The Great One

I've managed exactly two posts in two years, and even that's stretching it--today is the two year anniversary of my post on Franklin Pierce. But there's nothing I hate more than an abandoned blog, so I'm writing again to tackle the big one, the Great Emancipator, Number 16: Abraham Lincoln. There are so many words written about Lincoln that adding more feels extravagant, like I'm assuming my place in some pantheon of biographers of the man--not my goal at all, I hasten to add. But I do think Lincoln is one of the greatest humans of all time, and the fact that he becomes president is--like Washington's presidency--an example of exactly the right thing happening for America at exactly the right time.

From the slew of books published in time for the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth in 2009, I chose Ronald C. White's A. Lincoln: a Biography. I can't recommend it enough. White as a biographer is tremendous interested in Lincoln as a writer, and he analyzes Lincoln's writing as a means of illuminating the man's character. But the most surprising thing from this biography was discovering that Lincoln's voice--the voice which delivered some of the finest speeches in American history (I'm quite fond of the Second Inaugural, personally, although I love the fact that the marker in Gettysburg marking the site of his Address is covered in pennies)--Lincoln's voice was high-pitched, and that he had a habit of flapping his arms when he got worked up. A really wonderful contrast to the Icon of American History that we see so often. Much of my life seems to have intersected with Lincoln. In Ames, Iowa, I lived on Lincoln Way, part of the old Lincoln Highway, the first auto road to cross America. I've been to the Lincoln Birthplace, the Lincoln Boyhood Home, Ford's Theater, and Lincoln's Tomb. I bank in a building where he delivered a speech while visiting Union-occupied Fredericksburg in 1862, and every time I come home, I cross paths with Lincoln--my exit from I-95 drops me off at 17th and Main, the same intersection where Lincoln walked through the just-fallen Richmond, just ten days before Booth shoots him. Perhaps more than with any other president, with Lincoln I feel something very close to love. Lincoln, of course, is notable for being the first Republican president, and one of the things I'm fascinated by is how the Republican Party of 1860 ("We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection") becomes the Republican Party of 2012 ("My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives"). Look for my Andrew Johnson post in 2013!

Worst. President. Ever.

Just how bad of a president is James Buchanan? So bad that during his term in office, John F. Kennedy said that only those who had been president--"even poor James Buchanan"-- could understand the pressure the office placed upon its occupants. Even the other presidents use James Buchanan as shorthand for terrible.
So writing a biography of him is an overwhelming task--you have very little in the way of the traditional narrative. Buchanan follows the path of other presidents--he's a representative, then a senator, then a minister, then Secretary of State (in fact, he's the last Secretary of State to become President, unless Hillary has something to say in 2016). But then he becomes President, and he's terrible. Two days after he's inaugurated, the Supreme Court hands down the Dred Scott decision, meaning that the federal government has no authority to limit or abolish slavery in the territories. This means that Buchanan throws his support behind the pro-slavery government of the Kansas Territory (which at the time has two governments battling it out for legitimacy). He's what's called a "doughface," a Northerner (still the only President from Pennsylvania) with Southern sympathies.
He sends troops to Utah to fight the Mormons. He proclaims "reform, not relief" during the financial Panic of 1857. Like Pierce, he's so paralyzed by respect for the law that he fails to protect the Union, which is in full collapse when he leaves office in 1861.

Even in the summer of 2010, when I read Philip S. Klein's James Buchanan: a Biography, the 15th president was still difficult. This was the first book that took me two months to read. And Buchanan threw a wrench into my blogging plans, keeping me from it for over a year; I just didn't want to write about the guy. There's something in that stretch of Fillmore-Pierce-Buchanan that's like 2 PM on a Friday. You know something good is coming, but it's so long until it gets there.

All the action in Buchanan's bio happens when Lincoln's elected. The Union is dissolved, as the famous headline put it. And we know the answer to what happens next, but the process is well worth watching. Lincoln's Buchanan's opposite in many ways, but most decisively is his willingness to act.