The Worst President - The Story of James Buchanan

The Worst President – The Story of James Buchanan by Garry Boulard

Anytime I read a biography of a president, or any political figure, I try to find one that’s fairly objective.  I don’t like reading authors who fawn over their subjects because of their unwavering loyalty as they constantly excuse their subject from any wrongdoing they may have committed. Nor do I enjoy mud-slinging books that take the opposite approach. With a title that contains the wording ‘The Worst President’ in describing its subject, it might lead one to believe that this is an example of the latter to the extreme. Therefore, I was a bit cautious and skeptical.  History, however, tells us that Buchanan is constantly ranked near the bottom of the barrel, so I went into this one with an open mind.  Fortunately, I didn’t find this book littered with nastiness and vitriol towards the subject matter.  It seemed a very fair account of…..well… the worst president ever.

This book was fairly brief – under 200 pages of actual reading material.  I’m fairly convinced, though, that the ‘lesser’ presidents don’t necessarily need long tomes. For presidents who were somewhat inconsequential that served in a time where resource material is harder to accumulate, such a reflection serves as more of an assistance than a hindrance.  This book was well written and kept my attention.

History tells us that the period of U.S. History from about 1840-1860 was at its most turbulent. The main issue was slavery. It’s pointless to go into all of the different arguments and legislation that was passed during the time, but the times were so tempestuous, that new political parties seemed to be being birthed and dying on a regular basis because of all the infighting (example: Google ‘Whig Party’).  The leaders of the country knew that without constant haggling back and forth, the country was destined to split in two and lead to war. Therefore, the main goals of most of the presidents during this time was to keep compromising and therefore avoid war.  

Except Buchanan.

Not only was Buchanan happy with prolonging slavery, but he came up with ridiculous statements such as “The South can’t secede because it’s unconstitutional, but if they do, the federal government isn’t allowed to do anything to stop it.”    That’s like telling a criminal that murder is wrong, but if they do kill someone, they need not worry about going to jail.  Buchanan’s entire administration seems to indicate that when things got bad, he would simply lock himself in a room filled with accoutrements of the rich and famous and then close his eyes and hope the whole problem would just go away.  I’m reminded of the fable of Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

You know it’s a bad sign when a brand-new political party (the Republicans) manage to knock you out of office after your first term, but also go on to win the presidential race for the next five elections because of the stain you’ve left behind.  I still maintain that it’s a bit of a stretch to say that Buchanan ‘caused’ the U.S. Civil War.  I’m convinced he expedited the process, but, sadly, its event was inevitable. You can only stretch a rubber band so far before it eventually snaps.

Maybe, in a bizarre sense, it was good that Buchanan came along when he did. More compromises and more prolonging of the inevitable really never did much good.  The country was still in a bitter dispute with anger, and mud-slinging was everywhere.  And slavery still went on. So reading a book about the man and the times really isn’t all that surprising. If anything, it gives you hope that the country can prevail in dark times.