James Buchanan : [The American Presidents Series ]

Rating:
Summary: Average
Review: A very short book. I was disappointed with the length. It was not researched enough to really understand what type of man Buchanan was. I think any person elected to be President should be studied in depth. This book is more like a high school history book. Not really what I was looking for the understand Buchanan the man. Buchanan gets a bum deal by history and this book does nothing to help him.

Rating:
Summary: Superb biography of an indisputably failed presidency
Review: Almost universally James Buchanan's administration is considered to be one of the worst presidencies in American history. Most of those who are considered our greatest presidents are so regarded because they performed admirably at times of great crisis or at key moments--Washington in helping to shape the concept of the office at its outset, Lincoln in holding together the Union and leading the nation at the moment of its greatest crisis, and FDR both during the Depression and during World War Two. Buchanan, however, is noteworthy for how miserably he performed in a moment of crisis. While tensions were greatly increasing between North and South, Buchanan not only misread the mood of the nation as a whole, he so completely favored Southern sympathies and inflamed Northern and Southern outrage that a deeper crisis was unavoidable, and when South Carolina seceded from the Union, did nothing to try and defuse the crisis. Buchanan's administration was distinguished not merely for what he did wrong, but for what he failed to do at time of greatest crisis.

Upon buying this book but before reading it, I checked on Amazon and read the reviews that already existed. Needless to say, the multiple one-star reviews were not very encouraging, and I was expecting a lesser effort in this series. Instead, I was surprised and delighted both at Jean Baker's high degree of scholarship and understanding of her subject, and at her superb facility in expressing herself, hardly the inarticulate, poorly informed historian some of the earlier reviewers detected. How to account for this? I have a theory. Although virtually any sane, rational reader of this or any balanced biography of Buchanan will inevitably be led to regard him as one of if not the worst president in American history, his memory is semi-sacred for people with either of two axes to grind. First, some who persist in holding a strong belief in states' rights revere him as an almost fanatical defender of that doctrine. Nevermind that he himself violated the principle by attempting to force slavery on the Kansas Territory when the people in the region strongly did not wish to be a slave state. Nonetheless, some who want to defend that doctrine are willing to overlook Buchanan's other inadequacies because of that tendency in his thought. Second, many of those who defend states' rights and even side with the South in the Civil War do not care for Lincoln, and one way to try and steal some of Lincoln's thunder is to attempt to make out that Buchanan wasn't the catastrophe that virtually all informed scholars view him as being. Therefore, it is entirely possible that some of the reviewers of this quite excellent biography will do so for reasons completely extraneous to the book itself.

For most readers, however, not enthrall to a quaint reading of the constitution, this will prove to be a superb short biography of America's worst president. Moreover, I found it somewhat refreshing to discover an author in this series who did indeed agree that her subject was a poor as history has recorded him to be. For instance, in John Dean's biography of Harding in the same series, he is determined to prove that Harding isn't the competitor with Buchanan for the title of worst president that he is often taken to deserve (that Dean largely carries his point is beside the point). Baker not only concedes that Buchanan was a failure as president and catalogs the host of ways in which he failed, she constructs some highly plausible explanations for why.

I will caution that this is a somewhat depressing book. One knows the result of his term in office. After Lincoln's election but before his inauguration, Buchanan oversaw the break up of the United States, with no significant actions to attempt its dissolution. Could timely action have prevented the Civil War? We will never know for sure, but we do know that Buchanan did nothing instead of something, and we know that he espoused a host of doctrines and made a number of decisions that did nothing to lessen the growing regional tensions in the nation in the late 1850s. Many Americans currently view our sitting president as among the worst in American history. If so, Buchanan represents his stiffest competition.

Rating:
Summary: An Inadequate Historiographical Approach
Review: As an amateur historian who has read several presidential biographies, my opinion is that Jean Baker's book on Patrick Buchanan does not meet up to the standards that one expects from a presidential biographer.

Ms. Baker's biography lacked an adequate historiographical approach on the subject of Buchanan's presidency. It's perspective was distorted, which qualifies her biography as unreliable. That is unfortunate when dealing with something as challenging as a biography of a United States president, and specifically the enormous complexities surrounding our country's politics during the Buchanan administration.

One cannot judge Buchanan's 19th century pre-Civil War presidential decisions using modern standards. That is historically unjust, and worthless as a teaching tool. Before the advent of Abraham Lincoln's administration, it would have been inconceivable for a president to act contrary to Constitutional Law, even in the face of possible state secession.

James Buchanan was meticulous in his legal approach and fierce in his belief that upholding the Constitution was of foremost importance for the good of the Union. The Union from its founding until the Civil War was in fact and in law, an agreement of co-existence between states. The common person at the time upheld in greater esteem loyalty to his or her state rather than the abstract notion of an "America" to defend.

Seen from that perspective, Ms. Baker's methods of judging President Buchanan's performance in that greatest time of peril are severe. Buchanan's administration is judged a complete failure for having exhausted every possible recourse within existing legal boundaries to both prevent the horror of bloodshed and not violate the Constitution. Apparently Lincoln and his supporters saw things differently; but that was Lincoln's moral and political prerogative.

In addition, the political mainstream issue at the time was not slavery itself, but its expansion, which occurred within the tenure of several presidents prior to Buchanan, and was even upheld by Supreme Court decisions during Buchanan's administration! Was the Executive branch of government expected to consider the Judicial incompetent? If a president was willing to do this, it wasn't James Buchanan.

In addition to being poorly written, Ms. Baker's biography contains very few citations. When the public spends money to buy an historical biography, the least one should expect is a competent level of research that backs up the written material; I could not find evidence of adequate research here. The book in fact reads as an editorial on Buchanan by Ms. Baker. Someone more qualified should have contributed to this outstanding series of presidential biographies.

I hope this review is helpful for serious readers who want to find well prepared material on the subject.


Rating:
Summary: Brilliant analysis, beautifully written
Review: I went out and got this one immediately. As she did with the Mrs. Lincoln book, Baker drwe a superb and isngihtful portrait of a President second to worst next to Harding. Lancaster Pennsylvanians understandly are defensive, but how could one's marital status, one's daily life, one's aloneness NOT affect the way the world is viewed and life conducted?! How ridiculous to suggest otherwise. Buchanan's single status DID affect his stubborn attitude that the world must run his way. It doesn't mean all bachelors are that way! Who wrote that!? In a short space, Baker takes an amazing life and gives up the essence and essentials. Life is not black and white - it is shaded and this book is subtle but clear. Get it, get it, get it if yu have any interest in Presidents.

Rating:
Summary: An outstanding book by a first-rate historian of America
Review: Professor Jean H. Baker has the uncanny ability to write both clearly and complexly, illuminating the facts of this president's life with a careful interpretative eye and a thrilling sense of the politics of regionalism and race that beset so many of President Buchanan's decisions.

I must say that among American historians, Professor Baker is one of the very best: consistently deep and probing in her analysis and archival documentation yet a fluid storyteller with elegant, neat prose.

(...Of course I'm over the age of 13. Don't 12 years have something to say too?)

Rating:
Summary: jean baker
Review: subtly great book. baker is a wonderful historian. perhaps the male reviewers are not used to reading female historians... particularly the man who nailed baker in the longest review on here for pointing out buchanan was single. that gentlemen, i believe, missed baker's point. she was not saying that all single men are uptight, etc... but i believe she was saying any man like any woman would benefit from having intimate association with the opposite sex. not necessarily sexual association. but an intimate connection and active relationship. it broadens one's mind to be associated with people different than himself. try it sometime.

Rating:
Summary: The Peter Principal Applied
Review: The author, Jean Baker, wrote on page 1 "After the election of James Madison....no president had ever come to office with more impressive credentials. Nor, to this day, has any matched Buchanan's public positions." Buchanan served in the Pennsylvania state legislature, served in the U.S. House and Senate, was Andrew Jackson's minister to Russia, was secretary of state under James Polk, and was minister to the Court of St. James in the 1850s.

With his background, the question must be asked "why was Buchanan, arguably, our worst president?" The author states "This book seeks to suggest some of the reasons for Buchanan's failure and specifically to explain the gap between Buchanan's experience and training before his presidency and his lamentable performance in office.... only in the literal sense did the Civil War begin.... When the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter. It began in Buchanan's administration."

The book outlines Buchanan's political career. While still a Unionist, by the 1830s he was "more and more a states rights man" as he gravitated toward southerners after arriving in Washington and considered New Englanders radical extremists. By the 1840s, he opposed any interference with slavery and by then desperately wanted the presidency. In the Senate he espoused the principle of manifest destiny. As a bachelor he cultivated southern friends many of whom, as president, he included in his cabinet.

Having observed chief executives for more than thirty-five years, when Buchanan took the presidential oath in 1857, he knew more about the American presidency than anyone in the United States. However, the composition of his "cabinet revealed the incoming chief executive as no peacemaker...." Who was ".... surrounded by advisers who agree with him." The author narrates Buchanan's presidency as he moved from one ill-advised solution after another when solving critical problems. He continued his strong pro-southern attitude and acted accordingly. He unethically influenced the court's decision on the Dred Scott case, and seriously mishandled the situation in Kansas. The author notes "By taking the side of the South, Buchanan had split the Democrats, and in the process he had ensured his nightmare: the election of a Republican in 1860...." stating "The destructive effects of the president's policy were immediately apparent in the 1858 fall congressional elections when a disproportionate number of northern Democrats lost...."

The text gives a fascinating account of Buchanan's final year as president. The text notes that in 1857 Buchanan had sent troops into Utah to handle a problem with Brigham Young and the Mormons; yet when the secession crisis developed, and the Fort Sumter confrontation developed, he failed to respond firmly in like manner thereby encouraging secession. Amazingly his southern cabinet members and political associates treasonably passed critical government plans and information to the seceding state governments. Interestingly, the author notes "Buchanan's failing during the crisis over the Union was not inactivity, but rather his partiality for the south, a favoritism that bordered on disloyalty in an officer pledged to defend all the United States...." and continues "He was that most dangerous of chief executives, a stubborn, mistaken ideologue whose principles held no room for compromise."

The last chapter addresses the question why did such an experienced and intelligent politician failed so miserably as president of the United States? The text states "The answer speaks to one of the palpable characteristics of failed presidencies-the arrogant, wrongheaded, uncompromising use of power...."; and continues "His presidency did not suffer from feebleness or insufficient power or administration by a senile sixty-eight old. But the problem that he used the power with such partiality for the South." The author concludes "Ultimately Buchanan failed to interpret the United States."

The reader may ask why study a failed presidency. Such study is important for guidance it provides to future national leaders. In the words of George Santayana "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The country can ill-afford another Buchanan type presidency.

Reading Buchanan's biography brings to mind the Peter Principle theory originated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter in 1969 regarding an individual being advanced to his level of incompetence. Clearly, Buchanan had a good resume; but when he advanced to a position where compromise, teamwork and leadership were paramount, he had reached his level of incompetence.

This should be a "must read" for those interested in the political/governmental aspects of the Civil War.







Rating:
Summary: Competent and Well-written Addition to the Series
Review: This book has been unfairly maligned by some reviewers here. Jean Baker has written a readable and competent biography of someone who is generally considered one of the worst presidents, if not the worst president, in American history. "The American Presidents" series was not created to highlight original historical works, but to provide a brief and lucid overview that could pass scholarly muster of each of the U.S. presidents . Baker has done this job well.

Some might complain that she failed to footnote her work thoroughly or with reference to primary source material. But several of the biographies in this series are not footnoted at all. Indeed, many of the books are not even written by professional historians.

Some might complain Baker doesn't have the background to write a biography of Buchanan. But she has already written one well-reviewed biography of someone who was Buchanan's contemporary. Furthermore, she has published other historical works on America's mid-nineteenth century. She is obviously very familiar with the period. What else is needed?

Some might complain that she carried an animus into her writing. If so, I didn't see it. Sometimes a bad president is a bad president. While Baker might have provoked some thought with a revisionist biography of Buchanan for this series, her line on Buchanan is well within the historical consensus of a man who is usually at the very bottom of presidential rankings.

I've read better biographies in "The American Presidents" series, but frankly I was surprised to see a mere two stars for this book. It deserves better.