken until 1940 and would eventually be made permanent by the Twenty-Second Amendment. By the end of his presidency, political parties had developed, with John Adams defeating Thomas Jefferson in 1796, the first truly contested presidential election. After Jefferson defeated Adams in 1800, he and his fellow Virginians James Madison and James Monroe would each serve two terms, eventually dominating the nation's politics during the Era of Good Feelings until Adams' son John Quincy Adams won election in 1824 after the Democratic-Republican Party split.
The election of Andrew Jackson in 1828 was a significant milestone, as Jackson was not part of the Virginia and Massachusetts elite that had held the presidency for its first 40 years. Jacksonian democracy sought to strengthen the presidency at the expense of Congress, while broadening public participation as the nation rapidly expanded westward. However, his successor, Martin Van Buren, became unpopular after the Panic of 1837, and the death of William Henry Harrison and subsequent poor relations between John Tyler and Congress led to further weakening of the office. Including Van Buren, in the 24 years between 1837 and 1861, six presidential terms would be filled by eight different men, with none serving two terms. The Senate played an important role during this period, with the Great Triumvirate of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun playing key roles in shaping national policy in the 1830s and 1840s until debates over slavery began pulling the nation apart in the 1850s.
Abraham Lincoln's leadership during the Civil War has led historians to regard him as one of the nation's greatest presidents. The circumstances of the war and Republican domination of Congress made the office very powerful, and Lincoln's re-election in 1864 was the first time a president had been re-elected since Jackson in 1832. After Lincoln's assassination, his successor Andrew Johnson lost all political support and was nearly removed from office, with Congress remaining powerful during the two-term presidency of Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant. After the end of Reconstruction, Grover Cleveland would eventually become the first Democratic president elected since before the war, running in three consecutive elections (1884, 1888, 1892) and winning twice. In 1900, William McKinley became the first incumbent to win re-election since Grant in 1872.
After McKinley's assassination by Leon Czolgosz in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became a dominant figure in American politics. Historians believe Roosevelt permanently changed the political system by strengthening the presidency, with some key accomplishments including breaking up trusts, conservationism, labor reforms, making personal character as important as the issues, and hand-picking his successor, William Howard Taft. The following decade, Woodrow Wilson led the nation to victory during World War I, although Wilson's proposal for the League of Nations was rejected by the Senate. Warren Harding, while popular in office, would see his legacy tarnished by scandals, especially Teapot Dome, and Herbert Hoover quickly became very unpopular after failing to alleviate the Great Depression.
Imperial presidency
The ascendancy of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 led further toward what historians now describe as the Imperial presidency. Backed by enormous Democratic majorities in Congress and public support for major change, Roosevelt's New Deal dramatically increased the size and scope of the federal government, including more executive agencies.: 211–12 The traditionally small presidential staff was greatly expanded, with the Executive Office of the President being created in 1939, none of whom require Senate confirmation.: 229–231 Roosevelt's unprecedented re-election to a third and fourth term, the victory of the United States in World War II, and the nation's growing economy all helped established the office as a position of global leadership.: 269 His successors, Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, each served two terms as the Cold War led the presidency to be viewed as the "leader of the free world", while John F. Kennedy was a youthful and popular leader who benefited from the rise of television in the 1960s.
After Lyndon B. Johnson lost popular support due to the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon's presidency collapsed in the Watergate scandal, Congress enacted a series of reforms intended to reassert itself. These included the War Powers Resolution, enacted over Nixon's veto in 1973, and the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 that sought to strengthen congressional fiscal powers. By 1976, Gerald Ford conceded that "the historic pendulum" had swung toward Congress, raising the possibility of a "disruptive" erosion of his ability to govern. Ford failed to win election to a full term and his successor, Jimmy Carter, failed to win re-election. Ronald Reagan, who had been an actor before beginning his political career, used his talent as a communicator to help reshape the American agenda away from New Deal policies toward more conservative ideology.
With the Cold War ending and the United States becoming the world's undisputed leading power, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama each served two terms as president. Meanwhile, Congress and the nation gradually became more politically polarized, especially following the 1994 mid-term elections that saw Republicans control the House for the first time in 40 years, and the rise of routine filibusters in the Senate in recent decades. Recent presidents have thus increasingly focused on executive orders, agency regulations, and judicial appointments to implement major policies, at the expense of legislation and congressional power. Presidential elections in the 21st century have reflected this continuing polarization, with no candidate except Obama in 2008 winning by more than five percent of the popular vote and two, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, winning in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote.
Critics of presidency's evolution
The nation's Founding Fathers expected the Congress, which was the first branch of government described in the Constitution, to be the dominant branch of government; however, they did not expect a strong executive department. However, presidential power has shifted over time, which has resulted in claims that the modern presidency has become too powerful, unchecked, unbalanced, and "monarchist" in nature. In 2008 professor Dana D. Nelson expressed belief that presidents over the previous thirty years worked towards "undivided presidential control of the executive branch and its agencies". She criticized proponents of the unitary executive theory for expanding "the many existing uncheckable executive powers—such as executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements—that already allow presidents to enact a good deal of foreign and domestic policy without aid, interference or consent from Congress". Bill Wilson, board member of Americans for Limited Government, opined that the expanded presidency was "the greatest threat ever to individual freedom and democratic rule".
Legislative powers
Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution vests all lawmaking power in Congress's hands, and Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2 prevents the president (and all other executive branch officers) from simultaneously being a member of Congress. Nevertheless, the modern presidency exerts significant power over legislation, both due to constitutional provisions and historical developments over time.
Signing and vetoing bills
The president's most significant legislative power derives from the Presentment Clause, which gives the president the power to veto any bill passed by Congress. While Congress can override a presidential veto, it requires a two-thirds vote of both houses, which is usually very difficult to achieve except for widely supported bipartisan legislation. The framers of the Constitution feared that Congress would seek to increase its power and enable a "tyranny of the majority", so giving the indirectly elected president a veto was viewed as an important check on the legislative power. While George Washington believed the veto should only be used in cases where a bill was unconstitutional, it is now routinely used in cases where presidents have policy disagreements with a bill. The veto – or threat of a veto – has thus evolved to make the modern presidency a central part of the American legislative process.
Specifically, under the Presentment Clause, once a bill has been presented by Congress, the president has three options:
Sign the legislation within ten days, excluding Sundays, the bill becomes law.
Veto the legislation within the above timeframe and return it to the house of Congress from which it originated, expressing any objections, the bill does not become law, unless both houses of Congress vote to override the veto by a two-thirds vote.
Take no action on the legislation within the above timeframe—the bill becomes law, as if the president had signed it, unless Congress is adjourned at the time, in which case it does not become law, which is known as a pocket veto.
In 1996, Congress attempted to enhance the president's veto power with the Line Item Veto Act. The legislation empowered the president to sign any spending bill into law while simultaneously striking certain spending items within the bill, particularly any new spending, any amount of discretionary spending, or any new limited tax benefit. Congress could then repass that particular item. If the president then vetoed the new legislation, Congress could override the veto by its ordinary means, a two-thirds vote in both houses. In Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such a legislative alteration of the veto power to be unconstitutional.
Setting the agenda
For most of American history, candidates for president have sought election on the basis of a promised legislative agenda. Article II, Section 3, Clause 2 requires the president to recommend such measures to Congress which the president deems "necessary and expedient". This is done through the constitutionally-based State of the Union address, which usually outlines the president's legislative proposals for the coming year, and through other formal and informal communications with Congress.
The president can be involved in crafting legislation by suggesting, requesting, or even insisting that Congress enact laws that the president believes are needed. Additionally, the president can attempt to shape legislation during the legislative process by exerting influence on individual members of Congress. Presidents possess this power because the Constitution is silent about who can write legislation, but the power is limited because only members of Congress can introduce legislation.
The president or other officials of the executive branch may draft legislation and then ask senators or representatives to introduce these drafts into Congress. Additionally, the president may attempt to have Congress alter proposed legislation by threatening to veto that legislation unless requested changes are made.
Promulgating regulations
Many laws enacted by Congress do not address every possible detail, and either explicitly or implicitly delegate powers of implementation to an appropriate federal agency. As the head of the executive branch, presidents control a vast array of agencies that can issue regulations with little oversight from Congress.
In the 20th century, critics charged that too many legislative and budgetary powers that should have belonged to Congress had slid into the hands of presidents. One critic charged that presidents could appoint a "virtual army of 'czars'—each wholly unaccountable to Congress yet tasked with spearheading major policy efforts for the White House". Presidents have been criticized for making signing statements when signing congressional legislation about how they understand a bill or plan to execute it. This practice has been criticized by the American Bar Association as unconstitutional. Conservative commentator George Will wrote of an "increasingly swollen executive branch" and "the eclipse of Congress".
Convening and adjourning Congress
To allow the government to act quickly in case of a major domestic or international crisis arising when Congress is not in session, the president is empowered by Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution to call a special session of one or both houses of Congress. Since John Adams first did so in 1797, the president has called the full Congress to convene for a special session on 27 occasions. Harry S. Truman was the most recent to do so in July 1948, known as the Turnip Day Session. In addition, prior to ratification of the Twentieth Amendment in 1933, which brought forward the date on which Congress convenes from December to January, newly inaugurated presidents would routinely call the Senate to meet to confirm nominations or ratify treaties. In practice, the power has fallen into disuse in the modern era as Congress now formally remains in session year-round, convening pro forma sessions every three days even when ostensibly in recess. Correspondingly, the president is authorized to adjourn Congress if the House and Senate cannot agree on the time of adjournment; no president has ever had to exercise this power.
Executive powers
The president is head of the executive branch of the federal government and is constitutionally obligated to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed". The executive branch has over four million employees, including the military.
Administrative powers
Presidents make political appointments. An incoming president may make up to 4,000 upon taking office, 1200 of which must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Ambassadors, members of the Cabinet, and various officers, are among the positions filled by presidential appointment with Senate confirmation.
The power of a president to fire executive officials has long been a contentious political issue. Generally, a president may remove executive officials at will. However, Congress can curtail and constrain a president's authority to fire commissioners of independent regulatory agencies and certain inferior executive officers by statute.
To manage the growing federal bureaucracy, presidents have gradually surrounded themselves with many layers of staff, who were eventually organized into the Executive Office of the President of the United States. Within the Executive Office, the president's innermost layer of aides, and their assistants, are located in the White House Office.
The president also possesses the power to manage operations of the federal government by issuing various types of directives, such as presidential proclamation and executive orders. When the president is lawfully exercising one of the constitutionally conferred presidential responsibilities, the scope of this power is broad. Even so, these directives are subject to judicial review by U.S. federal courts, which can find them to be unconstitutional. Congress can overturn an executive order through legislation.
Foreign affairs
Article II, Section 3, Clause 4 requires the president to "receive Ambassadors." This clause, known as the Reception Clause, has been interpreted to imply that the president possesses broad power over matters of foreign policy, and to provide support for the president's exclusive authority to grant recognition to a foreign government. The Constitution also empowers the president to appoint United States ambassadors, and to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries. Such agreements, upon receiving the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate (by a two-thirds majority vote), become binding with the force of federal law.
While foreign affairs has always been a significant element of presidential responsibilities, advances in technology since the Constitution's adoption have increased presidential power. Where formerly ambassadors were vested with significant power to independently negotiate on behalf of the United States, presidents now routinely meet directly with leaders of foreign countries.
Commander-in-chief
One of the most important of executive powers is the president's role as commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The power to declare war is constitutionally vested in Congress, but the president has ultimate responsibility for the direction and disposition of the military. The exact degree of authority that the Constitution grants to the president as commander-in-chief has been the subject of much debate throughout history, with Congress at various times granting the president wide authority and at others attempting to restrict that authority. The framers of the Constitution took care to limit the president's powers regarding the military; Alexander Hamilton explained this in Federalist No. 69:The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. ... It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces ... while that [the power] of the British king extends to the DECLARING of war and to the RAISING and REGULATING of fleets and armies, all [of] which ... would appertain to the legislature. [Emphasis in the original.]
In the modern era, pursuant to the War Powers Resolution, Congress must authorize any troop deployments longer than 60 days, although that process relies on triggering mechanisms that have never been employed, rendering it ineffectual. Additionally, Congress provides a check to presidential military power through its control over military spending and regulation. Presidents have historically initiated the process for going to war, but critics have charged that there have been several conflicts in which presidents did not get official declarations, including Theodore Roosevelt's military move into Panama in 1903, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the invasions of Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989.
The amount of military detail handled personally by the president in wartime has varied greatly. George Washington, the first U.S. president, firmly established military subordination under civilian authority. In 1794, Washington used his constitutional powers to assemble 12,000 militia to quell the Whiskey Rebellion, a conflict in Western Pennsylvania involving armed farmers and distillers who refused to pay an excise tax on spirits. According to historian Joseph Ellis, this was the "first and only time a sitting American president led troops in the field", though James Madison briefly took control of artillery units in defense of Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812. Abraham Lincoln was deeply involved in overall strategy and in day-to-day operations during the American Civil War, 1861–1865; historians have given Lincoln high praise for his strategic sense and his ability to select and encourage commanders such as Ulysses S. Grant.
The present-day operational command of the Armed Forces is delegated to the Department of Defense and is normally exercised through the secretary of defense. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combatant Commands assist with the operation as outlined in the presidentially approved Unified Command Plan (UCP).
Juridical powers and privileges
The president has the power to nominate federal judges, including members of the United States courts of appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States. However, these nominations require Senate confirmation before they may take office. Securing Senate approval can provide a major obstacle for presidents who wish to orient the federal judiciary toward a particular ideological stance. When nominating judges to U.S. district courts, presidents often respect the long-standing tradition of senatorial courtesy. Presidents may also grant pardons and reprieves. Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon a month after taking office. Presidents often grant pardons shortly before leaving office, like when Bill Clinton pardoned Patty Hearst on his last day in office; this is often controversial.
Two doctrines concerning executive power have developed that enable the president to exercise executive power with a degree of autonomy. The first is executive privilege, which allows the president to withhold from disclosure any communications made directly to the president in the performance of executive duties. George Washington first claimed the privilege when Congress requested to see Chief Justice John Jay's notes from an unpopular treaty negotiation with Great Britain. While not enshrined in the Constitution or any other law, Washington's action created the precedent for the privilege. When Nixon tried to use executive privilege as a reason for not turning over subpoenaed evidence to Congress during the Watergate scandal, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974), that executive privilege did not apply in cases where a president was attempting to avoid criminal prosecution. When Bill Clinton attempted to use executive privilege regarding the Lewinsky scandal, the Supreme Court ruled in Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997), that the privilege also could not be used in civil suits. These cases established the legal precedent that executive privilege is valid, although the exact extent of the privilege has yet to be clearly defined. Additionally, federal courts have allowed this privilege to radiate outward and protect other executive branch employees but have weakened that protection for those executive branch communications that do not involve the president.
The state secrets privilege allows the president and the executive branch to withhold information or documents from discovery in legal proceedings if such release would harm national security. Precedent for the privilege arose early in the 19th century when Thomas Jefferson refused to release military documents in the treason trial of Aaron Burr and again in Totten v. United States 92 U.S. 105 (1876), when the Supreme Court dismissed a case brought by a former Union spy. However, the privilege was not formally recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court until United States v. Reynolds 345 U.S. 1 (1953), where it was held to be a common law evidentiary privilege. Before the September 11 attacks, use of the privilege had been rare, but increasing in frequency. Since 2001, the government has asserted the privilege in more cases and at earlier stages of the litigation, thus in some instances causing dismissal of the suits before reaching the merits of the claims, as in the Ninth Circuit's ruling in Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. Critics of the privilege claim its use has become a tool for the government to cover up illegal or embarrassing government actions.
The degree to which the president personally has absolute immunity from court cases is contested and has been the subject of several Supreme Court decisions. Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982) dismissed a civil lawsuit against by-then former president Richard Nixon based on his official actions. Clinton v. Jones (1997) decided that a president has no immunity against civil suits for actions taken before becoming president and ruled that a sexual harassment suit could proceed without delay, even against a sitting president. The 2019 Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election detailed evidence of possible obstruction of justice, but investigators declined to refer Donald Trump for prosecution based on a United States Department of Justice policy against indicting an incumbent president. The report noted that impeachment by Congress was available as a remedy. As of October 2019, a case was pending in the federal courts regarding access to personal tax returns in a criminal case brought against Donald Trump by the New York County District Attorney alleging violations of New York state law.
Leadership roles
Head of state
As head of state, the president represents the United States government to its own people and represents the nation to the rest of the world. For example, during a state visit by a foreign head of state, the president typically hosts a State Arrival Ceremony held on the South Lawn, a custom begun by John F. Kennedy in 1961. This is followed by a state dinner given by the president which is held in the State Dining Room later in the evening.
As a national leader, the president also fulfills many less formal ceremonial duties. For example, William Howard Taft started the tradition of throwing out the ceremonial first pitch in 1910 at Griffith Stadium, Washington, D.C., on the Washington Senators's Opening Day. Every president since Taft, except for Jimmy Carter, threw out at least one ceremonial first ball or pitch for Opening Day, the All-Star Game, or the World Series, usually with much fanfare. Every president since Theodore Roosevelt has served as honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America.
Other presidential traditions are associated with American holidays. Rutherford B. Hayes began in 1878 the first White House egg rolling for local children. Beginning in 1947, during the Harry S. Truman administration, every Thanksgiving the president is presented with a live domestic turkey during the annual National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation held at the White House. Since 1989, when the custom of "pardoning" the turkey was formalized by George H. W. Bush, the turkey has been taken to a farm where it will live out the rest of its natural life.
Presidential traditions also involve the president's role as head of government. Many outgoing presidents since James Buchanan traditionally give advice to their successor during the presidential transition. Ronald Reagan and his successors have also left a private message on the desk of the Oval Office on Inauguration Day for the incoming president.
The modern presidency holds the president as one of the nation's premier celebrities. Some argue that images of the presidency have a tendency to be manipulated by administration public relations officials as well as by presidents themselves. One critic described the presidency as "propagandized leadership" which has a "mesmerizing power surrounding the office". Administration public relations managers staged carefully crafted photo-ops of smiling presidents with smiling crowds for television cameras. One critic wrote the image of John F. Kennedy was described as carefully framed "in rich detail" which "drew on the power of myth" regarding the incident of PT 109 and wrote that Kennedy understood how to use images to further his presidential ambitions. As a result, some political commentators have opined that American voters have unrealistic expectations of presidents: voters expect a president to "drive the economy, vanquish enemies, lead the free world, comfort tornado victims, heal the national soul and protect borrowers from hidden credit-card fees".
Head of party
The president is typically considered to be the head of their political party. Since the entire House of Representatives and at least one-third of the Senate is elected simultaneously with the president, candidates from a political party inevitably have their electoral success intertwined with the performance of the party's presidential candidate. The coattail effect, or lack thereof, will also often impact a party's candidates at state and local levels of government as well. However, there are often tensions between a president and others in the party, with presidents who lose significant support from their party's caucus in Congress generally viewed to be weaker and less effective.
Global leader
With the rise of the United States as a superpower in the 20th century, and the United States having the world's largest economy into the 21st century, the president is typically viewed as a global leader, and at times the world's most powerful political figure. The position of the United States as the leading member of NATO, and the country's strong relationships with other wealthy or democratic nations like those comprising the European Union, have led to the moniker that the president is the "leader of the free world".
Selection process
Eligibility
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution sets three qualifications for holding the presidency. To serve as president, one must:
be a natural-born citizen of the United States;
be at least 35 years old;
be a resident in the United States for at least 14 years.
A person who meets the above qualifications would, however, still be disqualified from holding the office of president under any of the following conditions:
Under Article I, Section 3, Clause 7, having been impeached, convicted and disqualified from holding further public office, although there is some legal debate as to whether the disqualification clause also includes the presidential office: the only previous persons disqualified under this clause were three federal judges.
Under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, no person who swore an oath to support the Constitution, and later rebelled against the United States, is eligible to hold any office. However, this disqualification can be lifted by a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress. There is, again, some debate as to whether the clause as written allows disqualification from the presidential position, or whether it would first require litigation outside of Congress, although there is precedent for use of this amendment outside of the original intended purpose of excluding Confederates from public office after the Civil War.
Under the Twenty-second Amendment, no person can be elected president more than twice. The amendment also specifies that if any eligible person serves as president or acting president for more than two years of a term for which some other eligible person was elected president, the former can only be elected president once.
Campaigns and nomination
The modern presidential campaign begins before the primary elections, which the two major political parties use to clear the field of candidates before their national nominating conventions, where the most successful candidate is made the party's presidential nominee. Typically, the party's presidential candidate chooses a vice presidential nominee, and this choice is rubber-stamped by the convention. The most common previous profession of presidents is lawyer.
Nominees participate in nationally televised debates, and while the debates are usually restricted to the Democratic and Republican nominees, third party candidates may be invited, such as Ross Perot in the 1992 debates. Nominees campaign across the country to explain their views, convince voters and solicit contributions. Much of the modern electoral process is concerned with winning swing states through frequent visits and mass media advertising drives.
Election
The president is elected indirectly by the voters of each state and the District of Columbia through the Electoral College, a body of electors formed every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president to concurrent four-year terms. As prescribed by Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, each state is entitled to a number of electors equal to the size of its total delegation in both houses of Congress. Additionally, the Twenty-third Amendment provides that the District of Columbia is entitled to the number it would have if it were a state, but in no case more than that of the least populous state. Currently, all states and the District of Columbia select their electors based on a popular election. In all but two states, the party whose presidential–vice presidential ticket receives a plurality of popular votes in the state has its entire slate of elector nominees chosen as the state's electors. Maine and Nebraska deviate from this winner-take-all practice, awarding two electors to the statewide winner and one to the winner in each congressional district.
On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, about six weeks after the election, the electors convene in their respective state capitals (and in Washington, D.C.) to vote for president and, on a separate ballot, for vice president. They typically vote for the candidates of the party that nominated them. While there is no constitutional mandate or federal law requiring them to do so, the District of Columbia and 32 states have laws requiring that their electors vote for the candidates to whom they are pledged. The constitutionality of these laws was upheld in Chiafalo v. Washington (2020). Following the vote, each state then sends a certified record of their electoral votes to Congress. The votes of the electors are opened and counted during a joint session of Congress, held in the first week of January. If a candidate has received an absolute majority of electoral votes for president (currently 270 of 538), that person is declared the winner. Otherwise, the House of Representatives must meet to elect a president using a contingent election procedure in which representatives, voting by state delegation, with each state casting a single vote, choose between the top three electoral vote-getters for president. To win the presidency, a candidate must receive the votes of an absolute majority of states (currently 26 of 50).
There have been two contingent presidential elections in the nation's history. A 73–73 electoral vote tie between Thomas Jefferson and fellow Democratic-Republican Aaron Burr in the election of 1800 necessitated the first. Conducted under the original procedure established by Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 of the Constitution, which stipulates that if two or three persons received a majority vote and an equal vote, the House of Representatives would choose one of them for president; the runner-up would become vice president. On February 17, 1801, Jefferson was elected president on the 36th ballot, and Burr elected vice president. Afterward, the system was overhauled through the Twelfth Amendment in time to be used in the 1804 election. A quarter-century later, the choice for president again devolved to the House when no candidate won an absolute majority of electoral votes (131 of 261) in the election of 1824. Under the Twelfth Amendment, the House was required to choose a president from among the top three electoral vote recipients: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and William H. Crawford. Held February 9, 1825, this second and most recent contingent election resulted in John Quincy Adams being elected president on the first ballot.
Inauguration
Pursuant to the Twentieth Amendment, the four-year term of office for both the president and the vice president begins at noon on January 20, in the year following the preceding presidential election. The first presidential and vice presidential terms to begin on this date, known as Inauguration Day, were the second terms of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vice President John Nance Garner in 1937. Previously, Inauguration Day was on March 4. As a result of the date change, the first term (1933–37) of both men had been shortened by 43 days.
Before executing the powers of the office, a president is required to recite the presidential Oath of Office, found in Article II, Section 1, Clause 8 of the Constitution. This is the only component in the inauguration ceremony mandated by the Constitution:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) 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.
Presidents have traditionally placed one hand upon a Bible while taking the oath, and have added "So help me God" to the end of the oath. Although the oath may be administered by any person authorized by law to administer oaths, presidents are traditionally sworn in by the chief justice of the United States.
Incumbency
Term limit
When the first president, George Washington, announced in his Farewell Address that he was not running for a third term, he established a "two terms then out" precedent. Precedent became tradition after Thomas Jefferson publicly embraced the principle a decade later during his second term, as did his two immediate successors, James Madison and James Monroe. In spite of the strong two-term tradition, Ulysses S. Grant sought nomination at the 1880 Republican National Convention for a non-consecutive third term, but was unsuccessful.
In 1940, after leading the nation through the Great Depression and focused on supporting U.S. allied nations at war with the Axis powers, Franklin Roosevelt was elected to a third term, breaking the long-standing precedent. Four years later, with the U.S. engaged in World War II, he was re-elected again despite his declining physical health; he died 82 days into his fourth term on April 12, 1945.
In response to the unprecedented length of Roosevelt's presidency, the Twenty-second Amendment was adopted in 1951. The amendment bars anyone from being elected president more than twice, or once if that person served more than two years (24 months) of another president's four-year term. Harry S. Truman, the president at the time it was submitted to the states by the Congress, was exempted from its limitations. Without the exemption, he would not have been eligible to run for a second full term in 1952 (which he briefly sought), as he had served nearly all of Franklin Roosevelt's unexpired 1945–1949 term and had been elected to a full four-year term beginning in 1949. Since becoming operative in 1951, the amendment has been applicable to six twice-elected presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
Vacancies and succession
Under Section 1 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, ratified in 1967, the vice president becomes president upon the removal from office, death, or resignation of the president. Deaths have occurred a number of times, resignation has occurred only once, and removal from office has never occurred.
Before the ratification of the Twenty-fifth amendment (which clarified the matter of succession), Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, stated only that the vice president assumes the "powers and duties" of the presidency in the event of a president's removal, death, resignation, or inability. Under this clause, there was ambiguity about whether the vice president would actually become president in the event of a vacancy, or simply act as president, potentially resulting in a special election. Upon the death of President William Henry Harrison in 1841, Vice President John Tyler declared that he had succeeded to the office itself, refusing to accept any papers addressed to the "Acting President", and Congress ultimately accepted it.
In the event of a double vacancy, Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 also authorizes Congress to declare who shall become acting president in the "Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the president and vice president". The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (codified as 3 U.S.C. § 19) provides that if both the president and vice president have left office or are both otherwise unavailable to serve during their terms of office, the presidential line of succession follows the order of: speaker of the House, then, if necessary, the president pro tempore of the Senate, and then if necessary, the eligible heads of federal executive departments who form the president's cabinet. The cabinet currently has 15 members, of which the secretary of state is first in line; the other Cabinet secretaries follow in the order in which their department (or the department of which their department is the successor) was created. Those individuals who are constitutionally ineligible to be elected to the presidency are also disqualified from assuming the powers and duties of the presidency through succession. No statutory successor has yet been called upon to act as president.
Declarations of inability
Under the Twenty-fifth Amendment, the president may temporarily transfer the presidential powers and duties to the vice president, who then becomes acting president, by transmitting to the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate a statement that he is unable to discharge his duties. The president resumes his or her powers upon transmitting a second declaration stating that he is again able. The mechanism has been used by Ronald Reagan (once), George W. Bush (twice), and Joe Biden (once), each in anticipation of surgery.
The Twenty-fifth Amendment also provides that the vice president, together with a majority of certain members of the Cabinet, may transfer the presidential powers and duties to the vice president by transmitting a written declaration, to the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate, to the effect that the president is unable to discharge his or her powers and duties. If the president then declares that no such inability exist, he or she resumes the presidential powers unless the vice president and Cabinet make a second declaration of presidential inability, in which case Congress decides the question.
Removal
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution allows for the removal of high federal officials, including the president, from office for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors". Article I, Section 2, Clause 5 authorizes the House of Representatives to serve as a "grand jury" with the power to impeach said officials by a majority vote. Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 authorizes the Senate to serve as a court with the power to remove impeached officials from office, by a two-thirds vote to convict.
Three presidents have been impeached by the House of Representatives: Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998, and Donald Trump in 2019 and 2021; none have been convicted by the Senate. Additionally, the House Judiciary Committee conducted an impeachment inquiry against Richard Nixon in 1973–74 and reported three articles of impeachment to the House of Representatives for final action; however, he resigned from office before the House voted on them.
Circumvention of authority
Controversial measures have sometimes been taken short of removal to deal with perceived recklessness on the part of the president, or with a long-term disability. In some cases, staff have intentionally failed to deliver messages to or from the president, typically to avoid executing or promoting the president to write certain orders. This has ranged from Richard Nixon's Chief of Staff not transmitting orders to the Cabinet due to the president's heavy drinking, to staff removing memos from Donald Trump's desk. Decades before the Twenty-fifth Amendment, in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson had a stroke that left him partly incapacitated. First lady Edith Wilson kept this condition a secret from the public for a while, and controversially became the sole gatekeeper for access to the president (aside from his doctor), assisting him with paperwork and deciding which information was "important" enough to share with him.
Compensation
Since 2001, the president's annual salary has been $400,000, along with a: $50,000 expense allowance; $100,000 nontaxable travel account, and $19,000 entertainment account. The president's salary is set by Congress, and under Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 of the Constitution, any increase or reduction in presidential salary cannot take effect before the next presidential term of office.
Residence
The Executive Residence of the White House in Washington, D.C. is the official residence of the president. The site was selected by George Washington, and the cornerstone was laid in 1792. Every president since John Adams (in 1800) has lived there. At various times in U.S. history, it has been known as the "President's Palace", the "President's House", and the "Executive Mansion". Theodore Roosevelt officially gave the White House its current name in 1901. The federal government pays for state dinners and other official functions, but the president pays for personal, family, and guest dry cleaning and food.
Camp David, officially titled Naval Support Facility Thurmont, a mountain-based military camp in Frederick County, Maryland, is the president's country residence. A place of solitude and tranquility, the site has been used extensively to host foreign dignitaries since the 1940s.
President's Guest House, located next to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House Complex and Lafayette Park, serves as the president's official guest house and as a secondary residence for the president if needed. Four interconnected, 19th-century houses—Blair House, Lee House, and 700 and 704 Jackson Place—with a combined floor space exceeding 70,000 square feet (6,500 m2) comprise the property.
Presidential residences
Travel
The primary means of long-distance air travel for the president is one of two identical Boeing VC-25 aircraft, which are extensively modified Boeing 747 airliners and are referred to as Air Force One while the president is on board (although any U.S. Air Force aircraft the president is aboard is designated as "Air Force One" for the duration of the flight). In-country trips are typically handled with just one of the two planes, while overseas trips are handled with both, one primary and one backup. The president also has access to smaller Air Force aircraft, most notably the Boeing C-32, which are used when the president must travel to airports that cannot support a jumbo jet. Any civilian aircraft the president is aboard is designated Executive One for the flight.
For short-distance air travel, the president has access to a fleet of U.S. Marine Corps helicopters of varying models, designated Marine One when the president is aboard any particular one in the fleet. Flights are typically handled with as many as five helicopters all flying together and frequently swapping positions as to disguise which helicopter the president is actually aboard to any would-be threats.
For ground travel, the president uses the presidential state car, which is an armored limousine designed to look like a Cadillac sedan, but built on a truck chassis. The U.S. Secret Service operates and maintains the fleet of several limousines. The president also has access to two armored motorcoaches, which are primarily used for touring trips.
Presidential transportation
Protection
The U.S. Secret Service is charged with protecting the president and the first family. As part of their protection, presidents, first ladies, their children and other immediate family members, and other prominent persons and locations are assigned Secret Service codenames. The use of such names was originally for security purposes and dates to a time when sensitive electronic communications were not routinely encrypted; today, the names simply serve for purposes of brevity, clarity, and tradition.
Post-presidency
Activities
Some former presidents have had significant careers after leaving office. Prominent examples include William Howard Taft's tenure as chief justice of the United States and Herbert Hoover's work on government reorganization after World War II. Grover Cleveland, whose bid for reelection failed in 1888, was elected president again four years later in 1892. Two former presidents served in Congress after leaving the White House: John Quincy Adams was elected to the House of Representatives, serving there for 17 years, and Andrew Johnson returned to the Senate in 1875, though he died soon after. Some ex-presidents were very active, especially in international affairs, most notably Theodore Roosevelt; Herbert Hoover; Richard Nixon; and Jimmy Carter.
Presidents may use their predecessors as emissaries to deliver private messages to other nations or as official representatives of the United States to state funerals and other important foreign events. Richard Nixon made multiple foreign trips to countries including China and Russia and was lauded as an elder statesman. Jimmy Carter has become a global human rights campaigner, international arbiter, and election monitor, as well as a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Bill Clinton has also worked as an informal ambassador, most recently in the negotiations that led to the release of two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, from North Korea. During his presidency, George W. Bush called on former Presidents Bush and Clinton to assist with humanitarian efforts after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. President Obama followed suit by asking Presidents Clinton and Bush to lead efforts to aid Haiti after an earthquake devastated that country in 2010.
Clinton was active politically since his presidential term ended, working with his wife Hillary on her 2008 and 2016 presidential bids and President Obama on his 2012 reelection campaign. Obama was also active politically since his presidential term ended, having worked with his former vice president Joe Biden on his 2020 election campaign. Trump has continued to make appearances in the media and at conferences and rallies since leaving office in 2021. He is currently running for a non-consecutive second term in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
Pension and other benefits
The Former Presidents Act (FPA), enacted in 1958, grants lifetime benefits to former presidents and their widows, including a monthly pension, medical care in military facilities, health insurance, and Secret Service protection; also provided is funding for a certain number of staff and for office expenses. The act has been amended several times to provide increases in presidential pensions and in the allowances for office staff. The FPA excludes any president who was removed from office by impeachment.
According to a 2008 report by the Congressional Research Service:
Chief executives leaving office prior to 1958 often entered retirement pursuing various occupations and received no federal assistance. When industrialist Andrew Carnegie announced a plan in 1912 to offer $25,000 annual pensions to former Presidents, many Members of Congress deemed it inappropriate that such a pension would be provided by a private corporation executive. That same year, legislation was first introduced to create presidential pensions, but it was not enacted. In 1955, such legislation was considered by Congress because of former President Harry S. Truman's financial limitations in hiring an office staff
The pension has increased numerous times with congressional approval. Retired presidents receive a pension based on the salary of the current administration's cabinet secretaries, which was $199,700 per year in 2012. Former presidents who served in Congress may also collect congressional pensions. The act also provides former presidents with travel funds and franking privileges.
Prior to 1997, all former presidents, their spouses, and their children until age 16 were protected by the Secret Service until the president's death. In 1997, Congress passed legislation limiting Secret Service protection to no more than 10 years from the date a president leaves office. On January 10, 2013, President Obama signed legislation reinstating lifetime Secret Service protection for him, George W. Bush, and all subsequent presidents. A first spouse who remarries is no longer eligible for Secret Service protection.
Presidential libraries
Every president since Herbert Hoover has created a repository known as a presidential library for preserving and making available his papers, records, and other documents and materials. Completed libraries are deeded to and maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); the initial funding for building and equipping each library must come from private, non-federal sources. There are currently thirteen presidential libraries in the NARA system. There are also presidential libraries maintained by state governments and private foundations and Universities of Higher Education, including:
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which is run by the State of Illinois;
The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, which is run by Southern Methodist University;
The George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, which is run by Texas A&M University; and
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, which is run by the University of Texas at Austin.
Several former presidents have overseen the building and opening of their own presidential libraries. Some even made arrangements for their own burial at the site. Several presidential libraries contain the graves of the president they document:
The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri;
The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home in Abilene, Kansas;
The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California; and
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California.
These gravesites are open to the general public.
Political affiliation
Political parties have dominated American politics for most of the nation's history. Though the Founding Fathers generally spurned political parties as divisive and disruptive, and their rise had not been anticipated when the U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787, organized political parties developed in the U.S. in the mid-1790s nonetheless. They evolved from political factions, which began to appear almost immediately after the Federal government came into existence. Those who supported the Washington administration were referred to as "pro-administration" and would eventually form the Federalist Party, while those in opposition largely joined the emerging Democratic-Republican Party.
Greatly concerned about the very real capacity of political parties to destroy the fragile unity holding the nation together, Washington remained unaffiliated with any political faction or party throughout his eight-year presidency. He was, and remains, the only U.S. president never to be affiliated with a political party. Since Washington, every U.S. president has been affiliated with a political party at the time of assuming office.
The number of presidents per political party by their affiliation at the time they were first sworn into office (alphabetical, by last name) are:
Timeline of presidents
The following timeline depicts the progression of the presidents and their political affiliation at the time of assuming office.
See also
Outline of American politics
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
White House homepage
United States Presidents Collection. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University |
James_Buchanan | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan | [
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] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan"
] | James Buchanan Jr. ( bew-KAN-ən; April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868) was the 15th president of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. Buchanan also served as the secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and represented Pennsylvania in both houses of the U.S. Congress. He was an advocate for states' rights, particularly regarding slavery, and minimized the role of the federal government preceding the Civil War.
Buchanan was a lawyer in Pennsylvania and won his first election to the state's House of Representatives as a Federalist. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1820 and retained that post for five terms, aligning with Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party. Buchanan served as Jackson's minister to Russia in 1832. He won the election in 1834 as a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and continued in that position for 11 years. He was appointed to serve as President James K. Polk's secretary of state in 1845, and eight years later was named as President Franklin Pierce's minister to the United Kingdom.
Beginning in 1844, Buchanan became a regular contender for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. He was nominated and won the 1856 presidential election. As President, Buchanan intervened to assure the Supreme Court's majority ruling in the pro-slavery decision in the Dred Scott case. He acceded to Southern attempts to engineer Kansas' entry into the Union as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution, and angered not only Republicans but also Northern Democrats. Buchanan honored his pledge to serve only one term and supported Breckinridge's unsuccessful candidacy in the 1860 presidential election. He failed to reconcile the fractured Democratic Party amid the grudge against Stephen Douglas, leading to the election of Republican and former Congressman Abraham Lincoln.
Buchanan's leadership during his lame duck period, before the American Civil War, has been widely criticized. He simultaneously angered the North by not stopping secession and the South by not yielding to their demands. He supported the Corwin Amendment in an effort to reconcile the country. He made an unsuccessful attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter, but otherwise refrained from preparing the military. In his personal life, Buchanan never married and was the only U.S. president to remain a lifelong bachelor, leading some historians and authors to question his sexual orientation. His failure to forestall the Civil War has been described as incompetence, and he spent his last years defending his reputation. Historians and scholars rank Buchanan as among the worst presidents in American history.
Early life
Childhood and education
James Buchanan Jr. was born into a Scottish-Irish family on April 23, 1791, in a log cabin on a farm called Stony Batter, near Cove Gap, Peters Township, in the Allegheny Mountains of southern Pennsylvania. He was the last president born in the 18th century and, until the election of Joe Biden in 2020, the only one born in Pennsylvania. Buchanan was the second of eleven children with six sisters and four brothers, and the eldest son of James Buchanan Sr. (1761–1821) and his wife Elizabeth Speer (1767–1833). James Buchanan Sr., was an Ulster-Scot from just outside Ramelton, a small town in the north-east of County Donegal in the north-west of Ulster, the northern province in Ireland, who emigrated to the newly formed United States in 1783, having sailed from Derry. He belonged to the Clan Buchanan, whose members had emigrated in large numbers from the Scottish Highlands to Ulster in the north of Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster in the seventeenth century and, later, largely because of poverty and persecution by the Crown due to their Presbyterian faith, had further emigrated in large numbers from Ulster to America from the early eighteenth century onwards. Shortly after Buchanan's birth, the family relocated to a farm near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, and later settled in the town in 1794. His father became the area's wealthiest resident, working as a merchant, farmer, and real estate investor. Buchanan attributed his early education primarily to his mother, whereas his father had a greater influence on his character. His mother had discussed politics with him as a child and had an interest in poetry, quoting John Milton and William Shakespeare to Buchanan.
Buchanan attended the Old Stone Academy in Mercersburg and then Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In 1808, he was nearly expelled for disorderly conduct; he and his fellow students had attracted negative attention for drinking in local taverns, disturbing the peace at night and committing acts of vandalism, but he pleaded for a second chance and ultimately graduated with honors in 1809. Later that year, he moved to the state capital at Lancaster, to train as a lawyer for two and a half years with the well-known James Hopkins. Following the fashion of the time, Buchanan studied the United States Code and the Constitution of the United States as well as legal authorities such as William Blackstone during his education.
Early law practice and Pennsylvania House of Representatives
In 1812, Buchanan passed the bar exam and after being admitted to the bar, he remained in Lancaster, even when Harrisburg became the new capital of Pennsylvania. Buchanan quickly established himself as a prominent legal representative in the city. His income rapidly rose after he established his practice, and by 1821 he was earning over $11,000 per year (equivalent to $250,000 in 2023). At this time, Buchanan became a Freemason, and served as the Worshipful Master of Masonic Lodge No. 43 in Lancaster and as a District Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.
Buchanan also served as chairman of the Lancaster chapter of the Federalist Party. Like his father, he supported their political program, which provided federal funds for building projects and import duties as well as the re-establishment of a central bank after the First Bank of the United States' license expired in 1811. He became a strong critic of Democratic-Republican President James Madison during the War of 1812. 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. He was the last president involved in the War of 1812.
In 1814, he was elected for the Federalists to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where he was the youngest member, and held this seat until 1816. Since the sessions in the Pennsylvania General Assembly lasted only three months, Buchanan continued practicing law at a profit by charging higher fees, and his service helped him acquire more clients. In 1815, Buchanan defended District Judge Walter Franklin in an impeachment trial before the Pennsylvania Senate, over alleged judicial misconduct. Impeachments were more common at the time because the line between abuse of office and a wrong legal decision was determined by the ruling parties' preferences and the popularity of the judge's decision. Buchanan persuaded the senators that only judicial crimes and clear violations of the law justified impeachment.
Congressional career
U.S. House of Representatives
In the congressional elections of 1820, Buchanan ran for a seat in the House of Representatives. Shortly after his election victory, his father died in a carriage accident. As a young Representative, Buchanan was one of the most prominent leaders of the "Amalgamator party" faction of Pennsylvanian politics, named that because it was made up of both Democratic-Republicans and former Federalists, which transitioned from the First Party System to the Era of Good Feelings. During this era, the Democratic-Republicans became the most influential party. Buchanan's Federalist convictions were weak, and he switched parties after opposing a nativist Federalist bill. During the 1824 presidential election, Buchanan initially supported Henry Clay, but switched to Andrew Jackson (with Clay as a second choice) when it became clear that the Pennsylvanian public overwhelmingly preferred Jackson. After Jackson lost the 1824 election, he joined his faction, but Jackson had contempt for Buchanan due to his misinterpretation of his efforts to mediate between the Clay and Jackson camps.
In Washington, Buchanan became an avid defender of states' rights, and was close with many southern Congressmen, viewing some New England Congressmen as dangerous radicals. Buchanan's close proximity to his constituency allowed him to establish a Democratic coalition in Pennsylvania, consisting of former Federalist farmers, Philadelphia artisans, and Ulster-Scots-Americans. In the 1828 presidential election, he secured Pennsylvania, while the "Jacksonian Democrats", an independent party after splitting from the National Republican Party, won an easy victory in the parallel congressional election.
Buchanan gained most attention during an impeachment trial where he acted as prosecutor for federal district judge James H. Peck; however, the Senate rejected Buchanan's plea and acquitted Peck by a majority vote. He was appointed to the Agriculture Committee in his first year, and he eventually became chairman of the Judiciary Committee. In 1831, Buchanan declined a nomination for the 22nd United States Congress from his constituency consisting of Dauphin, Lebanon, and Lancaster counties. He still had political ambitions and some Pennsylvania Democrats put him forward as a candidate for the vice presidency in the 1832 election.
Minister to Russia
After Jackson was re-elected in 1832, he offered Buchanan the position of United States Ambassador to Russia. Buchanan was reluctant to leave the country, as the distant St. Petersburg was a kind of political exile, which was the intention of Jackson, who considered Buchanan to be an "incompetent busybody" and untrustworthy, but he ultimately agreed. His work focused on concluding a trade and shipping treaty with Russia. While Buchanan was successful with the former, negotiating an agreement on free merchant shipping with Foreign Minister Karl Nesselrode proved difficult. He had denounced Tsar Nicholas I as a despot merely a year prior during his tenure in Congress; many Americans had reacted negatively to Russia's reaction to the 1830 Polish uprising.
U.S. Senator
Buchanan returned home and lost the election in the State Legislature for a full six-year term in the 23rd Congress, but was appointed by the Pennsylvania state legislature to succeed William Wilkins in the U.S. Senate. Wilkins, in turn, replaced Buchanan as the ambassador to Russia. The Jacksonian Buchanan, who was re-elected in 1836 and 1842, opposed the re-chartering of the Second Bank of the United States and sought to expunge a congressional censure of Jackson stemming from the Bank War. Buchanan served in the Senate until March 1845 and was twice confirmed in office. To unite Pennsylvania Democrats at the State Convention, he was chosen as their candidate for the National Convention. Buchanan maintained a strict adherence to the Pennsylvania State Legislature's guidelines and sometimes voted against positions in Congress which he promoted in his own speeches, despite open ambitions for the White House.
Buchanan was known for his commitment to states' rights and the Manifest Destiny ideology. He rejected President Martin Van Buren's offer to become United States Attorney General and chaired prestigious Senate committees such as the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Foreign Relations. Buchanan was one of only a few senators to vote against the Webster–Ashburton Treaty for its "surrender" of lands to the United Kingdom, as he demanded the entire Aroostook River Valley for the United States. In the Oregon Boundary Dispute, Buchanan adopted the maximum demand of 54°40′ as the northern border and spoke out in favor of annexing the Republic of Texas. During the contentious 1838 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, Buchanan chose to support the Democratic challenger, David Rittenhouse Porter, who was elected by fewer than 5,500 votes as Pennsylvania's first governor under the state's revised Constitution of 1838.
Buchanan also opposed a gag rule sponsored by John C. Calhoun that would have suppressed anti-slavery petitions. He joined the majority in blocking the rule, with most senators of the belief that it would have the reverse effect of strengthening the abolitionists. He said, "We have just as little right to interfere with slavery in the South, as we have to touch the right of petition." Buchanan thought that the issue of slavery was the domain of the states, and he faulted abolitionists for exciting passions over the issue. In the lead-up to the 1844 Democratic National Convention, Buchanan positioned himself as a potential alternative to former President Martin Van Buren, but the nomination went to James K. Polk, who won the election.
Diplomatic career
Secretary of State
Buchanan was offered the position of Secretary of State in the Polk administration or, as the alternative, a seat on the Supreme Court, to compensate him for his support in the election campaign but also in order to eliminate him as an internal party rival. He accepted the State Department post and served for the duration of Polk's single term in office. During his tenure, the United States recorded its largest territorial gain in history through the Oregon Treaty and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which included territory that is now Texas, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. In negotiations with Britain over Oregon, Buchanan initially favored the 49th parallel as the boundary of Oregon Territory, while Polk called for a more northerly boundary line. When Northern Democrats rallied around the popular slogan Fifty-Four Forty or Fight ("54°40′ or war") in the 1844 election campaign, Buchanan adopted this position, but later followed Polk's direction, leading to the Oregon Compromise of 1846, which established the 49th parallel as the boundary in the Pacific Northwest.
In regards to Mexico, Buchanan maintained a dubious view that its attack on American troops on the other side of the Rio Grande in April 1846 constituted a border violation and a legitimate reason for war. During the Mexican-American War, Buchanan initially advised against claiming territory south of the Rio Grande, fearing war with Britain and France. However, as the war came to an end, Buchanan changed his mind and argued for the annexation of further territory, arguing that Mexico was to blame for the war and that the compensation negotiated for the American losses was too low. Buchanan sought the nomination at the 1848 Democratic National Convention, as Polk had promised to serve only one term, but he only won the support of the Pennsylvania and Virginia delegations, so Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan was nominated.
Civilian life and 1852 presidential election
With the 1848 election of Whig Zachary Taylor, Buchanan returned to private life. Buchanan was getting on in years and still dressed in the old-fashioned style of his adolescence, earning him the nickname "Old Public Functionary" from the press. Slavery opponents in the North mocked him as a relic of prehistoric man because of his moral values. He bought the house of Wheatland on the outskirts of Lancaster and entertained various visitors while monitoring political events. During this period, Buchanan became the center of a family network consisting of 22 nieces, nephews and their descendants, seven of whom were orphans. He found public service jobs for some through patronage, and for those in his favor, he took on the role of surrogate father. He formed the strongest emotional bond with his niece Harriet Lane, who later became First Lady for Buchanan in the White House.
In 1852, he was named president of the Board of Trustees of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, and he served in this capacity until 1866. Buchanan did not completely leave politics. He intended to publish a collection of speeches and an autobiography, but his political comeback was thwarted by the 1852 presidential election. Buchanan traveled to Washington to discuss Pennsylvania Democratic Party politics, which were divided into two camps led by Simon Cameron and George Dallas. He quietly campaigned for the 1852 Democratic presidential nomination. In light of the Compromise of 1850, which had led to the admission of California into the Union as a free state and a stricter Fugitive Slave Act, Buchanan now rejected the Missouri Compromise and welcomed Congress's rejection of the Wilmot Proviso, which prohibited slavery in all territories gained in the Mexican-American War. Buchanan criticized abolitionism as a fanatical attitude and believed that slavery should be decided by state legislatures, not Congress. He disliked abolitionist Northerners due to his party affiliation, and became known as a "doughface" due to his sympathy toward the South. Buchanan emerged as a promising candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, alongside Lewis Cass, Stephen Douglas, and William L. Marcy; however, the Pennsylvania convention did not vote unanimously in his favor, with over 30 delegates protesting against him. At the 1852 Democratic National Convention, he won the support of many southern delegates but failed to win the two-thirds support needed for the presidential nomination, which went to Franklin Pierce. Buchanan declined to serve as the vice presidential nominee, and the convention instead nominated his close friend, William R. King.
Minister to the United Kingdom
Pierce won the election in 1852, and six months later, Buchanan accepted the position of United States Minister to the United Kingdom, a position that represented a step backward in his career and that he had twice previously rejected. Buchanan sailed for England in the summer of 1853, and he remained abroad for the next three years. In 1850, the United States and Great Britain signed the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which committed both countries to joint control of any future canal that would connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through Central America. Buchanan met repeatedly with Lord Clarendon, the British foreign minister, in hopes of pressuring the British to withdraw from Central America. He was able to reduce British influence in Honduras and Nicaragua while also raising the kingdom's awareness of American interests in the region. He also focused on the potential annexation of Cuba, which had long interested him.
At Pierce's prompting, Buchanan met in Ostend, Belgium, with U.S. Ambassador to Spain Pierre Soulé and U.S. Ambassador to France John Mason, to work out a plan for the acquisition of Cuba. A memorandum draft resulted, called the Ostend Manifesto, which proposed the purchase of Cuba from Spain, then in the midst of revolution and near bankruptcy. The document declared the island "as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present ... family of states". Against Buchanan's recommendation, the final draft of the manifesto suggested that "wresting it from Spain", if Spain refused to sell, would be justified "by every law, human and Divine". The manifesto was met with a divided response and was never acted upon. It weakened the Pierce administration and reduced support for Manifest Destiny. In 1855, as Buchanan's desire to return home grew, Pierce asked him to hold the fort in London in light of the relocation of a British fleet to the Caribbean.
Election of 1856
Buchanan's service abroad allowed him to conveniently avoid the debate over the Kansas–Nebraska Act then roiling the country in the slavery dispute. While he did not overtly seek the presidency, he assented to the movement on his behalf. While still in England, he campaigned by praising John Joseph Hughes, who was Archbishop of New York, to a Catholic archbishop. The latter campaigned for Buchanan among high-ranking Catholics as soon as he heard about it. When Buchanan arrived home at the end of April 1856, he led on the first ballot, supported by powerful Senators John Slidell, Jesse Bright, and Thomas F. Bayard, who presented Buchanan as an experienced leader appealing to the North and South. The 1856 Democratic National Convention met in June 1856, producing a platform that reflected Buchanan's views, including support for the Fugitive Slave Law, which required the return of escaped slaves. The platform also called for an end to anti-slavery agitation and U.S. "ascendancy in the Gulf of Mexico". President Pierce hoped for re-nomination, while Senator Stephen A. Douglas also loomed as a strong candidate. He won the nomination after seventeen ballots after Douglas' resignation. He was joined on the ticket by John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky in order to maintain regional proportional representation, placating supporters of Pierce and Douglas, also allies of Breckinridge.
Buchanan faced two candidates in the general election: former Whig President Millard Fillmore ran as the candidate for the anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant American Party (or "Know-Nothing"), while John C. Frémont ran as the Republican nominee. The contrast between Buchanan and Frémont was particularly stark, with opposing caricaturists drawing the Democratic candidate as a fussy old man in drag. Buchanan did not actively campaign, but he wrote letters and pledged to uphold the Democratic platform. In the election, he carried every slave state except for Maryland, as well as five slavery-free states, including his home state of Pennsylvania. He won 45 percent of the popular vote and decisively won the electoral vote, taking 174 of 296 votes. His election made him the first president from Pennsylvania. In a combative victory speech, Buchanan denounced Republicans, calling them a "dangerous" and "geographical" party that had unfairly attacked the South. He also declared, "the object of my administration will be to destroy sectional party, North or South, and to restore harmony to the Union under a national and conservative government." He set about this initially by feigning a sectional balance in his cabinet appointments.
Presidency (1857–1861)
Inauguration
Buchanan was inaugurated on March 4, 1857, taking the oath of office from Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. In his lengthy inaugural address, Buchanan committed himself to serving only one term, as his predecessor had done. He abhorred the growing divisions over slavery and its status in the territories, saying that Congress should play no role in determining the status of slavery in the states or territories. He proposed a solution based on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which stated that the principle of popular sovereignty was decisive, and Congress had no say in the matter. Buchanan recommended that a federal slave code be enacted to protect the rights of slaveowners in federal territories. He alluded to a then-pending Supreme Court case, Dred Scott v. Sandford, which he said would permanently settle the issue of slavery. Dred Scott was a slave who was temporarily taken from a slave state to a free territory by his owner, John Sanford. After Scott returned to the slave state, he filed a petition for his freedom based on his time in the free territory.
Associate Justice Robert C. Grier leaked the decision in the "Dred Scott" case early to Buchanan. In his inaugural address, Buchanan declared that the issue of slavery in the territories would be "speedily and finally settled" by the Supreme Court. According to historian Paul Finkelman: Buchanan already knew what the Court was going to decide. In a major breach of Court etiquette, Justice Grier, who, like Buchanan, was from Pennsylvania, had kept the President-elect fully informed about the progress of the case and the internal debates within the Court. When Buchanan urged the nation to support the decision, he already knew what Taney would say. Republican suspicions of impropriety turned out to be fully justified.
Historians agree that the court decision was a major disaster because it dramatically inflamed tensions, leading to the Civil War. In 2022, historian David W. Blight argued that the year 1857 was, "the great pivot on the road to disunion...largely because of the Dred Scott case, which stoked the fear, distrust and conspiratorial hatred already common in both the North and the South to new levels of intensity."
Personnel
Cabinet and administration
As his inauguration approached, Buchanan sought to establish an obedient, harmonious cabinet to avoid the in-fighting that had plagued Andrew Jackson's administration. The cabinet's composition had to do justice to the proportional representation within the party and between the regions of the country. Buchanan first worked on this task in Wheatland until he traveled to the capital in January 1857. There, like many other guests at the National Hotel, he contracted severe dysentery, from which he did not fully recover until several months later. Dozens of those who fell ill died, including Buchanan's nephew and private secretary Eskridge Lane.
The cabinet selection was disastrous, with four Southern ministers being large-scale slaveholders who later became loyal to the Confederate States of America. Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb was considered the greatest political talent in the Cabinet, while the three department heads from the northern states were all considered to be doughfaces. His objective was to dominate the cabinet, and he chose men who would agree with his views. Buchanan had a troubled relationship with his vice president from the beginning, when he did not receive him during his inaugural visit but referred him to his niece and First Lady, which Breckinridge never forgave him for and saw as disrespectful. He left out the influential Stephen A. Douglas, who had made Buchanan's nomination possible by resigning at the National Convention the previous year, when filling the post. Concentrating on foreign policy, he appointed the aging Lewis Cass as Secretary of State. Buchanan's appointment of Southerners and their allies alienated many in the North, and his failure to appoint any followers of Douglas divided the party. Outside of the cabinet, he left in place many of Pierce's appointments but removed a disproportionate number of Northerners who had ties to Democratic opponents Pierce or Douglas.
Judicial appointments
Buchanan appointed one Justice, Nathan Clifford, to the Supreme Court of the United States. He appointed seven other federal judges to United States district courts. He also appointed two judges to the United States Court of Claims.
Intervention in the Dred Scott case
The case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, to which Buchanan referred to in his inaugural address, dated back to 1846. Scott sued for his release in Missouri, claiming he lived in service to the proprietor in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory. The case reached the Supreme Court and gained national attention by 1856. Buchanan consulted with Judge John Catron in January 1857, inquiring about the outcome of the case and suggesting that a broader decision, beyond the specifics of the case, would be more prudent. Buchanan hoped that a broad decision protecting slavery in the territories could lay the issue to rest, allowing him to focus on other issues.
Catron replied on February 10, saying that the Supreme Court's Southern majority would decide against Scott, but would likely have to publish the decision on narrow grounds unless Buchanan could convince his fellow Pennsylvanian, Justice Robert Cooper Grier, to join the majority of the court. Buchanan then wrote to Grier and prevailed upon him, providing the majority leverage to issue a broad-ranging decision sufficient to render the Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional.
Two days after Buchanan was sworn in as president, Chief Justice Taney delivered the Dred Scott decision, which denied the petitioner's request to be set free from slavery. The ruling broadly asserted that Congress had no constitutional power to exclude slavery in the territories. According to this decision, slaves were forever the property of their owners without rights and no African American could ever be a full citizen of the United States, even if they had full civil rights in a state. Buchanan's letters were not made public at the time, but he was seen conversing quietly with the Chief Justice during his inauguration. When the decision was issued, Republicans began spreading the word that Taney had informed Buchanan of the impending outcome. Rather than destroying the Republican platform as Buchanan had hoped, the decision infuriated Northerners, who condemned it.
Panic of 1857
The Panic of 1857 began in the summer of that year, when the New York branch of Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company announced its insolvency. The crisis spread rapidly, and by the fall, 1,400 state banks and 5,000 businesses had gone bankrupt. Unemployment and hunger became common in northern cities, but the agricultural south was more resilient. Buchanan agreed with the southerners who attributed the economic collapse to over-speculation.
Buchanan acted in accordance with Jacksonian Democracy principles, which restricted paper money issuance, and froze federal funds for public works projects, causing resentment among some of the population due to his refusal to implement an economic stimulus program. While the government was "without the power to extend relief", it would continue to pay its debts in specie, and while it would not curtail public works, none would be added. In hopes of reducing paper money supplies and inflation, he urged the states to restrict the banks to a credit level of $3 to $1 of specie and discouraged the use of federal or state bonds as security for bank note issues. The economy recovered in several years, though many Americans suffered as a result of the panic. Buchanan had hoped to reduce the deficit, but by the time he left office the federal budget grew by 15%.
Utah War
In the spring of 1857, the Latter-day Saints and their leader Brigham Young had been challenging federal representatives in Utah Territory, causing harassment and violence against non-Mormons. Young harassed federal officers and discouraged outsiders from settling in the Salt Lake City area. In September 1857, the Utah Territorial Militia, associated with the Latter-day Saints, perpetrated the Mountain Meadows massacre, in which Young's militia attacked a wagon train and killed 125 settlers. Buchanan was offended by the militarism and polygamous behavior of Young. With reports of violence against non-Mormons, Buchanan authorized a military expedition into Utah Territory in late March 1857 to replace Young as governor. The force consisted of 2,500 men, including Alfred Cumming and his staff, and was commanded by General William S. Harney. Complicating matters, Young's notice of his replacement was not delivered because the Pierce administration had annulled the Utah mail contract, and Young portrayed the approaching forces as an unauthorized overthrow.
Buchanan's personnel decision incited resistance from the Mormons around Young, as Harney was known for his volatility and brutality. In August 1857, Albert S. Johnston replaced him for organizational reasons. Young reacted to the military action by mustering a two-week expedition, destroying wagon trains, oxen, and other Army property. Buchanan then dispatched Thomas L. Kane as a private agent to negotiate peace. The mission was successful, a peaceful agreement to replace Governor Young with Cumming was reached, and the Utah War ended. The President granted amnesty to inhabitants affirming loyalty to the government, and placed the federal troops at a peaceable distance for the balance of his administration.
Buchanan did not comment on the conflict again until his State of the Union Address in December 1857, leaving open the question of whether it was a rebellion in Utah. One of Buchanan's last official acts in March 1861 was to reduce the size of Utah Territory in favor of Nevada, Colorado, and Nebraska. While the Latter-day Saints had frequently defied federal authority, some historians consider Buchanan's action was an inappropriate response to uncorroborated reports.
Transatlantic telegraph cable
Buchanan was the first recipient of an official telegram transmitted across the Atlantic. Following the dispatch of test and configuration telegrams, on August 16, 1858 Queen Victoria sent a 98-word message to Buchanan at his summer residence in the Bedford Springs Hotel in Pennsylvania, expressing hope that the newly laid cable would prove "an additional link between the nations whose friendship is founded on their common interest and reciprocal esteem". Queen Victoria's message took 16 hours to send.
Buchanan responded: "It is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle. May the Atlantic telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world."
Bleeding Kansas and constitutional dispute
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 created the Kansas Territory and allowed the settlers there to decide whether to allow slavery. This resulted in violence between "Free-Soil" (antislavery) and pro-slavery settlers, which developed into the "Bleeding Kansas" period. The antislavery settlers, with the help of Northern abolitionists, organized their own territorial government in Topeka. The more numerous proslavery settlers, many from the neighboring slave state Missouri, established a government in Lecompton, giving the Territory two different governments for a time, with two distinct constitutions, each claiming legitimacy. The admission of Kansas as a state required a constitution be submitted to Congress with the approval of a majority of its residents. Under President Pierce, a series of violent confrontations escalated over who had the right to vote in Kansas. The situation drew national attention, and some in Georgia and Mississippi advocated secession should Kansas be admitted as a free state. Buchanan chose to endorse the pro-slavery Lecompton government.
Buchanan appointed Robert J. Walker to replace John W. Geary as Territorial Governor, and there ensued conflicting referendums from Topeka and Lecompton, where election fraud occurred. In October 1857, the Lecompton government framed the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution that agreed to a referendum limited solely to the slavery question. However, the vote against slavery, as provided by the Lecompton Convention, would still permit existing slaves, and all their issue, to be enslaved, so there was no referendum that permitted the majority anti-slavery residents to prohibit slavery in Kansas. As a result, anti-slavery residents boycotted the referendum since it did not provide a meaningful choice.
Despite the protests of Walker and two former Kansas governors, Buchanan decided to accept the Lecompton Constitution. In a December 1857 meeting with Stephen A. Douglas, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, Buchanan demanded that all Democrats support the administration's position of admitting Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution. On February 2, he transmitted the Lecompton Constitution to Congress. He also transmitted a message that attacked the "revolutionary government" in Topeka, conflating them with the Mormons in Utah. Buchanan made every effort to secure congressional approval, offering favors, patronage appointments, and even cash for votes. The Lecompton Constitution won the approval of the Senate in March, but a combination of Know-Nothings, Republicans, and Northern Democrats defeated the bill in the House.
Buchanan never forgave Douglas, as the Northern Democrats' rejection was the deciding factor in the House's decision, and he removed all Douglas supporters from his patronage in Illinois and Washington, D.C., installing pro-administration Democrats, including postmasters. Rather than accepting defeat, Buchanan backed the 1858 English Bill, which offered Kansas immediate statehood and vast public lands in exchange for accepting the Lecompton Constitution. In August 1858, Kansans by referendum strongly rejected the Lecompton Constitution. The territory received an abolitionist constitution, which was bitterly opposed in Congress by representatives and senators from the southern states until Kansas was admitted to the Union in January 1861.
The dispute over Kansas became the battlefront for control of the Democratic Party. On one side were Buchanan, the majority of Southern Democrats, and the "doughfaces". On the other side were Douglas and the majority of northern Democrats, as well as a few Southerners. Douglas's faction continued to support the doctrine of popular sovereignty, while Buchanan insisted that Democrats respect the Dred Scott decision and its repudiation of federal interference with slavery in the territories.
1858 mid-term elections
Douglas's Senate term was coming to an end in 1859, with the Illinois legislature, elected in 1858, determining whether Douglas would win re-election. The Senate seat was the primary issue of the legislative election, marked by the famous debates between Douglas and his Republican opponent for the seat, Abraham Lincoln. Buchanan, working through federal patronage appointees in Illinois, ran candidates for the legislature in competition with both the Republicans and the Douglas Democrats. This could easily have thrown the election to the Republicans, and showed the depth of Buchanan's animosity toward Douglas. In the end, Douglas Democrats won the legislative election and Douglas was re-elected to the Senate. In that year's elections, Douglas forces took control throughout the North, except in Buchanan's home state of Pennsylvania. Buchanan's support was otherwise reduced to a narrow base of southerners.
The division between northern and southern Democrats allowed the Republicans to win a plurality of the House in the 1858 elections, and allowed them to block most of Buchanan's agenda. Buchanan, in turn, added to the hostility with his veto of six substantial pieces of Republican legislation. Among these measures were the Homestead Act, which would have given 160 acres of public land to settlers who remained on the land for five years, and the Morrill Act, which would have granted public lands to establish land-grant colleges. Buchanan argued that these acts were unconstitutional. In the western and northwestern United States, where the Homestead Act was very popular, even many Democrats condemned the president's policies, while many Americans who considered education an important asset resented Buchanan's veto of agricultural colleges.
Foreign policy
Buchanan took office with an ambitious foreign policy, designed to establish U.S. hegemony over Central America at the expense of Great Britain. Buchanan sought to revitalize Manifest Destiny and to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, which had been under attack from the Spanish, French, and especially the British in the 1850s. He hoped to re-negotiate the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty to counter European imperialism in the Western Hemisphere, which he thought limited U.S. influence in the region. He also sought to establish American protectorates over the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora to secure American citizens and investments, and most importantly, he hoped to achieve his long-term goal of acquiring Cuba. However, Buchanan's ambitions in Cuba and Mexico were largely blocked by the House of Representatives. After long negotiations with the British, he convinced them to cede the Bay Islands to Honduras and the Mosquito Coast to Nicaragua.
In 1858, Buchanan ordered the Paraguay expedition to punish Paraguay for firing on the USS Water Witch, ordering 2,500 marines and 19 warships there. This costly expedition took months to reach Asunción, which successfully resulted in a Paraguayan apology and payment of an indemnity. The chiefs of Raiatea and Tahaa in the South Pacific, refusing to accept the rule of King Tamatoa V, unsuccessfully petitioned the United States to accept the islands under a protectorate in June 1858. Buchanan also considered buying Alaska from the Russian Empire, as whaling in the waters there had become of great economic importance to the United States. Buchanan fueled this by spreading the rumor to the Russian ambassador Eduard de Stoeckl in December 1857 that a large amount of Mormons intended to emigrate to Russian Alaska. In the winter of 1859, an initial purchase offer of $5,000,000 (equivalent to $169,560,000 in 2023) was made. Although the project ultimately failed due to the reservations of Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov, the talks formed the basis for the later negotiations to purchase Alaska.
Buchanan sought trade agreements with the Qing Dynasty and Japan. In China, his envoy William Bradford Reed succeeded in having the United States included as a party to the Treaty of Tianjin. In May 1860, Buchanan received a Japanese delegation consisting of several princes who carried the Harris Treaty negotiated by Townsend Harris for mutual ratification. Buchanan was offered a herd of elephants by King Rama IV of Siam, though the letter arrived after Buchanan's departure from office and Buchanan's successor Abraham Lincoln declined the offer stating that the U.S. had an unsuitable climate. Other presidential pets included a pair of bald eagles and a Newfoundland dog.
Covode Committee
In March 1860, the House impaneled the Covode Committee to investigate the Buchanan administration's patronage system for alleged impeachable offenses, such as bribery and extortion of representatives. Buchanan supporters accused the committee, consisting of three Republicans and two Democrats, of being blatantly partisan, and claimed its chairman, Republican Rep. John Covode, was acting on a personal grudge stemming from a disputed land grant designed to benefit Covode's railroad company. The Democratic committee members, as well as Democratic witnesses, were enthusiastic in their condemnation of Buchanan.
The committee was unable to establish grounds for impeaching Buchanan; however, the majority report issued on June 17 alleged corruption and abuse of power among members of his cabinet. The committee gathered evidence that Buchanan had tried to bribe members of Congress in his favor through intermediaries in the spring of 1858 in connection with the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution of Kansas, and threatened their relatives with losing their posts if they did not vote in favor of the Lecompton Constitution. Witnesses also testified that the federal government used public funds to strengthen the intra-party faction of Douglas's opponents in Illinois. The Democrats pointed out that evidence was scarce, but did not refute the allegations; one of the Democratic members, Rep. James Robinson, stated that he agreed with the Republicans, though he did not sign it.
The public was shocked by the extent of the bribery, which affected all levels and agencies of government. Buchanan claimed to have "passed triumphantly through this ordeal" with complete vindication. Republican operatives distributed thousands of copies of the Covode Committee report throughout the nation as campaign material in that year's presidential election.
Election of 1860
As he had promised in his inaugural address, Buchanan did not seek re-election. He went so far as to tell his ultimate successor, "If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man."
At the 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston, the party split over the issue of slavery in the territories, damaging Buchanan's reputation as the main person responsible for this issue. Though Douglas led after every ballot, he was unable to win the two-thirds majority required. The convention adjourned after 53 ballots, and re-convened in Baltimore in June. After Douglas finally won the nomination, several Southerners refused to accept the outcome, and nominated Vice President Breckinridge as their own candidate. Douglas and Breckinridge agreed on most issues except the protection of slavery. Buchanan, nursing a grudge against Douglas, failed to reconcile the party, and tepidly supported Breckinridge. With the splintering of the Democratic Party, Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln won a four-way election that also included John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party. Lincoln's support in the North was enough to give him an Electoral College majority. Buchanan became the last Democrat to win a presidential election until Grover Cleveland in 1884.
As early as October, the army's Commanding General, Winfield Scott, an opponent of Buchanan, warned him that Lincoln's election would likely cause at least seven states to secede from the union. He recommended that massive amounts of federal troops and artillery be deployed to those states to protect federal property, although he also warned that few reinforcements were available. Since 1857, Congress had failed to heed calls for a stronger militia and allowed the army to fall into deplorable condition. Buchanan distrusted Scott and ignored his recommendations. After Lincoln's election, Buchanan directed Secretary of War John B. Floyd to reinforce southern forts with such provisions, arms, and men as were available; however, Floyd persuaded him to revoke the order.
Secession
With Lincoln's victory, talk of secession and disunion reached a boiling point, putting the burden on Buchanan to address it in his final speech to Congress on December 10. In his message, which was anticipated by both factions, Buchanan denied the right of states to secede but maintained the federal government was without power to prevent them. He placed the blame for the crisis solely on "intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States," and suggested that if they did not "repeal their unconstitutional and obnoxious enactments ... the injured States, after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union." Buchanan's only suggestion to solve the crisis was "an explanatory amendment" affirming the constitutionality of slavery in the states, the fugitive slave laws, and popular sovereignty in the territories. His address was sharply criticized both by the North, for its refusal to stop secession, and the South, for denying its right to secede. Five days after the address was delivered, Treasury Secretary Howell Cobb resigned, as his views had become irreconcilable with the President's. Even as the formation of the Confederacy by the secessionist states became increasingly apparent in the winter of 1860, the president continued to surround himself with Southerners and ignore the Republicans.
South Carolina, long the most radical Southern state, seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860. However, Unionist sentiment remained strong among many in the South, and Buchanan sought to appeal to the Southern moderates who might prevent secession in other states. He met with South Carolinian commissioners in an attempt to resolve the situation at Fort Sumter, which federal forces remained in control of despite its location in Charleston, South Carolina. Buchanan saw Congress, not himself, as responsible for finding a solution to the secession crisis. As a compromise for the southern states, Buchanan envisioned the adoption of amendments to the United States Constitution that would guarantee the right to slavery in the southern states and territories and strengthen the right of slave owners to reclaim escaped slaves as property in the northern states.
He refused to dismiss Interior Secretary Jacob Thompson after the latter was chosen as Mississippi's agent to discuss secession, and he refused to fire Secretary of War John B. Floyd despite an embezzlement scandal. Floyd ended up resigning, but not before sending numerous firearms to Southern states, where they eventually fell into the hands of the Confederacy. Despite Floyd's resignation, Buchanan continued to seek the advice of counselors from the Deep South, including Jefferson Davis and William Henry Trescot. Buchanan's friend Rose O'Neal Greenhow took advantage of the proximity to the president and spied for the Confederacy, which had already established a sophisticated network for gathering information from its eventual opponent before its formation.
Efforts were made in vain by Sen. John J. Crittenden, Rep. Thomas Corwin, and former president John Tyler to negotiate a compromise to stop secession, with Buchanan's support. Failed attempts were also made by a group of governors meeting in New York. Buchanan secretly asked President-elect Lincoln to call for a national referendum on the issue of slavery, but Lincoln declined. In December 1860, when the second session of the 36th Congress was convened, The Committee of Thirty-Three was established by the House of Representatives to prevent further states from seceding. They proposed the Corwin Amendment, which would bar Congress from interfering with slavery in states. Despite opposition from Republicans, it passed both houses of Congress and was proposed to states for ratification, but it was never ratified by the requisite number of states.
Despite the efforts of Buchanan and others, six more slave states seceded by the end of January 1861. Buchanan replaced the departed Southern cabinet members with John Adams Dix, Edwin M. Stanton, and Joseph Holt, all of whom were committed to preserving the Union. When Buchanan considered surrendering Fort Sumter, the new cabinet members threatened to resign, and Buchanan relented. On January 5, Buchanan decided to reinforce Fort Sumter, sending the Star of the West with 250 men and supplies. However, he failed to ask Major Robert Anderson to provide covering fire for the ship, and it was forced to return North without delivering troops or supplies. Buchanan chose not to respond to this act of war, and instead sought to find a compromise to avoid secession. He received a March 3 message from Anderson, that supplies were running low, but the response became Lincoln's to make, as the latter succeeded to the presidency the next day.
States admitted to the Union
Three new states were admitted to the Union while Buchanan was in office:
Minnesota – May 11, 1858
Oregon – February 14, 1859
Kansas – January 29, 1861
Final years and death (1861–1868)
After leaving office, Buchanan retired to private life in Wheatland, where he spent most of his time in his study, reading books and writing letters. The Civil War erupted within two months of Buchanan's retirement. He supported the Union and the war effort, writing to former colleagues that, "the assault upon Sumter was the commencement of war by the Confederate states, and no alternative was left but to prosecute it with vigor on our part." Buchanan supported Lincoln's introduction of universal conscription in the northern states, but was an opponent of his Emancipation Proclamation. Although he recognized constitutional violations in some of the president's executive orders, he never criticized them in public. He also wrote a letter to his fellow Pennsylvania Democrats in Harrisburg, urging them and all young men to enlist in the Union army and "join the many thousands of brave & patriotic volunteers who are already in the field."
Buchanan was dedicated to defending his actions prior to the Civil War, which was referred to by some as "Buchanan's War". He received hate mail and threatening letters daily, and stores in Lancaster displayed Buchanan's likeness with the eyes inked red, a noose drawn around his neck and the word "TRAITOR" written across his forehead. The Senate proposed a resolution of condemnation which ultimately failed, and newspapers accused him of colluding with the Confederacy. His former cabinet members, five of whom had been given jobs in the Lincoln administration, refused to defend Buchanan publicly.
Buchanan became distraught by the vitriolic attacks levied against him, and fell sick and depressed. In October 1862, he defended himself in an exchange of letters with Winfield Scott, published in the National Intelligencer. He soon began writing his fullest public defense, in the form of his memoir Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of Rebellion, which was published in 1866, one year after the Civil War ended. Buchanan attributed secession to the "malign influence" of Republicans and the abolitionist movement. He discussed his foreign policy successes and expressed satisfaction with his decisions, even during the secession crisis. He blamed Robert Anderson, Winfield Scott, and Congress for the unresolved issue. Two years after the publication of the memoir, Buchanan caught a cold in May 1868, which quickly worsened due to his advanced age. He died on June 1, 1868, of respiratory failure at the age of 77 at his home at Wheatland. He was interred in Woodward Hill Cemetery in Lancaster.
Political views
Buchanan was often considered by anti-slavery northerners a "doughface", a northerner with pro-southern principles. Buchanan's sympathies for the Southern states went beyond political expediency for his path to the White House. He identified with cultural and social values that he found reflected in the honor code and lifestyle of the planter class and with which he increasingly came into contact in his retirement community beginning in 1834. Shortly after his election, he said that the "great object" of his administration was "to arrest, if possible, the agitation of the Slavery question in the North and to destroy sectional parties". Although Buchanan was personally opposed to slavery, he believed that the abolitionists were preventing the solution to the slavery problem. He stated, "Before [the abolitionists] commenced this agitation, a very large and growing party existed in several of the slave states in favor of the gradual abolition of slavery; and now not a voice is heard there in support of such a measure. The abolitionists have postponed the emancipation of the slaves in three or four states for at least half a century." In deference to the intentions of the typical slaveholder, he was willing to provide the benefit of the doubt. In his third annual message to Congress, the president claimed that the slaves were "treated with kindness and humanity. ... Both the philanthropy and the self-interest of the master have combined to produce this humane result."
Buchanan thought restraint was the essence of good self-government. He believed the constitution comprised "... restraints, imposed not by arbitrary authority, but by the people upon themselves and their representatives. ... In an enlarged view, the people's interests may seem identical, but to the eye of local and sectional prejudice, they always appear to be conflicting ... and the jealousies that will perpetually arise can be repressed only by the mutual forbearance which pervades the constitution." Regarding slavery and the Constitution, he stated: "Although in Pennsylvania we are all opposed to slavery in the abstract, we can never violate the constitutional compact we have with our sister states. Their rights will be held sacred by us. Under the constitution it is their own question; and there let it remain."
One of the prominent issues of the day was tariffs. Buchanan was conflicted by free trade as well as prohibitive tariffs, since either would benefit one section of the country to the detriment of the other. As a senator from Pennsylvania, he said: "I am viewed as the strongest advocate of protection in other states, whilst I am denounced as its enemy in Pennsylvania."
Buchanan was also torn between his desire to expand the country for the general welfare of the nation, and to guarantee the rights of the people settling particular areas. On territorial expansion, he said, "What, sir? Prevent the people from crossing the Rocky Mountains? You might just as well command the Niagara not to flow. We must fulfill our destiny." On the resulting spread of slavery, through unconditional expansion, he stated: "I feel a strong repugnance by any act of mine to extend the present limits of the Union over a new slave-holding territory." For instance, he hoped the acquisition of Texas would "be the means of limiting, not enlarging, the dominion of slavery."
Personal life
Buchanan suffered from esotropia. In addition, one eye was short-sighted and the other far-sighted. To cover this, he bent his head forward and leaned it to one side during social interactions. This led to ridicule, which Henry Clay, among others, used ruthlessly during a congressional debate.
In 1818, Buchanan met Anne Caroline Coleman at a grand ball in Lancaster, and the two began courting. Anne was the daughter of the wealthy iron manufacturer Robert Coleman; Robert, like Buchanan's father, was from County Donegal in Ulster. Anne was also the sister-in-law of Philadelphia judge Joseph Hemphill, one of Buchanan's colleagues. By 1819, the two were engaged, but spent little time together. Buchanan was busy with his law firm and political projects during the Panic of 1819, which took him away from Coleman for weeks at a time. Rumors abounded, as some suggested that he was involved with other (unidentified) women. Letters from Coleman revealed she was aware of several rumors, and she accused him of only being interested in her money. She broke off the engagement, and soon afterward, on December 9, 1819, inexplicably died of "hysterical convulsions" resulting from an overdose of laudanum, at the age of 23. It was never established if the drug was taken by instruction, by accident, or by intent. Buchanan wrote to her father for permission to attend the funeral, which was refused. At the time of her funeral, he said that, "I feel happiness has fled from me forever." Afterwards, Buchanan claimed that he remained unmarried out of devotion to his only love, who had died young.
In 1833 and the 1840s, he spoke of plans to marry, but these came to nothing and may merely have been due to his ambitions for a seat in the federal Senate or the White House. In the latter case, the aspirant was 19-year-old Anna Payne, the niece of former First Lady Dolley Madison. During his presidency, an orphaned niece, Harriet Lane, whom he had adopted, served as official White House hostess. There was an unfounded rumor that he had an affair with President Polk's widow, Sarah Childress Polk.
Buchanan had a close relationship with William Rufus King, which became a popular target of gossip. King was an Alabama politician who briefly served as vice president under Franklin Pierce. Buchanan and King lived together in a Washington boardinghouse and attended social functions together from 1834 until 1844. Such a living arrangement was then common, though Buchanan once referred to the relationship as a "communion". Andrew Jackson mockingly called them "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy", the former being a 19th-century euphemism for an effeminate man. Buchanan's Postmaster General, Aaron V. Brown, also referred to King as "Aunt Fancy", as well as Buchanan's "better half", and "wife". King died of tuberculosis shortly after Pierce's inauguration, four years before Buchanan became president. Buchanan described him as "among the best, the purest and most consistent public men I have known". Biographer Baker opines that both men's nieces may have destroyed correspondence between the two men. However, she believes that their surviving letters illustrate only "the affection of a special friendship".
Buchanan's lifelong bachelorhood after Anne Coleman's death has drawn interest and speculation. Some conjecture that Anne's death merely served to deflect questions about Buchanan's sexuality and bachelorhood. One of his biographers, Jean Baker, suggests that Buchanan was celibate, if not asexual. Several writers have surmised that he was homosexual, including James W. Loewen, Robert P. Watson, and Shelley Ross. Loewen indicated that Buchanan, late in life, wrote a letter acknowledging that he might marry a woman who could accept his "lack of ardent or romantic affection".
Legacy
Historical reputation
Though Buchanan predicted that "history will vindicate my memory," historians have criticized Buchanan for his unwillingness or inability to act in the face of secession. Historical rankings of presidents of the United States without exception place Buchanan among the least successful presidents. When scholars are surveyed, he ranks at or near the bottom in terms of vision/agenda-setting, domestic leadership, foreign policy leadership, moral authority, and positive historical significance of their legacy. According to surveys taken by American scholars and political scientists between 1948 and 1982, Buchanan ranks every time among the worst presidents of the United States, alongside Harding, Fillmore and Nixon.
Buchanan biographer Philip S. Klein focused in 1962, during the Civil Rights movement, upon challenges Buchanan faced:
Buchanan assumed leadership ... when an unprecedented wave of angry passion was sweeping over the nation. That he held the hostile sections in check during these revolutionary times was in itself a remarkable achievement. His weaknesses in the stormy years of his presidency were magnified by enraged partisans of the North and South. His many talents, which in a quieter era might have gained for him a place among the great presidents, were quickly overshadowed by the cataclysmic events of civil war and by the towering Abraham Lincoln.
Biographer Jean Baker is less charitable to Buchanan, saying in 2004:
Americans have conveniently misled themselves about the presidency of James Buchanan, preferring to classify him as indecisive and inactive ... In fact Buchanan's failing during the crisis over the Union was not inactivity, but rather his partiality for the South, a favoritism that bordered on disloyalty in an officer pledged to defend all the United States. He was that most dangerous of chief executives, a stubborn, mistaken ideologue whose principles held no room for compromise. His experience in government had only rendered him too self-confident to consider other views. In his betrayal of the national trust, Buchanan came closer to committing treason than any other president in American history.Other historians, such as Robert May, argued that his politics were "anything but pro-slavery", nevertheless, a very negative view is to be found in Michael Birkner's works about Buchanan. For Lori Cox Han, he ranks among scholars "as either the worst president in [American] history or as part of a lowest ranking failure category".
Memorials
A bronze and granite memorial near the southeast corner of Washington, D.C.'s Meridian Hill Park was designed by architect William Gorden Beecher and sculpted by Maryland artist Hans Schuler. It was commissioned in 1916 but not approved by the U.S. Congress until 1918, and not completed and unveiled until June 26, 1930. The memorial features a statue of Buchanan, bookended by male and female classical figures representing law and diplomacy, with engraved text reading: "The incorruptible statesman whose walk was upon the mountain ranges of the law," a quote from a member of Buchanan's cabinet, Jeremiah S. Black.
An earlier monument was constructed in 1907–1908 and dedicated in 1911, on the site of Buchanan's birthplace in Stony Batter, Pennsylvania. Part of the original 18.5-acre (75,000 m2) memorial site is a 250-ton pyramid structure that stands on the site of the original cabin where Buchanan was born. The monument was designed to show the original weathered surface of the native rubble and mortar.
Three counties are named in his honor, in Iowa, Missouri, and Virginia. Another in Texas was christened in 1858 but renamed Stephens County, after the newly elected vice president of the Confederate States of America, Alexander Stephens, in 1861. The city of Buchanan, Michigan, was also named after him. Several other communities are named after him: the unincorporated community of Buchanan, Indiana, the city of Buchanan, Georgia, the town of Buchanan, Wisconsin, and the townships of Buchanan Township, Michigan, and Buchanan, Missouri.
James Buchanan High School is a small, rural high school located on the outskirts of his childhood hometown, Mercersburg, Pennsylvania.
Popular culture depictions
Buchanan and his legacy are central to the film Raising Buchanan (2019). He is portrayed by René Auberjonois.
See also
Historical rankings of presidents of the United States
List of presidents of the United States
List of presidents of the United States by previous experience
Presidents of the United States on U.S. postage stamps
List of federal political sex scandals in the United States
References
Works cited
Further reading
External links
United States Congress. "James Buchanan (id: B001005)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
James Buchanan: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
The James Buchanan papers, spanning the entirety of his legal, political and diplomatic career, are available for research use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
University of Virginia article: Buchanan biography
Wheatland
James Buchanan at Tulane University
Essay on James Buchanan and his presidency from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
Buchanan's Birthplace State Park, Franklin County, Pennsylvania
"Life Portrait of James Buchanan", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, June 21, 1999
Primary sources
Works by James Buchanan at Project Gutenberg
Works by James Buchanan at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Works by or about James Buchanan at the Internet Archive
James Buchanan Ill with Dysentery Before Inauguration: Original Letters Shapell Manuscript Foundation
Mr. Buchanans Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion. President Buchanans memoirs.
Inaugural Address Archived August 9, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
Fourth Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1860 |
Harriet_Lane | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Lane | [
0
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Lane"
] | Harriet Rebecca Lane Johnston (May 9, 1830 – July 3, 1903) acted as first lady of the United States during the administration of her uncle, lifelong bachelor president James Buchanan, from 1857 to 1861. She has been described as the first of the modern first ladies, being a notably charming and diplomatic hostess, whose dress-styles were copied, and who promoted deserving causes. In her will, she left funds for a new school on the grounds of Washington National Cathedral. Several ships have been named in her honor, including the cutter USCGC Harriet Lane, still in service.
Status
Lane is the only person to have served as First Lady to a bachelor president, Buchanan being the only U.S. president never to have married. She is among 11 women who have served as First Lady, but were not married to the president, with most of the other women being relatives of widowed presidents.
Early life
Harriet Lane's family was from Franklin County, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest child of Elliott Tole Lane, a merchant, and Jane Ann Buchanan Lane. She lost her mother when she was nine; when her father's death two years later made her an orphan, she requested that her favorite uncle, James Buchanan, be appointed as her legal guardian. Buchanan, an unmarried Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, indulged his niece and her sister, enrolling them in boarding schools in Charles Town, Virginia (later for two years at the Georgetown Visitation Monastery in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C.) By this time, Buchanan was Secretary of State, and, as he had promised, he introduced her to fashionable and political circles.
In 1854, she joined him in London, where he was minister to the Court of St. James's. Queen Victoria gave "dear Miss Lane" the rank of ambassador's wife; admiring suitors gave her the fame of a beauty. In appearance "Hal" Lane was of medium height, with masses of light, almost golden-colored hair. She had eyes that were described as "violet colored".
Acting First Lady of the United States
The capital welcomed its new "Democratic Queen" to the White House in 1857. Harriet was a popular hostess during the four years of the Buchanan presidency. Women copied her hair and clothing styles (especially when she lowered the neckline on her inaugural gown by 2.5 inches), parents named their daughters for her, and a popular song ("Listen to the Mockingbird") was dedicated to her. While in the White House, she used her position to promote social causes, such as improving the living conditions of Native Americans in reservations. She also made a point of inviting artists and musicians to White House functions. For both her popularity and her advocacy work, she has been described as the first of the modern first ladies, and her popularity at the time is compared to that of Jacqueline Kennedy in the 1960s. The presidential yacht was named for her—the first of several ships to be named after her, one of which remains in service.
As sectional tensions increased, she worked out seating arrangements for her weekly formal dinner parties with special care, to give dignitaries their proper precedence and still keep political foes apart. Her tact did not falter, but her task became impossible—as did her uncle's. Seven states had seceded by the time Buchanan retired from office and returned with his niece to his spacious country home, Wheatland, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
In the 1982 Siena College Research Institute survey asking historians to assess American first ladies, Lane and several other "acting" first ladies were included. The first ladies survey, which has been conducted periodically since, ranks first ladies according to a cumulative score on the independent criteria of their background, value to the country, intelligence, courage, accomplishments, integrity, leadership, being their own women, public image, and value to the president. In the 1982 survey, out of 42 first ladies and acting first ladies, Lane was assessed as the 29th most highly regarded among historians. Acting first ladies such as Lane have been excluded from subsequent iterations of this survey.
Romance and marriage
During her time in England, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, then Prime Minister Palmerston's attorney general, proposed marriage to her; Queen Victoria was strongly in favor of this match, as it would keep Lane in England.
Lane considered the advantages of a number of bachelors. Her uncle cautioned Lane against "rushing precipitately into matrimonial connections" as his ward found her potential suitors "pleasant but dreadfully troublesome". Lane eventually married Baltimore banker Henry Elliott Johnston at the age of 36. They had two sons: James Buchanan Johnston (1866–1881) and Henry Elliot Johnston (1869–1882), but within the 18 years from 1867 to 1885, her uncle, her husband, and her children all died.
Later life and death
Harriet wrote her will in 1895 and lived another eight years, during which the country's general prosperity greatly increased the value of her estate. She added a codicil in 1899 directing that a school building be constructed on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral property and asked that it be called the Lane-Johnston Building "to the end that the family names of my husband and myself may be associated with the bequest made in loving memory of our sons." A codicil of 1903 increased her gift by one third but said that only half the total was to be spent on the building. The remainder was "specially to provide for the free maintenance, education and training of choirboys, primarily those in service of the Cathedral." This bequest founded the prestigious boys' school that today is called St. Albans School, which opened in October 1909.
At Harriet Lane Johnston's funeral, services were conducted by Bishop Satterlee and Canon DeVries of the Washington National Cathedral. She was buried in Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore, Maryland, her grave marked with a Celtic cross like the Peace Cross on the cathedral close. In 1905, guests were invited to see the cornerstone of the first St. Albans School building, laid for what the invitation referred to as "The Lane Johnston Choir School for Boys of the Washington Cathedral".
Legacy
Lane left bequests in her will that established a children's hospital and a boys' school, and she donated her collection of artwork to the Smithsonian. Several Navy and Coast Guard ships have been named in her honor.
Her birthplace, the Lane House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
Hospital and school
She dedicated $400,000 (equivalent to $13,600,000 in 2023) to establish the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland as a memorial to two sons who had died in childhood. In October 1912 the Harriet Lane Home officially opened. It was the first children's clinic in the United States that was associated with a medical school. Eventually treating over 60,000 children a year, the Harriet Lane Home became a pioneer treatment, teaching, and research clinic.
From 1930 to 1963 Helen Taussig, who helped to develop the blue baby operation, headed the pediatric cardiac clinic. Child psychiatrist Leo Kanner did studies of autistic children. Lawson Wilkins established an endocrine clinic that developed procedures used universally to treat children with certain glandular disorders, including dwarfism. John E. Bordley and William G. Hardy broke ground in detecting hearing impairments in very young children. It became a renowned pediatric facility; the Harriet Lane Outpatient Clinics serve thousands of children today, and the widely used manual for pediatric house officers, The Harriet Lane Handbook, bears her name.
The Harriet Lane Outpatient Clinics continue to operate in countries throughout the world.
The pediatric medicine Harriet Lane Handbook series continues in print and online, with multiple titles. The original title (subtitled A Manual for Pediatric House Officers) is in its 22nd edition, published by Mosby.
Art collection
She had an art collection based on European works which she left to the U.S. government. The Smithsonian Institution called her the "First Lady of the National Collection of Fine Arts" after her collection was accepted into public ownership.
Namesake ships
The United States Coast Guard has had three cutters named in her honor. The first was the USRC Harriet Lane, commissioned into the United States Revenue Cutter Service (predecessor of the USCG) in 1857. This cutter was transferred to the United States Navy in 1861 because of the American Civil War.
The second cutter named for Harriet Lane was the 125 foot USCGC Harriet Lane (WSC-141), commissioned in 1926 and decommissioned in 1946.
The third cutter named for Harriet Lane is the USCGC Harriet Lane (WMEC-903). The cutter was commissioned in May 1984, and as of 2021, is still in active service.
Footnotes
References
Further reading
Balcerski, Thomas J. "Harriet Rebecca Lane Johnston." in A Companion to First Ladies (2016): 197-213.
Rosenberger, Homer Tope. "To what Extent Did Harriet Lance Influence the Public Policies of James Buchanan?" Lancaster County Historical Society, 1970. online
Updike, John (1974). Buchanan Dying (play). (Ms. Johnston is a character in Updike's fictional play about President Buchanan.)
External links
Works by or about Harriet Lane at the Internet Archive
"Harriet Lane". First Ladies: Influence & Image. firstladies.org. CNN. |
List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_who_died_in_office | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_who_died_in_office | [
0
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_who_died_in_office"
] | Since the office was established in 1789, 45 persons have served as president of the United States. Of these, eight have died in office: four were assassinated, and four died of natural causes. In each of these instances, the vice president has succeeded to the presidency. This practice is now governed by Section One of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1967, which declares that, "the Vice President shall become President" if the president is removed from office, dies, or resigns. The initial authorization for this practice was provided by Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, of the U.S. Constitution.
The first incumbent U.S. president to die was William Henry Harrison, on April 4, 1841, only one month after Inauguration Day. He died from complications of what at the time was believed to be pneumonia. The second American president to die in office, Zachary Taylor, died on July 9, 1850, from acute gastroenteritis. Abraham Lincoln was the first U.S. president to be killed while in office. He was shot by John Wilkes Booth on the night of April 14, 1865, and died the following morning. Sixteen years later, on July 2, 1881, James A. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, surviving for over two months before dying on September 19, 1881.
On September 14, 1901, William McKinley died, eight days after being shot by Leon Czolgosz. Next, Warren G. Harding suffered a heart attack, and died on August 2, 1923. On April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt (who had just begun his fourth term in office) collapsed and died as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage. The most recent U.S. president to die in office was John F. Kennedy, who was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.
1841: William Henry Harrison
On March 26, 1841, William Henry Harrison became ill with a cold after being caught in a torrential downpour without cover. His symptoms grew progressively worse over the ensuing two days, at which time a team of doctors was called in to treat him. After making a diagnosis of right lower lobe pneumonia, they proceeded to place heated suction cups on his bare torso and to administer a series of bloodlettings, to supposedly draw out the disease. When those procedures failed to bring about improvement, the doctors treated him with ipecac, Castor oil, calomel, and finally with a boiled mixture of crude petroleum and Virginia snakeroot. All this only weakened Harrison further.
Initially, no official announcement was made concerning Harrison's illness, which, the longer he remained out of public view, fueled public speculation and concern. By the end of the month large crowds were gathering outside the White House, holding vigil while awaiting any news about the president's condition. On the evening of April 4, 1841, nine days after becoming ill, and exactly one month after taking the oath of office, Harrison died at age 68. His last words were to his attending doctor, though assumed to be directed at Vice President John Tyler:
Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more.
A 30-day period of mourning commenced following the president's death. Various public ceremonies, modeled after European royal funeral practices, were held. An invitation-only funeral service was also held, on April 7 in the East Room of the White House, after which Harrison's coffin was brought to Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., where it was placed in a temporary receiving vault.
That June, Harrison's body was transported by train and river barge to North Bend, Ohio. Then, on July 7, 1841, the nation's 9th president was buried in a family tomb at the summit of Mt. Nebo, overlooking the Ohio River – the William Henry Harrison Tomb State Memorial.
Harrison's death sparked a brief constitutional crisis regarding succession to the presidency, as the U.S. Constitution was unclear as to whether Vice President John Tyler should assume the office of president or merely execute the duties of the vacant office. Tyler claimed a constitutional mandate to carry out the full powers and duties of the presidency and took the presidential oath of office, setting an important precedent for an orderly transfer of presidential power when a president leaves office intra-term.
Coincidentally, all but one of the presidents who later died in office had, like Harrison, won a presidential election in a year ending in a zero (1840 through 1960). This pattern of tragedies came to be known as the Curse of Tippecanoe, or the Curse of Tecumseh, the name of the Shawnee leader against whom Harrison fought in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe. Also sometimes referred to as the Zero Factor legend, the pattern was disrupted by Ronald Reagan, who survived an assassination attempt in 1981 (69 days after taking office) and lived to complete two full terms.
1850: Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor was known to have consumed copious amounts of ice water, cold milk, green apples, and cherries on July 4, 1850, after attending holiday celebrations and the laying of the cornerstone of the Washington Monument. That same evening, he became severely ill with an unknown digestive ailment. Doctors used popular treatments of the time. On the morning of July 9, the president asked his wife Margaret not to grieve saying:
I have always done my duty, I am ready to die. My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me.
Taylor died late that evening, five days after becoming ill, at age 65. Contemporary reports listed the cause of death as "bilious diarrhea or a bilious cholera." He was succeeded by Vice President Millard Fillmore.
Taylor's funeral took place on July 13, and like Harrison's nine years earlier, was held in the East Room of the White House. Afterward, an estimated 100,000 people gathered along the funeral route to Congressional Cemetery where his coffin was placed temporarily in the Public Vault; that October it was transported to Louisville, Kentucky. On November 1, 1850, Taylor was buried in his family's burial ground on the Taylor estate, Springfield, which became the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery.
Almost immediately after his death, rumors began to circulate that Taylor had been poisoned by pro-slavery Southerners, and various conspiracy theories persisted into the late-20th century. The cause of Taylor's death was definitively established in 1991, when his remains were exhumed and an autopsy conducted by Kentucky's chief medical examiner. Subsequent neutron activation analysis conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory revealed no evidence of poisoning, as arsenic levels were too low. The analysis concluded Taylor had contracted cholera morbus (acute gastroenteritis), as Washington had open sewers, and his food or drink may have been contaminated.
1865: Abraham Lincoln
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, as the Civil War was drawing to a close. He died the following morning at the age of 56. The assassination occurred five days after General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac following the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Lincoln was the first American president to be killed by an assassin. (The first U.S. president to be confronted by a would-be assassin was Andrew Jackson 30 years earlier, in January 1835.)
The assassination of President Lincoln was planned and carried out by the well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, vehement in his denunciation of Lincoln, and a strong opponent of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Booth and a group of co-conspirators originally plotted to kidnap Lincoln, but later planned to kill him, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William H. Seward in a bid to help the Confederacy's cause. Johnson's would-be-assassin, George Atzerodt did not carry out his part of the plan, and Johnson succeeded Lincoln as president while Lewis Powell only managed to wound Seward.
Lincoln was shot once in the back of his head while watching the play Our American Cousin with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on the night of April 14, 1865. An army surgeon who happened to be at Ford's, Doctor Charles Leale, assessed Lincoln's wound as mortal. The unconscious president was then carried across the street from the theater to the Petersen House, where he remained in a coma for eight hours before dying the following morning.
Within two weeks of the manhunt for Lincoln's killers, on April 26, 1865, Booth and David Herold were caught in a tobacco barn in Port Conway, Virginia. While Herold surrendered, Booth was shot to death by Boston Corbett, a Union Corporal.
A three-week series of official functions were held following the president's death. He lay in state in the East Room of the White House which was open to the public on April 18. A funeral service was held the next day, and then the coffin was transported in a procession down Pennsylvania Avenue to the United States Capitol, where a ceremonial burial service was held in the rotunda. After lying in state at the Capitol, Lincoln's remains were transported by train to Springfield, Illinois, for burial. He was interred on May 4, 1865, at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield – the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site since 1895.
1881: James A. Garfield
The assassination of James A. Garfield happened in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1881. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau at 9:30 a.m., less than four months into his term as the nation's 20th president. He died 11 weeks later on September 19, 1881, at the age of 49. Vice President Chester A. Arthur succeeded him as president. Garfield was scheduled to leave Washington on July 2, 1881, for his summer vacation. On that day, Guiteau lay in wait for the president at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station, on the southwest corner of present-day Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.
President Garfield came to the Sixth Street Station on his way to his alma mater, Williams College, where he was scheduled to deliver a speech. Garfield was accompanied by two of his sons, James and Harry, and Secretary of State James G. Blaine. Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln waited at the station to see the president off. Garfield had no bodyguard or security detail; with the exception of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, early U.S. presidents never used any guards.
As President Garfield entered the waiting room of the station, Guiteau stepped forward and pulled the trigger from behind at point-blank range. "My God, what is that?!" Garfield cried out, flinging up his arms. Guiteau fired again and Garfield collapsed. One bullet grazed Garfield's shoulder; the other hit him in the back, passing the first lumbar vertebra but missing the spinal cord before coming to rest behind his pancreas.
Garfield, conscious but in shock, was carried to an upstairs floor of the train station. Lincoln sent for D.C. Bliss, a prominent Washington physician, who soon arrived and examined Garfield's wounds several times, probing for the bullet that remained lodged in the president's body with his fingers and metal probes. Two additional doctors were summoned, and they also probed the entry wound. Eventually there were about twenty people in the room, including at least ten physicians. As Garfield was being cared for, Lincoln, thinking back to the death of his father, said "How many hours of sorrow I have passed in this town."
Garfield was carried back to the White House. Although doctors told him that he would not survive the night, the president remained conscious and alert. The next morning his vital signs were good and doctors began to hope for recovery. A long vigil began, with Garfield's doctors issuing regular bulletins that the American public followed closely throughout the summer of 1881. His condition fluctuated. Fevers came and went. Garfield struggled to keep down solid food and spent most of the summer eating little, and that only liquids.
Garfield had been a regular visitor to the shore town of Long Branch, New Jersey, one of the nation's premier summer vacation spots until World War I. In early September, it was decided to bring him to Elberon, a quiet beach town just to the south of Long Branch, in hopes that the beach air would help him recover. When they heard that the president was being brought to their town, local citizens built more than half a mile of tracks in less than 24 hours, enabling Garfield to be brought directly to the door of the oceanfront Franklyn cottage, rather than being moved by carriage from the local Elberon train station. However, Garfield died 12 days later. A granite marker on Garfield Road identifies the former site of the cottage, which was demolished in 1950. Throughout the five-month drama, anxious Americans across the country were kept informed of developments by the news media. The publisher of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Miriam Leslie, was especially quick to publish fully illustrated accounts of key moments, from Garfield's shooting to the embalming of his body.
Chester Arthur was at his home in New York City on the night of September 19, when word came that Garfield had died. After first getting the news, Arthur said "I hope—my God, I do hope it is a mistake." But confirmation by telegram came soon after. Arthur took the presidential oath of office, administered by a New York Supreme Court judge, then left for Long Branch to pay his respects before traveling on to Washington. Garfield's body was taken to Washington, where it lay in state for two days in the Capitol Rotunda before being taken to Cleveland, where the funeral was held on September 26.
When the tracks that had been hastily built to the Franklyn cottage were later torn up, actor Oliver Byron bought the wooden ties, and had local carpenter William Presley build them into a small tea house, in commemoration of the president. The red & white (originally red, white & blue) "Garfield Tea House" still survives, resting a couple of blocks away from the site of the cottage on the grounds of the Long Branch Historical Museum, a former Episcopal Church. The church is nicknamed "The Church of the Presidents," as it had been attended by, in addition to Garfield, presidents Chester A. Arthur, Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford Hayes, William McKinley, and Woodrow Wilson, during their own visits to Long Branch.
1901: William McKinley
William McKinley was assassinated on September 6, 1901, inside the Temple of Music on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley was shaking hands with the public when Leon Czolgosz, a Polish-American anarchist, shot him. The 58-year-old president died eight days later on September 14 from gangrene caused by the bullet wounds.
McKinley had been elected for a second term in 1900. He enjoyed meeting the public, and was reluctant to accept the security available to his office. The secretary to the president, George B. Cortelyou, feared an assassination attempt would take place during a visit to the Temple of Music, and twice took it off the schedule. McKinley restored it each time.
Czolgosz had lost his job during the economic Panic of 1893 and turned to anarchism, a political philosophy whose adherents had previously killed foreign leaders. Regarding McKinley as a symbol of oppression, Czolgosz felt it was his duty as an anarchist to kill him. Unable to get near McKinley during the earlier part of the presidential visit, Czolgosz shot McKinley twice as the President reached to shake his hand in the reception line at the temple. One bullet grazed McKinley; the other entered his abdomen and was never found.
McKinley initially appeared to be recovering, but took a turn for the worse on September 13 as his wounds became gangrenous, and died early the next morning; Vice President Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him. Roosevelt was hiking near the top of Mt. Marcy, in New York's Adirondack region, when a runner located him to convey the news. After McKinley's murder, for which Czolgosz was put to death in the electric chair, the United States Congress passed legislation to officially charge the Secret Service with the responsibility for protecting the president.
1923: Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding died from a sudden heart attack in his hotel suite while visiting San Francisco on the evening of August 2, 1923, at the age of 57. His death quickly led to theories that he had been poisoned or committed suicide. Rumors of poisoning were fueled, in part, by a book called The Strange Death of President Harding by private detective and former Ohio Gang member Gaston Means, who suggested First Lady Florence Harding had poisoned her husband after learning of his infidelity. Mrs. Harding's refusal to allow an autopsy on President Harding only added to the speculation. According to the physicians attending Harding, however, the symptoms in the days prior to his death all pointed to congestive heart failure. Harding's biographer, Samuel H. Adams, concluded that "Warren G. Harding died a natural death which, in any case, could not have been long postponed."
Immediately after President Harding's death, Mrs. Harding returned to Washington, D.C., and briefly stayed in the White House with the new president Calvin Coolidge and first lady. For a month, former first lady Harding gathered and destroyed by fire President Harding's correspondence and documents, both official and unofficial. Upon her return to Marion, Ohio, Mrs. Harding hired a number of secretaries to collect and burn President Harding's personal papers. According to Mrs. Harding, she took these actions to protect her husband's legacy. The remaining papers were held and kept from public view by the Harding Memorial Association in Marion.
1945: Franklin D. Roosevelt
On March 29, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt went to the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia, to rest before his anticipated appearance at the founding conference of the United Nations in late April in San Francisco. At around 1:00 pm on April 12, Roosevelt said, "I have a terrific pain in the back of my head," which were his last words. He then slumped forward in his chair, unconscious, and was carried into his bedroom. The president's attending cardiologist, Howard Bruenn, diagnosed a massive cerebral hemorrhage (stroke). The 63-year-old Roosevelt died a few hours later, without regaining consciousness. As Allen Drury later said, "so ended an era, and so began another." After Roosevelt's death, an editorial in The New York Times declared, "Men will thank God on their knees a hundred years from now that Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House."
In his later years at the White House, when Roosevelt was increasingly overworked, his daughter Anna Roosevelt Boettiger had moved in to provide her father companionship and support. Anna had also arranged for her father to meet with his former mistress, the then widowed Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd. A close friend of both Roosevelt and Mercer who was present, Elizabeth Shoumatoff, rushed Mercer away to avoid negative publicity and implications of infidelity. When Eleanor heard about her husband's death, she was also faced with the news that Anna had been arranging these meetings with Mercer and that Mercer had been with Franklin when he died.
On the morning of April 13, Roosevelt's body was placed in a flag-draped coffin and loaded onto the presidential train. After a White House funeral on April 14, Roosevelt was transported back to Hyde Park by train, guarded by four servicemen, one each from the Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard. As was his wish, Roosevelt was buried in the Rose Garden of the Springwood estate, the Roosevelt family home in Hyde Park on April 15. Eleanor died in November 1962 and was buried next to him.
Roosevelt's death was met with shock and grief across the U.S. and around the world. His declining health had not been known to the general public. Roosevelt had been president for more than 12 years, longer than any other person, and had led the country through some of its greatest crises to the impending defeat of Nazi Germany and within sight of the defeat of Japan as well.
Less than a month after his death, on May 8, the war in Europe ended. President Harry S. Truman dedicated Victory in Europe Day and its celebrations to Roosevelt's memory, and kept the flags across the U.S. at half-staff for the remainder of the 30-day mourning period. In doing so, Truman said that his only wish was "that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day."
1963: John F. Kennedy
The most recent U.S. president to die in office is John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. He was fatally shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, who fired three shots from a sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository at 12:30 p.m. as the presidential motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza. Riding in the vehicle with the president were First Lady Jackie Kennedy, Texas governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie; Governor Connally was also seriously wounded in the attack. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes later, at the age of 46. Connally recovered from his injuries.
Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was a few cars behind the president in the motorcade, became U.S. president upon Kennedy's death. He took the presidential oath of office onboard Air Force One as it sat on the runway at Dallas Love Field. Oswald was arrested by the Dallas Police Department that afternoon, and was charged under Texas state law with the murder of Kennedy, as well as that of Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit, who had been fatally shot a short time after the assassination. Two days later, on November 24, 1963, as live television cameras were covering his transfer from the city jail to the county jail, Oswald was fatally shot in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters by Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby. Ruby was convicted of Oswald's murder, though it was later overturned on appeal, and Ruby died in prison in 1967 while awaiting a new trial.
In 1964, after a 10-month investigation into the assassination, the Warren Commission concluded that President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and that Oswald had acted entirely alone. It also concluded that Jack Ruby acted alone when he killed Oswald in police custody. Nonetheless, speculation over "what really happened" on November 22, 1963, in Dallas captured the public imagination during the decades that followed. Polls conducted from 1966 to 2004 found that as many as 80 percent of Americans have suspected that there was a criminal conspiracy or cover-up. Numerous books, films, television specials and websites have examined the assassination in minute detail, and numerous conspiracy theories have been advanced. Parties as varied as the FBI, the CIA, the Mafia, the Cuban and the Soviet governments, along with Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, have been identified as Suspect. In an article published prior to the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination, author Vincent Bugliosi estimates that a total of 42 groups, 82 assassins, and 214 people have been accused in conspiracy theories challenging the "lone gunman" theory.
See also
List of United States presidential assassination attempts
Curse of Tippecanoe
Notes
References
Bibliography
Bauer, K. Jack (1985). Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 0-8071-1237-2.
Cleaves, Freeman (1939). Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His Time. New York, NY: C. Scribner's Sons.
Leech, Margaret (1959). In the Days of McKinley. New York: Harper and Brothers. pp. 594–600. OCLC 456809.
McCullough, David (1992). Truman. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-86920-5.
Millard, Candice (2011). Destiny of the Republic. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-53500-7.
Miller, Scott (2011). The President and the Assassin. New York: Random House. pp. 56–60. ISBN 978-1-4000-6752-7.
Peskin, Allan (1978). Garfield. Kent State University Press. ISBN 0-87338-210-2.
Vowell, Sarah (2005). Assassination Vacation. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-6003-1.
External links
The Mortal Presidency Archived June 3, 2015, at the Wayback Machine (Shapell Manuscript Foundation) |
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