James Buchanan - Presidential Election of 1856

Presidential Election of 1856

Democrats nominated Buchanan in 1856 as their nominee for President of the United States. He had been in England during the Kansas-Nebraska debate and thus remained untainted by either side. Pennsylvania, which had three times failed Buchanan, now gave its full support in its state convention. Though he never declared his candidacy, it is apparent from all his correspondence, that he was aware of the distinct possibility of his nomination by the Democratic convention in Cincinnati, even before heading home at the finish of his work as Minister to England. Writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, then serving as American Consul in Liverpool, recorded in his diary that Buchanan visited him in January 1855:

He returns to America, he says, next October, and then retires forever from public life... as regards his prospects for the Presidency, e said that his mind was fully made up, and that he would never be a candidate, and that he had expressed this decision to his friends in such a way as to put it out of his own power to change it... that it was now too late, and that he was too old... although, really, he is the only Democrat, at this moment, whom it would not be absurd to talk of for the office.... I wonder whether he can have had any object in saying all this to me. He might see that it would be perfectly natural for me to tell it to General Pierce.

Jonathan Foltz told Buchanan in November 1855: "The people have taken the next presidency out of the hands of the politicians...the people and not your political friends will place you there." While Buchanan did not overtly seek the office, he most deliberately chose not to discourage the movement on his behalf, something that was well within his power on many occasions.

Former president Millard Fillmore's "Know-Nothing" candidacy helped Buchanan defeat John C. Frémont, the first Republican candidate for president in 1856, and he served from March 4, 1857, to March 4, 1861. Buchanan remains the most recent of the two Democrats (the other being Martin Van Buren) to succeed a fellow Democrat to the Presidency by election in his own right. President-elect Buchanan stated about the growing schism in the country: "The object of my administration will be to destroy sectional party, North or South, and to restore harmony to the Union under a national and conservative government." He set about this initially by maintaining a sectional balance in his appointments and persuading the people to accept constitutional law as the Supreme Court interpreted it. The court was considering the legality of restricting slavery in the territories and two justices had hinted to Buchanan their findings.

Buchanan was the last president born in the 18th century and, at age 65, was the second-oldest man to be elected President at the time.