James Buchanan

Birth-Death: (1797 - 1868 ) Term: (1857-1861 )

The Dred Scott decision established the direction of Buchanan's presidency. The North refused to accept the decision, which took away from slaves every right they might have had. Violent events like John Brown's rade on Harper's Ferry alienated the South, and finally, the Confederate States of America was formed soon after Abraham Lincoln was elected president.

Major Events with James Buchanan

1857 - Dred Scott v. Sanford

    The Dred Scott case was a test case for the justice system. Scott was taken by his master from a slave state to a free state and then back to the slave state. Scott then argued that he was free because he lived a considerable part of his life in the free territories. The decision reached by Taney's Supreme Court denied him that right. Furthermore, it attacked the North for abolishing slavery and setting up free states and slave states. It declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional on the grounds that only a state, not the Federal Government, can forbid slavery.

1858 - Lincoln-Douglas Debates

    These debates during the Senatorial campaign in Illinois for the 1858 election brought Abraham Lincoln his popularity and destroyed Douglas politically. In the Freeport debate Lincoln forced Douglas to make a choice between the Kansas-Nebraska principle of popular sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision. The two conflicted as the Supreme Court declared that slavery could not be kept out of the territories, while the Kansas-Nebraska Act established popular sovereignty. Either way, Douglas was going to lose votes: he could not speak out against the Dred Scott decision because it was popular in the South, but also he could not admit that the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which was his work, was unconstitutional. In return Douglas replied: "Slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations." This answer drove many Democrats away from Douglas, and although he won the election in the Senate, he lost his presidential bid in 1860.