James Buchanan
On taking the oath of office in March 1857, James Buchanan became the 15th president of the United States, capping a long career in public service that had taken him from the Pennsylvania bar to the highest office in the land.
Born on April 23, 1791, in the Mercersburg area of Pennsylvania, Buchanan was educated at Dickinson College before going on to work as a lawyer. He entered politics and went on to represent Pennsylvania in both houses of the U.S. Congress, building a record as a politician and statesperson that extended well beyond the legislative branch. His career also took a diplomatic turn: he served as an ambassador and worked as a diplomat before President James K. Polk appointed him the 17th United States Secretary of State, a post he held from 1845 to 1849. Buchanan worked in English but also used Greek and Latin, a reflection of the classical education common among public figures of his era. His presidency ran from 1857 to 1861, a period that preceded the Civil War.
Buchanan died on June 1, 1868, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the state where so much of his career had been rooted. His long record of public roles — lawyer, congressman, diplomat, Secretary of State, and president — traced a path through nearly every level of American political and diplomatic life during the mid-nineteenth century.
Quotes by James Buchanan
The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.
It ain’t nothing but you and the heavens and they’re so big and so bright that you realize just how little some things matter. And then sometimes, you realize how much little things matter.
For a moment my heart stopped beating. “It’s not the fall you know.” His breath was all warm on my cheek. “It’s that sudden stop at the end that does it.” Just before I kissed him, I whispered, “I hope it doesn’t hurt much.
The course of events is so rapidly hastening forward that the emergency may soon arise when you may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union.
The storm of frenzy and faction must inevitably dash itself in vain against the unshaken rock of the Constitution.
Whatever the result may be, I shall carry to my grave the consciousness that I at least meant well for my country.
The Government of the United States possesses no power whatever over the question of religion.
The course of events is so rapidly hastening forward that the emergency may soon arise when you may be called upon to decide the momentous question whether you possess the power by force of arms to compel a State to remain in the Union