An Experienced Diplomat Facing an Unprecedented Crisis

By the time Buchanan became president, he'd already had an extensive career — congressman, senator, Secretary of State, and ambassador to both Russia and Britain. None of that experience prepared the country for what came next: Buchanan took office as the disputes over slavery's expansion, worsened by his predecessors' compromises, reached a genuine breaking point.

The Dred Scott Decision

Just two days after Buchanan's inauguration, the Supreme Court issued its Dred Scott decision, ruling that Black Americans could not be U.S. citizens and that Congress lacked the power to ban slavery in U.S. territories — a ruling that inflamed sectional tensions further rather than resolving them, and one historians have since scrutinized Buchanan for privately influencing before it was even announced.

Watching the Union Begin to Dissolve

Following Abraham Lincoln's election in November 1860, seven Southern states began seceding before Buchanan's term even ended. Buchanan's position was that secession was illegal, but that the federal government also had no constitutional authority to use force to stop a state from leaving — a stance that left him doing essentially nothing as the crisis deepened for the final months of his presidency, widely regarded by historians as a genuine failure of leadership at the exact moment it mattered most.

A Legacy Defined by Inaction

Buchanan is consistently ranked among the lowest-regarded presidents in American history by historians, almost entirely because of his handling — or non-handling — of the secession crisis he left for Lincoln to inherit on his first day in office.