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James Buchanan was born in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania, on April 23, 1791. He was the second of 11 children born to James Buchanan, Sr., a businessman and native of Ireland, and Elizabeth Speer Buchanan. Buchanan grew up on his father's frontier trading post in Stony Batter, near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Although Anne Caroline Coleman became his fianc?? in 1819, gossip caused Anne to break the engagement, and she committed suicide one week later. He never married.

After learning arithmetic and bookkeeping at his father's store and acquiring a strong Presbyterian sense of patriotism and scholarly desire from his mother, Buchanan attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He graduated with honors in 1809 and began practicing law in 1812. Buchanan served briefly in the War of 1812 and served in the Pennsylvania Assembly as a Federalist from 1814 to 1816. Despite declining prospects brought on by the death of the Federalist Party, Buchanan was elected to Congress in 1820. He served five terms in the House of Representatives from 1821 to 1831 and was elected chairman of the Ho

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James Buchanan: Life in Brief

In the 1850s, the question of slavery divided the United States. Hopes ran high that the new President, "Old Buck," might be the man to avert national crisis. He failed entirely. During his administration, the Union broke apart, and when he left office, civil war threatened.

James Buchanan was the son of Irish immigrants who had made a successful life for themselves as merchants in rural Pennsylvania. The Buchanans could afford to send James to good schools, and after graduating with honors from Dickinson College, James Buchanan studied law. His legal and political careers moved forward together. Becoming a successful attorney, he advanced from state legislator to national figure, including membership in both houses of Congress, ambassadorships, and a cabinet post. The ambitious Buchanan had his sights on the presidency for many years before he actually attained the office. He tried for the White House in 1844, 1848, and 1852 before finally achieving his goal in 1856.

A Dividing Nation

By 1856, the debates over slavery had reached an unpreceden

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Tall, stately, stiffly formal in the high stock he wore around his jowls, James Buchanan was the only President who never married.

Presiding over a rapidly dividing Nation, Buchanan grasped inadequately the political realities of the time. Relying on constitutional doctrines to close the widening rift over slavery, he failed to understand that the North would not accept constitutional arguments which favored the South. Nor could he realize how sectionalism had realigned political parties: the Democrats split; the Whigs were destroyed, giving rise to the Republicans.

Born into a well-to-do Pennsylvania family in 1791, Buchanan, a graduate of Dickinson College, was gifted as a debater and learned in the law.

He was elected five times to the House of Representatives; then, after an interlude as Minister to Russia, served for a decade in the Senate. He became Polk's Secretary of State and Pierce's Minister to Great Britain. Service abroad helped to bring him the Democratic nomination in 1856 because it had exempted him from involvement in bitter domestic controversies.