THE 2024 ELECTION is a long way off, but hopeful presidential candidates are already beginning to campaign. Former president Donald Trump announced in November that he is running again. Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations, formally declared her candidacy last week. As the field grows more crowded, candidates will be touting their resumes and experience — which makes this President's Day weekend an apt moment for a historical reminder that glittering credentials are no assurance of a candidate's fitness for the White House.
When James Buchanan was elected to be the 15th president of the United States in 1856, America was riven by sectional tensions and a deepening antagonism over slavery — an antagonism that had descended to violence in "Bleeding Kansas," where scores of pro- and antislavery settlers were murdering each other in a fight over the territory's future status.
To many Americans, it must have been reassuring to see a president with Buchanan's extraordinary record in public life take the helm. The 65-year-old Pennsylvanian had begun his political career as the youngest member of the state legislature before winning five terms in the US House of Representatives. In 1832, Andrew Jackson appointed him ambassador to Russia. He was elected twice to the Senate, served as secretary of state under James Polk, and was chosen by Franklin Pierce to be ambassador to Great Britain.
