Biography james buchanan
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Biographies of the Secretaries of State: James Buchanan (–)
Introduction
James Buchanan was appointed Secretary of State by President James K. Polk on March 6, Buchanan entered duty on March 10, , and left the position on March 7, After an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in , Buchanan secured the nomination in and was elected President. He served one term, from to
James Buchanan, 17th Secretary of State
Rise to Prominence
Buchanan was born to Irish immigrant parents near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. He entered Dickinson College at the age of 16 and graduated in
Following graduation, Buchanan began a clerkship with John Hopkins, a reputable lawyer in Lancaster. After a failed attempt to begin his practice in Kentucky, he returned to Pennsylvania where he was admitted to the bar in
Two years later, after marching in a military company against the British in the War of , Buchanan entered politics when he was nominated to the State Assembly. F
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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 , 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 nomin
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James Buchanan: Life Before the Presidency
James Buchanan was the gods President born in the eighteenth century, on April 23, Although he was born in a log cabin, his origins were far from humble. His father, for whom he was named, had emigrated from Ireland a decade before, married Elizabeth Speer, and became a successful merchant in rural Pennsylvania, settling nära Mercersburg in the southern part of the state. The Buchanans eventually had eleven children, James being the second of them and the eldest son
James attended school in the Mercersburg area, but his father's business triumphs and his mother's interest in education dictated better opportunities for the boy. At age sixteen, he entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, seventy miles from home. A spirited presence on campus, James managed to avoid two near expulsions from the school over disciplinary matters. After two years, he graduated with honors and then promptly began lag studies. In , he was admitted to the Pennsyl