President James Buchanan Biography Birthplace: Mercersburg, Pa.
James Buchanan was born near Mercersburg, Pa., on April 23,
1791. A Dickinson graduate and a lawyer, he entered Pennsylvania
politics as a Federalist. With the disappearance of the
Federalist Party, he became a Jacksonian Democrat. He served
with ability in the House (1821–31), as minister to St.
Petersburg (1832–33), and in the Senate (1834–45), and in 1845
became Polk's Secretary of State. In 1853, Pierce appointed
Buchanan minister to Britain, where he participated with other
American diplomats in Europe in drafting the expansionist Ostend
Manifesto. He was elected president in 1856, defeating John C.
Fremont, the Republican candidate, and former President Millard
Fillmore of the American Party. The growing crisis over slavery
presented Buchanan with problems he lacked the will to tackle.
His appeasement of the South alienated the Stephen Douglas wing
of the Democratic Party without reducing Southern militancy on
slavery issues. While denying