James Buchanan (April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868) was the fifteenth President of the United States (1857–1861). He was the only President from Pennsylvania and the only President never to marry. As president he was a "doughface" who battled Stephen A. Douglas for control of the Democratic Party. Scholars consistently rank him as one of the two or three worst American presidents. As southern states declared their secession in the lead-up to the American Civil War, he held that secession was illegal, but that going to war to stop it was also illegal.Buchanan was a Representative and a Senator from Pennsylvania. He was born in a log cabin at Cove Gap, near Mercersburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, on April 23, 1791, to James Buchanan and Elizabeth Spear as the second of ten children (two of whom did not survive past infancy). The Buchanan family claims direct descent from King James I of Scotland. In 1802, he moved to Mercersburg with his parents, where he was privately tutored. He later attended the village academy and graduated from Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. At one point, he was expelled from Dickinson for wild behavior and bad conduct, but after pleading for a second chance he graduated with honors three years later on September 7, 1809.Later that year he moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. For the next three years he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1812. He then opened a practice in Lancaster. A dedicated Federalist, he strongly opposed the War of 1812 on the grounds that it was an unnecessary conflict. Nevertheless, when the British invaded neighboring Maryland, he joined a volunteer light dragoon unit and served in the defense of Baltimore, Maryland. |