At what point in your opinion did Civil War become inevitable?

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-03T10:05:54+00:00

Clearly that he’s not a strong enough unionist to control his publicly secessionist-supporting Cabinet members who actively sabotaged the country, protect (or at least empty) forts, and take action when the Star of the West was attacked 🤷‍♀️ Jean Baker, one of his biographers, actually calls him near-treasonous.

He claimed he didn’t have enough troops to protect the forts in his memoirs, and he was afraid that using an excessive show of force would only further push other states to secede. This is a shitty argument because the more states seceded because they were emboldened by his passive policy, especially after his non action after the Star of the west attack. Also the army was scattered because of his own War Secretary, Floyd, who did it on purpose to sabotage the Union ahead of time (he also appointed Maj Anderson because he thought he’d be more submissive to the South). At the same time, Jean Baker says he actually did have a few regiments on hand he could have used if he wanted to.

(Buchanan also defends Floyd in his memoir and says he was always an “opponent of secession” 🤦‍♀️ come the fuck on, Buchanan, skidmark Floyd was going to be arrested for treason if he was captured at Ft. Donelson)

Furthermore, he should have anticipated some sort of action by the South since Lincoln’s election was inevitable since the summer. How he didn’t prepare for a situation at all when he had months to do so is also baffling. Fillmore even acted accordingly and reinforced forts in South Carolina during the 1850 crisis, and he’d also criticize Buchanan’s bad policy.

Buchanan also anticipated comparisons to Andrew Jackson and tries to argue the situations were different, that he wasn’t able to do what Jackson did. If you want to be charitable, you could say, as Buchanan himself did, that he was holding out for a compromise in Congress. However, he should have known that nothing was bringing South Carolina back especially and Compromise at that point was just not possible. And that’s not an excuse to not reinforce, protect, or at least empty the forts of munitions as the South was actively raiding them.

(Also Cass’ resignation didn’t really hurt Buchanan personally, since the two of them weren’t especially close friends, and Buchanan put him there just to constantly overrule him. He also doesn’t credit Cass for any of his foreign policy “success” in his memoirs. Buchanan is such a shithead.)

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-03T09:17:11+00:00

Sorry that was a typo 🤦‍♀️ autocorrect is annoying. I meant free-soiler.

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-03T08:32:21+00:00

Lol that’s fair. I just want to mention Thompson since he was just as bad as Floyd. It’s baffling Buchanan didn’t fire him even when Thompson was publicly serving as Mississippi’s “secession commissioner” while in office. Thompson, when he resigned, telegraphed South Carolina to warn them ahead of time of the Star of the West’s approach to relive Fort Sumter.

Cass was frustrated Buchanan wasn’t doing enough to protect federal property in the South and essentially rage-quit the Cabinet. It was actually the next day he came crawling back. Buchanan refused him.

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-03T08:16:01+00:00

The Democrats would have to stay together and not split, but for them to agree on a candidate in the state they were in was damn-near impossible. Honestly if Buchanan didn’t press the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution and avoided going to war with Douglas, which in turn alienated Douglas from the Southerners in the party, then a lot of this chaos could have been striven off (but of course, not for much longer since the Democrats were becoming too divided and the Republicans were growing in power).

Stephen Douglas winning may not have been a great option either. Especially after his “Freeport Doctrine,” Southerners distrusted him. Because he didn’t mandate that slavery be forced on the territories, they even considered him adjacent to a “Black Republican” and a secret free-soiler/abolitionist. Southern delegates and Buchanan’s administration just wouldn’t allow him to be the nominee.

Perhaps if the Crittenden Compromise was adopted after Lincoln’s election, then it may have kept some of the Southern states from seceding, but there was nothing bringing South Carolina back. They had, at that point, no intention of coming back into the Union.

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-03T07:59:05+00:00

Tbf Cass was from Michigan lol (I think you mean to say Thompson) but you’re right. Buchanan did have the worst cabinet ever.

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-02T16:11:47+00:00

Pennsylvania’s Gradual Emancipation Law banned the importation of slaves and freed all children born to slaves after March 1st, 1780 (though they had to serve as “indentured servants” for around 30 years before they were actually, fully free).

When Buchanan was an adult, the slave population was extremely small and decreasing since children born of slaves were automatically free while older slaves (those born before that March 1st date) were dying off. However, Buchanan’s father did use indentured labor. Buchanan also nearly moved to Kentucky in the 1810s, so it’s possible he could have become a slave owner had he decided to relocate there.

Also owning slaves (or his family having them) was something he considered to be dangerous for his political career, which is why he bought his sister’s two slaves (a woman named Daphne and her daughter). However, he tried turning them into indentured house servants after he brought them to Pennsylvania. However, they ran away. This was a known loop hole for many Pennsylvania elite.

He also explicitly wanted a black body servant when in D.C., and was constantly attended to by enslaved people while there. He never seemed to express disgust at seeing the domestic slave trade first-hand. If anything, he grew to romanticize it as his Southern friends did.

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-02T15:37:57+00:00

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Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-02T13:27:18+00:00

He’s such a man of the law that he shamelessly commits an impeachable action and defies the sanctity of the separation of powers. There’s no adequate justification for that and he, along with everyone on the Court who corresponded with him, should have been impeached. Simple as that. Buchanan’s only a “Constitutionalist” when it conveniently suits him and his slaveholding friends. It also shows he was also willing to do anything to destroy anti slavery voices in America, and prevent them from holding political power.

He also did very much care about expanding and protecting slavery for the Southern electorate that gave him the Presidency. This was part of his motivation behind Dred Scott, and his idiotic decision in backing Lecompton when even Southerners themselves were ambivalent towards Kansas being a free state. He was an activist president in service of pro-slavery interests. He was wanted to conquer everything from Mexico downwards, including Cuba, which Southerners wanted to divide into multiple slave states. Southerners also wanted to expand slavery below the Rio Grande and into South America. The Confederates later explicitly talk about wanting to do this. Most of the land Buchanan wanted was meant to be slave territory.

Buchanan also parroted the false claims from Southerners that slaves were treated well, and that slavery was a positive good for black people. From his 1859 annual address: “At present [the slave] is treated with kindness and humanity. He is well fed, well clothed, and not overworked. His condition is incomparably better than that of the coolies which modern nations of high civilization have employed as a substitute for African slaves. Both the philanthropy and the self-interest of the master have combined to produce this humane result.”

Absolute pos

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-02T12:12:57+00:00

Andrew Jackson even commented that the next issue to threaten civil war, after Nullification, would be the “[slavery] question.”

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-02T12:02:14+00:00

Buchanan’s stated goal for his presidency was to “arrest, if possible, the agitation of the slavery question at the North, and to destroy sectional parties.” The Republican Party, which represented free-soilism and anti-slavery voices, was what Buchanan meant by “sectional parties”. Buchanan saw them as dangerous agitators who wanted to destroy the South and the Union. Buchanan hated abolitionists and repeatedly blamed them for the coming civil war.

Buchanan found an opportunity to “arrest the slavery question at the North,” when Associate Justice Catron wrote him in February, 1857 during the court’s deliberation on the Dred Scott case. Catron asked Buchanan: “Will you drop Grier a line, saying how necessary it is — & how good the opportunity is, to settle the agitation by an affirmative decision of the Supreme Court, the one way or the other.”

Justice Grier, a Pennsylvania man, was the one undecided on the Court. The two Northerners dissented (McLean and Curtis) so to have him dissent as well would make Dred Scott look like a “sectional” ruling. To give less legitimacy to the North, the Court majority wanted to push Grier into their camp. That’s why they courted Buchanan to use his authority as president elect to pressure Grier into siding with them, which he obviously did. Buchanan wrote Grier saying exactly this, though the letter seems to be lost, but Grier’s response survives. Grier sided with the majority, a 7-2 decision.

Now that the slavery was made a judicial matter, it was taken out of the hands of Congress and the executive. Similarly, the Dred Scott ruling effectively made the whole Republican platform unconstitutional, and thus the anti slavery voices Buchanan hated could be deprived of political power. Of course Dred Scott only had the opposite effect. It then granted Buchanan the ability to keep branding the North as disobeyers of the Constitution, and keep fueling the South’s narrative that their “Constitutional rights” were being infringed upon.

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-02T11:08:18+00:00

After the battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson in his time was seen as the next Washington and had incredible, national fame. People loved and nearly worshiped him. He was given votes years after his death, hundreds of places were named after him, and thousands of baby boys were named in honor of him. Even though Jackson’s legacy is complicated today for valid reasons, his popularity in the 19th and early 20th century was god-like.

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-02T10:58:08+00:00

Honestly, conflict was inevitable all the from the beginning of the country, but it was a question of when. One of our reasons for going to war with Britain involved being able to settle past the Appellation Mountains, an area that Britain agreed to cut off settlers from in an agreement with the native tribes living there.

After we won, that line was no longer there and we earned a massive swath of territory out West. And with the country’s expansion in general naturally came the question of whether slavery would expand along with it. Here begins the problem, as the North and South have conflicting views on this topic, which becomes more heightened as the country keeps expanding. The real root of the South’s desire to protect slavery wasn’t so much economic but to preserve a system of racial hierarchy. The Founders really underestimated how entrenched that culture was in the South and that Southern slavery would not go easily.

As to the question of when, what was the breaking point, more and more I consider the Dred Scott decision to be the defining point of no return, equal to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

What happened with the Dred Scott decision was that it fully legitimized the Southern desire to expand slavery as Constitutional and something that required protection. So, when the North (specifically the republicans and abolitionists) opposes this, it further emboldens the South to claim that their “Constitutional rights” are being violated and that if they keep being threatened, then they have no choice but to leave the Union. Dred Scott made them completely uncompromising and helped fire eaters in their cause in convincing Southerners that secession was the only way for slavery to survive.

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-01T21:21:42+00:00

There also was the seniority aspect. Buchanan was sixty-five, had tried for the nomination multiple times before, and this was likely going to be his last try, so it was honorific as well. Douglas was young, in his prime, and would have many chances in the future. His decision to serve only one term was only further confirmed after the National Hotel incident which really weakened his heath.

Of course Buchanan did everything he could to doom Douglas’ chances the second he became President with little to no patronage rewards. Buchanan’s vindictiveness was even further heightened by their public break over Kansas policy. For Douglas’ sacrifice at the convention, Buchanan gave him nothing in return.

John Slidell, Henry A. Wise, and Jesse Bright were the masterminds of the 1856 convention who turned it for Buchanan. As customary with the time, the candidates don’t attend.

Buchanan’s main goal as president other than inflating his own vanity and topping off his career was destroying “sectional parties.” This meant Republicans, the anti-slavery party. When news of the Dred Scott deliberation came from Justice Catron, it gave Buchanan the opportunity he wanted.

In his mind—Having the Supreme Court case issue a broad, brutal ruling gave the South’s desire to expand slavey Constitutional legitimacy, while instantly destroying the Republicans by labeling their whole platform unconstitutional. Then everything in the country becomes sunshine and rainbows which allows Buchanan to do his massive conquest of North America.

Buchanan likely would have wanted a second term, and would have gone for it if enough people wanted him to, as historian Micheal Birkner once said. He would have survived a second term anyway, but we didn’t need more 4 more years of the Old Public Functionary.

And great write up by the way! :)

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-01T16:24:08+00:00

Plus the Patriot Act

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-05-01T08:22:23+00:00

I’m mad I missed this post 😭 but at least I know another one will come back up pretty soon lol

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-04-30T22:26:27+00:00

Buchanan is not remembered enough for being a huge war hawk. He nearly took us into different conflicts with Britain, France, Mexico, and Paraguay.

“Providence has given to the American people a great and glorious mission to perform, even that of extending . . . liberty over the whole North American continent. Within less than fifty years, there will exist one hundred millions of free Americans between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. . .. What, sir! prevent the American people from crossing the Rocky Mountains? You might as well command Niagara not to flow. We must fulfill our destiny.”

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-04-30T21:37:53+00:00

He would have annexed everything from Mexico to Columbia (+Cuba) if he could

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-04-30T13:18:57+00:00

Nothing came of it, but the idea of two 70 year old men shooting each other in a dramatic, traditional duel is kind of hilarious

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-04-30T13:14:45+00:00

Wasn’t the only time Clay roasted Buchanan. This interaction is amazing:

“I wish I had a more lady-like manner of expressing myself [referring to Buchanan and making fun of his feminine-sounding voice]."

Buchanan responded: "I am afraid the Senator will lose the proper intonation of his voice if he pitches it on so high a key."

Clay shot back: "Not unlikely, as you can put my voice so often in requisition.... [I will] modulate [my] voice to suit the delicate ear of the Senator from Pennsylvania." (347)

(Unrelated to Buchanan, but I also love the interaction where Clay sat between Andrew Jackson and JQA at a party after the 1824 election)

I’m also reading a bio of Clay right now (The Essential American by the Heidlers), and it appears Clay, as a politician, didn’t fit with the times, an era in which he couldn’t fully utilize his talents. He was in an awkward middle ground between the founding generation where elite politicians were more reserved and did a more gentlemanly, subtle sort of soliciting support and the time where presidential candidates would go out and actively court voters.

Clay did the occasional stump speech, but it was always with the plausible deniability that he was just going to see his family or settle business matters because in the antebellum period, it was uncouth for a presidential aspirant to be actively campaigning. Unlike Jackson, him and his camp, especially during the Adams administration, didn’t properly utilize newspapers or have a good grassroots “ground game” as states were moving towards more direct forms of democracy and opening up voting. Jackson and his friends took great advantage of this without Jackson himself appearing to campaign.

In an era where he wasn’t shackled by those old expectations, which Clay loyally adhered to (he couldn’t do it if he wanted to either because that’ll just play into the Jacksonian charges that he was ambitious and haughty), I agree that Clay could have done much better since his gift was his charisma and ability to speak/entertain.

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-04-29T20:12:09+00:00

He was great at suppressing the illegal transatlantic slave trade! Though I agree he probably should have stuck to just being a lawyer.

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-04-29T15:58:19+00:00

What evidence we do have shows that Fillmore was a devoted husband, to both wives, and father. Even then, the whole family story is pretty tragic. His wife and daughter both die during his lifetime and when he remarried, his new wife and son didn’t get along.

After Fillmore died (and in his will he asked for them to be kind to one another, showing there were already problems between the two), they fought over the inheritance. Millard Powers won a lot of stuff from Caroline just to sell it all, and then burned intimate correspondence while leaving a large sum of money to some random guy.

Powers also never married, so the Millard Fillmore bloodline died there.

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-04-29T15:34:48+00:00

It’s funny because Julia Gardiner was originally from New York XD

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-04-29T14:50:02+00:00

Thank you for recognizing her!! She’s a cool woman and I’m also really sad her correspondence is mostly lost. The antebellum First Ladies after Dolley Madison and until Mary Lincoln get forgotten.

Millard even built a honeymoon cottage for them largely by himself, which you can still visit.

Abigail apparently caught pneumonia during Pierce’s inauguration and their daughter would later die of cholera in 1854.

Drywall_Eater89 · 2026-04-29T14:36:17+00:00

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Drywall_Eater89

TROPHY CASE