"I am now 'solitary and alone', having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone, and [I] should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection."
James Buchanan is the worst president the United States has ever seen. He's also likely gay (for his precessessor's Vice President, no less!). These two items, however, are uncorrelated.
I could go on a rant about Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy, but instead I think I'll stick to Buchanan's actual political moves that make him so horrible.
His term began with the Dred Scott decision. Days after his inaugural address, Chief Justice Taney made the decision, along with the Court, against Dred Scott and rendering null and void decades' worth of legislation keeping slavery in check. Buchanan has been theorized to have a hand in this case.
He was greatly in favor of slavery, and liked the idea of obtaining Cuba as a new slave state. He felt that both abolitionists and free-soil Republicans were the same.
But really, the most egrigious error of Buchanan's presidency is his admittance that states did not have the legal right to secede from the United States, but his unwillingness to do anything about their secession.
His term was all about putting wedges in between the Northerners and the Southerners, and he truly succeeded. If it were not for him, the Civil War may not have occurred. He was uncompromising on issues that favored slavery, he didn't do anything to help the fighting in "Bleeding Kansas," and he was too lazy to prevent a clearly approaching war.
In his memoirs, Buchanan said he thought history would view him more kindly than his contemporaries.
That sure worked out well.
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