Sign-In
Cart
Buchanan: The Life and Times of Lincoln's Predecessor
Hardcover
19th Century United States History
Publisher Price: $29.95
ISBN13: 9780811738408
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Published: Aug 1 2028
Pages: 400
Language: English
James Buchanan was one of the most qualified and accomplished men elected to the presidency, and yet he turned out to be one of the worst. As sectional conflict veered toward civil war, Buchanan and all his preparation proved unequal to the challenges of his times. In this new cradle-to-grave, life-and-times biography, Paul Kahan reconstructs (but does not rehabilitate) the life of James Buchanan and emphasizes why and how such an accomplished individual proved unable to manage the defining crisis of the nation.
Drawing on a diverse range of primary sources, Kahan reconstructs the life of James Buchanan: his early legal career in Pennsylvania and his stint in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives; his service in the U.S House, during which time he helped consolidate the Pennsylvania Democratic Party around Andrew Jackson; his time as minister to Russia (which helped him avoid the Bank War); his years in the U.S. Senate; his term as Polk's Secretary of State (during the Mexican War); and his service as Pierce's minister to Great Britain (which, important for Buchanan's career, kept him out of the country, and from taking a position, during the Kansas-Nebraska crisis). By the time he was elected president in 1856, Buchanan had assembled one of the most impressive resumes in American public life.
Approximately half the book covers Buchanan's presidency, a tumultuous four years that left the nation teetering on the precipice of Civil War--and much of the blame can be laid at the feet of James Buchanan, whose southern sympathies led him to make a series of bad decisions that inflamed the North (Republicans in particular) and contributed to splitting the Democratic Party: support for the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, the strong-arming of Kansas into the United States as a slave state, and an expansionist foreign policy that appeared to match up with southern dreams of expanding slavery beyond the borders of the United States. When southern states started to leave the Union after Lincoln's election, lame-duck Buchanan--who opposed secession--was too weak, and weakened, to act firmly and in any event not inclined to inflame his friends in the South. It would fall to Lincoln, in many ways Buchanan's opposite (a Republican, a prairie lawyer with but two years' experience in the U.S. House), to save the Union, and Buchanan has always suffered--rightly--by the comparison.
Also in
19th Century United States History
A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960
Van Slyck, Abigail A.
Hardcover
Secret History of the Wild, Wild West: Outlaws, Secret Societies, and the Hidden Agenda of the Elites
Duke, Daniel J.
Paperback
The Wreck of the Mentor: A True Story of Death, Despair, and Deliverance in the Age of Sail
Dolin, Eric Jay
Hardcover
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
Larson, Erik
Paperback
The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
Larson, Erik
Paperback
They Stole a City: Wilmington's White Supremacist Coup and the Families Who Live with Its Legacy
Collins, Lauren
Hardcover
The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World
Philbrick, Nathaniel
Hardcover
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History
Gwynne, S. C.
Paperback
A Perfect Coincidence: The Extraordinary Friendship and Astonishing Deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
Rasenberger, Jim
Hardcover
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
Ambrose, Stephen E.
Paperback
Glorious Country: How the Artist Frederic Church Brought the World to America and America to the World
Johnson, Victoria
Hardcover
Empire of Ink: The Printers, Rogues, and Radicals Who Invented the American Newspaper
Wright, Alex
Hardcover
The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
Larson, Erik
Hardcover
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
Millard, Candice
Paperback
Centennial: The Great Fair of 1876 and the Invention of America's Future
Bordewich, Fergus M.
Hardcover
Chasing Lewis's Monkeyflower: The Amazing Afterlife of the Lewis and Clark Expedition's Wild Plants
Adelman, Elizabeth
Hardcover
Brothers of the Gun: Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and a Reckoning in Tombstone
Gardner, Mark Lee
Hardcover
The Flag Was Still There: A History of the American Experiment in Five Anniversaries
McKean, David
Bennett, M. Todd
Hardcover
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex (National Book Award Winner)
Philbrick, Nathaniel
Paperback
The Undiscovered Country: Triumph, Tragedy, and the Shaping of the American West
Hutton, Paul Andrew
Hardcover
Jefferson's Wolf: A Founding Father's Troubling Answer to the Problem of Slavery
Guyatt, Nicholas
Dierksheide, Christa
Hardcover
The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars
Collins, Paul
Paperback
How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
Richardson, Heather Cox
Paperback
Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America
Ellsworth, Scott
Hardcover
We Pointed Them North: Recollections of a Cowpuncher
Abbott, E. C. Teddy Blue
Smith, Helena Huntington
Paperback
The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West
McCullough, David
Paperback
We've Been Here Before: How Rebellion and Activism Have Always Sustained America
Dodson, Angela P.
Days, Michael I.
Hardcover
The Rush: California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making of the Modern World (Large Print Edition)
Philbrick, Nathaniel
Paperback
Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt
McCullough, David
Paperback
Out Where the West Begins: Profiles, Visions, and Strategies of Early Western Business Leaders
Anschutz, Philip F.
Hardcover
Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad
Chang, Gordon H.
Paperback
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
Larson, Erik
Hardcover
America: The Last Best Hope (Volume I): From the Age of Discovery to a World at War
Bennett, William J.
Paperback
Vengeance: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull (Large Print Edition)
Clavin, Tom
Hardcover
Mountain Man: John Colter, the Lewis & Clark Expedition, and the Call of the American West
Marshall, David Weston
Paperback
John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law
Lew-Williams, Beth
Hardcover
Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth
Stanford, Jason
Burrough, Bryan
Tomlinson, Chris
Paperback
Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant Volume 1/2: Large Print Edition (Large Print Edition)
Grant, Ulysses S.
Hardcover
The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence, and the Road to the Civil War
Quigley, Paul
Hardcover
When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail
Dolin, Eric Jay
Paperback
Black, White, Colored: The Hidden Story of an Insurrection, a Family, a Southern Town, and Identity in America
Noble, Leeanet
Noble, Lauretta Malloy
Hardcover
Out Where the West Begins, Volume 2: Creating and Civilizing the American West Volume 2
Anschutz, Philip F.
Hardcover
Wilmington's Lie (Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize): The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
Zucchino, David
Paperback
Wakara's America: The Life and Legacy of a Native Founder of the American West
Mueller, Max Perry
Hardcover
Contempt of Court: The Turn-Of-The-Century Lynching That Launched a Hundred Years of Federalism
Phillips, Leroy
Curriden, Mark
Paperback
Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America
Hartman, Saidiya
Paperback
The First to Go West: American Ambition, Bloody Conquest, and the Fateful Journey of Jedediah Smith
Drury, Bob
Clavin, Tom
Paperback
Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33D United States Colored Troops, Late
Taylor, Susie King
Paperback
The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, an American Legend
Drury, Bob
Clavin, Tom
Paperback
Glitz, Glam, and a Damn Good Time: How Mamie Fish, Queen of the Gilded Age, Partied Her Way to Power
Wright, Jennifer
Hardcover
Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West--One Meal at a Time
Fried, Stephen
Paperback
Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families
Giesberg, Judith
Hardcover
An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873
Madley, Benjamin
Paperback
For the Hope of this Land: A Visual Learner's Workbook for Early American History
Newhouse, Amy
Paperback
The Improbable Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and the First Woman to Run for President
Collinsworth, Eden
Hardcover
Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869
Ambrose, Stephen E.
Paperback
African American History: A Captivating Guide to the People and Events that Shaped the History of the United States
History, Captivating
Paperback
Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America
Nelson, Megan Kate
Hardcover
I Am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation
Chadwick, Bruce
Paperback
Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families
Giesberg, Judith
Paperback
Slavery by Another Name (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
Blackmon, Douglas A.
Paperback
Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant Volume 2/2: Large Print Edition (Large Print Edition)
Grant, Ulysses S.
Hardcover
The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn
Philbrick, Nathaniel
Paperback
Bandit Heaven: The Hole-In-The-Wall Gangs and the Final Chapter of the Wild West
Clavin, Tom
Paperback
Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America
Green, James
Paperback
Native American History: Accurate & Comprehensive History, Origins, Culture, Tribes, Legends, Mythology, Wars, Stories & More of The Native Indigenous
Alive, History Brought
Paperback
Trail of Tears: A Captivating Guide to the Forced Removals of Cherokee, Muscogee Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations
History, Captivating
Hardcover
Acts of Love: Black Performance and the Kiss That Changed Film History
Field, Allyson Nadia
Paperback
American Infidelity: The Gilded Age Battle Over Freethought, Free Love, and Feminism
Green, Steven K.
Hardcover
Ghosts of the Wild West: Stories from Deadwood, Tombstone, and the Old Frontier
Freeburg, Jessica
Fowler, Natalie
Paperback
Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction
Masur, Kate
Paperback
The Man from the Train: Discovering America's Most Elusive Serial Killer
James, Bill
James, Rachel McCarthy
Paperback
Vested Interests: Trusteeship and Native Dispossession in the United States
Connolly, Emilie
Hardcover
The Apache Wars: The Hunt for Geronimo, the Apache Kid, and the Captive Boy Who Started the Longest War in American History
Hutton, Paul Andrew
Paperback
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West
Stegner, Wallace
Paperback
No God But Gain: The Untold Story of Cuban Slavery, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Making of the United States
Chambers, Stephen
Paperback
The War on Illahee: Genocide, Complicity, and Cover-Ups in the Pioneer Northwest
Carpenter, Marc James
Hardcover
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Hardcover
The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896
White, Richard
Paperback
Where Custer Fell: Photographs of the Little Bighorn Battlefield Then and Now
Pohanka, Brian C.
Barnard, Sandy
Brust, James S.
Paperback
New Women in the Old West: From Settlers to Suffragists, an Untold American Story
Gallagher, Winifred
Paperback
Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War
Sharfstein, Daniel J.
Paperback
How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
Richardson, Heather Cox
Hardcover
Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express
Corbett, Christopher
Paperback