After deftly opposing the expansion of slavery in the United States in his campaign debates and speeches, Lincoln secured the Republican nomination and was elected president in 1860. Following declarations of secession by southern slave states, war began in April 1861, and he concentrated on both the military and political dimensions of the war effort, seeking to reunify the nation. He vigorously exercised unprecedented war powers, including the arrest and detention without trial of thousands of suspected secessionists. He prevented British recognition of the Confederacy by skillfully handling the Trent affair late in 1861. He issued hisEmancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery.

Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including the commanding general and future president, Ulysses S. Grant. He brought leaders of various factions of his party into his cabinet and pressured them to cooperate. Under his leadership, the Union took control of the border slave states at the start of the war and tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond. Each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another until finally Grant succeeded in 1865. A shrewd politician deeply involved with power issues in each state, he reached out to War Democrats and managed his own re-election in the1864 presidential election.

As the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican party, Lincoln came under attack from all sides. Radical Republicans wanted harsher treatment of the South, Democrats desired more compromise, and secessionists saw him as their enemy. Lincoln fought back with patronage, by pitting his opponents against each other, and by appealing to the American people with his powers of oratory; for example, his Gettysburg Address of 1863 became one of the most quoted speeches in American history. It was an iconic statement of America’s dedication to the principles of nationalism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. At the close of the war, Lincoln held a moderate view of Reconstruction, seeking to speedily reunite the nation through a policy of generous reconciliation in the face of lingering and bitter divisiveness. Lincoln was shot and killed just six days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, marking the first assassination of a U.S. president. Lincoln has frequently been ranked by a majority of scholars as the greatest U.S. president.

Early life

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, the second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Lincoln (née Hanks), in a one-room log cabinon the Sinking Spring Farm in southeast Hardin County, Kentucky (now LaRue County).

Little is known about Lincoln’s ancestors. Historical investigations have traced his family back to Samuel Lincoln, an apprentice weaver who arrived in Hingham, Massachusetts, from Norfolk, England, in 1637. However, Lincoln himself was only able to trace his heritage back as far as his paternal grandfather and namesake, Abraham Lincoln, a local militia captain and substantial landholder with an inherited 200-acre (81 ha) estate in Rockingham County, Virginia. The elder Abraham later moved his family from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Jefferson County, Kentucky, where he was ambushed and killed in an Indian raid in 1786 with his children Mordecai, Josiah, and Thomas looking on. Mordecai’s marksmanship with a rifle saved Thomas from the same fate. As the eldest son, by law Mordecai inherited his father’s entire estate.

Thomas became a respected citizen of rural Kentucky. He bought and sold several farms, including the Sinking Spring Farm. The family attended a Separate Baptists church, which had high moral standards and opposed alcohol, dancing, and slavery,  though Thomas, as an adult, never formally joined a church. Thomas enjoyed considerable status in Kentucky—where he sat on juries, appraised estates, served on country patrols, and guarded prisoners. By the time his son Abraham was born, Thomas owned two 600-acre (240 ha) farms, several town lots, livestock, and horses. He was among the richest men in the county. In 1816, the Lincoln family lost their lands because of a faulty title and made a new start in Perry County, Indiana (now Spencer County). Lincoln later noted that this move was “partly on account of slavery” but mainly due to land title difficulties.

When Lincoln was nine, his 34-year-old mother died of milk sickness. His older sister, Sarah (Grigsby), died while giving birth at a young age. Soon after, his father married Sarah Bush Johnston, with whom Lincoln became very close and whom he called “Mother”. However, he became increasingly distant from his father. Lincoln regretted his father’s lack of education and did not like the hard labor associated with frontier life. Still, he willingly took responsibility for all chores expected of him as a male in the household and became an adept axeman in his work building rail fences. Lincoln also agreed with the customary obligation of a son to give his father all earnings from work done outside the home until age 21. In later years, he occasionally loaned his father money.

In 1830, fearing a milk sickness outbreak, the family settled on public land in Macon County, Illinois. In 1831, when his father relocated the family to a new homestead in Coles County, Illinois, 22-year-old Lincoln struck out on his own, canoeing down the Sangamon River to the village of New Salem in Sangamon County. In the spring of 1831, hired by New Salem businessman Denton Offutt and accompanied by friends, he took goods by flatboat from New Salem to New Orleans via the Sangamon, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers. After arriving in New Orleans—and witnessing slavery firsthand—he walked back home.

Lincoln’s formal education consisted of approximately 18 months of classes from several itinerant teachers; he was mostly self-educated and was an avid reader. He attained a reputation for brawn and audacity after a very competitive wrestling match to which he was challenged by the renowned leader of a group of ruffians, “the Clary’s Grove boys”. Some in his family, and in the neighborhood, considered him to be lazy. Lincoln avoided hunting and fishing out of an aversion to killing animals.

Marriage and family

Lincoln’s first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge, whom he met when he first moved to New Salem; by 1835, they were in a relationship but not formally engaged. She died, however, on August 25, most likely oftyphoid fever. In the early 1830s, he met Mary Owens from Kentucky when she was visiting her sister. Late in 1836, Lincoln agreed to a match with Mary if she returned to New Salem. Mary did return in November 1836, and Lincoln courted her for a time; however, they both had second thoughts about their relationship. On August 16, 1837, Lincoln wrote Mary a letter from his law practice in Springfield, suggesting he would not blame her if she ended the relationship. She never replied and the courtship was over. For the next four years Lincoln boarded with his Kentucky gentry friend Joshua Speed in Springfield.

In 1840, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd, who was from a wealthy slave-holding family in Lexington, Kentucky. They met in Springfield in December 1839 and were engaged the following December. A wedding was set for January 1, 1841, but the couple split as the wedding approached. They later met at a party and then married on November 4, 1842, in the Springfield mansion of Mary’s married sister. While preparing for the nuptials and feeling reluctance again, Lincoln, when asked where he was going, replied, “To hell, I suppose.”

In 1844, the couple bought a house in Springfield near Lincoln’s law office. Mary Todd Lincoln worked diligently in their home, assuming household duties which had been performed for her in her own family. She also made efficient use of the limited funds available from her husband’s law practice. One evening, Mary asked Lincoln four times to restart the fire and, getting no reaction as he was absorbed in his reading, she grabbed a piece of firewood and rapped him on the head. The Lincolns had a budding family with the birth of Robert Todd Lincoln in 1843 and Edward Baker Lincoln in 1846. Lincoln, according to those familiar with the family, “was remarkably fond of children”, and the Lincolns were not thought to be strict with their children.

Robert was the only child of the Lincolns to live past the age of 18. Edward Lincoln died on February 1, 1850, in Springfield, likely of tuberculosis. The Lincolns’ grief over this loss was somewhat assuaged by the birth of William “Willie” Wallace Lincoln nearly 11 months later, on December 21. However, Willie died of a fever at the age of 11 on February 20, 1862, in Washington, D.C., during President Lincoln’s first term. The Lincolns’ fourth son, Thomas “Tad” Lincoln, was born on April 4, 1853, and outlived his father but died of heart failure at the age of 18 on July 16, 1871, in Chicago.

The death of their sons had profound effects on both parents. Later in life, Mary struggled with the stresses of losing her husband and sons, and Robert Lincoln committed her temporarily to a mental health asylum in 1875.Abraham Lincoln suffered from “melancholy”, a condition which now may be referred to as clinical depression.

Lincoln’s father-in-law was based in Lexington, Kentucky; he and others of the Todd family were either slave owners or slave traders. Lincoln was close to the Todds, and he and his family occasionally visited the Todd estate in Lexington; Lincoln’s connections in Lexington could have effectuated his ambitions, but he remained in Illinois, where, to his liking, slavery was almost nonexistent.

Early career and militia service

In 1832, at age 23, Lincoln and a partner bought a small general store on credit in New Salem, Illinois. Although the economy was booming in the region, the business struggled and Lincoln eventually sold his share. That March he began his political career with a campaign for the Illinois General Assembly. He had attained local popularity and could draw crowds as a natural raconteur in New Salem, though he lacked an education, powerful friends, and money. He advocated navigational improvements on the Sangamon River.

Before the election Lincoln served as a captain in the Illinois Militia during the Black Hawk War. Following his return, Lincoln continued his campaign for the August 6 election for the Illinois General Assembly. At 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm), he was tall and “strong enough to intimidate any rival”. At his first speech, when he saw a supporter in the crowd being attacked, Lincoln grabbed the assailant by his “neck and the seat of his trousers” and threw him. Lincoln finished eighth out of thirteen candidates (the top four were elected), though he got 277 of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct.

Lincoln served as New Salem’s postmaster and later as county surveyor, after more dedicated self education. In 1834, he won election to the state legislature; though he ran as a Whig, many Democrats favored him over a more powerful Whig opponent. He then decided to become a lawyer and began teaching himself law by reading Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England and other law books. Of his learning method, Lincoln stated: “I studied with nobody”. Admitted to the bar in 1836, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, and began to practice law under John T. Stuart, Mary Todd’s cousin. Lincoln became an able and successful lawyer with a reputation as a formidable adversary during cross-examinations and closing arguments. In 1841, he partnered with Stephen Logan until 1844, when he began his practice with William Herndon, whom Lincoln thought “a studious young man”. He served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives as a Whig representative from Sangamon County.

In the 1835–1836 legislative session, he voted to expand suffrage to white males, whether landowners or not. He was known for his “free soil” stance of opposing both slavery and abolitionism. He first articulated this in 1837, saying, “Institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.” He closely followed Henry Clay in supporting the American Colonization Society program of making the abolition of slavery practical by helping the freed slaves return to Liberia in Africa.

Early national politics

From the early 1830s, Lincoln was a steadfast Whig and professed to friends in 1861 to be, “an old line Whig, a disciple of Henry Clay”.The party favored economic modernization in banking, railroads, and internal improvements and espoused urbanization as well as protective tariffs, and Lincoln supported these positions.

In 1846, Lincoln was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served one two-year term. He was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation, but he showed his party loyalty by participating in almost all votes and making speeches that echoed the party line.  Lincoln developed a plan to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia with compensation for the owners and a popular vote on the matter, but he dropped it when he failed to gather sufficient Whig supporters. Lincoln also spoke against the Mexican–American War, which he attributed to President Polk’s desire for “military glory—that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood”.

Lincoln articulated his opposition to Polk by drafting and introducing his Spot Resolutions. The war had begun with a violent confrontation on territory disputed by Mexico and the U.S., but Polk insisted that Mexican soldiers had “invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil“. Lincoln demanded that Polk show Congress the exact spot on which blood had been shed and prove that the spot was on American soil.Congress never enacted the resolution or even debated it, the national papers ignored it, and it resulted in a loss of political support for Lincoln in his district. One Illinois newspaper derisively nicknamed him “spotty Lincoln”. Lincoln later came to regret some of his statements, especially his attack on the presidential war-making powers.

Realizing Clay was unlikely to win the presidency, Lincoln, who had pledged in 1846 to serve only one term in the House, supported GeneralZachary Taylor for the Whig nomination in the 1848 presidential election. Taylor won and Lincoln hoped to be appointed Commissioner of the General Land Office, but that lucrative patronage job went to an Illinois rival. The administration offered him the consolation prize of secretary or governor of the Oregon Territory. Since the territory was a Democratic stronghold, acceptance would have ended his legal and political career in Illinois, so he declined and resumed his law practice.

Prairie lawyer

Lincoln returned to practicing law in Springfield, handling “every kind of business that could come before a prairie lawyer”. Twice a year for sixteen years, ten weeks at a time, he appeared in county seats in the midstate region when the county courts were in session. Lincoln handled many transportation cases in the midst of the nation’s western expansion, particularly the conflicts arising from the operation of river barges under the many new railroad bridges. As a riverboat man, Lincoln initially favored those interests but ultimately represented whoever hired him. His reputation grew, and he appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States, arguing a case involving a canal boat that sank after hitting a bridge. In 1849, he received a patent for a flotation device for the movement of boats in shallow water. The idea was never commercialized, but Lincoln is the only president to hold a patent.

In 1851, he represented Alton & Sangamon Railroad in a dispute with one of its shareholders, James A. Barret, who had refused to pay the balance on his pledge to buy shares in the railroad on the grounds that the company had changed its original train route. Lincoln successfully argued that the railroad company was not bound by its original charter in existence at the time of Barret’s pledge; the charter was amended in the public interest to provide a newer, superior, and less expensive route, and the corporation retained the right to demand Barret’s payment. The decision by the Illinois Supreme Court has been cited by numerous other courts in the nation. Lincoln appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases, in 51 as sole counsel, of which 31 were decided in his favor.  From 1853 to 1860, another of Lincoln’s largest clients was the Illinois Central Railroad.

Lincoln’s most notable criminal trial occurred in 1858 when he defended William “Duff” Armstrong, who was on trial for the murder of James Preston Metzker. The case is famous for Lincoln’s use of a fact established by judicial notice in order to challenge the credibility of an eyewitness. After an opposing witness testified seeing the crime in the moonlight, Lincoln produced a Farmers’ Almanac showing the moon was at a low angle, drastically reducing visibility. Based on this evidence, Armstrong was acquitted. Lincoln rarely raised objections in the courtroom; but in an 1859 case, where he defended a cousin Peachy Harrison, who was accused of stabbing another to death, Lincoln angrily protested the judge’s decision to exclude evidence favorable to his client. Instead of holding Lincoln in contempt of court as was expected, the judge, a Democrat, reversed his ruling, allowing the evidence and acquitting Harrison.

Republican politics 1854–1860

Lincoln returned to politics to oppose the pro-slavery Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854); this law repealed the slavery-restricting Missouri Compromise (1820). Senior Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois had incorporated popular sovereignty into the Act. Douglas’ provision, which Lincoln opposed, specified the people have the right to determine locally whether to allow slavery in their territory rather than have such a decision imposed on them by the national Congress. Foner (2010) contrasts the abolitionists and anti-slavery Radical Republicans of the Northeast who saw slavery a sin, with the conservative Republicans who thought it was bad because it hurt white people and blocked progress. Foner argues that Lincoln was a moderate in the middle, opposing slavery primarily because it violated the republicanism principlesof the Founding Fathers, especially the equality of all men and democratic self-government as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

On October 16, 1854, in his “Peoria Speech”, Lincoln declared his opposition to slavery, which he repeated en route to the presidency. Speaking in his Kentucky accent, with a very powerful voice, he said the Kansas Act had a “declared indifference, but as I must think, a covert real zeal for the spread of slavery. I cannot but hate it. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world…”

In late 1854, Lincoln ran as a Whig for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. At that time, senators were elected by the state legislature. After leading in the first six rounds of voting in the Illinois assembly, his support began to dwindle, and Lincoln instructed his backers to vote forLyman Trumbull, who defeated opponent Joel Aldrich Matteson. The Whigs had been irreparably split by the Kansas–Nebraska Act. Lincoln wrote, “I think I am a Whig, but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an abolitionist, even though I do no more than oppose the extension of slavery.” Drawing on remnants of the old Whig party, and on disenchanted Free Soil, Liberty, and Democratic party members, he was instrumental in forging the shape of the new Republican Party. At the Republican convention in 1856, Lincoln placed second in the contest to become the party’s candidate for vice president.

In 1857–58, Douglas broke with President Buchanan, leading to a fight for control of the Democratic Party. Some eastern Republicans even favored the reelection of Douglas for the Senate in 1858, since he had led the opposition to the Lecompton Constitution, which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state. In March 1857, the Supreme Court issued its controversial decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford; Chief Justice Roger B. Taney opined that blacks were not citizens, and derived no rights from the Constitution. Lincoln strongly disagreed with the Court’s opinion; and this put an end to his past deference to the Court’s authority. Lincoln historian David Herbert Donald provides Lincoln’s immediate reaction to the decision, showing his evolving position on slavery: “The authors of the Declaration of Independence never intended ‘to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity’, but they ‘did consider all men created equal—equal in certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’.” After the state Republican party convention nominated him for the U.S. Senate in 1858, Lincoln then delivered his House Divided Speech, drawing on Mark’s gospel from the Bible: “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.” The speech created an evocative image of the danger of disunion caused by the slavery debate, and rallied Republicans across the North. The stage was then set for the campaign for statewide election of the Illinois legislature which would, in turn, select Lincoln or Douglas as its U.S. senator.

Lincoln–Douglas debates and Cooper Union speech

The 1858 campaign featured the seven Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858, generally considered the most famous political debates in American history. The principals stood in stark contrast both physically and politically. Lincoln warned that “The Slave Power” was threatening the values of republicanism, and accused Douglas of distorting the values of the Founding Fathers that all men are created equal, while Douglas emphasized his Freeport Doctrine, that local settlers were free to choose whether to allow slavery or not, and accused Lincoln of having joined the abolitionists. The debates had an atmosphere of a prize fight and drew crowds in the thousands. Lincoln stated Douglas’s popular sovereignty theory was a threat to the nation’s morality and that Douglas represented a conspiracy to extend slavery to free states. Douglas said that Lincoln was defying the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Dred Scott decision.

Though the Republican legislative candidates won more popular votes, the Democrats won more seats, and the legislature re-elected Douglas to the Senate. Despite the bitterness of the defeat for Lincoln, his articulation of the issues gave him a national political reputation. In May 1859, Lincoln purchased theIllinois Staats-Anzeiger, a German-language newspaper which was consistently supportive; most of the state’s 130,000 German Americans voted Democratic but there was Republican support that a German-language paper could mobilize.

On February 27, 1860, New York party leaders invited Lincoln to give a speech at Cooper Union to a group of powerful Republicans. Lincoln argued that the Founding Fathers had little use for popular sovereignty and had repeatedly sought to restrict slavery. Lincoln insisted the moral foundation of the Republicans required opposition to slavery, and rejected any “groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong”. Despite his inelegant appearance—many in the audience thought him awkward and even ugly—Lincoln demonstrated an intellectual leadership that brought him into the front ranks of the party and into contention for the Republican presidential nomination. Journalist Noah Brooks reported, “No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal to a New York audience.”Donald described the speech as a “superb political move for an unannounced candidate, to appear in one rival’s (William H. Seward) own state at an event sponsored by the second rival’s (Salmon P. Chase) loyalists, while not mentioning either by name during its delivery.” In response to an inquiry about his presidential intentions, Lincoln said, “The taste is in my mouth a little.”

1860 Presidential nomination and election

On May 9–10, 1860, the Illinois Republican State Convention was held in Decatur. Lincoln’s followers organized a campaign team led by David Davis, Norman Judd, Leonard Swett, and Jesse DuBois, and Lincoln received his first endorsement to run for the presidency. Exploiting the embellished legend of his frontier days with his father, Lincoln’s supporters adopted the label of “The Rail Candidate”. On May 18, at the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Lincoln became the Republican candidate on the third ballot, beating candidates such as William H. Seward and Salmon P. Chase. Former Democrat Hannibal Hamlin of Maine received the nomination for Vice President to balance the ticket. Lincoln’s nomination has been attributed in part to his moderate views on slavery, as well as his support of internal improvements and the protective tariff. In terms of the actual balloting, Pennsylvania put him over the top. (Lincoln made known to Pennsylvania iron interests his support for protective tariffs.) Lincoln’s managers had been adroitly focused on this delegation as well as the others, while following Lincoln’s strong dictate to “Make no contracts that bind me”.

Most Republicans agreed with Lincoln that the North was the aggrieved party, as the Slave Power tightened its grasp on the national government with the Dred Scott decision and the presidency of James Buchanan. Throughout the 1850s, Lincoln doubted the prospects of civil war, and his supporters rejected claims that his election would incite secession. Meanwhile, Douglas was selected as the candidate of the Northern Democrats, with Herschel Vespasian Johnson as the vice-presidential candidate. Delegates from 11 slave states walked out of the Democratic convention, disagreeing with Douglas’s position on popular sovereignty, and ultimately selected John C. Breckinridge as their candidate.

As Douglas and the other candidates went through with their campaigns, Lincoln was the only one of them who gave no speeches. Instead, he monitored the campaign closely and relied on the enthusiasm of the Republican Party. The party did the leg work that produced majorities across the North, and produced an abundance of campaign posters, leaflets, and newspaper editorials. There were thousands of Republican speakers who focused first on the party platform, and second on Lincoln’s life story, emphasizing his childhood poverty. The goal was to demonstrate the superior power of “free labor”, whereby a common farm boy could work his way to the top by his own efforts. The Republican Party’s production of campaign literature dwarfed the combined opposition; a Chicago Tribune writer produced a pamphlet that detailed Lincoln’s life, and sold one million copies.

Presidency

1860 election and secession

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the sixteenth president of the United States, beating Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge of the Southern Democrats, and John Bell of the new Constitutional Union Party. He was the first Republican president, winning entirely on the strength of his support in the North; no ballots were cast for him in ten of the fifteen Southern slave states, and he won only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states. Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, Douglas 1,376,957 votes, Breckinridge 849,781 votes, and Bell 588,789 votes. The electoral vote was decisive: Lincoln had 180 and his opponents added together had only 123. Turnout was 82.2 percent, with Lincoln winning the free Northern states. Douglas won Missouri, and split New Jersey with Lincoln. Bell won Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and Breckinridge won the rest of the South. There were fusion tickets in which all of Lincoln’s opponents combined to form one ticket in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, but even if the anti-Lincoln vote had been combined in every state, Lincoln still would have won a majority in the electoral college.

As Lincoln’s election became evident, secessionists made clear their intent to leave the Union.  On December 20, 1860, South Carolina took the lead; by February 1, 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed. Six states then adopted a constitution and declared themselves to be a sovereign nation, the Confederate States of America. The upper South (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas) listened to, but initially rejected, the secessionist appeal. President Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the Confederacy. The Confederacy selected Jefferson Davis as their provisional President on February 9, 1861.

There were attempts at compromise, such as the Crittenden Compromise, which would have extended the Missouri Compromise line of 1820, and which some Republicans even supported. Lincoln rejected the idea, saying, “I will suffer death before I consent … to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege to take possession of this government to which we have a constitutional right.” Lincoln, however, did support the Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which had passed in Congress and protected slavery in those states where it already existed. A few weeks before the war, he went so far as to pen a letter to every governor asking for their support in ratifying the Corwin Amendment as a means to avoid secession.

En route to his inauguration, President-elect Lincoln evaded possible assassins in Baltimore, who were uncovered by Lincoln’s head of security, Allan Pinkerton, and on February 23, 1861, arrived in disguise in Washington, D.C., which was placed under substantial military security. Lincoln directed his inaugural speech to the South, saying, “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies … The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” The failure of the Peace Conference of 1861 rendered legislative compromise practically implausible. By March 1861, no leader of the insurrection had proposed rejoining the Union on any terms. Lincoln and nearly every Republican leader agreed a dismantling of the Union could not be tolerated.

War begins

The commander of Fort Sumter, South Carolina sent a request for provisions to Washington, and the execution of Lincoln’s order to meet that request was seen by the secessionists as an act of war. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter, forced them to surrender, and began the war. Historian Allan Nevins argued that the newly inaugurated Lincoln miscalculated in believing that he could preserve the Union, and future general William Tecumseh Sherman, then a civilian, visited Lincoln in the White House during inauguration week and was “sadly disappointed” at Lincoln’s seeming failure to realize that “the country was sleeping on a volcano” and that the South was preparing for war. Historian and Lincoln biographer, David Herbert Donald, concluded Lincoln fairly estimated the events leading to the initiation of war. “His repeated efforts to avoid collision in the months between inauguration and the firing on Ft. Sumter showed he adhered to his vow not to be the first to shed fraternal blood. But he also vowed not to surrender the forts. The only resolution of these contradictory positions was for the confederates to fire the first shot; they did just that.”

On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send detachments totaling 75,000 troops to recapture forts, protect the capital, and “preserve the Union”, which, in his view, still existed intact despite the actions of the seceding states. These events forced the states to choose sides. Virginia declared its secession, after which the Confederate capital was moved from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond. North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas also voted for secession over the next two months. Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland threatened secession, but neither they nor the slave state of Delaware seceded.

Troops headed south towards Washington, D.C., to protect the capital in response to Lincoln’s call. On April 19, secessionist mobs in Baltimore that controlled the rail links attacked Union troops traveling to the capital. George William Brown, the Mayor of Baltimore, and other suspect Maryland politicians were arrested and imprisoned as Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. John Merryman, a leader in the secessionist group in Maryland, petitioned Chief Justice Roger Taney to issue a writ of habeas corpus, saying Lincoln’s action of holding Merryman without a hearing was unlawful. Taney issued the writ, thereby ordering Merryman’s release, but Lincoln ignored it.

Assuming command for the Union in the war

Lincoln encountered an unprecedented crisis, and he responded as commander-in-chief, using unprecedented powers. He expanded his war powers, and imposed a blockade, disbursed funds before appropriation by Congress, and suspended the writ of habeas corpus, arresting and imprisoning thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers without warrant.

The war effort was the source of continued disparagement of Lincoln, and dominated his time and attention. From the start, it was clear that bipartisan support would be essential to success in the war effort, and any manner of compromise alienated factions on both sides of the aisle, such as the appointment of Republicans and Democrats to command positions in the Union Army. Copperheads and other opponents of the war criticized Lincoln for refusing to compromise on the slavery issue. Conversely, the Radical Republicans criticized him for moving too slowly in abolishing slavery.

In August 1861, General John C. Frémont created controversy on the Republican side when he issued, without consulting Lincoln, a proclamation of martial law in Missouri. He declared that any citizen found bearing arms could be court-martialed and shot, and that slaves of persons aiding the rebellion would be freed. Charges of negligence in his command of the Department of the West were compounded with allegations of fraud and corruption. Lincoln overruled Frémont’s proclamation and he was given another command in November. This decision, in part, prevented the secession of Kentucky while incurring the violence in the North.

The war assumed foreign policy implications in 1861 when James Mason and John Slidell, ministers of the Confederacy to Great Britain and France, boarded the British ship Trent in Havana, Cuba. The U.S. Navy illegally intercepted the Trent on the high seas and seized the two Confederate envoys; Britain protested vehemently while the northern Americans cheered. Lincoln managed to resolve the issue by releasing the two men. Lincoln’s foreign policy approach had been initially hands off, due to his inexperience; he left most diplomacy appointments and other foreign policy matters to his Secretary of State, William Seward. Seward’s initial reaction to the Trent affair, however, was too bellicose, so Lincoln also turned to Sen. Charles Sumner, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an expert in British diplomacy.

Despite his lack of expertise in military affairs, Lincoln studied books from the Library of Congress and devoured the telegraphic reports. He kept close tabs on all phases of the military effort, consulted with governors, and selected generals based on their past success. In January 1862, after many complaints of inefficiency and dishonesty in the War Department, Lincoln replaced Simon Cameron with Edwin Stanton as War Secretary, a reputedly successful leader. In terms of war strategy, Lincoln articulated two priorities: to ensure that Washington was well-defended, and to conduct an aggressive war effort that would satisfy the demand in the North for prompt, decisive victory; major Northern newspaper editors expected victory within 90 days. Two days per week, Lincoln would meet with his cabinet in the afternoon, and occasionally his wife would force him to take a carriage ride because she was concerned he was working too hard. Lincoln had learned from General Winfield Scott the need to control strategic points, such as the Mississippi River; and he also knew well the importance of Vicksburg, and understood the necessity of defeating the enemy’s army, rather than simply capturing territory.

General McClellan

After the Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run and the retirement of the aged Winfield Scott in late 1861, Lincoln appointed Major General George B. McClellan general-in-chief of all the Union armies. McClellan, a young West Point graduate, railroad executive, and Pennsylvania Democrat, took several months to plan and attempt his Peninsula Campaign, longer than Lincoln wanted. The campaign’s objective was to capture Richmond by moving the Army of the Potomac by boat to the peninsula and then overland to the Confederate capital. McClellan’s repeated delays frustrated Lincoln and Congress, as did his position that no troops were needed to defend Washington. Lincoln insisted on holding some of McClellan’s troops in defense of the capital; McClellan, who consistently overestimated the strength of Confederate troops, blamed this decision for the ultimate failure of the Peninsula Campaign.

Lincoln removed McClellan as general-in-chief and appointed Henry Wager Halleck in March of 1862, after McClellan’s “Harrison’s Landing Letter”, in which he offered unsolicited political advice to Lincoln urging caution in the war effort.  McClellan’s letter incensed Radical Republicans, who successfully pressured Lincoln to appoint John Pope, a Republican, as head of the new Army of Virginia. Pope complied with Lincoln’s strategic desire to move toward Richmond from the north, thus protecting the capital from attack. However, lacking requested reinforcements from McClellan, now commanding the Army of the Potomac, Pope was soundly defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run in the summer of 1862, forcing the Army of the Potomac to defend Washington for a second time. The war also expanded with naval operations in 1862 when the CSS Virginia, formerly the USS Merrimack, damaged or destroyed three Union vessels in Norfolk, Virginia before being engaged and damaged by the USS Monitor. Lincoln closely reviewed the dispatches and interrogated naval officers during their clash in the Battle of Hampton Roads.

Despite his dissatisfaction with McClellan’s failure to reinforce Pope, Lincoln was desperate, and restored him to command of all forces around Washington, to the dismay of all in his cabinet but Seward. Two days after McClellan’s return to command, General Robert E. Lee’s forces crossed the Potomac River into Maryland, leading to the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. The ensuing Union victory was among the bloodiest in American history,but it enabled Lincoln to announce that he would issue an Emancipation Proclamation in January. Having composed the Proclamation some time earlier Lincoln had waited for a military victory to publish it to avoid it being perceived as the product of desperation. McClellan then resisted the President’s demand that he pursue Lee’s retreating and exposed army, while his counterpart General Don Carlos Buell likewise refused orders to move the Army of the Ohio against rebel forces in eastern Tennessee. As a result, Lincoln replaced Buell with William Rosecrans; and, after the 1862 midterm elections, he replaced McClellan with Republican Ambrose Burnside. Both of these replacements were political moderates and prospectively more supportive of the Commander in Chief.

Burnside, against the advice of the president, prematurely launched an offensive across the Rappahannock River and was stunningly defeated by Lee at Fredericksburg in December. Not only had Burnside been defeated on the battlefield, but his soldiers were disgruntled and undisciplined. Desertions during 1863 were in the thousands and they increased after Fredericksburg. Lincoln brought in Joseph Hooker, despite his history of loose talk about a military dictatorship.

The mid-term elections in 1862 brought the Republicans severe losses due to sharp disfavor with the administration over its failure to deliver a speedy end to the war, as well as rising inflation, new high taxes, rumors of corruption, the suspension of habeas corpus, the military draft law, and fears that freed slaves would undermine the labor market. The Emancipation Proclamation announced in September gained votes for the Republicans in the rural areas of New England and the upper Midwest, but it lost votes in the cities and the lower Midwest. While Republicans were discouraged, Democrats were energized and did especially well in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and New York. The Republicans did maintain their majorities in Congress and in the major states, except New York. The Cincinnati Gazette contended that the voters were “depressed by the interminable nature of this war, as so far conducted, and by the rapid exhaustion of the national resources without progress”.

In the spring of 1863, Lincoln was optimistic about a group of upcoming battle plans, to the point of thinking the end of the war could be near if a string of victories could be put together; these plans included Hooker’s attack on Lee north of Richmond, Rosecrans’ on Chattanooga, Grant’s on Vicksburg, and a naval assault on Charleston. The Commander in Chief became despondent when none of these plans, at least initially, succeeded.

Hooker was routed by Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May, but continued to command his troops for some weeks. He ignored Lincoln’s order to divide his troops, and possibly force Lee to do the same in Harper’s Ferry, and tendered his resignation, which was accepted. He was replaced by George Meade, who followed Lee into Pennsylvania for the Gettysburg Campaign, which was a victory for the Union, though Lee’s army avoided capture. At the same time, after initial setbacks, Grant laid siege to Vicksburg and the Union navy attained some success in Charleston harbor. After the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln clearly understood that his military decisions would be more effectively carried out by conveying his orders through his War Secretary or his general-in-chief on to his generals, who resented his civilian interference with their own plans. Even so, he often would continue to give detailed directions to his generals as Commander in Chief.

Emancipation Proclamation

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

1864 re-election

As the 1864 election drew near, Lincoln easily defeated efforts to deny his renomination. At the Convention, the Republican Party selected Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat from the Southern state of Tennessee, as his running mate. To broaden his coalition to include War Democrats as well as Republicans, Lincoln ran under the label of the new Union Party.

When Grant’s spring campaigns turned into bloody stalemates and Union casualties mounted, the lack of military success wore heavily on the President’s re-election prospects, and many Republicans across the country feared that Lincoln would be defeated. Sharing this fear, Lincoln wrote and signed a pledge that, if he should lose the election, he would still defeat the Confederacy before turning over the White House:

This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterward.

Lincoln did not show the pledge to his cabinet, but asked them to sign the sealed envelope.

Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said, “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether”. With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Reconstruction

Reconstruction began during the war, as Lincoln and his associates anticipated questions of how to reintegrate the conquered southern states, and how to determine the fates of Confederate leaders and freed slaves. Shortly after Lee’s surrender, a general had asked Lincoln how the defeated Confederates should be treated, and Lincoln replied, “Let ‘em up easy.” In keeping with that sentiment, Lincoln led the moderates regarding Reconstruction policy, and was opposed by the Radical Republicans, under Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, Sen. Charles Sumner and Sen. Benjamin Wade, political allies of the president on other issues. Determined to find a course that would reunite the nation and not alienate the South, Lincoln urged that speedy elections under generous terms be held throughout the war. His Amnesty Proclamationof December 8, 1863, offered pardons to those who had not held a Confederate civil office, had not mistreated Union prisoners, and would sign an oath of allegiance.

As Southern states were subdued, critical decisions had to be made as to their leadership while their administrations were re-formed. Of special importance were Tennessee and Arkansas, where Lincoln appointed Generals Andrew Johnson and Frederick Steele as military governors, respectively. In Louisiana, Lincoln ordered General Nathaniel P. Banks to promote a plan that would restore statehood when 10% of the voters agreed to it. Lincoln’s Democratic opponents seized on these appointments to accuse him of using the military to insure his and the Republicans’ political aspirations. On the other hand, the Radicals denounced his policy as too lenient, and passed their own plan, theWade-Davis Bill, in 1864. When Lincoln vetoed the bill, the Radicals retaliated by refusing to seat representatives elected from Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee.

Lincoln’s appointments were designed to keep both the moderate and Radical factions in harness. To fill the late Chief Justice Taney’s seat on the Supreme Court, he named the choice of the Radicals, Salmon P. Chase, who Lincoln believed would uphold the emancipation and paper money policies.

After implementing the Emancipation Proclamation, which did not apply to every state, Lincoln increased pressure on Congress to outlaw slavery throughout the entire nation with a constitutional amendment. Lincoln declared that such an amendment would “clinch the whole matter”. By December 1863 a proposed constitutional amendment that would outlaw slavery absolutely was brought to Congress for passage. This first attempt at an amendment failed to pass, falling short of the required two-thirds majority on June 15, 1864, in the House of Representatives. After a long debate in the House, a second attempt passed Congress on January 13, 1865, and was sent to the state legislatures for ratification. Upon ratification, it became the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 6, 1865.

Redefining the republic and republicanism

The successful reunification of the states had even grammatical consequences for the very name of the country. The term “the United States” has historically been used, sometimes in the plural, and other times in the singular, without any particular grammatical consistency. The Civil War was a significant force in the eventual dominance of the singular usage by the end of the nineteenth century.

In recent years, historians have stressed Lincoln’s redefinition of republican values. As early as the 1850s, a time when most political rhetoric focused on the sanctity of the Constitution, Lincoln redirected emphasis to the Declaration of Independence as the foundation of American political values—what he called the “sheet anchor” of republicanism. The Declaration’s emphasis on freedom and equality for all, in contrast to the Constitution’s tolerance of slavery, shifted the debate. As Diggins concludes regarding the highly influential Cooper Union speech of early 1860, “Lincoln presented Americans a theory of history that offers a profound contribution to the theory and destiny of republicanism itself.” His position gained strength because he highlighted the moral basis of republicanism, rather than its legalisms. Nevertheless, in 1861, Lincoln justified the war in terms of legalisms (the Constitution was a contract, and for one party to get out of a contract all the other parties had to agree), and then in terms of the national duty to guarantee a republican form of government in every state.

In March 1861, in his First Inaugural Address, Lincoln explored the nature of democracy. He denounced secession as anarchy, and explained that majority rule had to be balanced by constitutional restraints in the American system. He said “A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and entiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.”

Domestic measures

Lincoln adhered to the Whig theory of the presidency, which gave Congress primary responsibility for writing the laws while the Executive enforced them. Lincoln only vetoed four bills passed by Congress; the only important one was the Wade-Davis Bill with its harsh program of Reconstruction. He signed the Homestead Act in 1862, making millions of acres of government-held land in the West available for purchase at very low cost. The Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, also signed in 1862, provided government grants for agricultural colleges in each state. The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864 granted federal support for the construction of the United States’ First Transcontinental Railroad, which was completed in 1869. The passage of the Homestead Act and the Pacific Railway Acts was made possible by the absence of Southern congressmen and senators who had opposed the measures in the 1850s.

Other important legislation involved two measures to raise revenues for the Federal government: tariffs (a policy with long precedent), and a new Federal income tax. In 1861, Lincoln signed the second and third Morrill Tariff, the first having become law under James Buchanan. In 1861, Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1861, creating the first U.S. income tax. This created a flat tax of 3 percent on incomes above $800 ($19,490 in current dollars), which was later changed by the Revenue Act of 1862 to a progressive rate structure.

Lincoln also presided over the expansion of the federal government’s economic influence in several other areas. The creation of the system of national banks by the National Banking Act provided a strong financial network in the country. It also established a national currency. In 1862, Congress created, with Lincoln’s approval, the Department of Agriculture. In 1862, Lincoln sent a senior general, John Pope, to put down the “Sioux Uprising” in Minnesota. Presented with 303 execution warrants for convicted Santee Dakota who were accused of killing innocent farmers, Lincoln conducted his own personal review of each of these warrants, eventually approving 39 for execution (one was later reprieved).

In the wake of Grant’s casualties in his campaign against Lee, Lincoln had considered yet another executive call for a military draft, but it was never issued. In response to rumors of one, however, the editors of the New York World and the Journal of Commerce published a false draft proclamation which created an opportunity for the editors and others employed at the publications to corner the gold market. Lincoln’s reaction was to send the strongest of messages to the media about such behavior; he ordered the military to seize the two papers. The seizure lasted for two days.

Lincoln is largely responsible for the institution of the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. Before Lincoln’s presidency, Thanksgiving, while a regional holiday in New England since the 17th century, had only been proclaimed by the federal government sporadically, and on irregular dates. The last such proclamation had been during James Madison’s presidency 50 years before. In 1863, Lincoln declared the final Thursday in November of that year to be a day of Thanksgiving. In 1864, Congress enacted unprecedented protection for the area later called Yosemite National Park, and Lincoln signed that act.

Administration, cabinet and Supreme Court appointments 1861–1865

Lincoln’s declared philosophy on court nominations was that “we cannot ask a man what he will do, and if we should, and he should answer us, we should despise him for it. Therefore we must take a man whose opinions are known.”Lincoln made five appointments to the United States Supreme Court. Noah Haynes Swayne, nominated January 21, 1862 and appointed January 24, 1862, was chosen as an anti-slavery lawyer who was committed to the Union. Samuel Freeman Miller, nominated and appointed on July 16, 1862, supported Lincoln in the 1860 election and was an avowed abolitionist. David Davis, Lincoln’s campaign manager in 1860, nominated December 1, 1862 and appointed December 8, 1862, had also served as a judge in Lincoln’s Illinois court circuit. Stephen Johnson Field, a previous California Supreme Court justice, was nominated March 6, 1863 and appointed March 10, 1863, and provided geographic balance, as well as political balance to the court as a Democrat. Finally, Lincoln’s Treasury Secretary, Salmon P. Chase, was nominated as Chief Justice, and appointed the same day, on December 6, 1864; Chase also brought to the court his experience as U.S. Senator and Governor of Ohio.

States admitted to the Union

West Virginia, admitted to the Union June 20, 1863, contained the former westernmost counties of Virginia that seceded from Virginia after that commonwealth declared its secession from the Union. Nevada was admitted October 31, 1864. Lincoln was not actively involved in the admission of either.

Assassination

In 1864, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland, formulated a plan to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for the release of Confederate prisoners. After attending an April 11 speech in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks, an incensed Booth changed his plans and became determined to assassinate the president. Learning that the President, First Lady, and head Union general Ulysses S. Grant would be attending Ford’s Theatre, Booth formulated a plan with co-conspirators to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William H. Seward and General Grant. Without his main bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln left to attend the play Our American Cousin on April 14, 1865. Grant along with his wife chose at the last minute to travel to Philadelphia instead of attending the play.

Lincoln’s bodyguard, John Parker, left Ford’s Theater during intermission to join Lincoln’s coachman for drinks in the Star Saloon next door. The now unguarded President sat in his state box in the balcony. Seizing the opportunity, Booth crept up from behind and at about 10:13 pm, aimed at the back of Lincoln’s head and fired at point-blank range, mortally wounding the President. Major Henry Rathbone momentarily grappled with Booth but Booth stabbed him and escaped.

After being on the run for ten days, Booth was tracked down and found on a farm in Virginia, some 30 miles (48 km) south of Washington D.C. After a brief fight, Booth was killed by Union soldiers on April 26.

An Army surgeon, Doctor Charles Leale, assessed Lincoln’s wound as mortal. The dying man was taken across the street to Petersen House. After being in a coma for nine hours, Lincoln died at 7:22 am on April 15. Presbyterian minister Phineas Densmore Gurley, then present, was asked to offer a prayer, after which Secretary of War Stanton saluted and said, “Now he belongs to the ages.”

Lincoln’s flag-enfolded body was then escorted in the rain to the White House by bareheaded Union officers, while the city’s church bells rang. Vice President Johnson was sworn in as President at 10:00 am the day after the assassination. Lincoln lay in state in the East Room, and then in the Capitol Rotunda, before the funeral train bore him to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois.

Religious and philosophical beliefs

Scholars in diverse fields of study have extensively written on topics concerning of his beliefs and philosophy; e.g. whether Lincoln’s frequent use of religious imagery and language reflected his own personal beliefs or was a device to appeal to his audiences, who were mostly evangelical Protestants. Though he never joined a church, Lincoln was familiar with the Bible and quoted it occasionally.

Some scholars maintain that in the 1850s, Lincoln acknowledged “providence” in a general way, and rarely used the language or imagery of the evangelicals; instead, they argue, he regarded the republicanism of the Founding Fathers with an almost religious reverence. Some historians also conclude that during the course of the Civil War, and having suffered the deaths of his children, Lincoln more frequently acknowledged his own need to depend on God and to seek to fulfill what he perceived to be God’s purposes in the war, including the emancipation of slaves.

As Lincoln grew older, some assert, the idea of a divine will somehow interacting with human affairs increasingly influenced his beliefs and public expressions. On a personal level, the death of his son Willie in February 1862 is said to have caused Lincoln to look towards religion for answers and solace. After Willie’s death, in the summer or early fall of 1862, Lincoln apparently attempted to put on paper his private thoughts on why, from a divine standpoint, the severity of the war was necessary. He wrote at this time that God “could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.” In April 1864, discussing Emancipation, Lincoln wrote, “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation’s condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it.” Later that year, when the Union Army was suffering severe casualties, Lincoln seemed to draw solace from the Bible. To his friend Joshua Speed, he said t that time, “Take all of this book [the Bible] upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man.” He is also quoted as saying, “this Great Book … is the best gift God has given to man”.

Lincoln’s personal philosophy is said by some to have been most likely shaped, not by a formal education, but by “an amazingly retentive memory and a passion for reading and learning”. Some experts also maintain it was Lincoln’s reading, rather than his relationships, that were most influential in shaping his personal beliefs.

Historical treatment

President Lincoln’s assassination made him a national martyr and endowed him with a recognition of mythic proportion. Lincoln was viewed by abolitionists as a champion for human liberty. Republicans linked Lincoln’s name to their party. Many, though not all, in the South considered Lincoln as a man of outstanding ability.

Lincoln’s reputation grew slowly in the late 19th century until by the Progressive Era (1900-1920s) he Lincoln emerged as one of the most venerated heroes in American history, with even white Southerners in agreement. The high point came in 1909 with the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall in Washington. In the New Deal era liberals honored Lincoln not so much as the self-made man or the great war president, but as the advocate of the common man who doubtless would have supported the welfare state. In the Cold War years, Lincoln’s image shifted to emphasize the symbol of freedom who brought hope to those enslaved by communist regimes.

In recent decades, Lincoln became a hero to political conservatives for his perceived intense nationalism, support for business, his insistence on stopping the spread of un-freedom (slavery), and his devotion to the principles of the Founding Fathers. As a Whig activist, Lincoln was a spokesman for business interests, favoring high tariffs, banks, internal improvements, and railroads in opposition to the agrarian Democrats. One biographer, William C. Harris, found that Lincoln’s “reverence for the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, the laws under it, and the preservation of the Republic and its institutions undergirded and strengthened his conservatism.”.

Later, revisionist historians had second thoughts, especially regarding Lincoln’s views on racial issues. Black historian Lerone Bennett called him a white supremacist in 1968. Lincoln used ethnic slurs, told jokes that ridiculed blacks, insisted he opposed social equality, and proposed sending freed slaves to another country. Defenders retorted that he was not as bad as most politicians.  The tendency to downplay “dead while males” worked against Lincoln, as the emphasis of black historians shifted to an emphasis on how blacks freed themselves from slavery, or at least were responsible for pressuring the government on emancipation. Historian Barry Schwartz wrote in 2009 that Lincoln’s image suffered “[e]rosion, fading prestige, benign ridicule,”

In surveys of scholars ranking Presidents, Lincoln is ranked in the top three, often #1. A 2004 study found that scholars in the fields of history and politics ranked Lincoln number one, while legal scholars placed him second after Washington.

Memorials

Lincoln has been memorialized in many town, city, and county names, including the capital of Nebraska. Lincoln’s name and image appear in numerous places, such as the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. and Lincoln’s sculpture on Mount Rushmore. Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Lincoln City, Indiana, Lincoln’s New Salem, Illinois,  and Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Illinois commemorate the president. Ford’s Theatre and Petersen House (where he died) are maintained as museums, as is the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, located in Springfield. The Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, contains his remains and those of his wife and three of his four sons. Lincoln is one of the most honored persons on U.S. postage stamps, and is also the only U.S. President to appear on a U.S. airmail stamp. Currency honoring the president includes the U.S. Lincoln $5 bill; and the Lincoln cent represents the first regularly circulating U.S. coin to feature an actual person.

Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, was never a national holiday, but it was at one time observed by as many as 30 states. In 1971, Presidents Day became a national holiday, combining Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays and replacing most states’ celebration of his birthday. The Abraham Lincoln Association was formed in 1908 to commemorate the centennial of Lincoln’s birth. In 2000, Congress established the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC) to commemorate his 200th birthday in February 2009.

Lincoln sites remain popular tourist attractions, but crowds have thinned. In the late 1960s, 650,000 people a year visited the home in Springfield, slipping to 393,000 in 2000–2003. Likewise visits to New Salem fell by half, probably because of the enormous draw of the new museum in Springfield. Visits to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington peaked at 4.3 million in 1987 and have since declined. However crowds at Ford Theater in Washington have grown sharply.

Buchanan (often called Buck-anan by his contemporaries) was a popular and experienced state politician and a successful attorney before his presidency.He represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives and later the Senate, and served asMinister to Russia under President Andrew Jackson. He also was Secretary of State under President James K. Polk. After turning down an offer for an appointment to the Supreme Court, President Franklin Pierce appointed him Minister to the United Kingdom, in which capacity he helped draft the controversial Ostend Manifesto.

After unsuccessfully seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 1844, 1848, and 1852, “Old Buck” was nominated in the 1856 election. Throughout most of Franklin Pierce’s term he was stationed in London as a Minister to the Court of St. James’s and therefore was not caught up in the crossfire of sectional politics that dominated the country. Buchanan was viewed by many as a compromise between the two sides of the slavery question. His subsequent election victory took place in a three-man race with John C. Frémont and Millard Fillmore. As President, he was often called a “doughface”, a Northerner with Southern sympathies, who battled with Stephen A. Douglas for the control of the Democratic Party. Buchanan’s efforts to maintain peace between the North and the South alienated both sides, and the Southern states declared their secession in the prologue to the American Civil War. Buchanan’s view of record was that secession was illegal, but that going to war to stop it was also illegal. Buchanan, first and foremost an attorney, was noted for his mantra, “I acknowledge no master but the law.”

When he left office, popular opinion had turned against him, and the Democratic Party had split in two. Buchanan had once aspired to a presidency that would rank in history with that of George Washington.However, his inability to impose peace on sharply divided partisans on the brink of the Civil War has led to his consistent ranking by historians as one of the worst Presidents. Buchanan biographer Philip Klein puts these rankings into context: “Buchanan assumed leadership…when an unprecedented wave of angry passion was sweeping over the nation. That he held the hostile sections in check during these revolutionary times was in itself a remarkable achievement. His weaknesses in the stormy years of his presidency were magnified by enraged partisans of the North and South. His many talents, which in a quieter era might have gained for him a place among the great presidents, were quickly overshadowed by the cataclysmic events of civil war and by the towering Abraham Lincoln.”

Early life

James Buchanan, Jr., was born in a log cabin in Cove Gap (nowJames Buchanan Birthplace State Park), Franklin County, Pennsylvania, on April 23, 1791, to James Buchanan, Sr. (1761–1833), a well-to-do businessman, and Elizabeth Speer (1767–1833). His parents were both of Scots-Irish descent, the father having emigrated from Donegal, Ireland in 1783. He was the second of eleven children, three of whom died in infancy. Buchanan had six sisters and four brothers, only one of whom lived past 1840.

In 1797, the family moved to nearby Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. The home in Mercersburg was later turned into the James Buchanan Hotel.

Buchanan attended the village academy and later Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Expelled at one point for poor behavior, after pleading for a second chance, he graduated with honors on September 19, 1809. Later that year, he moved to Lancaster, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1812. A dedicatedFederalist, he initially opposed the War of 1812 because he believed it was an unnecessary conflict. When the British invaded neighboring Maryland, he joined a volunteer light dragoon unit and served in the defense of Baltimore.

An active Freemason during his lifetime, he was the Master of Masonic Lodge #43 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a District Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.

Political career

Buchanan began his political career in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1814–1816, serving as a Federalist. He was elected to the 17th United States Congress and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1821 – March 4, 1831), serving as chairman of theU.S. House Committee on the Judiciary in the 21st United States Congress. In 1830, he was among the members appointed by the House to conduct impeachment proceedings againstJames H. Peck, judge of the United States District Court for the District of Missouri, who was ultimately acquitted. Buchanan did not seek reelection, and from 1832 to 1834 he served asMinister to Russia.

With the Federalist Party long defunct, Buchanan was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy and served from December 1834; he was reelected in 1837 and 1843, and resigned in 1845 to accept President Polk’s nomination of him as Secretary of State. He was chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations (24th through 26th Congresses).

After the death of Supreme Court Justice Henry Baldwin in 1844, Buchanan was nominated by President Polk to serve as a Justice of the Supreme Court. He declined that nomination because he felt compelled to complete his collaboration on the Oregon Treaty negotiations. The seat was filled by Robert Cooper Grier.

Buchanan served as Secretary of State under James K. Polk from 1845 to 1849, despite objections from Buchanan’s rival, Vice PresidentGeorge Dallas. In this capacity, he helped negotiate the 1846 Oregon Treaty establishing the 49th parallel as the northern boundary of the western U.S.

No Secretary of State has become President since James Buchanan, although William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States, often served as Acting Secretary of State during the Theodore Rooseveltadministration.

In 1852, Buchanan was named president of the Board of Trustees of Franklin and Marshall College in his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and he served in this capacity until 1866, despite a false report that he was fired.

He served as minister to the Court of St. James’s (Britain) from 1853 to 1856, during which time he helped to draft and then signed, with Pierre Soulé and John Mason, a memorandum that became known as the Ostend Manifesto. This document proposed the purchase from Spain of Cuba, then in the midst of revolution and near bankruptcy, declaring the island “as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present . . . family of states.” Against Buchanan’s recommendation, the final draft of the Manifesto suggested that “wresting it from Spain” if Spain refused to sell would be justified “by every law, human and Divine.” The Manifesto, generally considered a blunder overall, was never acted upon but weakened the Pierce administration and support for Manifest Destiny.

Presidential election of 1856

The Democrats nominated Buchanan (“Old Public Functionary”) in 1856. He had been in England during the Kansas-Nebraska debate and thus remained untainted by either side of the issue. Pennsylvania, which had three times failed Buchanan, now gave its full support in its state convention. Though he never formally threw his hat into the ring, 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. Dr. 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.

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 what the decision would be.

Presidency 1857–1861

Dred Scott case

In his inaugural address, besides promising not to run again, Buchanan referred to the territorial question as “happily, a matter of but little practical importance” since the Supreme Court was about to settle it “speedily and finally,” and proclaimed that when the decision came he would “cheerfully submit, whatever this may be.” Two days later, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Dred Scott Decision, asserting that Congress had no constitutional power to exclude slavery in the territories. Part of Taney’s written judgment has been characterized as obiter dictum—statements commonly made by a jurist that are not central to the decision in the case. Such comments delighted Southerners and incited anger in the North.

Buchanan, in his view, preferred to see the territorial question resolved by the Supreme Court. He had written to Justice John Catron in January 1857, inquiring about the outcome of the case and suggesting that a broader decision would be more prudent. Catron, who was from Tennessee, replied on February 10 that the Supreme Court’s southern majority would decide against Scott, but would likely have to publish the decision on narrow grounds if there was no support from the Court’s northern justices—unless Buchanan could convince his fellow Pennsylvanian, JusticeRobert Cooper Grier, to join the majority. Buchanan then wrote to Grier and successfully prevailed upon him, allowing the majority leverage to issue a broad-ranging decision that transcended the specific circumstances of Scott’s case to declare the Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional. The correspondence was not public at the time; however, at his inauguration, Buchanan was seen in whispered conversation with Chief Justice Roger B. Taney; when the decision was issued two days later, Republicans began spreading word that Taney had then told Buchanan what the forthcoming result would be. Abraham Lincoln denounced him as an accomplice of the Slave Power, which Lincoln saw as a conspiracy of slaveowners to seize control of the federal government and nationalize slavery.

Chaos in Kansas

In 1854 President Pierce faced massive violence in Kansas, dubbed Bleeding Kansas by the Republican Party. During its development in the Pierce administration, Kansas saw escalating violence and political fraud between abolitionist and proslavery factions of settlers. The proslavery settlers decided to establish a seat of government in Lecompton, while the abolitionists organized a rival government in Topeka. Nevertheless, to achieve statehood the territory needed to submit to Washington one state constitution adopted by all Kansans. Toward this end, Buchanan appointed Robert Walker as Governor and dispatched him to the territory. It was Walker’s mission to reduce the divisiveness and ensure a fair and full vote by all the people in forming a constitution. Walker acted poorly in tamping down the partisanship. The result was a census and vote corrupted by partisans on both sides. Kansans thus adopted the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution which was rejected by the anti-slavery forces.

Buchanan’s goal was the legal admission of Kansas to the United States and the end of dueling governments in the territory. He threw the support of his administration behind congressional approval of the proslavery Lecompton Constitution. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, leader of the Democrats in the Senate, denounced Lecompton and the battle over Kansas escalated into a battle over the control of the Democratic Party. Buchanan made every effort, legal or not, to defeat Douglas and secure Congressional approval for Kansas statehood, offering favors, patronage appointments and even cash in exchange for votes. The Lecompton bill passed through the House, but it was blocked by Douglas. Congress voted to call a new vote on the Lecompton Constitution, a move which infuriated Southerners. Buchanan and Douglas engaged in an all-out struggle for control of the Democratic party in 1857–60, with Buchanan using his patronage powers and Douglas rallying the popular base. Douglas emerged victorious, and Buchanan was reduced to a narrow base of southern supporters.

Buchanan’s political views

Buchanan considered the essence of good self-government to be founded on restraint. The constitution he considered to be “…restraints, imposed not by arbitrary authority, but by the people upon themselves and their representatives… In an enlarged view, the people’s interests may seem identical, but “to the eye of local and sectional prejudice, they always appear to be conflicting… and the jealousies that will perpetually arise can be repressed only by the mutual forbearance which pervades the constitution.”

One of the greatest issues of the day was tariffs. Buchanan condemned both free trade and prohibitive tariffs, since either would benefit one section of the country to the detriment of the other. As the Senator from Pennsylvania, he thought: “I am viewed as the strongest advocate of protection in other states, whilst I am denounced as its enemy in Pennsylvania.”

Buchanan, like many of his time, was torn between his desire to expand the country for the benefit of all and his insistence on guaranteeing to the people settling the expanded areas their rights, including slavery. On territorial expansion, he said, “What, sir! Prevent the people from crossing the Rocky Mountains? You might just as well command the Niagara not to flow. We must fulfill our destiny.” On the resulting spread of slavery, through unconditional expansion, he stated: “I feel a strong repugnance by any act of mine to extend the present limits of the Union over a new slave-holding territory.” For instance, he hoped the acquisition of Texas would “be the means of limiting, not enlarging, the dominion of slavery.”

Nevertheless, in deference to the intentions of the typical slaveholder, he was quick to provide the benefit of much doubt. In his third annual message Buchanan claimed that the slaves were “treated with kindness and humanity…Both the philanthropy and the self-interest of the master have combined to produce this humane result”.

Historian Kenneth Stampp wrote: “Shortly after his election, he assured a southern Senator that the “great object” of his administration would be “to arrest, if possible, the agitation of the Slavery question in the North and to destroy sectional parties. Should a kind Providence enable me to succeed in my efforts to restore harmony to the Union, I shall feel that I have not lived in vain.” In the northern anti-slavery idiom of his day, Buchanan was often considered a “doughface”, a northern man with southern principles.

The President, however, also felt that “this question of domestic slavery is the weak point in our institutions, touch this question seriously…and the Union is from that moment dissolved. Although in Pennsylvania we are all opposed to slavery in the abstract, we can never violate the constitutional compact we have with our sister states. Their rights will be held sacred by us. Under the constitution it is their own question; and there let it remain.”

Buchanan was irked that the abolitionists were preventing the solution to the slavery problem. He stated, “Before [the abolitionists] commenced this agitation, a very large and growing party existed in several of the slave states in favor of the gradual abolition of slavery; and now not a voice is heard there in support of such a measure. The abolitionists have postponed the emancipation of the slaves in three or four states for at least half a century.”

Buchanan’s disinterest in educational issues was demonstrated by his veto of a bill passed by Congress to create more colleges, for he believed that “there were already too many educated people.” In fact, the bill he vetoed was a ruse for a federal land donation act designed to benefit Rep. John Covode’s railroad company, and fashioned to appear as a land grant for new agricultural colleges.

Near the end of his administration he had a serious exchange with the Rev. William Paxton. After what Paxton described as quite a probative discussion, Buchanan said, ” Well, sir… I hope I am a Christian. I have much of the experience you have described, and as soon as I retire, I will unite with the Presbyterian Church.”

Paxton asked why he delayed, to which he replied, “I must delay for the honor of religion. If I were to unite with the church now, they would say ‘hypocrite’ from Maine to Georgia.”

Panic of 1857

The Panic of 1857 began in summer of that year, brought on mostly by the people’s over-consumption of goods from Europe to such an extent that the Union’s specie was drained off, overbuilding by competing railroads, and rampant land speculation in the west. Most of the state banks had overextended credit, to more than $7.00 for each dollar of gold or silver. The Republicans considered the Congress to be the culprit for having recently reduced tariffs.

Buchanan’s response, outlined in his first Annual Message to Congress, was “reform not relief.” While the government was “without the power to extend relief”, it would continue to pay its debts in specie, and while it would not curtail public works, none would be added. He urged the states to restrict the banks to a credit level of $3 to $1 of specie, and discouraged the use of federal or state bonds as security for bank note issues. The economy did eventually recover, though many Americans suffered as a result of the panic. The South, due to an agriculture-based economy, was considered to have been less severely affected than the North, where manufacturers were hardest hit. Buchanan, by the time he left office in 1861, had accumulated a federal deficit of $17 million.

Utah War

In March 1857, Buchanan received conflicting reports from federal judges in the Utah Territory that their offices had been disrupted and they had been driven from their posts by the Mormons. He knew that the Pierce administration had refused to facilitate Utah’s being granted statehood and the Mormons feared the loss of their property rights. Accepting the wildest rumors and believing the Mormons to be in open rebellion against the United States, Buchanan sent the Army in November of that year to replace Brigham Young as Governor with the non-Mormon Alfred Cumming. While the Mormons’ defiance of federal authority in the past had become traditional, some question whether Buchanan’s action were a justifiable or prudent response to uncorroborated reports. Complicating matters, Young’s notice of his replacement was not delivered because the Pierce administration had annulled the Utah mail contract. After Young reacted to the military action by mustering a two-week expedition destroying wagon trains, oxen and other Army property, Buchanan dispatched Thomas L. Kaneas a private agent to negotiate peace. The mission succeeded, the new governor was shortly placed in office, and the Utah War ended. The President granted amnesty to all inhabitants who would respect the authority of the government, and moved the federal troops to a non-threatening distance for the balance of his administration.

Partisan deadlock

The division between northern and southern Democrats allowed the Republicans to win a plurality in the House in the election of 1858. Their control of the chamber allowed the Republicans to block most of Buchanan’s agenda (including his proposals for expansion of influence in Central America, and for the purchase of Cuba). Buchanan thought the ideologies of the United States would bring peace and prosperity to these neighboring lands as they had in the Northwest and that without U.S. influence, the major European powers would intervene. The imperative of safe and speedy travel from east to west was of strategic importance to the country. These goals would not be reached. Buchanan, in turn, vetoed six substantial pieces of Republican legislation, causing further hostility between Congress and the White House.

In March 1860 the House created the Covode Committee to investigate the administration for evidence of offenses, some impeachable, such as bribery and extortion of Congressmen in exchange for their votes. The Committee for its part was nakedly partisan, with three Republicans and one Democrat, and Buchanan’s enemy John Covode as chairman; the group leaked damaging information about the President without affording him the chance to testify or respond officially; the committee was unable to establish grounds for impeaching Buchanan, but its final report in June exposed corruption and abuse of power among members of his Cabinet. In several incidents, the Buchanan administration assisted the Committee in exposing and correcting abuses during the investigation. Republican operatives distributed thousands copies of the Covode Committee report throughout the nation as campaign material in that year’s presidential election.

Disintegration: election of 1860

Sectional strife rose to such a pitch that the Democratic Party’s national convention in 1860 led directly to a schism in the Party. Buchanan played little part at the national convention, meeting inCharleston, South Carolina. The southern wing walked out of the convention and nominated its own candidate for the presidency, incumbent Vice President John C. Breckinridge. The remainder of the party finally nominated Buchanan’s archenemy, Stephen Douglas. When the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, it was a near certainty that he would be elected.

As early as October, the army’s Commanding General, Winfield Scott, warned Buchanan that Lincoln’s election would likely cause at least seven states to secede. He also recommended to Buchanan that massive amounts of federal troops and artillery be deployed to those states to protect federal property, although he also warned that few reinforcements were available (Congress had since 1857 failed to heed both men’s calls for a stronger militia and had allowed the Army to fall into deplorable condition.) Buchanan, however, distrusted Scott (the two had long been political adversaries) and ignored his recommendations. After Lincoln’s election, Buchanan directed War Secretary Floyd to reinforce southern forts with such provisions, arms and men as were available; however, Floyd convinced him to revoke the order.

With Lincoln’s victory, talk of secession and disunion reached a boiling point. Buchanan was forced to address it in his final message to Congress. Both factions awaited news of how Buchanan would deal with the question. In his Message (December 3, 1860), Buchanan denied the legal right of states to secede but held that the federal government legally could not prevent them. He placed the blame for the crisis solely on “intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States”, and suggested that if they did not “repeal their unconstitutional and obnoxious enactments…the injured States, after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union.”  Buchanan’s only suggestion to solve the crisis was “an explanatory amendment” reaffirming the constitutionality of slavery in the states, the fugitive slave laws, and popular sovereignty in the territories. His address was sharply criticized both by the north, for its refusal to stop secession, and the south, for refuting its right to secede. Five days after the address was delivered, Treasury Secretary Howell Cobb resigned, feeling that his views and the President’s had become irreconcilable.

Efforts were made by statesmen such as Sen. John J. Crittenden, Rep. Thomas Corwin, and former president John Tyler to negotiate a compromise to stop secession, with Buchanan’s support; all failed. Failed efforts to compromise were also made by a group of governors meeting in New York. Buchanan employed a last minute-tactic, in secret, to bring a solution. He again attempted in vain to procure President-elect Lincoln’s call for a constitutional convention or national referendum to attempt a solution on slavery issues. Lincoln declined.

South Carolina declared its secession on December 20, 1860, followed by six other slave states, and, by February 1861, they had formed the Confederate States of America. As Scott had surmised, the secessionist governments declared eminent domain over federal property within their states; Buchanan and his administration took no action to stop the confiscation of government property.

Beginning in late December, Buchanan reorganized his cabinet, ousting Confederate sympathizers and replacing them with hard-line nationalists Jeremiah S. Black, Edwin M. Stanton, Joseph Holtand John A. Dix. These conservative Democrats strongly believed in American nationalism and refused to countenance secession. At one point, Treasury Secretary Dix ordered Treasury agents in New Orleans, “If any man pulls down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.” The new cabinet advised Buchanan to request from Congress the authority to call up militias and give himself emergency military powers, and this he did, on January 8, 1861. Nevertheless, by that time Buchanan’s relations with Congress were so strained that his requests were rejected out of hand.

Legacy

In 1866 Buchanan published Mr Buchanan’s Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion, the first published presidential memoir, in which he defended his actions; the day before his death he predicted that “history will vindicate my memory”. Buchanan died June 1, 1868, at the age of 77 at his home at Wheatland and was interred in Woodward Hill Cemetery in Lancaster.

Nevertheless, historians continue to criticize Buchanan for his unwillingness or inability to act in the face of secession. Historians in both 2006 and 2009 voted his failure to deal with secession the worst presidential mistake ever made. Historical rankings of United States Presidents, considering presidential achievements, leadership qualities, failures and faults, consistently place Buchanan among the least successful presidents. In an academic poll of 47 British academics specialising in American history and politics in 2011 it was reported that he came last (40th). They “were asked to rate the performance of every president from 1789 to 2009 (excluding William Henry Harrison and James Garfield, who both died shortly after taking office) in five categories:vision/agenda-setting, domestic leadership, foreign policy leadership, moral authority and positive historical significance of their legacy”. James K. Polk confided to his diary: “Mr. Buchanan is an able man, but is in small matter without judgment and sometimes acts like an old maid.”

In somewhat of a contradiction to modern historians and pollsters however, the following prominent observation was made near the end of Buchanan’s administration:

We must retrench the extravagant list of magnificent schemes which received the sanction of the Executive … the great Napoleon himself, with all the resources of an empire at his sole command, never ventured the simultaneous accomplishments of so many daring projects. The acquisition of Cuba … ; the construction of a Pacific Railroad … ; a Mexican protectorate, the international preponderance in Central America, in spite of all the powers of Europe; the submission of distant South American states; … the enlargement of the Navy; a largely increased standing Army … what government on earth could possibly meet all the exigencies of such a flood of innovations?

A bronze and granite memorial residing near the Southeast corner of Washington, D.C.’s Meridian Hill Park was designed by architect William Gorden Beecher and sculpted by Maryland artistHans Schuler. Commissioned in 1916 but not approved by the U.S. Congress until 1918, and not completed and unveiled until June 26, 1930, the memorial features a statue of Buchanan bookended by male and female classical figures representing law and diplomacy, with the engraved text reading: “The incorruptible statesman whose walk was upon the mountain ranges of the law”, a quote from a member of Buchanan’s cabinet, Jeremiah S. Black. The memorial in the nation’s capital complemented an earlier monument, constructed in 1907–08 and dedicated in 1911, on the site of Buchanan’s birthplace in Stony Batter, Pennsylvania. Part of an 18.5-acre (75,000 m²) memorial site, the earlier monument is a 250-ton pyramid structure designed to show the original weathered surface of the native rubble and mortar.

Three counties are named in his honor: Buchanan County, Iowa, Buchanan County, Missouri, and Buchanan County, Virginia. Another in Texas was christened in 1858 but renamed Stephens County, after the newly elected Vice President of the Confederate States of America,Alexander Stephens, in 1861

His amiable personality and handsome appearance caused him to make many friends, but he suffered tragedy in his personal life. As president, he made many divisive decisions which were widely criticized and earned him a reputation as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. Pierce’s popularity in the North declined sharply after he came out in favor of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, repealing the Missouri Compromise and renewing the debate over expandingslavery in the West. Pierce’s credibility was further damaged when several of his diplomats issued the Ostend Manifesto. Historian David Potter concludes that the Ostend Manifesto and the Kansas-Nebraska Act were “the two great calamities of the Franklin Pierce administration…. Both brought down an avalanche of public criticism.” More importantly, says Potter, they permanently discredited Manifest Destiny and “popular sovereignty” as political doctrines.

Abandoned by his party, Pierce was not renominated to run in the 1856 presidential electionand was replaced by James Buchanan as the Democratic candidate. After losing the Democratic nomination, Pierce continued his lifelong struggle with alcoholism as his marriage to Jane Means Appleton Pierce fell apart. His reputation was destroyed during the American Civil War when he declared support for the Confederacy, and personal correspondence between Pierce and Confederate President Jefferson Davis was leaked to the press. He died in 1869 from cirrhosis.

Philip B. Kunhardt and Peter W. Kunhardt reflected the views of many historians when they wrote in The American President that Pierce was “a good man who didn’t understand his own shortcomings. He was genuinely religious, loved his wife and reshaped himself so that he could adapt to her ways and show her true affection. He was one of the most popular men in New Hampshire, polite and thoughtful, easy and good at the political game, charming and fine and handsome. However, he has been criticized as timid and unable to cope with a changing America.”

Early life

Upbringing

Franklin Pierce was born in a log cabin inHillsborough, New Hampshire, on November 23, 1804, the first U.S. president born in the nineteenth century. The site of his birth is now under Franklin Pierce Lake. Pierce’s father was Benjamin Pierce, a frontier farmer who became a Revolutionary Warsoldier, a state militia general, and a two-timeDemocratic-Republican governor of New Hampshire. He was a direct descendant of Thomas Pierce (1623–1683), who was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England and settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Franklin Pierce’s mother was Anna B. Kendrick. The fifth of eight children, he had four brothers and three sisters. Former First Lady of the United States Barbara Pierce Bush is a distant cousin.

Education

Pierce attended school at Hillsborough Center and moved to the Hancock Academy in Hancock at the age of 11; he transferred to Francestown Academy in the spring of 1820. Friends recalled that just after he entered the school, he became homesick and returned home barefoot. His father put him in a wagon, drove him half way back to the academy, and left him on the roadside, never saying a word. The boy trudged the remaining seven miles back to school. Later that year he transferred to Phillips Exeter Academy to prepare for college. In fall 1820, he entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he joined literary, political, and debating clubs.

There he met writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, with whom he formed a lasting friendship, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He also met Calvin E. Stowe, Seargent S. Prentiss, and his future political rival, John P. Hale, when he joined the Athenian Society, a group of students with progressive political leanings.

In his second year of college his grades were the lowest of his class, but he worked to improve them and ranked third among his classmates when he graduated in 1824. In 1826 he entered a law school in Northampton, Massachusetts, studying under Governor Levi Woodbury, and later Judges Samuel Howe and Edmund Parker, in Amherst, New Hampshire. He was admitted to the bar and began a law practice inConcord, New Hampshire, in 1827.

Mexican-American War

He enlisted in the volunteer services during the Mexican-American War and rose to the rank of colonel. In March 1847, he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers and took command of a brigade of reinforcements for Winfield Scott’s army marching on Mexico City. His brigade was designated the 1st Brigade in the newly created 3rd Division and joined Scott’s army in time for theBattle of Contreras. During the battle he was seriously wounded in the leg when he fell from his horse.

He returned to his command the following day, but during the Battle of Churubusco the pain in his leg became so great that he passed out and had to be carried from the field. His political opponents used this against him, claiming that he left the field because of cowardice instead of injury. He returned to command and led his brigade throughout the rest of the campaign, resulting in the capture of Mexico City. Although he was a political appointee, he proved to have some skill as a military commander. He returned home and served as president of the New Hampshire stateconstitutional convention in 1850.

Election of 1852

At the Democratic National Convention of 1852, Pierce was not a serious candidate for the presidential nomination. He had no credentials as a major political figure or leader, and had not held elective office for the last ten years. The convention assembled on June 1 inBaltimore, Maryland, with four major contenders—Stephen A. Douglas,William L. Marcy, James Buchanan and Lewis Cass – for the nomination. Most of those who had left the party with Martin Van Buren to form the Free Soil Party had returned. To unite the various Democratic Party factions before voting on a nominee, delegates adopted a party platform that rejected further “agitation” over the slavery issue and supported the Compromise of 1850.

When the balloting for president began, the four candidates deadlocked, with no candidate reaching even a simple majority, much less the requiredsupermajority of two-thirds. On the thirty-fifth ballot, Pierce was put forth to break the deadlock as a compromise candidate. Pierce’s long career as a party activist and consistent supporter of Democratic positions made him popular among delegates. He had never fully explained his views on slavery, allowing all factions to view him as reasonably acceptable. His service in the Mexican-American War would allow the party to portray him as a war hero. On June 5, delegates unanimously nominated Pierce on the 49th ballot. Alabama Senator William R. King was chosen as the nominee for Vice President.

The United States Whig Party’s candidate was General Winfield Scott of Virginia, under whom Pierce had served in the Mexican-American War; his running mate was Secretary of the Navy William A. Graham. Scott – nicknamed “Old Fuss and Feathers” – ran a blundering campaign.

The Whigs’ platform was almost indistinguishable from that of the Democrats, reducing the campaign to a contest between the personalities of the two candidates and helping to drive voter turnout in the election to its lowest level since 1836. Pierce’s affable personality and lack of strongly held positions helped him prevail over Scott, whose antislavery views hurt him in the South. Pierce’s military service effectively neutralized Scott’s reputation as a celebrated war hero. Irish Catholic support of the Democratic Party and disdain for the Whig Party also helped Pierce.

he Democrats’ slogan was “We Polked you in 1844; we shall Pierce you in 1852!” (a reference to the victory of James K. Polk in the 1844 election). This proved to be true, as Scott won only the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Massachusetts, and Vermont. The total popular vote was 1,601,274 to 1,386,580, or 50.9% to 44.1%. Pierce won 27 of the 31 states, including Scott’s home state of Virginia. John P. Hale, who like Pierce was from New Hampshire, was the nominee of the remnants of the Free Soil Party, garnering 155,825 votes (5% of the total).

The 1852 election was the last presidential contest in which the Whigs fielded a candidate. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, passed in 1854, divided the Whigs. The Whig Party splintered and most of its adherents migrated to the nativist American Party Know Nothings, the Constitutional Union Party, and the newly formed Republican Party.

At his inauguration, Pierce, at age 48, was the youngest President to have taken office, a record he would keep until Ulysses S. Grant took office in 1869 at 46 years old.

Presidency 1853–1857

Pierce served as President from March 4, 1853, to March 4, 1857. He began his presidency exhausted and in mourning. Two months before, on January 6, 1853, the President-elect’s family had boarded a train in Boston, and were trapped in their derailed car when it rolled down anembankment near Andover, Massachusetts. Pierce and his wife survived, merely shaken up, but saw their 11-year-old son Benjamin crushed to death. Jane Pierce viewed the train accident as a divine punishment for her husband’s pursuit and acceptance of high office.

Pierce chose to “affirm” his oath of office rather than swear it, becoming the first president to do so; he placed his hand on a law book rather than on a Bible while doing so. He was also the first president to recite his inaugural address from memory. In it Pierce hailed an era of peace and prosperity at home and urged a vigorous assertion of US interests in its foreign relations. “The policy of my Administration,” said the new president,

“will not be deterred by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion. Indeed, it is not to be disguised that our attitude as a nation and our position on the globe render the acquisition of certain possessions not within our jurisdiction eminently important for our protection”.

The nation was enjoying economic growth and relative tranquillity, and the Compromise of 1850calmed the debate over slavery. When the issue flamed up early in his administration, though, Pierce did little to cool the passions it aroused, and sectional conflicts reignited.

Administration

Pierce selected men of differing opinions for his Cabinet, including colleagues he knew personally and Democratic politicians. Many anticipated the diverse group would soon break up, but it remained unchanged during Pierce’s four-year term (as of 2011, the only presidential cabinet to do so). In foreign policy, Pierce sought to display a traditional Democratic assertiveness. Various interests nursed ambitions to detach nearby Cuba from a weak and distant Spain, open trade with a reclusive Japan, and gain the advantage over Britain in Central America. Although the Perry Expedition to Japan was a success, Pierce’s leadership increasingly came into question when poorly anticipated developments exposed failures of Administration planning and consultation.

Pierce’s administration aroused sectional apprehensions when it pressured the United Kingdom to relinquish its interests along part of the Central American coast. Three US diplomats in Europe drafted a proposal to the president to purchase Cuba from Spain for $120 million (USD), and justify the “wresting” of it from Spain if the offer were refused. The publication of the Ostend Manifesto, which had been drawn up on the instance of Pierce’s Secretary of State, provoked the scorn of Northerners who viewed it as an attempt to annex a slave-holding possession to bolster Southern interests. It helped discredit the expansionist policies the Democratic Party had supported in the 1844 election. The Gadsden Purchase from Mexico similarly exposed the seething unresolved sectional conflicts inherent in national expansion.

Later life

After losing the Democratic nomination for reelection in 1856, Pierce retired and traveled with his wife overseas. He returned to the U.S. in 1859 in time to comment on the growing sectional crisis between the South and the North, often criticizing Northern abolitionists for encouraging ugly feelings between the two sections. In 1860 many Democrats viewed Pierce as a solid compromise choice for the presidential nomination, uniting both Northern and Southern wings of the party, but Pierce declined to run.

During the Civil War, Pierce attacked Lincoln for his order suspending habeas corpus. Pierce argued that even in a time of war, the country should not abandon its protection of civil liberties.

Pierce’s stand won him admirers with the emerging Northern Peace Democrats, but enraged certain members of the Lincoln administration: in 1862 Secretary of State William Seward sent Pierce a letter accusing him of being a member of the seditious Knights of the Golden Circle. Outraged, Pierce responded and demanded that Seward put his response in the official files of the State Department. When that didn’t happen, a Pierce supporter in the US Senate, Milton Latham of California, had the entire Seward-Pierce correspondence read into the Congressional Globe. Nearly every Seward biographer has since considered the Pierce-Seward exchange as a blot on the Secretary’s otherwise notable career.

In 1864, friends again put his name in play for the Democratic nomination, but by a letter read out loud to the delegates, Pierce said he would not run.

The year before, Pierce’s reputation was greatly damaged in the North during the aftermath of Vicksburg. Union Soldiers serving under General Hugh Ewing’s command captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ Fleetwood Plantation, and Ewing turned over Davis’ personal correspondence to his brother-in-law William T. Sherman. However, Ewing also sent copies of the letters to friends in Ohio. Those letters revealed Pierce’s deep friendship with Davis and ambivalence about the goals of the war. As early as 1860, Pierce had written to Davis about “the madness of northern abolitionism.” Another letter stated that he would “never justify, sustain, or in any way or to any extent uphold this cruel, heartless, aimless unnecessary war,” and that “the true purpose of the war was to wipe out the states and destroy property.”Abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe, who had long disliked Pierce, now referred to him as “the archtraitor.”

On April 16, 1865, when news had spread of the murder of President Lincoln, an angry mob of young teenagers gathered outside Pierce’s home in Concord. Earlier that day a different mob had thrown black paint on the front porch of former President Millard Fillmore, who, like Pierce, was also regarded as a Lincoln detractor. The crowd in Concord wanted to know why Pierce’s house was not dressed with black bunting and American flags, the visual proof of grief being used that day by millions of people across the country. Pierce came outside to confront the crowd and said he, too, was saddened by Lincoln’s passing. When a voice in the crowd yelled out “Where is your flag?” Pierce became angry and recalled his family’s long devotion to the country, including both his and his father’s service in the military. He said he needed to display no flag to prove that he was a loyal American. The crowd soon quieted down and even cheered and applauded the former president as he went back into his home.

Franklin Pierce died in Concord, New Hampshire, at 4:49 am on October 8, 1869, at 64 years old. President Ulysses S. Grant, who later defended Pierce’s service in the Mexican War, declared a day of national mourning. Newspapers across the country carried lengthy front-page stories examining Pierce’s colorful and controversial career. He was interred in the Minot Enclosure in the Old North Cemetery of Concord.

In his last will, which he signed January 22, 1868, he left an unusually large number of specific bequests to friends, family and neighbors, including the children of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He left $1,000 in trust to the local library. The interest was used to purchase books. He left gifts of money, paintings, and other items to various people. The cane of General Lafayette was among the bequests. His nephew Frank Pierce received the residue.

Fillmore opposed the proposal to keep slavery out of the territories annexed during theMexican–American War (to appease the South), and so supported the Compromise of 1850, which he signed, including the Fugitive Slave Act (“Bloodhound Law”) which was part of the compromise. On the foreign policy front, he furthered the rising trade with Japan and clashed with the French over Napoleon III’s attempt to annex Hawaii, and with the French and the British over the attempt of Narciso López to invade Cuba. After his presidency, he joined theKnow-Nothing movement; throughout the Civil War, he opposed President Lincoln and duringReconstruction supported President Johnson.

Fillmore co-founded the University of Buffalo and helped found the Buffalo Historical Society.

Early life and career

Fillmore was the U.S. President who was born last in the 18th century (b.1800), althoughJames Buchanan was the last serving president who was born in the 18th century (b.1791). Fillmore was born in a log cabin in Moravia, Cayuga County, in the Finger Lakes region ofNew York State, to Nathaniel Fillmore and Phoebe Millard, as the second of nine children and the eldest son. He later lived in East Aurora, New York in the southtowns region, south ofBuffalo. Though a Unitarian in later life, Fillmore’s ancestors were Scottish Presbyterianson his father’s side and English dissenters on his mother’s. His father apprenticed him to a cloth maker in Sparta, New York, at age fourteen to learn the cloth-making trade. He left after four months, but subsequently took another apprenticeship in the same trade at New Hope, New York. He struggled to obtain an education living on the frontier and attended New Hope Academy for six months in 1819. Later that year, he began to clerk for Judge Walter Wood ofMontville, New York, under whom Fillmore began to study law.

He fell in love with Abigail Powers, whom he met while at New Hope Academy and later married on February 5, 1826. The couple had two children,Millard Powers Fillmore and Mary Abigail Fillmore. After leaving Wood and buying out his apprenticeship, Fillmore moved to Buffalo, where he continued his studies in the law office of Asa Rice and Joseph Clary. He was admitted to the bar in 1823 and began his law practice in East Aurora where, in 1825, he built a house for his new bride. In 1834, he formed a law partnership, Fillmore and Hall (becoming Fillmore, Hall and Haven in 1836), with close friend Nathan K. Hall (who would later serve in his cabinet as Postmaster General). It would become one of western New York’s most prestigious firms, and exists to this day asHodgson Russ LLP.

In 1846, he founded the private University of Buffalo, which today is the public State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY Buffalo), the largest school in the New York state university system.

His military service was limited; he served in the New York militia during the Mexican–American War.

Politics

In 1828, Fillmore was elected to the New York State Assembly on the Anti-Masonic ticket, serving three one-year terms, from 1829 to 1831. In his final term he chaired a special legislative committee to enact a new bankruptcy law that eliminated debtors’ prison. As the measure had support among some Democrats, he maneuvered the law into place by taking a nonpartisan approach and allowing the Democrats to take credit for the bill. This kind of inconspicuousness and avoiding the limelight would later characterize Fillmore’s approach to politics on the national stage.

He later won election as a Whig (having followed his mentor Thurlow Weed into the party) to the 23rd Congress in 1832, serving from 1833 to 1835. He was reelected in 1836 to the 25th Congress, to the 26th and to the 27th Congresses serving from 1837 to 1843, declining to be a candidate for re-nomination in 1842.

In Congress, he opposed admitting Texas as a slave territory. He came in second place in the bid for Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1841. He served as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee from 1841 to 1843 and was an author of the Tariff of 1842, as well as two other bills that President John Tyler vetoed.

After leaving Congress, Fillmore was the unsuccessful Whig candidate for Governor of New York in 1844. He was the first New York State Comptroller elected by general ballot, and was in office from 1848 to 1849. As state comptroller, he revised New York’s banking system, making it a model for the future National Banking System.

Vice Presidency 1849–1850

At the Whig national convention in 1848, the nomination of Gen. Zachary Taylor for president angered supporters of Henry Clay and opponents of allowing slavery in the territories gained in theMexican–American War. A group of practical Whig politicians nominated Fillmore for vice president. Fillmore came from a non-slave state and delegates believed he would help the ticket carry the populous state of New York.

Fillmore was also selected in part to block New York statemachine boss Thurlow Weed from receiving the vice presidential nomination (and his front man William H. Seward from receiving a position in Taylor’s cabinet). Weed eventually got Seward elected to the Senate. This competition between Seward and Fillmore led to Seward’s becoming a more vocal part of cabinet meetings and having more of a voice than Fillmore in advising the administration. The battle would continue even after Taylor’s death.

Taylor and Fillmore disagreed on the slavery issue in the new western territories taken from Mexico in the Mexican–American War. Taylor wanted the new states to be free states, while Fillmore supported slavery in those states to appease the South. In his own words: “God knows that I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil … and we must endure it and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the Constitution.”

Fillmore presided over the Senate during the months of nerve-wracking debates over the Compromise of 1850. During one debate, SenatorHenry S. Foote of Mississippi pulled a pistol on Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri. Fillmore made no public comment on the merits of the compromise proposals. A few days before President Taylor’s death, however, Fillmore suggested to the president that he would vote in favor of the North if the vote on Henry Clay’s bill was tied.

Presidency 1850–1853

Domestic Affairs

After Taylor died suddenly on July 9, 1850, Fillmore became president. The change in leadership also signaled an abrupt political shift. Fillmore had very different views on the slavery issue. Before Taylor’s death, Fillmore told him that, as President of the Senate, he would give his tie-breaking vote to the Compromise of 1850. When Fillmore took office, the entire cabinet offered their resignations. Fillmore accepted them all and appointed men who, except for Treasury SecretaryThomas Corwin, favored the Compromise of 1850. When the compromise finally came before both Houses of Congress, it was very watered down. As a result, Fillmore urged Congress to pass the original bill. This move only provoked an enormous battle where “forces for and against slavery fought over every word of the bill.” To Fillmore’s disappointment the bitter battle over the bill crushed public support. Clay, exhausted, left Washington to recuperate, passing leadership to Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. At this critical juncture, President Fillmore announced his support of the Compromise of 1850.

On August 6, 1850, he sent a message to Congress recommending that Texas be paid to abandon its claims to part of New Mexico. This, combined with his mobilization of 750 Federal troops to New Mexico, helped shift a critical number of northern Whigs in Congress away from their insistence upon the Wilmot Proviso—the stipulation that all land gained by the Mexican War must be closed to slavery.

Douglas’s effective strategy in Congress combined with Fillmore’s message to Congress gave momentum to the Compromise movement. Breaking up Clay’s single legislative package, Douglas presented five separate bills to the Senate:

• Admit California as a free state.
• Settle the Texas boundary and compensate the state for lost lands.
• Grant territorial status to New Mexico.
• Place federal officers at the disposal of slaveholders seeking escapees—the Fugitive Slave Act.
• Abolish the slave trade, but not slavery, in the District of Columbia.

Each measure obtained a majority, and, by September 20, President Fillmore had signed them into law. Webster wrote, “I can now sleep of nights.” Whigs on both sides refused to accept the finality of Fillmore’s law (which led to more party division, and a loss of numerous elections), which forced Northern Whigs to say “God Save us from Whig Vice Presidents.” Fillmore’s greatest difficulty with the fugitive slave law was enforcing it without showing favor to Southern Whigs. His solution was to appease both northern and southern Whigs. He called for enforcing the fugitive slave law in the North, and enforcing in the South a law forbidding involvement in Cuba (for the sole purpose of adding it as a slave state).

Fillmore appointed Brigham Young as the first governor of the Utah Territory in 1850. In gratitude for creating the Utah Territory in 1850 and appointing Brigham Young as governor, Young named the territorial capital “Fillmore” and the surrounding county “Millard”. Fillmore, a bookworm, started the White House library when he found the White House devoid of books.

Foreign Affairs

In foreign affairs, Fillmore was particularly active in the Asia-Pacific region, especially Japan. American shipping interests had become more keen on opening Japan up to outside trade because it would allow them to stop for supplies en route to China and Southeast Asia. American shippers also looked to the British opening of China to trade as an example of the “benefits of new trade markets.” Fillmore, with help from Secretary of State Daniel Webster, sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry to open Japan to Western trade. Though Perry did not reach Japan until Franklin Pierce had replaced Fillmore as president, Fillmore does earn the credit for ending Japanese isolation because it was he who ordered the trade mission. Fillmore was also a staunch defender against foreign intervention in Hawaii. France’s Napoleon III attempted to annex the Hawaiian Islands, but was forced to withdraw after a strongly worded message from Fillmore suggesting that “the United States would not stand for any such action.”

Though President Taylor had signed the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty preventing Britain and the US from taking more possessions in the Americas, Great Britain and the United States were still attempting to gain ground in the region. The situation became tense enough that Fillmore ordered several warships to guard American merchants in an attempt to prevent British interference. Fillmore was also caught in a situation involving Cuba. Many southerners were eager to expand the bounds of slavery and since slavery territories were locked down because of the Compromise of 1850, many southerners turned to the Caribbean. Venezuelan Narciso López gathered a small force of Americans to invade Cuba. Though Fillmore tried to block such efforts, he was nevertheless unsuccessful as López managed to sail out of New Orleans. Despite the failure of the invasion, López tried another invasion a year later which came to a quick end after Spanish troops routed them from the island. The incident became particularly embarrassing for Fillmore because southerners felt he should have supported the invasion, while Northern democrats were upset at his apology to the Spanish. The French and British dispatched warships to the region in response. Fillmore sent a stern warning saying that under certain conditions control of Cuba “might be almost essential to our [America's] safety.”

Another issue that presented itself during Fillmore’s presidency was the arrival of Lajos Kossuth, the exiled leader of a failed Hungarianrevolution. Kossuth wanted the United States to abandon its nonintervention policies when it came to European affairs and recognize Hungary’s independence. The problem came with the enormous support Kossuth received from German-American immigrants to the United States (who were essential in the reelection of both Whigs and Democrats). Fillmore refused to change American policy, and decided to remain neutral despite the political implications that neutrality would produce.

Legacy

Some northern Whigs remained irreconcilable, refusing to forgive Fillmore for having signed theFugitive Slave Act. They helped deprive him of the Presidential nomination in 1852. Within a few years it was apparent that although the Compromise had been intended to settle the slavery controversy, it served rather as an uneasy sectional truce. Robert J. Rayback argues that the appearance of a truce, at first, seemed very real as the country entered a period of prosperity that included the South. Although Fillmore, in retirement, continued to feel that conciliation with the South was necessary and considered that the Republican Party was at least partly responsible for the subsequent disunion, he was an outspoken critic of secession and was also critical ofPresident James Buchanan for not immediately taking military action when South Carolina seceded.

Benson Lee Grayson suggests that the Fillmore administration’s ability to avoid potential problems is too often overlooked. Fillmore’s constant attention to Mexico avoided a resumption of the hostilities that had only broken off in 1848 and laid the groundwork for the Gadsden Treaty during Pierce’s administration. Meanwhile, the Fillmore administration resolved a serious dispute with Portugal left over from the Taylor administration,smoothed over a disagreement with Peru, and then peacefully resolved other disputes with England, France, and Spain over Cuba.

At the height of this crisis, the Royal Navy had fired on an American ship while at the same time 160 Americans were being held captive in Spain. Fillmore and his State Department were able to resolve these crises without the United States going to war or losing face.

Because the Whig party was so deeply divided, and the two leading national figures in the Whig party (Fillmore and his own Secretary of State, Daniel Webster) refused to combine to secure the nomination,Winfield Scott received it. Because both the north and the south refused to unite behind Scott, he won only 4 of 31 states, and lost the election to Franklin Pierce.

After Fillmore’s defeat the Whig party continued its downward spiral with further party division coming at the hands of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the emergence of the Know Nothing party.

In the history of the US presidency, Fillmore inaugurates a new era. All previous presidents had acquired substantial personal fortunes either through inheritance or marriage (or, in Martin van Buren’s case, through work as an attorney). Fillmore was the first of a long line of late nineteenth century chief executives, mostly lawyers, who acquired only modest wealth during their lives, were “distinctly middle class” and who spent most of their careers in public service.

The myth that Fillmore installed the White House’s first bathtub was started by H. L. Mencken in a joke column published on December 28, 1917, in the New York Evening Mail. In February 2008, a television commercial for a sales event by Kia Motors featured Millard Fillmore, referring to him as “Unheard of,” repeated the Bathtub hoax, and presented a Millard Fillmore bust as a ‘Soap-on-a-Rope’.

While Fillmore’s letters and papers are owned by multiple institutions, including the Penfield Library of the State University of New York at Oswego, the largest surviving collection is in the Research Library at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society.

David Copperfield (born David Seth Kotkin; September 16, 1956) is an American illusionist, described by Forbes in 2006 as the most commercially successful magician in history. Best known for his combination of storytelling and illusion, Copperfield has so far sold 40 million tickets and grossed over $1 billion.

Early years

Copperfield was born David Seth Kotkin in Metuchen, New Jersey, the son of Jewish parents, Rebecca, an insurance adjuster, and Hyman Kotkin, who owned and operated a men’s haberdashery in Metuchen called Korby’s.Copperfield’s mother was born in Jerusalem,Palestine, while his paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia (present-day Ukraine).

When Copperfield was 10, he began practicing magic as “Davino the Boy Magician” in his neighborhood, and at the age of 14, became the youngest person ever admitted to the Society of American Magicians. Shy and a loner, the young Copperfield saw magic as a way of fitting in and, later, as a way to get girls. As a teenager, Copperfield became fascinated with Broadway and frequently sneaked into shows, especially musicals featuring Stephen Sondheim or Bob Fosse. By age 16, he was teaching a course in magic at New York University.

Career and business interests

At age 18, he enrolled at Fordham University, and was cast in the lead role of the Chicago-based musical The Magic Man (written by Barbara D’Amato and directed by Holland, MI’s John Tammi) three weeks into his freshman year, adopting his new stage name “David Copperfield” from the Charles Dickens book of the same name. At age 19, he was headlining at the Pagoda Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Copperfield’s career in television began in earnest when he was discovered by Joseph Cates, a producer of Broadway shows and television specials. Cates produced a magic special in 1977 on ABC called “The Magic of ABC” hosted by Copperfield, as well as several of “The Magic of David Copperfield” specials on CBS between 1978 and 1998. There have been 20 Copperfield TV specials between 1977 and 2001.

Copperfield played the character of “Ken the Magician” in the 1980 horror film Terror Train. He also made an uncredited appearance in the 1994 film Prêt-à-Porter. Most of his media appearances have been through television specials and guest spots on television programs. His illusions have included making the Statue of Liberty disappear, flying, levitating over the Grand Canyon, and walking through the Great Wall of China.

In 1996, Copperfield joined forces with Dean Koontz, Joyce Carol Oates, Ray Bradbury and others for David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible, an anthology of original fiction set in the world of magic and illusion. A second volume was later published in 1997, called David Copperfield’s Beyond Imagination. In addition to the 2 books, David also wrote an essay as part of the “This I Believe” series from NPR and the This I Believe, Inc. Also during 1996, in collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola, David Ives, and Eiko Ishioka, Copperfield’s Broadway show “Dreams & Nightmares” broke box office records.

Copperfield notes that his role models were not magicians and that “My idols were Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and Orson Welles and Walt Disney … they took their individual art forms and they moved people with them … I wanted to do the same thing with magic. I wanted to take magic and make it romantic and make it sexy and make it funny and make it goofy … all the different things that a songwriter gets to express or a filmmaker gets to express ….”

On 7 May 2009, Copperfield was dropped by Michael Jackson from Jackson’s residency at the O2 Arena after an alleged row over money. Copperfield wanted $1 million (£666,000) per show. Copperfield denied the reports of a row, saying “don’t believe everything you read.” News of Copperfield’s collaboration with Jackson first surfaced on April 1, 2009, and has since been reported by several websites as a possible April Fool’s prank.

International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts

Copperfield owns the International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts, which houses the world’s largest collection of historically significant magic memorabilia, books and artifacts. Begun in 1991 when Copperfield purchased the Mullholland Library of Conjuring and the Allied Arts, which contained the world’s largest collection of Houdini memorabilia, the museum comprises 5,000 cubic feet and approximately 80,000 items of magic memorabilia, including Houdini’s Water Torture Cabinet and his Metamorphosis Trunk, Orson Welles’ Buzz Saw Illusion and automata created by Robert-Houdin.

The museum is not open to the public; tours are reserved for “colleagues, fellow magicians, and serious collectors”. Located in a warehouse at Copperfield’s headquarters in Las Vegas, the museum is entered via a secret door in what was described by actor Hugh Jackman as a “sex shop” and by Forbes as a “mail-order lingerie warehouse”. ”‘It doesn’t need to be secret, it needs to be respected,’ he said. ‘If a scholar or journalist needs a piece of magic history, it’s there.’”

Musha Cay and the Islands of Copperfield Bay

In 2006 Copperfield bought eleven Bahamian islands called Musha Cay.Rechristened “The Islands of Copperfield Bay,” the islands are a private resort. Guests have reportedly included Oprah Winfrey and John Travolta, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin was married there.

“Magic Underground” restaurant

David Copperfield’s Magic Underground was planned to be a restaurant based on Copperfield’s magic. There was a sign on Hollywood Boulevard during the late 90s indicating the restaurant was coming soon. Signs were also located around Pleasure Island and signs outsideDisney-MGM Studios. A Magic Underground restaurant was also going to open in New York’s Times Square. Plans also included eventual expansion into Disneyland in Anaheim, California, as well as Paris and Tokyo. The restaurants were to have magic props and other items on the walls of the restaurants while magicians would go around to tables doing sleight of hand tricks. There was also to be a larger stage for larger stunts. The restaurant in Times Square was 85 percent completed, but, amid disputes between the creative team and the financial team, and enormous cost overruns, finances dried up from the investors, so the project was cancelled, and Disney cancelled the lease. Copperfield was not an investor in the project; the investors reportedly lost $34 million on the project, and subcontractors placed $15 million in liens.

Accidents and injuries

On March 11, 1984, while rehearsing an illusion called “Escape from Death” where he was shackled and handcuffed in a tank of water, Copperfield became tangled in the chains and started taking in water and banging into the sides of the tank. He was pulled from the water after 1 minute 20 seconds, hyperventilating and in shock, and taken to a Burbank hospital, and found to have pulled tendons in arms and legs. He was in a wheelchair for a week and used a cane for a period thereafter.

Doing a rope trick, Copperfield accidentally cut off the tip of his finger with sharp scissors. He was rushed to hospital and the fingertip was re-attached.

On December 17, 2008, during a live performance in Las Vegas, one of Copperfield’s assistants was sucked into the spinning blades of a 12 feet (3.7 m) high industrial fan that Copperfield walks through. The assistant sustained multiple fractures to his arm, lacerations that required stitching, and severe bleeding. Copperfield canceled the rest of the performance and offered the audience members refunds.

Litigation

On July 11, 1994, Copperfield sued magician and author Herbert L. Becker in order to prevent publication of Becker’s book which reveals how magicians perform their illusions. Becker won the law suit. However, the book was published without exposing any of Copperfield’s secrets. Because of a secrecy agreement Becker had signed with Copperfield, and an independent finding that Becker’s description of Copperfield’s methods was inaccurate, the publisher removed the section on Copperfield from the book before publication. In 1997, Becker sued Copperfield and Lifetime Books for US$50 million for causing breach of contract between himself and Lifetime Books, the publisher of his book All the Secrets of Magic Revealed. Becker won this lawsuit when Copperfield settled at the eleventh hour and the publisher lost during the court battle.

In 1997, Copperfield and Claudia Schiffer sued Paris Match for US$30 million after the magazine claimed their relationship was a stunt,that Schiffer was paid for pretending to be Copperfield’s fiancée and that she didn’t even like him. In 1999, they won an undisclosed sum and a retraction from Paris Match. Herbert L. Becker who Copperfield asked to give testimony regarding the validity of the relationship gave convincing testimony that the relationship was real. Copperfield’s publicist confirmed that while Schiffer had a contract to appear in the audience at Copperfield’s show in Berlin where they met, she was not under contract to be his “consort”.

On August 25, 2000, Copperfield unsuccessfully sued Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company for reimbursement of a $506,343 ransom paid to individuals in Russia who had commandeered the entertainer’s equipment there.

In 2004, John Melk, co-founder of Blockbuster Inc., and previous owner of Musha Cay, sued Copperfield for fraud after Copperfield’s purchase of the island chain, alleging that Copperfield had deliberately obscured his identity during the purchase and that he would not have sold the island to Copperfield. Copperfield claimed that Melk had agreed to sell the property to Copperfield’s Imagine Nation Company, and that Copperfield negotiated the deal through a third party because he feared Melk was “seeking to exploit” Copperfield’s celebrity status by demanding an unrealistic price. The case was settled in 2006. The terms of the settlement are undisclosed.

On November 6, 2007, Viva Art International Ltd and Maz Concerts Inc.sued Copperfield for nearly $2.2 million for breach of contract and the Indonesian promoter of David Copperfield’s canceled shows in Jakarta held on to $550,000 worth of Copperfield’s equipment in lieu of money paid to Copperfield that had not been returned. Copperfield countersued. The dispute was resolved in July 2009.

Copperfield was accused of sexual assault in 2007 by Lacey L. Carroll.A federal grand jury in Seattle closed the investigation in January 2010 without bringing charges against Copperfield. In January 2010 the Bellevue City Prosecutor’s Office brought misdemeanor charges against Carroll for prostitution and allegedly making a false accusation of rape in another case. Carroll filed a civil lawsuit against Copperfield, which was dropped in April 2010.

Personal life

Copperfield was engaged to supermodel Claudia Schiffer for six years, but the couple separated in 1999 citing work schedules.

In April 2006, Copperfield and two female assistants were robbed at gunpoint after a performance in West Palm Beach, Florida. His assistants gave the robbers their money, passports and a cell phone. According to his police statement, Copperfield did not hand over anything, claiming that he used sleight of hand to hide his possessions. One of Copperfield’s assistants wrote down most of the license plate number, and the suspects were later arrested, tried and sentenced.

Earnings

Forbes magazine reported that Copperfield earned USD55 million in 2003, making him the tenth highest paid celebrity in the world (earnings figures are pre-tax and before deductions for agents’ and attorneys’ fees, etc.). He earned $57 million in 2004 and 2005, and $30 million in 2009 in entertainment earnings, according to Forbes. Copperfield performs over 500 shows per year throughout the world.

Achievements and awards

• Nominated 38 times for Emmy Awards and has won 21 times.

• Received a Living Legend Award from the Library of Congress.

• First living magician to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

• Knighted by the French government, receiving the Chevalier of Arts and Letters, the first one ever awarded to a magician.

• Named “Magician of the Year” in 1980 and 1987 by the Academy of Magical Arts.

• Forbes’s “The Celebrity 100″ for 2009 ranks Copperfield as the 80th most powerful celebrity, with earnings of $30 million.

Guinness World Records

Copperfield holds 11 Guinness World Records. They include:

1. Largest private collection of magic artifacts

2. Most tickets sold worldwide by a solo entertainer

3. Highest career earnings as a magician

4. Highest Broadway gross in a week

5. Largest Broadway attendance in a week

6. Largest international television audience for a magician

7. Most magic shows performed in a year

8. Most valuable magic poster

9. Largest work archive for a magician

10. Highest annual earnings for a magician

11. Largest illusion ever staged

Filmography

• Terror Train (1980)
• Scrubs (2002) TV – “My Lucky Day” as himself
• Oh My God (2009)

Notable tricks

• Flying illusion
• Laser illusion
• Portal
• Vanishing the Statue of Liberty

Known as “Old Rough and Ready,” Taylor had a forty-year military career in the United States Army, serving in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, and the Second Seminole War. He achieved fame leading American troops to victory in the Battle of Palo Alto and the Battle of Monterrey during the Mexican–American War. As president, Taylor angered many Southerners by taking a moderate stance on the issue of slavery. He urged settlers in New Mexico andCalifornia to bypass the territorial stage and draft constitutions for statehood, setting the stage for the Compromise of 1850. Taylor died just 16 months into his term, the third shortest tenure of any President. He is thought to have died of gastroenteritis. Only Presidents William Henry Harrison and James Garfield served less time. Taylor was succeeded by his Vice President,Millard Fillmore.

Election of 1848

In his capacity as a career officer, Taylor had never reportedly revealed his political beliefs before 1848, nor voted before that time. He thought of himself as an independent, believing in a strong and sound banking system for the country, and thought that Andrew Jackson should not have allowed the Second Bank of the United States to collapse in 1836. He believed it was impractical to talk about expanding slavery into the western areas of the United States, as he concluded that neither cotton nor sugar (both were produced in great quantities as a result of slavery) could be easily grown there through a plantation economy. He was also a firmnationalist, and due to his experience of seeing many people die as a result of warfare, he believed that secession was not a good way to resolve national problems. Taylor, although he did not agree with their stand on protective tariffs and expensive internal improvements, aligned himself with Whig Party governing policies; the President should not be able to veto a law, unless that law was against the Constitution of the United States; that the office should not interfere withCongress, and that the power of collective decision-making, as well as the Cabinet, should be strong.

Taylor was equally indifferent to programs Whigs had long considered vital. Publicly, he was artfully ambiguous, refusing to answer questions about his views on banking, the tariff, and internal improvements. Privately, he was more forthright. The idea of a national bank ‘is dead, and will not be revived in my time.’ In the future the tariff “will be increased only for revenue”; in other words, Whig hopes of restoring the protective tariff of 1842 were vain. There would never again be surplus federal funds from public land sales to distribute to the states, and internal improvements ‘will go on in spite of presidential vetoes.’ In a few words, that is, Taylor pronounced an epitaph for the entire Whig economic program.

Presidency

Policies

Although Taylor had subscribed to Whig principles of legislative leadership, he was not inclined to be a puppet of Whig leaders in Congress. He ran his administration in the same rule-of-thumb fashion with which he had fought Native Americans.

Under Taylor’s administration, the United States Department of the Interior was organized, although the legislation authorizing the Department had been approved on President Polk’s last day in office. He appointed former Treasury Secretary Thomas Ewing the first Secretary of the Interior.

Slavery

At the time Taylor became President, the issue of slavery in the western territories of the United States had come to dominate American political discourse, and debate between extreme pro and antislavery viewpoints had become very pronounced. In 1849, he advised the residents ofCalifornia, including the Mormons around Salt Lake, and the residents of New Mexico to create state constitutions and apply for statehood in December when Congress met. He correctly predicted that these constitutions would state against slavery in California and New Mexico. In December 1849, and January 1850, Taylor told Congress that it should allow them to become states, once their constitutions arrived in Washington D.C. He also urged that there should not be an attempt to develop territorial governments for the two future states, since that might increase tension between pro and antislavery activists regarding a congressional prohibition of slavery in the territories.

Foreign affairs

Taylor and his Secretary of State, John M. Clayton, lacked much experience in foreign affairs before Taylor assumed the presidency, and Taylor was not directly involved in diplomacy or the development of American foreign policies. Taylor’s administration attempted to stop afilibustering expedition against Cuba, argued with France and Portugal over reparation disputes owed to the US, and supported German liberals during the revolutions of 1848. The administration confronted Spain, which had arrested several Americans on the charge of piracy, and assisted the United Kingdom’s search for a team of British explorers who had gotten lost in the Arctic. The United States had planned to construct a canal across Nicaragua, but the British opposed the idea, arguing that they held a special status in neighboring Honduras. In what was described by one source as Taylor’s “most important foreign policy move”, delicate negotiations were performed with Britain, and a “landmark agreement” was reached called theClayton-Bulwer Treaty. Both Britain and the United States agreed not to claim control of any canal that might be built in Nicaragua. The treaty is considered to have been an important step in the development of an Anglo-American alliance, and “effectively weakened U.S. commitment to Manifest Destiny as a formal policy while recognizing the supremacy of U.S. interests in Central America”. The creation of the treaty was Taylor’s last act of state.

The Compromise of 1850

The slavery issue dominated Taylor’s short term. Although he owned slaves on his plantation inLouisiana, he took a moderate stance on the territorial expansion of slavery, angering fellow Southerners. He told them that if necessary to enforce the laws, he personally would lead the Army. Persons “taken in rebellion against the Union, he would hang … with less reluctance than he had hanged deserters and spies in Mexico.” He never wavered. Henry Clay then proposed a complexCompromise of 1850. Taylor died as it was being debated. (The Clay version failed but another version did pass under the new president, Millard Fillmore.)

Death

The true cause of Zachary Taylor’s premature death is not fully established. On July 4, 1850, after watching a groundbreaking ceremony for the Washington Monument during the Independence Day celebration, Taylor sought refuge from the oppressive heat by consuming a pitcher of milk and a bowl of cherries. At about 10:00 in the morning on July 9, 1850, very ill, Taylor called his wife to him and asked her not to weep, saying: “I have always done my duty, I am ready to die. My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me.” Upon his sudden death on July 9, the cause was listed as gastroenteritis. He was interred in the Public Vault (built in 1835 to hold remains of notables until either the gravesite could be prepared or transportation arranged to another city) of the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. from July 13, 1850 to October 25, 1850. Taylor was then transported to the Taylor Family plot where his parents are buried, on the old Taylor homestead estate known as ‘Springfield’. In 1883, the Commonwealth of Kentucky placed a fifty foot monument near Zachary Taylor’s grave. It is topped by a life-sized statue of Zachary Taylor.

By the 1920s, the Taylor family initiated the effort to turn the Taylor burial grounds into a national cemetery. The Commonwealth of Kentucky donated two pieces of land for the project, turning the half-acre Taylor family cemetery into 16 acres (65,000 m²). There, buried in the Taylor family plot, Zachary Taylor and his wife (who died in 1852) remained, until he and his wife were moved to their final resting place on May 6, 1926 in the newly commissioned Taylor mausoleum (made of limestone with a granite base, with a marble interior), nearby. Today, President Taylor and wife Margaret rest in the mausoleum in Louisville, Kentucky, at what is now the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery.

Exhumation of 1991

In the late 1980s, college professor and author Clara Rising hypothesized that Taylor was murdered by poison and was able to convince Taylor’s closest living relative and the Coroner of Jefferson County, Kentucky, to order an exhumation. On June 17, 1991, Taylor’s remains were exhumed and transported to the Office of the Kentucky Chief Medical Examiner, where radiological studies were conducted and samples of hair, fingernail and other tissues were removed. The remains were then returned to the cemetery and received appropriate honors at reinterment. He was reinterred in the same mausoleum he had been interred in since 1926. A monolith was constructed next to the mausoleum later on. Neutron activation analysis conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory revealed arsenic levels several hundred times lower than they would have been if Taylor had been poisoned. Rather, it was concluded that on a hot July day Taylor had attempted to cool himself with large amounts of cherries and iced milk. “In the unhealthy climate of Washington, with its open sewers and flies, Taylor came down with cholera morbus, or acute gastroenteritis as it is now called.” He might have recovered, Samuel Eliot Morison felt, but his doctors “drugged him with ipecac, calomel, opium and quinine (at 40 grains a whack), and bled and blistered him too. On July 9, he gave up the ghost.”

Assassination theories

Despite these findings, assassination theories have not been entirely put to rest. Michael Parenti devoted a chapter in his 1999 book History as Mystery to “The Strange Death of Zachary Taylor,” speculating that Taylor was assassinated because of his moderate stance on the expansion of slavery – and that his autopsy was botched. It is suspected that Taylor was deliberately assassinated by arsenic poisoning from one of the citizen-provided dishes he sampled during the Independence Day celebration. Other dissenting historians claim as suspicious the facts that there were no eyewitness accounts of Taylor consuming cherries and milk on that day; that there are no confirmed cholera outbreaks in Washington in 1850; that Taylor’s symptoms were not those of typhoid (spread by flies); that Taylor was not given the aforementioned drugs until he was already deathly sick, on the third day of his acute illness; and that Taylor was not bled until near death on the fifth and last day of his illness

Polk was the last strong pre-Civil War president and the first president whose photographs while in office still survive. He is noted for his foreign policy successes. He threatened war withBritain over the issue of which country owned the Oregon Country, then backed away and split the ownership of the region with Britain. When Mexico rejected American annexation of Texas, Polk led the nation to a sweeping victory in the Mexican-American War, which gave the United States most of its present Southwest. He secured passage of the Walker tariff of 1846, which had low rates that pleased his native South, and he established a treasury system that lasted until 1913.

Polk oversaw the opening of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Smithsonian Institution, the groundbreaking for the Washington Monument, and the issuance of the first postage stamps in the United States.

He promised to serve only one term and did not run for reelection. He died of cholera three months after his term ended.

Scholars have ranked him favorably on the list of greatest presidents for his ability to set an agenda and achieve all of it. Polk has been called the “least known consequential president” of the United States.

Election of 1844

Polk initially hoped to be nominated for vice-president at theDemocratic convention, which began on May 27, 1844. The leading contender for the presidential nomination was former President Martin Van Buren, who wanted to stop the expansion of slavery. Other candidates included James Buchanan, General Lewis Cass,Cave Johnson, John C. Calhoun, and Levi Woodbury. The primary point of political contention involved the Republic of Texas, which, after declaring independence from Mexico in 1836, had asked to join the United States. Van Buren opposed the annexation but in doing so lost the support of many Democrats, including former President Andrew Jackson, who still had much influence. Van Buren won a simple majority on the convention’s first ballot but did not attain the two-thirds supermajority required for nomination. When it became clear after another six ballots that Van Buren would not win the required majority, Polk emerged as a “dark horse” candidate. After an indecisive eighth ballot, the convention unanimously nominated Polk.

Before the convention, Jackson told Polk that he was his favorite for the nomination of the Democratic Party. Even with this support, Polk instructed his managers at the convention to support Van Buren if he could win the nomination. This assured that if a deadlocked convention occurred, initial supporters of Van Buren would pick Polk as a compromise candidate for the Democrats. In the end, this is exactly what happened as a result for Polk’s support of westward expansion.

When advised of his nomination, Polk replied: “It has been well observed that the office of President of the United States should neither be sought nor declined. I have never sought it, nor should I feel at liberty to decline it, if conferred upon me by the voluntary suffrages of my fellow citizens.” Because the Democratic Party was splintered into bitter factions, Polk promised to serve only one term if elected, hoping that his disappointed rival Democrats would unite behind him with the knowledge that another candidate would be chosen in four years.

Polk’s Whig opponent in the 1844 presidential election was Henry Clay of Kentucky. (Incumbent Whig President John Tyler—a former Democrat—had become estranged from the Whigs and was not nominated for a second term.) The annexation of Texas, which was at the forefront during the Democratic Convention, again dominated the campaign. Polk was a strong proponent of immediate annexation, while Clay seemed more equivocal and vacillating.

Another campaign issue, also related to westward expansion, involved the Oregon Country, then under the joint occupation of the United States and Great Britain. The Democrats had championed the cause of expansion, informally linking the controversial Texas annexation issue with a claim to the entire Oregon Country, thus appealing to both Northern and Southern expansionists. (The slogan “Fifty-four Forty or Fight,” often incorrectly attributed to the 1844 election, did not appear until later; see Oregon boundary dispute.) Polk’s consistent support for westward expansion—what Democrats would later call “Manifest Destiny”—likely played an important role in his victory, as opponent Henry Clay hedged his position.

In the election, Polk and his running mate, George M. Dallas, won in the South and West, while Clay drew support in the Northeast. Polk lost his home state, Tennessee, but won New York, where Clay lost votes to the antislavery Liberty Party candidate James G. Birney. Also contributing to Polk’s victory was the support of new immigrant voters, who opposed the Whigs’ policies. Polk won the popular vote by a margin of about 39,000 out of 2.6 million, and took the Electoral College with 170 votes to Clay’s 105. Polk won 15 states, while Clay won 11.

Polk is the only Speaker of the House of Representatives to be elected President of the United States.

Presidency (1845–1849)

When he took office on March 4, 1845, Polk, at 49, became the youngest man at the time to assume the presidency. According to a story told decades later by George Bancroft, Polk set four clearly defined goals for his administration:

• Reestablish the Independent Treasury System.
• Reduce tariffs.
• Acquire some or all of Oregon Country.
• Acquire California and New Mexico from Mexico.

Pledged to serve only one term, he accomplished all these objectives in just four years. By linking acquisition of new lands in Oregon (with no slavery) and Texas (with slavery), he hoped to satisfy both North and South.

During his presidency James K. Polk was known as “Young Hickory”, an allusion to his mentor Andrew Jackson, and “Napoleon of the Stump” for his speaking skills.

Fiscal policy

In 1846, Congress approved the Walker Tariff (named after Robert J. Walker, the Secretary of the Treasury), which represented a substantial reduction of the high Whig-backed Tariff of 1842. The new law abandoned ad valorem tariffs and set rates independent of the monetary value of the product. Polk’s actions were popular in the South and West; however, they were despised by many protectionists in Pennsylvania.

In 1846, Polk approved a law restoring the Independent Treasury System, under which government funds were held in the Treasury and not in banks or other financial institutions. This established independent treasury deposit offices, separate from private or state banks, to receive all government funds.

Rivers and Harbors Veto

Congress passed the Rivers and Harbors Bill in 1846 to provide $500,000 to improve rivers and harbors, but Polk vetoed the bill. It would have provided for federally funded internal improvements on small harbors. Polk believed that this was unconstitutional because the bill unfairly favored particular areas, including ports which had no foreign trade. Polk believed that these problems were local and not national. Polk feared that passing the Rivers and Harbors Bill would encourage legislators to compete for favors for their home districts – a type of corruption that would spell doom to the virtue of the republic. In this regard he followed his hero Andrew Jackson, who had vetoed the Maysville Road Billin 1830 on similar grounds.

Slavery

During his presidency, many abolitionists harshly criticized him as an instrument of the “Slave Power”, and claimed that spreading slavery was the reason he supported annexing Texas and laterwar with Mexico. Polk stated in his diary that he believed slavery could not exist in the territories won from Mexico, but refused to endorse the Wilmot Proviso that would forbid it there. Polk argued instead for extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean, which would prohibit the expansion of slavery above 36° 30′ west of Missouri, but allow it below that line if approved by eligible voters in the territory. William Dusinberre has argued that Polk’s diary, which he kept during his presidency, was written for later publication, and does not represent Polk’s policy.

Polk was a slaveholder for his entire life. His father, Samuel Polk, had left Polk more than 8,000 acres (32 km²) of land, and divided about 53 slaves to his widow and children after he died. James inherited twenty of his father’s slaves, either directly or from deceased brothers. In 1831, he became an absentee cotton planter, sending slaves to clear plantation land that his father had left him nearSomerville, Tennessee. Four years later Polk sold his Somerville plantation and, together with his brother-in-law, bought 920 acres (3.7 km²) of land, a cotton plantation near Coffeeville, Mississippi. He ran this plantation for the rest of his life, eventually taking it over completely from his brother-in-law. Polk rarely sold slaves, although once he became President and could better afford it, he bought more. Polk’s will stipulated that their slaves were to be freed after his wife Sarah had died. However, the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution freed all remaining slaves in rebel states long before the death of his wife in 1891.

Mexican-American War

After the Texas annexation, Polk turned his attention to California, hoping to acquire the territory from Mexico before any European nation did so. The main interest wasSan Francisco Bay as an access point for trade with Asia. In 1845, he sent diplomatJohn Slidell to Mexico to purchase California and New Mexico for $24–30 million. Slidell’s arrival caused political turmoil in Mexico after word leaked out that he was there to purchase additional territory and not to offer compensation for the loss of Texas. The Mexicans refused to receive Slidell, citing a technical problem with his credentials. In January 1846, to increase pressure on Mexico to negotiate, Polk sent troops under General Zachary Taylor into the area between the Nueces River and theRio Grande—territory that was claimed by both the U.S. and Mexico.

Slidell returned to Washington in May 1846, having been rebuffed by the Mexican government. Polk regarded this treatment of his diplomat as an insult and an “ample cause of war”, and he prepared to ask Congress for a declaration of war. Meanwhile Taylor crossed the Rio Grande River and briefly occupied Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Taylor continued to blockade ships from entering the port of Matamoros. Mere days before Polk intended to make his request to Congress, he received word that Mexican forces had crossed the Rio Grande area and killed eleven American soldiers. Polk then made this the casus belli, and in a message to Congress on May 11, 1846, he stated that Mexico had “invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil.”

Some Whigs in Congress, such as Abraham Lincoln, challenged Polk’s version of events, but Congress overwhelmingly approved the declaration of war. Many Whigs feared that opposition would cost them politically by casting themselves as unpatriotic for not supporting the war effort.

In the House, antislavery Whigs led by John Quincy Adams voted against the war; among Democrats, Senator John C. Calhoun was the most notable opponent of the declaration.

Military action

Polk selected the top generals and set the military strategy of the war. By the summer of 1846, American forces under General Stephen W. Kearny had captured New Mexico. Meanwhile, Army captain John C. Frémont led settlers in northern California to overthrow the Mexican garrison in Sonoma (in the Bear Flag Revolt). General Zachary Taylor, at the same time, was having success on the Rio Grande, although Polk did not reinforce his troops there. The United States also negotiated a secret arrangement with Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican general and dictator who had been overthrown in 1844. Santa Anna agreed that, if given safe passage into Mexico, he would attempt to persuade those in power to sell California and New Mexico to the United States. Once he reached Mexico, however, he reneged on his agreement, declared himself President, and tried to drive the American invaders back. Santa Anna’s efforts, however, were in vain, as Generals Taylor and Winfield Scott destroyed all resistance. Scott captured Mexico City in September 1847, and Taylor won a series of victories in northern Mexico. Even after these battles, Mexico did not surrender until 1848, when it agreed to peace terms set out by Polk.

Peace: the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Polk sent diplomat Nicholas Trist to negotiate with the Mexicans. Lack of progress prompted the President to order Trist to return to the United States, but the diplomat ignored the instructions and stayed in Mexico to continue bargaining. Trist successfully negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which Polk agreed to ratify, ignoring calls from Democrats who demanded that all Mexico be annexed. The treaty added 1.2 million square miles (3.1 million square kilometers) of territory to the United States; Mexico’s size was halved, while that of the United States increased by a third. California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming were all included in the Mexican Cession. The treaty also recognized the annexation of Texas and acknowledged American control over the disputed territory between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. Mexico, in turn, received $15 million. The war claimed fewer than 20,000 American lives but over 50,000 Mexican ones. It may have cost the United States $100 million. Finally, the Wilmot Proviso injected the issue of slavery in the new territories, even though Polk had insisted to Congress and in his diary that this had never been a war goal.

The treaty, however, needed ratification by the Senate. In March 1848, the Whigs, who had been so opposed to Polk’s policy, suddenly changed position. Two-thirds of the Whigs voted for Polk’s treaty. This ended the war and legalized the acquisition of the territories.

The war had serious consequences for Polk and the Democrats. It gave the Whig Party a unifying message of denouncing the war as an immoral act of aggression carried out through abuse of power by the president. In the 1848 election, however, the Whigs nominated GeneralZachary Taylor, a war hero, and celebrated his victories. Taylor refused to criticize Polk. As a result of the strain of managing the war effort directly and in close detail, Polk’s health markedly declined toward the end of his presidency.

Cuba

In the summer of 1848, President Polk authorized his ambassador to Spain, Romulus Mitchell Saunders, to negotiate the purchase of Cubaand offer Spain up to $100 million, an astounding sum at the time for one territory, equal to $2.53 billion in present day terms. Cuba was close to the United States and had slavery, so the idea appealed to Southerners but was unwelcome in the North. But Spain was still making huge profits in Cuba (notably in sugar, molasses, rum, and tobacco), and the Spanish government rejected Saunders’ overtures.

Department of the Interior

One of Polk’s last acts as President was to sign the bill creating the Department of the Interior (March 3, 1849). This was the first new cabinet position created since the early days of the Republic.

A longtime Democratic-Republican, Tyler was nonetheless elected Vice President on the Whig ticket. Upon the death of PresidentWilliam Henry Harrison on April 4, 1841, only a month after his inauguration, the nation was briefly in a state of confusion regarding the process of succession. Ultimately the situation was settled with Tyler becoming President both in name and in fact. Tyler took the oath of office on April 6, 1841, setting a precedent that would govern future successions and eventually be codified in the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

Once he became president, he stood against his party’s platform and vetoed several of their proposals. As a result, most of his cabinet resigned and the Whigs expelled him from their party.

Arguably the most famous and significant achievement of Tyler’s administration (aside from setting the precedent for Vice-Presidential succession) was the annexation of the Republic of Texas in 1845. Tyler was the first president born after the adoption of the Constitution, the only president to have held the office of President pro tempore of the Senate, and the only former president elected to office in the government of the Confederacy during the Civil War (though he died before he assumed the said office).

U.S. Senate

Tyler was elected as a Jacksonian to the United States Senate in 1827. He was reelected in 1833 and served from March 4, 1827, to February 29, 1836, when he resigned.

Tyler supported Jackson in both the 1828 and 1832 elections, and backed him when he vetoed the Bank of the United States recharter in 1832. However, starting with theNullification Crisis of 1832-33, Tyler drifted away from the Jacksonian Democrats. During the Nullification Crisis, Tyler opposed the force bill allowing Jackson to use armed force to collect tariff revenues in South Carolina. While other senators opposing the bill abstained, Tyler cast the only opposing vote as the bill passed 32–1.

By 1836, Tyler was closer to Henry Clay’s newly formed Whigs than Jackson’s Democrats. That year, Virginia’s legislature instructed its senators to vote to expunge the Senate’s 1834 censure of Jackson from the record. Rather than do so, Tyler resigned his seat.

In the Senate, Tyler served as President pro tempore of the Senate during the Twenty-third Congress (the only President to have served as President pro tempore of the Senate), and was chair of the Committee on the District of Columbia (Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Congresses), as well as the Committee on Manufactures (Twenty-third Congress).

1836 presidential election

In 1836, the new Whig Party was not organized enough to hold a national convention and name a single ticket against Jackson’s chosen successor, Martin Van Buren. Instead, Whigs in various states proposed three regional candidates, Daniel Webster, William Henry Harrison, and Hugh White. Tyler was named as a vice-presidential candidate and ran with Harrison in some states and White in others. He finished third, receiving 47 electoral votes.

1840 Presidential election

At the Whigs’ convention, Tyler supported Henry Clay’s presidential candidacy. After Clay was passed over for William Henry Harrison, Tyler was named as Harrison’s running mate. Their opponent was Democratic incumbent Martin Van Buren.

The Whigs’ 1840 campaign slogans of “Log Cabins and Hard Cider” and “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” are among the most famous in American politics. “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” not only offered the slight sectionalism that would further be apparent in the presidency of Tyler, but also the nationalism that was imperative to gain the American vote.

Harrison and Tyler won the election by an electoral vote of 234-60 and a popular vote of 53 percent to 47 percent. On March 4, 1841, Tyler was inaugurated as the 10th Vice-President of the United States.

Vice-Presidency 1841

Largely ignored by the men who were pressuring Harrison to give them jobs, Tyler stayed in Washington, D.C., only long enough to be inaugurated Vice President on March 4 and to preside over the next day’s Senate confirmation of Harrison’s cabinet. On March 5 he returned to his home in Williamsburg, Virginia, not even staying through the close of the Senate’s session. Harrison sought little of Tyler’s advice, and Tyler reportedly offered none. Secretary of State Daniel Webster sent word to Tyler of Harrison’s illness on April 1; two days later, Richmond attorney James Lyons wrote with the news that the President had taken a turn for the worse, remarking that “I shall not be surprised to hear by tomorrow’s mail that Gen’l Harrison is no more.” Tyler determined not to travel to Washington, not wanting to appear unseemly in anticipating the President’s death. However, at dawn on April 5, two couriers from the State Department — one of them Webster’s son — arrived at Tyler’s home bearing the message that Harrison had died the day before.

Presidency 1841–1845

Harrison’s unprecedented death in office caused considerable disarray regarding his successor. The Constitution of the United States stated only that:

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President.

This led to the question of whether the office of the presidency itself “devolved” upon Vice President Tyler, or merely its powers and duties. The protocol was so uncertain that Secretary of State Daniel Webster discreetly requested the counsel of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (who declined, citing concerns about the separation of powers).

By the time Tyler arrived in Washington at 4 a.m. on April 6, he had firmly resolved that he was now, in name and fact, the President of the United States, and acted on this determination by taking the oath of office in his hotel room with the cabinet looking on, then immediately calling them into a meeting where he asserted his authority by terminating Harrison’s practice of making policy by cabinet majority.

Tyler’s claim was not immediately accepted by opposition members in Congress such as John Quincy Adams, who argued for Tyler to assume a role as a caretaker under the title of ”Acting President”, or remain Vice President in name. Among these was Whig leader Henry Clay, who had intended to be a “power behind the throne” and exercise great influence over his fellow Whig Harrison and now transferred that ambition onto his close friend, Tyler.

Once Harrison was dead, Clay was even more determined to hold sway over his successor. Amidst the constitutional uncertainties, Clay, “kept referring to Tyler as ‘the Vice-President’ and insisted that his administration would be more in the nature of a regency…[Tyler] quickly set the constitutional standard for later presidential successions by asserting that he was not merely “acting president” but had in fact acquired the full powers of the presidency…Tyler thundered at Clay: “Go you now, Mr. Clay, to your end of the avenue, where stands the Capitol, and there perform your duty to the country as you shall think proper. So help me God, I shall do mine at this end of it as I shall think proper.”

On June 1, 1841, impressed by his authoritative actions, both houses of Congress passed resolutions declaring Tyler the 10th President of the United States. Tyler had thus become the first U.S. vice president to assume the office of president upon the death of his predecessor, establishing a precedent that would be followed seven times in the 19th and 20th centuries. Yet it was not until 1967 that Tyler’s action of assuming both the full powers and the title of the presidency was legally codified in the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

Although his accession was given approval by both the Cabinet and, later, the Senate and House, Tyler’s detractors (who, ironically, would eventually include many of the Cabinet members and members of Congress who had legitimized his presidency) never fully accepted him as President. He was referred to by many nicknames, including “His Accidency,” a reference to his having become President not through election but by the accidental circumstances regarding his nomination and Harrison’s death. However, Tyler never wavered from his conviction that he was the rightful president; when his political opponents sent correspondence to the White House addressed to the “Vice President” or “Acting President,” Tyler had it returned unopened.

Before election as president, Harrison served as the first territorial congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory, governorof the Indiana Territory and later as a U.S. representative and senator from Ohio. He originally gained national fame for leading U.S. forces against American Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, where he earned the nickname “Tippecanoe” (or “Old Tippecanoe”). As a general in the subsequent War of 1812, his most notable contribution was a victory at the Battle of the Thames in 1813, which brought an end to hostilities in his region.

After the war, Harrison moved to Ohio, where he was elected to the United States Congress, and in 1824 he became a member of the Senate. There he served a truncated term before being appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary to Colombia in May 1828. In Colombia, he spoke with Simon Bolívar about the finer points of democracy before returning to his farm in Ohio, where he lived in relative retirement until he was nominated for the presidency in 1836. Defeated, he retired again to his farm before being elected president in 1840.

Political career

Harrison resigned from the army in 1797 and began campaigning among his friends and family for a post in the Northwest Territorial government. With the aid of his close friend, Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, he was recommended to replace the outgoing Secretary of the Northwest Territory. He was appointed to the position, during which time he acted as governor during the frequent absences of Governor Arthur St. Clair.

Member of Congress

Harrison had many friends in the elite eastern social circles, and quickly gained a reputation among them as a frontier leader. Harrison ran a successful horse-breeding enterprise that won him acclaim throughout the Northwest Territory. He championed for lower land prices, the northwesterners’ primary concern at the time. The US Congress had legislated a territorial land policy that led to high land costs, a policy disliked by many of the territory’s citizens. When Harrison ran for Congress, he campaigned on working to alter the situation to encourage migration to the territory. In 1799, at age 26, Harrison defeated the son of Arthur St. Clair and was elected as the first delegate representing the Northwest Territory in the Sixth United States Congress. He served from March 4, 1799, to May 14, 1800. As a delegate from a territory, not a state, he had no authority to vote on bills but was permitted to serve on a committee, submit legislation, and debate.

As delegate, Harrison successfully promoted the passage of the Harrison Land Act. This made it easier for the average settler to buy land in the Northwest Territory by allowing land to be sold in small tracts. The availability of inexpensive land was an important factor in the rapid population growth of the Northwest Territory. Harrison also served on the committee that decided how to divide the Northwest Territory. The committee recommended splitting the territory into two segments, creating the Ohio Territoryand the Indiana Territory. The bill passed and the two new territories were established in 1800.

Without informing Harrison, President John Adams nominated him to become governor of the new territory, based on his ties to “the west” and seemingly neutral political stances. Harrison was confirmed by the Senate the following day. Caught unaware, Harrison accepted the position only after receiving assurances from the Jeffersoniansthat he would not be removed from office after they gained power in the upcoming elections. He then resigned from Congress. The Indiana Territory consisted of the future states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and the eastern portion of Minnesota.

Governor

Harrison moved to Vincennes, the capital of the newly established Indiana territory, on January 10, 1801. While in Vincennes, Harrison built a plantation style home he named Grouseland for its many birds. It was one of the first brick structures in the territory. The home, which has been restored and has become a popular modern tourist attraction, served as the center of social and political life in the territory. He also built a second home near Corydon, the second capital, at Harrison Valley.

As governor, Harrison had wide ranging powers in the new territory, including the authority to appoint all territorial officials, and the territorial legislature, and to control the division of the territory into political districts. A primary responsibility was to obtain title to Native American lands. This would allow European-American settlement to expand and increase US population to enable the region to gain statehood. Harrison was eager to expand the territory for personal reasons as well, as his political fortunes were tied to Indiana’s rise to statehood. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson granted Harrison authority to negotiate and conclude treaties with the Indians.

Harrison supervised the development of 13 treaties, through which the territory bought more than 60,000,000 acres (240,000 km²) of land from Native American leaders, including much of present-day southern Indiana. The 1804 Treaty of St. Louis with Quashquame led to the surrender by the Sauk and Meskwaki of much of western Illinois and parts of Missouri. This treaty and loss of lands were greatly resented by many of the Sauk, especially Black Hawk. It was the primary reason the Sauk sided with Great Britain during the War of 1812. Harrison thought the Treaty of Grouseland in 1805 appeased some of the issues for Native Americans, but tensions remained high on the frontier.

The 1809 Treaty of Fort Wayne raised new tensions. Harrison purchased from the Miami tribe, who claimed ownership of the land, more than 2,500,000 acres (10,000 km²) of land inhabited by Shawnee, Kickapoo, Wea, and Piankeshaw peoples. Harrison rushed the process by offering large subsidies to the tribes and their leaders so that he could have the treaty in place before President Jefferson left office and the administration changed. The tribes living on the lands were furious and sought to have the treaty overturned but were unsuccessful.

In 1803 Harrison lobbied Congress to repeal Article 6 of the Northwest Ordinance, in order to permit slavery in the Indiana Territory. He claimed it was necessary to make the region more appealing to settlers and would make the territory economically viable. Congress suspended the article for 10 years, during which time the territories covered by the ordinance were granted the right to decide for themselves whether to permit slavery. That year Harrison had the appointed territorial legislature authorize indenturing. He attempted to have slavery legalized outright, in both 1805 and 1807. This caused a significant stir in the territory. When in 1809 the legislature was popularly elected for the first time, Harrison found himself at odds with them as the abolitionist party came to power. They immediately blocked his plans for slavery and repealed the indenturing laws he had passed in 1803.

President Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Northwest Ordinance, had made a secret compact with James Lemen to defeat the pro-slavery movement led by Harrison. Although a slaveholder, he did not want slavery to expand into the Northwest Territory, as he believed the institution should end. Under the “Jefferson-Lemen compact”, Jefferson donated money to Lemen to found churches in Illinois and Indiana to stop the pro-slavery movement. In Indiana the founding of an anti-slavery church led to citizens’ signing a petition and organizing politically to defeat Harrison’s efforts to legalize slavery. Jefferson and Lemen were both instrumental in defeating Harrison’s attempts in 1805 and 1807 to secure approval of slavery in the territory.

Army general

Tecumseh and Tippecanoe

An Indian resistance movement against U.S. expansion had been growing through the leadership of the Shawnee brothers, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa (The Prophet). The conflict became known as Tecumseh’s War. Tenskwatawa convinced the native tribes that they would be protected by the Great Spirit and no harm could befall them if they would rise up against the white settlers. He encouraged resistance by telling the tribes to pay white traders only half of what they owed and to give up all the white man’s ways, including their clothing, muskets, and especially whiskey, which was becoming known as evil for American Indians.

In August 1810, Tecumseh led four hundred armed warriors down the Wabash River to meet with Harrison in Vincennes. As the warriors were dressed in war paint, their sudden appearance at first frightened the soldiers at Vincennes. The leaders of the group were escorted to Grouseland where they met Harrison. Tecumseh insisted that the Fort Wayne Treaty was illegitimate. He argued that no one tribe could sell land without the approval of the other tribes; he asked Harrison to nullify it and warned that Americans should not attempt to settle the lands sold in the treaty. Tecumseh informed Harrison that he had threatened to kill the chiefs who signed the treaty if they carried out its terms, and that his confederation of tribes was growing rapidly. Harrison said the Miami were the owners of the land and could sell it if they so chose. He rejected Tecumseh’s claim that all the Indians formed one nation. He said each tribe could have separate relations with the United States if they chose to. Harrison argued that the Great Spirit would have made all the tribes speak one language if they were to be one nation.

Tecumseh launched an “impassioned rebuttal,” but Harrison was unable to understand his language. A Shawnee friendly to Harrison cocked his pistol from the sidelines to alert Harrison that Tecumseh’s speech was leading to trouble. Some witnesses reported that Tecumseh was encouraging the warriors to kill Harrison. Many of the warriors began to pull their weapons and Harrison pulled his sword. Since the entire town’s population was only 1,000, Tecumseh’s warriors could have defeated the entire town. Once the few officers pulled their guns to defend Harrison, the warriors backed down. Chief Winnemac, who was friendly to Harrison, countered Tecumseh’s arguments and told the warriors that since they had come in peace, they should return home in peace. Before leaving, Tecumseh informed Harrison that unless the treaty was nullified, he would seek an alliance with the British. After the meeting, Tecumseh journeyed to meet with many of the tribes in the region, hoping to create a confederation to battle the United States.

War of 1812

The outbreak of war with the British in 1812 led to continued conflict with Native Americans in the Old Northwest, and Harrison was kept in command of the army in Indiana. After the loss of Detroit, General James Winchester became the commander of the Army of the Northwest. He offered Harrison the rank of brigadier general, which he refused, as he wanted sole command of the army. President James Madisonremoved Winchester and made Harrison the commander on September 17, 1812. Harrison inherited an army of fresh recruits, which he endeavored to drill. Initially he was greatly outnumbered by the British with their Indian allies. In the winter of 1812-13, Harrison constructed a defensive position at the rapids on the Maumee River in northwest Ohio. He named it Fort Meigs in honor of the Ohio governor, Return Jonathan Meigs Jr.

After receiving reinforcements in 1813, Harrison took the offensive. He led the army north to battle the Shawnee and their new British allies. He won victories in Indiana and Ohio and recaptured Detroit, before invading Canada. He defeated the British at the Battle of the Thames, in which Tecumseh was killed.

Secretary of War John Armstrong divided the command of the army, assigning Harrison to a “backwater” post and giving control of the front to one of Harrison’s subordinates. Armstrong and Harrison had disagreed over the lack of coordination and effectiveness in the invasion of Canada. When Harrison was reassigned, he promptly resigned from the army. His resignation was accepted in the summer of 1814.

After the war ended, Congress investigated Harrison’s resignation. It determined that he had been mistreated by the Secretary of War during his campaign and that his resignation was justified. They awarded Harrison a gold medal for his services during the War of 1812. The Battle of the Thames was considered one of the great American victories in the war, second only to the Battle of New Orleans.

1836 presidential campaign

Harrison was the Northern Whig candidate for president in 1836, the only time in American history when a major political party intentionally ran more than one presidential candidate. Vice President Martin Van Buren, the Democratic Candidate, was popular and deemed likely to win the election against an individual Whig candidate. The Whig plan was to elect popular Whigs regionally, deny Van Buren the 148 electoral votes needed for election, and force the House of Representatives to decide the election. They hoped the Whigs would control the House after the general elections. (This strategy would have failed as the Democrats retained a majority in the House following the election.)

Harrison ran in all the free states except Massachusetts, and the slave states of Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky. Hugh L. White ran in the remaining slave states except for South Carolina. Daniel Webster ran in Massachusetts, and Willie P. Mangum in South Carolina. The plan narrowly failed as Van Buren won the election with 170 electoral votes. A swing of just over 4000 votes in Pennsylvania would have given that state’s 30 electoral votes to Harrison, and the election would have been decided in the House of Representatives.

1840 presidential campaign

Harrison was the Whig candidate (and again faced Van Buren, now the incumbent president) in the 1840 election. The Whig party unified behind a single candidate, and Harrison was chosen over more controversial members of the party, such as Clay and Webster. Harrison based his campaign on his heroic military record and on the weak U.S. economy, caused by the Panic of 1837. In a ploy to blame Van Buren for the depressed economy, the Whigs nicknamed him “Van Ruin”.

The Democrats ridiculed Harrison by calling him “Granny Harrison, the petticoat general,” because he resigned from the army before the War of 1812 ended. When asking voters whether Harrison should be elected, they asked them what his name backwards was, which happens to be “No Sirrah.” Democrats cast Harrison as a provincial, out-of-touch old man who would rather “sit in his log cabin drinking hard cider” than attend to the administration of the country. This strategy backfired by Harrison and his vice presidential running-mate, John Tyler’s adopting the log cabin and hard cider as campaign symbols. They used the images in banners and posters, and created bottles of hard cider that were shaped like log cabins, all to connect to the “common man”.

Shortest presidency

When Harrison came to Washington, he wanted to show that he was still the steadfast hero of Tippecanoe. He took the oath of office on March 4, 1841, a cold and wet day. He wore neither an overcoat nor hat, and delivered the longest inaugural address in American history. It took him nearly two hours to read, although his friend and fellow Whig Daniel Webster had edited it for length. Harrison rode through the streets in the inaugural parade.

The inaugural address was a detailed statement of the Whig agenda, essentially a repudiation of Jackson and Van Buren’s policies. Harrison promised to reestablish the Bank of the United States and extend its capacity for credit by issuing paper currency (Henry Clay’s American System); to defer to the judgment of Congress on legislative matters, with sparing use of his veto power; and to reverse Jackson’s spoils system of executive patronage. He promised to use patronage to create a qualified staff, not to enhance his own standing in government.

As leader of the Whigs and a powerful legislator (as well as a frustrated Presidential candidate in his own right), Clay expected to have substantial influence in the Harrison administration. He ignored his own platform plank of overturning the “Spoils” system. Clay attempted to influence Harrison’s actions before and during his brief presidency, especially in putting forth his own preferences for Cabinet offices and other presidential appointments. Harrison rebuffed his aggression, saying “Mr. Clay, you forget that I am the President.” The dispute intensified when Harrison named Daniel Webster, Clay’s arch-rival for control of the Whig Party, as his Secretary of State, and appeared to give Webster’s supporters some highly coveted patronage positions. Harrison’s sole concession to Clay was to name his protegé John J. Crittenden to the post of Attorney General. When Clay pressed Harrison on the appointments, the president told him not to visit the White House again, but to address him only in writing. Despite this, the dispute continued until the president’s death.

Death

On March 26, Harrison became ill with a cold. According to the prevailing medical misconception of that time, it was believed that his illness was directly caused by the bad weather; however, Harrison’s illness did not arise until more than three weeks after the inauguration.

The cold worsened, rapidly turning to pneumonia and pleurisy. He sought to rest in the White House, but could not find a quiet room because of the steady crowd of office seekers. His extremely busy social schedule made any rest time scarce.

Harrison’s doctors tried cures, applying opium, castor oil, leeches, and Virginia snakeweed. But the treatments only made Harrison worse, and he became delirious. He died nine days after becoming ill, at 12:30 a.m. on April 4, 1841, of right lower lobepneumonia, jaundice, and overwhelming septicemia. He was the first United States president to die in office. His last words were to his doctor, but assumed to be directed at John Tyler, “Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more.” Harrison served the shortest term of any American president: March 4 – April 4, 1841, 30 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes.

Harrison’s funeral took place in the Wesley Chapel in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1841. His original interment was in the public vault of theCongressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. He was later buried in North Bend, Ohio. The William Henry Harrison Tomb State Memorial was erected in his honor.

He was a key organizer of the Democratic Party, a dominant figure in the Second Party System, and the first president not ofBritish descent—his family was Dutch. He was the first president to be born an American citizen, his predecessors having been born British subjects before the American Revolution. He is also the only president not to have spoken English as his first language, having grown up speaking Dutch, and the first president from New York.

As Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of State and then Vice President, he was a key figure in building the organizational structure forJacksonian democracy, particularly in New York State. As president, he did not want the United States to annex Texas, which would eventually happen during the Polk Administration. Between the bloodless Aroostook War and the Caroline Affair, relations with Britain and its colonies in Canada also proved to be strained.

His administration was largely characterized by the economic hardship of his time, the Panic of 1837. He was scapegoated for the depression and called “Martin Van Ruin” by his political opponents. Van Buren was voted out of office after four years, losing to Whig candidate William Henry Harrison.

U.S. Senate and national politics

In February 1821, Martin Van Buren was elected a U.S. Senator from New York, defeating the incumbent Nathan Sanford who ran as the Clintonian candidate. Van Buren at first favored internal improvements, such as road repairs and canal creation, therefore proposing a constitutional amendment in 1824 to authorize such undertakings. The next year, however, he took ground against them. He voted for the tariff of 1824 then gradually abandoned the protectionist position, coming out for “tariffs for revenue only.”

In the presidential election of 1824, Van Buren supported William H. Crawford and received the electoral vote of Georgia for vice-president, but he shrewdly kept out of the acrimonious controversy which followed the choice of John Quincy Adams as President. Van Buren had originally hoped to block Adams’ victory by denying him the state of New York (the state was divided between Van Buren supporters who would vote for William H. Crawford and Adams men). However, Representative Stephen Van Rensselaer swung New York to Adams and thereby the 1824 Presidency. He recognized early the potential of Andrew Jackson as a presidential candidate.

After the election, Van Buren sought to bring the Crawford and Jackson followers together and strengthened his control as a leader in the Senate. Always notably courteous in his treatment of opponents, he showed no bitterness toward either John Quincy Adams or Henry Clay, and he voted for Clay’s confirmation as Secretary of State, notwithstanding Jackson’s “corrupt bargain” charge. At the same time, he opposed the Adams-Clay plans for internal improvements and declined to support the proposal for a Panama Congress. As chair of the Judiciary Committee, he brought forward a number of measures for the improvement of judicial procedure and, in May 1826, joined with Senator Thomas Hart Benton in reporting on executive patronage. In the debate on the “tariff of abominations” in 1828, he took no part but voted for the measure in obedience to instructions from the New York legislature, an action which was cited against him as late as during the presidential campaign of 1844.

Van Buren was not an orator, but his more important speeches show careful preparation and his opinions carried weight; the oft-repeated charge that he refrained from declaring himself on crucial questions is hardly borne out by an examination of his senatorial career. In February 1827, he was reelected to the Senate by a large majority. He became one of the recognized managers of the Jackson campaign, and his tour of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia in the spring of 1827 won support for Jackson from Crawford. Martin Van Buren sought to reorganize and unify “the old Republican party” behind Jackson. Van Buren helped create a popular style of politicking that is often seen today. At the state level, Jackson’s committee chairs would split up the responsibilities around the state and organize volunteers at the local level. “Hurra Boys” would plant hickory trees (in honor of Jackson’s nickname, “Old Hickory”) or hand out hickory sticks at rallies. Van Buren even had a New York journalist write a campaign piece portraying Jackson as a humble, pious man. “Organization is the secret of victory,” an editor in the Adams camp wrote. He once said to a group of lobbyists the famous quote and “By the want of it we have been overthrown.” In 1828, Van Buren was elected Governor of New York for the term beginning on January 1, 1829, and resigned his seat in the Senate.

Martin Van Buren’s tenure as New York governor is the second shortest on record. While his term was short, he did manage to pass the Bank Safety Act (an early form of deposit insurance).

Vice-Presidency

In December 1829, Jackson had already made known his wish that Van Buren receive the nomination. In April 1831, Van Buren resigned as Secretary of State as a result of the Petticoat affair—though he did not leave office until June. Van Buren still played a part in the Kitchen Cabinet. In August 1831, he was appointed Minister to the Court of St. James’s (ambassador to Great Britain), and he arrived in London in September. He was cordially received, but in February, he learned that his nomination had been rejected by the Senate on January 25, 1832. The rejection, ostensibly attributed in large part to Van Buren’s instructions to Louis McLane, the American minister to Britain, regarding the opening of the West Indies trade, in which reference had been made to the results of the election of 1828, was the work of Calhoun, the vice-president. When the vote was taken, enough of the majority refrained from voting to produce a tie and give Calhoun his longed-for “vengeance.” No greater impetus than this could have been given to Van Buren’s candidacy for the vice-presidency.

After a brief tour on through Europe, Van Buren reached New York on July 5, 1832. The 1832 Democratic National Convention, the party’s first and held in May, had nominated him for vice-president on the Jackson ticket, despite the strong opposition to him which existed in many states. Van Buren’s platform included supporting the expansion of the naval system. His declarations during the campaign were vague regarding the tariff and unfavorable to the United States Bank and to nullification, but he had already somewhat placated the South by denying the right of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia without the consent of the slave states.

Election of 1836

It took Van Buren and his partisan friends a decade and a half to form the Democratic Party; many elements, such as the national convention, were borrowed from other parties.

In the election of 1832, the Jackson-Van Buren ticket won by a landslide (heavily due to the fact that Andrew Jackson was a popular war hero). When the election of 1836 came up, Jackson was determined to make Van Buren, his personal choice, President to continue his legacy. Martin Van Buren’s only competitors in the 1836 election were theWhigs, who ran several regional candidates in hopes of sending the election to the House of Representatives, where each state delegation would have one vote. William Henry Harrison hoped to receive the support of the Western voters, Daniel Webster had strength in New England, and Hugh Lawson White had support in the South. Van Buren wasunanimously nominated by the 1835 Democratic National Convention at Baltimore. He expressed himself plainly on the questions of slavery and the bank at the same time voting, perhaps with a touch of bravado, for a bill offered in 1836 to subject abolition literature in the mails to the laws of the several states. Van Buren’s presidential victoryrepresented a broader victory for Jackson and the party. Van Buren entered the White House as a fifty-four year old widower with four sons. A famous quotation of his is “As to my presidency the best two days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it”. Martin Van Buren was the first real American politician and was also the first to use grassroots campaigning in his presidential campaign. He wanted to make a political party that united the plain republicans of the north and the planters of the south.

Presidency 1837–1841

Martin Van Buren announced his intention “to follow in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor”, and retained all but one of Jackson’s cabinet. Van Buren had few economic tools to deal with the Panic of 1837. The Panic was followed by a five-year depression, with the failure of banks and then-record-highunemployment levels. It was one of the worst economic crisis in the nation’s history. As a result Van Buren became very unpopular.

Van Buren advocated lower tariffs and free trade, and by doing so maintained support of the South for the Democratic Party. He succeeded in setting up a system of bonds for the national debt. His party was so split that his 1837 proposal for an “Independent Treasury” system did not pass until 1840. It gave the Treasury control of all federal funds and had a legal tender clause that required (by 1843) all payments to be made in specie, but it further inflamed public opinion on both sides.

In a bold step, Van Buren reversed Andrew Jackson’s policies and sought peace at home, as well as abroad. Instead of settling a financial dispute between American citizens and the Mexican government by force, Van Buren wanted to seek a diplomatic solution. In August 1837, Van Buren denied Texas’ formal request to join the United States, again prioritizing sectional harmony over territorial expansion.

In the case of the ship Amistad, Van Buren sided with the Spanish Government to return the kidnapped slaves. Also, he oversaw the “Trail of Tears”, which involved the expulsion of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw and Seminole from Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina to the Oklahoma territory. To help secure Florida, Van Buren also pursued the Second Seminole War, which had begun while Jackson was in office. The war, which would prove the costliest of the Indian Wars, was highly unpopular in the free states, where it was seen as an attempt to expand slave territory. Fighting was not resolved until 1842, after Van Buren had left office.

“Van Buren entered the presidency not only as the heir to Jackson’s policies, Jefferson’s ideology of limited government, and Smith’s principles of political economy, but also an accomplished politician with a statesmanlike vision of the dangers facing the nation. This complex heritage would shape the new president’s response to the multiple challenges of 1837.”(“Martin Van Buren” 103-114).

In 1839, Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement visited Van Buren to plead for the U.S. to help roughly 20,000 Mormon settlers of Independence, Missouri, who were forced from the state during the 1838 Mormon War there. The Governor of Missouri, Lilburn Boggs, had issued an executive order on October 27, 1838, known as the “Extermination Order”. It authorized troops to use force against Mormons to “exterminate or drive [them] from the state.” In 1839, after moving to Illinois, Smith and his party appealed to members of Congress and to President Van Buren to intercede for the Mormons. According to Smith’s grandnephew, Van Buren said to Smith, “Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you; if I take up for you I shall lose the vote of Missouri.”

Van Buren took the blame for hard times, as Whigs ridiculed him as Martin Van Ruin. Van Buren’s rather elegant personal style was also an easy target for Whig attacks, such as the Gold Spoon Oration. State elections of 1837 and 1838 were disastrous for the Democrats, and the partial economic recovery in 1838 was offset by a second commercial crisis in that year. Nevertheless, Van Buren controlled his party and was unanimously renominated by the Democrats in 1840. The revolt against Democratic rule led to theelection of William Henry Harrison, the Whig candidate.