James Buchanan

James Buchanan was born on April 23rd, 1791 in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania. His father was a merchant farmer and his mother was intelligent and well-read. As a young boy, Buchanan attended Old Stone Academy, and then Dickinson College where he was suspended before graduating in 1809. After graduating, Buchanan moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he studied law and was admitted in a bar. After that, in 1812, he enlisted in the army and fought in the War of 1812.

At the age of 23, he was elected as a Federalist Party member for the House of Representatives. He then won the U.S House of Representatives and served for five terms, from 1821-1831. In 1832, Buchanan served as the United States Minister to Russia. In 1834, he won a seat in the Senate as a Democrat for 10 years. He then later served for James Polk's Secretary of State. He ran for office as a Democrat in 1852, but lost to Franklin Pierce. Because of the lost, Pierce appointed Buchanan to United States Minister to England.

In 1856, Buchanan beat Republican candidate John C. Fremont and was sworn into presidency on March 4th, 1857. Shortly after, the Dred Scott decision was made. Buchanan tried to resolve the issue in Kansas. Buchanan supported the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution. By the end of his presidency, the issue of slavery was to a point where it would tear the country apart. When Lincoln was elected president, the possibility of the deep south seceding was at a likelihood. In his final address to Congress, Buchanan argued that the states had no right to secede from the Union. When he left office on March 3rd, 1861, he left the nation at the brink of war.

In his personal life, Buchanan lived the life of a bachelor. In 1819 he was engaged to Ann Caroline Coleman. Their engagement wasn't a happy one. Despite rumors of Buchanan seeing another woman, Coleman called off the engagement, shortly died after—which her family blamed Buchanan—and left a heartbroken Buchanan vowing never to marry anyone. When Buchanan became president, his niece took over the roles of First Lady.

After he retired from Presidency, he devoted much of his time defending his handling of events leading to the Civil War. He published a memoir called Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of Rebellion in 1866, which he blamed abolitionists and Republicans for the events that led to the Civil War. The book was ignored, and he retired to privacy. On June 1st, 1868, he died at the age of 77 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and was buried in the same place.

http://www.biography.com/people/james-buchanan-9230228#disintegration