James Buchanan was the 15th president of the United States, who was inaugurated in March

of 1857. He was the last president to oversee the U.S. before it devolved into full-blown

civil war, and for that reason, he is widely regarded as one of the worst presidents in

our nation's history. A states-rights advocate who punted on the issue of slavery and left

it to be settled by his successor, Abraham Lincoln. Described as a northern man with southern

principles, James Buchanan hailed from Pennsylvania, becoming the first and only president from

that state. Before his election, he had served as a representative, senator, secretary

of state, and ambassador to both Russia and the United Kingdom. He was also a trusted

friend and mentor of Daniel Sickles, another politician whose story I covered in an episode

last year, the assassination of Philip Barton Key. At the 1856 Democratic National Convention,

Buchanan was able to usurp sitting president Franklin Pierce as the party favorite due

to his ambassador ship to the United Kingdom, where he had been able to avoid the political

ramifications of the bleeding Kansas crisis, a civil dispute over slavery which had started

to explode into full-scale violence. Buchanan eventually became the Democratic Party's

nominee and faced off in the general election against Republican Party nominee John C.

Fremont, an American party candidate millered filmor who had already served one prior term

as president. Buchanan would handily defeat both in route to the presidency, which he assumed

the office of following winter. In March of 1857, James Buchanan officially became the 15th

president of the United States. Washington, D.C. had become a hotbed of politicians and

other wealthy individuals, all of whom were hoping to reserve some face time with the

incoming president, if not to get a seat on his cabinet, then to merely make their presence

known and curry favor. Many of these individuals had flocked to the National, the largest

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