This is a series of articles about the deaths of successive Presidents of the United States. In the 244 years from 1776 to today, the United States has produced 45 presidents, except for the 39th Jimmy Carter, the 42nd Clinton, the 43rd George W. Bush, the 44th Obama, and the current Trump, the other 40 presidents have become historical figures.
In fact, taking stock of the past presidents of the United States is almost equivalent to combing through the simple history of the United States, and it is also interesting.
One article a day, today is about the fifteenth president James Buchanan, who died of his first love, never married, and is the only single president in American history.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > innate obsession</h1>
James Buchanan was born on April 23, 1791, in Coven Gap, near Fort Mercelsburgh, Pennsylvania, the eldest of eleven siblings.
The Buchanan family is of Irish descent, and his father has a small farm in the area, which is quite prosperous and is also a middle-class family. From an early age, Buchanan often helped his father with chores, took care of his younger siblings, and developed a strict and responsible personality.
After finishing elementary and secondary school in Mercersburg, Buchanan was admitted to Dickinson College in 1807, and was once expelled for being naughty and illegal, but after his bitter oath of assurance, he was accepted back by the school, and from then on he worked hard and studied hard, and finally passed the legal exam after graduation, becoming a respected and well-paid lawyer.
Buchanan had just been a lawyer for two years, just in time for the outbreak of the Second War between Britain and the United States, he threw himself into the pen, performed heroically in battles such as defending Baltimore, and successfully ran for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives after the war, and began his career at this time, when he was only 24 years old.
In addition to the small problem of a little squinting in his eyes, Buchanan can be regarded as a handsome man, he is tall and slender, elegant, very gentle, loyal and steady. As a young man, he had a high opinion of himself and did not have a favorite object until he met Miss Ann Coleman at the age of 28.
Miss Ann Coleman was beautiful and generous, and her father was a well-known industrialist. Buchanan fell in love with her at first sight, the two met and hated each other late, the relationship developed rapidly, and they were privately engaged for life.
However, Miss Coleman's father considered Buchanan ill-intentioned and firmly opposed the union. Soon after, Miss Coleman died suddenly at home, the cause of death is unknown.
The sudden death of his first love made Buchanan heartbroken, and he was immersed in grief for a long time, so that he never fell in love with another woman and never married again.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > bumpy presidential road</h1>
After the death of his first love, Buchanan has been concentrating on politics ever since. In 1820, he ran for the House of Representatives, which he succeeded in, and was re-elected four times.
In 1832, Buchanan was sent by President Jackson to Russia, perfectly fulfilled the mission of signing commercial conventions and treaties on the right to sail, and was elected to the Senate after returning home, serving again for eleven years, becoming an evergreen tree in American politics.
In 1844, Buchanan began to attack the presidential throne. This time it was only a first attempt, and although it failed as expected, he was appointed secretary of state by the ultimate winner, James Polk, and was given a fast ticket to the White House later.
But then his path to the White House was devastated, losing both the presidential races of 1848 and 1852.
Three campaigns gave Buchanan an absolute wealth of experience, culminating in a struggle in 1856 and taking the oath of office on March 4 of the following year as the fifteenth president of the United States.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > lincoln friend</h1>
When the previous president, Franklin Pierce, left Buchanan with a growing mess of North-South confrontations, the country was shrouded in a cloud of civil war that could erupt at any moment.
After buchanan entered the White House, he has been oscillating between north and south, trying to find an impartial and middle-of-the-road way out of the predicament, but the result is that it is not flattering on both sides.
On the issue of slavery, Buchanan's attitude is very ambiguous, while he declares that he is against slavery, but on the other hand, he also says that slavery has a legal basis and he must defend it as president.
Privately, however, Buchanan was indeed anti-slavery, having secretly bought black slaves in the South and then let them live in the North.
Buchanan was helpless in the face of north-south problems, and in 1857, the collapse of the Ohio Insurance Company caused a nationwide economic panic that made his prestige decline, followed by the John Brown Black Uprising, which shook the country.
This presidential trip made Buchanan physically and mentally exhausted. In 1860 he announced that he would not seek re-election, and the following year he officially handed over the White House to Lincoln.
In history, Buchanan and Lincoln had a very good relationship, and later some people said that they were a pair of CP good friends, and the Civil War was also deliberately led by Buchanan to break out, so that Lincoln had the opportunity to make a name for himself.
After retirement, Buchanan returned to the farm to live in seclusion, trying to avoid outside interference, and died alone on June 1, 1868, at the age of 78, and was buried in the Woodward cemetery in his hometown.
Later generations of Americans gave James Buchanan a very low opinion, believing that he was the stupidest president of all time because he did not stop the outbreak of the Civil War.