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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Thursday, April 24, 2014

James Buchanan - Our Last Federalist Party President


Hon. James Buchanan by Mathew Brady (colorized)

Happy Birthday Jim
A dedicated member of the Federalist Party




By Gary;

Somehow I forgot that Jim Buchanan's birthday was yesterday (April 23rd, 1791).  I don't remember, but I think I missed the massive annual parade held here in California for him.

Oh well.  

Public celebrations for believers in small constitutional government are not in vogue these days.  Today we worship the lackeys of the All-Powerful State.  Praise be to Karl Marx and Big Brother.

Buchanan was born in a log cabin in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania (now Buchanan's Birthplace State Park), in Franklin County, on April 23, 1791.  As a young man he moved to Lancaster, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1812.

The Federalist Party

Buchanan was a dedicated Federalist and a believer in the Constitution.  He firmly felt the U.S. must be a Republic in the manner created by Washington and Hamilton rather than be subjected to the whims of Jeffersonian mob rule.

Buchanan initially opposed the War of 1812 ("Mr. Madison's War") because he believed it was an unnecessary conflict.  But when the British invaded neighboring Maryland, he joined a volunteer light dragoon unit as a private and served in the defense of Baltimore. Buchanan is the only president with military experience who did not, at some point, serve as an officer.

Buchanan began his political career in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1814 to 1816 as a member of the Federalist Party.

In 1821 he was elected to Congress as the Federalist Party candidate for the 3rd Congressional District of Pennsylvania.  In 1823 he was re-elected as a Federalist to the 4th District serving until 1825.

By 1824 the Federalist Party was vanishing in state after state.  Buchanan chose to run for re-election as a member of the small Constitutional government, nationalist "Jacksonian" faction that per-dated the Democratic Party.  He continued to serve in the House until 1831.

With the Federalist Party gone, Buchanan was elected as a member of the new Democrat Party to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy and served from December 1834; he was reelected in 1837 and 1843, and resigned in 1845 to accept nomination of him as Secretary of State by President James K. Polk.

He was appointed by Andrew Jackson as Ambassador to Russia in 1832 and was appointed by Franklin Pierce as minister to the Court of St. James's (Britain) from 1853 to 1856.


Presidential election of 1856

Democrats nominated Buchanan in 1856 as their nominee for President. He had been in England during the insanity of the slavery/anti-slavery debate over the Kansas-Nebraska Act and thus remained untainted by either side.

Former president Millard Fillmore's "American Party" candidacy helped Buchanan defeat John C. Frémont, the first Republican candidate for president in 1856.

President-elect Buchanan stated about the growing schism in the country: "The object of my administration will be to destroy sectional party, North or South, and to restore harmony to the Union under a national and conservative government."

He set about this initially by maintaining a sectional balance in his appointments and persuading the people to accept constitutional law as the Supreme Court interpreted it.  A truly Federalist Party interpretation of the Constitution.

The Federalists and Dred Scott

The pre-Civil War madness of slavery was in the air.  Brother against brother, killings and everyone using wild white hot inflammatory rhetoric.

Into the center of this national insanity stood two unlikely politicians and former members of the Federalist Party - Buchanan and Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney.

As a young attorney Taney had organized the Federalist Party of Maryland to better reach out to the mass of voters with committees, mass meetings, barbecues and a Federalist newspaper. Taney's organizing paid off with his election as a Federalist to Maryland's House of Delegates. He went on to serve as Secretary of War, of the Treasury, US Attorney General and Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Roger B. Taney
Both Buchanan and Taney
had been dedicated members
of the Federalist Party.

In 1857 Chief Justice Taney delivered the Dred Scott Decision, asserting that Congress had no constitutional power to exclude slavery in the territories.  Simple and sound reasoning. But cool, calm Federalist Constitutional reasoning was not what the media and the people wanted.  Both sides were out for blood.

Republican fire-breathers wanted to slowly roast Southerners over a hot fire, while Southerners threatened war and there were the horrors of pro and anti slavery terrorism of "Bleeding Kansas" and John Brown playing out in the nations newspapers.

Buchanan said "before [the abolitionists] commenced this agitation, a very large and growing party existed in several of the slave states in favor of the gradual abolition of slavery; and now not a voice is heard there in support of such a measure. The abolitionists have postponed the emancipation of the slaves in three or four states for at least half a century."

He also said "this question of domestic slavery is the weak point in our institutions, touch this question seriously ... and the Union is from that moment dissolved. Although in Pennsylvania we are all opposed to slavery in the abstract, we can never violate the constitutional compact we have with our sister states. Their rights will be held sacred by us. Under the constitution it is their own question; and there let it remain."

Both sides ignored reason and the Constitution.  The nation eagerly marched to horrors of Civil War.

Despondent at American society ripping itself apart Buchanan said:  "I am the last President of the United States!"

While riding with Abraham Lincoln from his swearing in Buchanan told him, "Sir, if you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man indeed."

Buchanan caught a cold in May 1868, which quickly worsened due to his advanced age. He died on June 1, 1868, from respiratory failure at the age of 77 at his home at Wheatland and was interred in Woodward Hill Cemetery in Lancaster.

(Wiki James Buchanan)      (James Buchanan Yahoo)      (James Buchanan)


Buchanan is interred in Woodward Hill Cemetery
in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

James Buchanan Memorial
The bronze and granite memorial is in the Southeast corner of Meridian Hill Park Northwest, Washington, D.C. 
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Commissioned in 1916, but not approved by the U.S. Congress until 1918, it was completed and unveiled June 26, 1930. The memorial features a statue of Buchanan bookended by male and female classical figures representing law and diplomacy, engraved with text from a member of Buchanan's cabinet, Jeremiah S. Black:
"The incorruptible statesman whose walk was upon the mountain ranges of the law."
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(James Buchanan Memorial)  
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The Federalist eagle prevents Jefferson from burning the Constitution
on the alter of despotism and mob rule.

Life, Liberty and Property.
“Citizens choose your sides. You who are for French notions of government; for the tempestuous sea of anarchy and misrule; for arming the poor against the rich; for fraternizing with the foes of God and man; go to the left and support the leaders, or the dupes, of the anti-federal junto. But you that are sober, industrious, thriving, and happy, give your votes for those men who mean to preserve the union of the states, the purity and vigor of our excellent Constitution, the sacred majesty of the laws, and the holy ordinances of religion.” - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - A New York Federalist Newspaper (Spring of 1800)


The Federalist Party was the first American political party. In Presidential politics the Federalists operated from the early 1790s to 1816, the era of the First Party System. Remnants of the Party lasted until 1830. The Federalists totally controlled the Federal government until 1801.

The party was formed by Alexander Hamilton, who, during George Washington's first term, built a network of supporters, largely urban bankers and businessmen, to support his Conservative fiscal policies. These supporters grew into the Federalist Party committed to a fiscally sound and nationalistic government. The United States' only Federalist President was John Adams; although George Washington was broadly sympathetic to the Federalist program, he remained an independent his entire presidency.

Read some profiles of the great Federalist leaders who helped build a free United States.
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THE FEDERALIST - John Eager Howard - Revolutionary War Patriot

THE FEDERALIST - Jonathan Dayton - Founding Father

The Revolution of American Conservatism - The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy

THE FEDERALIST - General Philip Schuyler - Revolutionary War Patriot

THE FEDERALIST - Founding Father Jared Ingersoll

THE FEDERALIST - General William Richardson Davie

THE FEDERALIST - General Thomas Pinckney

THE FEDERALIST - Josiah Quincy III - Federalist Patriot
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THE FEDERALIST - Robert Goodloe Harper - "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."

THE FEDERALIST - Edmund Randolph - Founding Father

THE FEDERALIST - Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge - George Washington's Spy

THE FEDERALIST - Colonel John Hoskins Stone

THE FEDERALIST - Revolutionary War General Henry Lee

THE FEDERALIST - John Quincy Adams

THE FEDERALIST - Thomas Jefferson and political attack ads

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