50 Fun Facts About James Buchanan

James Buchanan, who died at 77 in 1868, remains the only US president never to have done what?

He never got married, staying single for life after an engagement ended in tragedy in 1819. A female relative handled the hostess duties in his White House.

The ruler of Siam offered James Buchanan a herd of which animals, a gift his successor later turned down?

Elephants came with a ceremonial sword and a photograph of the royal family. The letter arrived after Buchanan left office, and the next president replied that the American climate did not suit them.

James Buchanan sent a general to calm an 1859 standoff with Britain sparked by the shooting of which animal?

A pig rooting in an American settler's potato patch on San Juan Island was the only casualty of the so-called Pig War. The standoff ended with no human losses on either side.

Which monarch exchanged greetings with James Buchanan over the first transatlantic telegraph cable in August 1858?

Queen Victoria sent congratulations that took about 16 hours to cross the Atlantic. Buchanan's reply called the cable a triumph more useful than any won on a battlefield.

Which niece of James Buchanan acted as White House hostess for his whole presidency, with her dresses widely copied?

Harriet Lane was orphaned at eleven and asked for Buchanan as her guardian. She later left her art collection to the nation, and it went to the Smithsonian.

James Buchanan habitually tilted his head forward and to one side because of a problem with which part of his body?

His eyes were mismatched: one was near-sighted, the other far-sighted, and he was cross-eyed too. Rivals such as Henry Clay mocked the tilt during debates in Congress.

James Buchanan sent Marines under Robert E. Lee to end which abolitionist's 1859 raid on the Harpers Ferry armory?

John Brown hoped to spark a slave revolt, but the Marines stormed his stronghold within two days. He was hanged that December, and the raid pushed North and South further apart.

James Buchanan was born in 1791 in what kind of building at Stony Batter, a frontier trading stop?

A log cabin on his father's land was his first home. The family later moved to nearby Mercersburg, where his father became the area's wealthiest resident.

Which Supreme Court ruling on slavery, issued two days after James Buchanan took office, had he secretly lobbied for?

Dred Scott v. Sandford held that Congress could not bar slavery from the territories. Buchanan had privately urged a northern justice to join the majority, hoping to settle the issue; it enraged the North instead.

James Buchanan sent the merchant steamer Star of the West to resupply which island garrison in Charleston Harbor?

Fort Sumter never got the supplies: shore batteries fired on the ship in January 1861 and it turned back. The stronghold fell to Confederate guns three months later, after Buchanan had left office.

Which president-elect did James Buchanan tell in 1861 that he would be happy to leave the White House and go home?

Abraham Lincoln took over a country already breaking apart: seven Southern states had left the Union during Buchanan's final months in office.

James Buchanan, a Lancaster lawyer before entering politics, was the first president elected from which state?

Pennsylvania had waited through fourteen presidencies for one of its own. Buchanan carried his home state in 1856 along with four other free states and nearly every slave state.

Which explorer nicknamed the Pathfinder lost to James Buchanan in 1856 as the first Republican presidential nominee?

John C. Frémont won most of the free states' electoral votes and finished second nationwide. His party was brand new, and its strong first showing alarmed slaveholders.

James Buchanan served as secretary of state under which president during the Mexican–American War?

Polk also offered him a seat on the Supreme Court, which Buchanan passed up for the cabinet. Their four years together stretched the United States to the Pacific.

James Buchanan sent 2,500 soldiers west in 1857 to replace which Mormon leader as governor of Utah Territory?

Brigham Young answered by sending raiders to destroy the army's wagon trains and oxen. A negotiated peace in 1858 let the new governor take office without a pitched battle.

James Buchanan pressed Congress to admit which territory as a slave state under the disputed Lecompton Constitution?

Kansas voters strongly rejected that constitution in an 1858 referendum, and the fight split Buchanan's party. The territory finally joined the Union as a free state in his last weeks in office.

The 1854 Ostend Manifesto, drafted by James Buchanan and two fellow diplomats, urged the US to acquire which island?

Cuba was to be bought from Spain, and the document argued that seizing it would be justified if Spain refused to sell. The manifesto met a divided response and was never acted on.

President Andrew Jackson sent James Buchanan abroad in 1832 as the American minister to which country?

Russia felt like political exile to Buchanan, who had denounced the tsar as a despot only a year earlier. He still came home with a trade treaty.

In 1860 James Buchanan welcomed to the White House the first diplomatic mission sent to America by which nation?

Japan sent its envoys to ratify a trade treaty, and Buchanan gave them a gold watch engraved with his own likeness for the shogun. New York then put on a grand parade up Broadway.

James Buchanan's administration offered $5 million in 1859 for which territory, finally bought eight years later?

Alaska mattered to Buchanan because American whaling in its waters had become big business. The tsar's foreign minister had doubts and the talks stalled, but they laid the ground for the 1867 purchase.

Which Kentuckian served as James Buchanan's vice president at 36 and later became a Confederate general?

John C. Breckinridge is the youngest vice president the country has had. In 1860 Southern delegates who rejected the official nominee put him up for president instead.

Which Alabama senator, later a vice president, shared a Washington boardinghouse with James Buchanan for ten years?

William R. King and Buchanan were so inseparable that one congressman called King Buchanan's better half. King died in 1853, soon after becoming vice president.

James Buchanan ran his 1856 front-porch campaign from which brick estate, where he died twelve years later?

Wheatland took its name from the local wheat fields. Buchanan bought the house in 1848, and after his death it passed to his niece.

Critics branded James Buchanan with which insult for a Northerner who sided with Southern slaveholders?

Doughface was coined by Virginia congressman John Randolph in 1820 for Northerners he thought weak and half-baked. Buchanan earned it by backing the South on slavery again and again.

James Buchanan first won election to his state legislature in 1814 as a member of which party?

The Federalists were his father's choice too. Buchanan attacked President Madison over the war with Britain before crossing to Andrew Jackson's camp in the 1820s.

Which chief justice swore in James Buchanan in 1857 and was seen talking quietly with him at the ceremony?

Roger B. Taney handed down a sweeping pro-slavery ruling just two days later, so the quiet chat fed rumours that he had tipped off the new president in advance.

James Buchanan was nearly expelled for rowdy behaviour from which Carlisle college before graduating with honours?

Dickinson almost threw him out in 1808 for drinking in taverns and vandalism. He pleaded for a second chance and finished with honours the following year.

James Buchanan's father was a merchant who had emigrated to America in 1783 from which country?

Ireland's County Donegal was the family home, though their roots were Ulster-Scots. The frontier post where the future president was born was named after the old family place there.

James Buchanan served as Worshipful Master of a lodge in his home town as a member of which brotherhood?

The Freemasons made him head of Lodge No. 43 and later a district deputy grand master, a regional post in the order's state body.

Which future British monarch stayed three days at James Buchanan's White House in 1860 while Prince of Wales?

Edward VII was 18 at the time, and Buchanan took him to Mount Vernon to pay his respects at George Washington's tomb. No Prince of Wales had toured North America before.

James Buchanan took the 1856 nomination from which sitting president of his own party, then succeeded him in office?

Franklin Pierce had been damaged by the violence in the western territories. Buchanan had spent those years abroad as minister in London, so he stayed clear of the row.

Which former president ran against James Buchanan in 1856 as the candidate of the anti-immigrant Know Nothings?

Millard Fillmore took about a fifth of the popular vote but carried only one state. He had been a Whig in the White House, and his old party was collapsing.

James Buchanan feuded bitterly over the Lecompton Constitution with which Illinois senator known as the Little Giant?

Stephen Douglas led Northern members of the president's own party against the measure, and Buchanan never forgave him. The president then removed the senator's allies from federal jobs.

After James Buchanan's 1856 victory, which candidate was the next Democrat to win a presidential election?

Grover Cleveland ended the drought in 1884, twenty-eight years on. Republicans won six straight elections in between, starting with the one held as Buchanan's single term ended.

James Buchanan vetoed an 1860 bill offering western settlers 160 acres of public land; what was it called?

The Homestead Act was so popular in the West that even members of Buchanan's own party condemned the veto. A new version became law in 1862, after he had left office.

Alongside a pair of bald eagles, James Buchanan kept which giant breed of dog as a White House pet?

A Newfoundland was the household dog in Buchanan's time. A stranger offer of animals came from Asia, but the letter reached Washington only after he had left office.

What shape is the stone monument, begun in 1907, that marks James Buchanan's birthplace at Stony Batter?

A pyramid 31 feet high stands on the spot, built of native stone by a crew that laid its own small railroad to haul the materials. His niece's will paid for it.

James Buchanan's 1857 swearing-in is the earliest presidential inauguration known to be recorded in which medium?

Photography caught the crowd massed at the Capitol that day, a first for an inauguration. In his speech Buchanan promised to serve only a single term.

Which lawyer joined James Buchanan's cabinet as attorney general in late 1860 and later ran the Union's War Department?

Edwin Stanton was one of the firm Unionists Buchanan brought in after Southern ministers quit. When the president thought of giving up a federal stronghold, the newcomers threatened to resign.

In 1856 James Buchanan carried every slave state except which one, the only state won by the American Party?

Maryland was the single prize for a third party that still drew more than a fifth of the nationwide vote. Buchanan took 174 of the 296 electoral votes.

Which Pacific Northwest state joined the Union on Valentine's Day 1859, during James Buchanan's presidency?

Oregon was the second of three states admitted under Buchanan, and all three came in free. Each one tipped the Senate further against the slave states he tried to placate.

James Buchanan sent 19 warships up South American rivers in 1858 to demand an apology from which country?

Paraguay had fired on a US Navy steamer surveying the Paraná River. The squadron was the largest America had yet sent abroad, and it came home with an apology and an indemnity.

Which novelist wrote Memories of the Ford Administration, whose narrator is fixated on a book about James Buchanan?

John Updike also wrote a 1974 play about the fifteenth president, Buchanan Dying. In the novel the hero's mind keeps drifting from the 1970s back to the crises of the 1850s.

James Buchanan was engaged in 1819 to which ironmaster's daughter, who died soon after breaking it off?

Anne Coleman had heard rumours that he was after her family's fortune. Her father refused to let Buchanan attend the funeral, and he said that happiness had fled from him forever.

Which elderly secretary of state quit James Buchanan's cabinet in December 1860 over his handling of secession?

Lewis Cass believed the president was failing to protect federal interests in the South. He had been his party's losing presidential candidate back in 1848.

Shortly before his inauguration, James Buchanan caught severe dysentery during an outbreak at which Washington hotel?

The National was the largest hotel in the city, and its primitive sewage is now blamed for sickening as many as 400 guests. Buchanan's nephew and private secretary was among the dead.

James Buchanan took the rare step of signing which proposed constitutional change meant to shield slavery?

The Corwin Amendment cleared Congress in his last days in office, but too few states ratified it. It would have barred Congress from ever interfering with slavery where it existed.

James Buchanan made a single Supreme Court appointment, choosing which former attorney general from Maine?

Nathan Clifford scraped through the Senate by 26 votes to 23 after Northern opposition. He replaced a justice who had quit months after dissenting from the court's most notorious slavery ruling.

James Buchanan won the 1856 nomination on the seventeenth ballot at a convention held in which Midwestern city?

Cincinnati hosted the delegates in Smith and Nixon's Hall that June. Buchanan led from the first ballot and won once his last serious rival withdrew.

A House committee that investigated James Buchanan for bribery in 1860 was nicknamed after which chairman?

John Covode's panel found no grounds for impeachment, but it reported bribes offered to congressmen for their votes. Republicans handed out thousands of copies as campaign material that year.