According to regular surveys of presidential greatness, many historians regard James Buchanan as the nation’s worst president. He inherited a mess and made things worse. His term seemed to move from one crisis to the next. Whatever problem he faced, he always put party and sectional interests above all else. By the end of his four years, his poor leadership helped bring about the one thing Americans had hoped he could avoid when he was elected in 1856: the South’s secession.
Buchanan first confronted a contentious case before the Supreme Court, Dred Scott vs. Sandford. Dred Scott was a slave from Missouri, who, having spent time in the free territory of Wisconsin with his master, sued to have his status changed. A local court initially granted his request, stating that once free, always free, but a subsequent appeals court ruled against Scott by concluding that slave states need not recognize the laws of free states and that slave owners’ rights, though dormant in free states, were revived upon return to a slave state. The conflicting decisions sent the case to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court’s verdict had the potential to redefine slavery. With so much at stake, Buchanan decided to inject himself into the fray. Buchanan learned in advance that the court, dominated by southerners, was going to side with John Sanford, the owner of Scott, but there were no northern justices supporting the decision. Buchanan convinced a judge in his home state of Pennsylvania to concur with the decision, providing, he hoped, some veneer of cross-sectional unity.
Buchanan’s hope that the verdict could bring about national consensus faded as soon as the Court read its decision. Chief Justice Roger Taney intended his opinion to settle the slavery crisis. He made three determinations. First, Taney declared that blacks – free or otherwise – were not citizens and therefore possessed no political rights. Second, he concluded that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional because Congress had no right to ban slavery. Third, he said that Congress could not take away property rights (including slave-holding), which allowed slave owners to bring slaves into all territories. The ruling shocked northerners. Slavery seemed to become universally legalized overnight. The whiff of executive pressure on the justices made the judgment even more troubling.
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