Fifteenth President - James Buchanan - 0 comments

Buchanan, our only bachelor President, is now considered one of the worst Presidents ever. Why? Well, his earlier diplomatic career was a mess, including a part in the Ostend Manifesto debacle. As President he oversaw the Dred Scott Decision (many accused him of engineering Chief Justice Taney's decision), and fueled the Bleeding Kansas crisis by supporting the Lecompton Constitution, which would bring Kansas into the Union as a slave state. He sent the Army to fight Brigham Young in Utah. He was plagued by economic crises.

He supported slaveowners, and while he declared it illegal to secede, he also declared that it would be illegal to go to war to fight a secession. By the time his term was up, he saw several states actually secede and form the Confederacy.