Worst President of these three (19th-century Democrats or Unionists)

[tpfkaw]

Have at it.

[© tweed]

Buchanan is the kneejerk answer, for setting the stage for the Civil War.  but, what should he have done?  surely our 21st Century sentiments would consider any brokering of a deal that allowed the continued existence of slavery in any form to be reprehensible.. is the complaint then that he should have invaded the South four years earlier?

[Maistre]

Pierce was probably in the best position to stop something bad from happening and he blew it. Signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act hastened the slow march to the war to a sprint towards it. There was nothing Buchanan could do by 1856.

[tpfkaw]

Pierce was probably in the best position to stop something bad from happening and he blew it. Signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act hastened the slow march to the war to a sprint towards it. There was nothing Buchanan could do by 1856.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act wasn't really very bad; it was basically a complete capitulation by the slave states with some face-saving language (since it was obvious there was no chance of any of the territories voting for slavery).

Then Buchanan ripped the scab off that wound (slavery in the territories, and their admission as slave or free states) and dumped several shakers of salt onto it by having the Supreme Court (who would otherwise have just dismissed the case for lack of standing) rule against the plaintiff in Dred Scott, and trying to have Kansas admitted under the slave Lecompton Constitution, without consulting the (overwhelmingly opposed) voters.

Cue radicalization of both sides and war.

Buchanan also is faulted for his weak oversight of several Southern cabinet officials who in 1860 and 1861 diverted large amounts of Federal property into the hands of the seceding states.

(Less important than the leadup-to-war-related issues, but he also was bad on the a number of the issues that I would usually like about the Democrats of the time; he courted Know-Nothing votes by attacking John Frémont as a closeted Catholic in 1856, and he supported and signed the extremely high Morrill Tariff).

[Maistre]

In theory you are correct, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was not really that big of a deal in practice and all of those territories were never going to vote for slavery (at least in an honest vote). However, the hysteria over the bill (and the hysteria did catch a lot of the authors by surprise, Douglas had thought he had pulled off a master coup), a lot of it premature, led to the creation of the GOP, and it made slavery the dominant issue of the decade.

As soon as the GOP grabbed power there was no chance of there not being a war. A Republican administration could have used the patronage system to begin to build a anti-slavery party in the South, and the Southern states were not going to let it happen.

The only way to avoid (or more likely delay) the secession by Pierce's term is to not sign the K-N act, holding off the creation of a major free-soil party, and perhaps making the dominant issue of the decade beating up on immigrants or Spanish Cuba (or both).

[tpfkaw]

In theory you are correct, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was not really that big of a deal in practice and all of those territories were never going to vote for slavery (at least in an honest vote). However, the hysteria over the bill (and the hysteria did catch a lot of the authors by surprise, Douglas had thought he had pulled off a master coup), a lot of it premature, led to the creation of the GOP, and it made slavery the dominant issue of the decade.

As soon as the GOP grabbed power there was no chance of there not being a war. A Republican administration could have used the patronage system to begin to build a anti-slavery party in the South, and the Southern states were not going to let it happen.

The only way to avoid (or more likely delay) the secession by Pierce's term is to not sign the K-N act, holding off the creation of a major free-soil party, and perhaps making the dominant issue of the decade beating up on immigrants or Spanish Cuba (or both).

There was a lot of irrational anger in the North about the K-N act, but cooler heads would've most likely prevailed if not for Buchanan's doing everything in his power to reverse it.

There's no reason, in that case, why the Republicans wouldn't have been like any of the other flash-in-the-pan 19th century parties that lasted 0-2 election cycles (Anti-Masonics, Nullifiers, Tyler's Democratic-Republicans, Free Soilers, Anti-Nebraska Democrats, Oppositionists, Know-Nothings, Constitutional Unionists, Unconditional Unionists, Frémont's Radical Democracy, Johnson's National Unionists, Liberal Republicans, Greenbackers, Populists, Silver Republicans).

[ElectionsGuy]

Johnson, he ultimately screwed up in a massively critical period of the US. Buchanan was more bad for not doing anything.

[Phony Moderate]

The gay guy. 

[Mechaman]

I don't know how one can read through the Reconstruction period and not conclude Johnson.  Unlike Pierce and Buchanan, whose mistakes can be attributed to a very naive sort of moderate heroism at the time, Johnson actively tried to break something that was being fixed.  Sure, the post Civil War nation was not adamantly pro-black and anti-racist (lol no, as my posting history should demonstrate) and the Radicals in Congress were mostly there because of post war euphoria and political opportunism than genuine anti-racism from Northern Republicans (who during the war and afterward revamped the usual anti-Irish crusade in northern urban areas to attack "corrupt" machines that advanced the interests of urban labor, taverns, liberated women (shudder), non-protestants, and other "Others".  But yes I know "THEY HATED BLACK PEOPLE!") but that doesn't change the fact that Andrew Johnson took what was looking to be a very good situation and flushed it down the toilet.  His administration's rocky start to Reconstruction would have pretty grave effects on the course of American history for the next century that wouldn't be rectified until about the 1960s.  The Civil War was an inevitability, the Jim Crow South was not.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Probably Johnson, but Buchanan is close.  Both borderline treasonous...

[traininthedistance]

Well, we're talking about (give or take some wiggle room on the rankings) the three worst Presidents in American history here, so any of them would be "fine" choices.

Ultimately I have to go with Buchanan for his meddling in Dred Scott.

[TDAS04]

Tough one, voted Johnson.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Johnson actively tried to screw things up, rather than Buchanan and Pierce who were simply too weak to do anything.

[Cryptic]

Buchanan for meddling in the horrendous Dred Scott ruling, supporting the Lecompton Constitution, and the fact he did nothing to help the North prepare for war after Fort Sumter was attacked. 

[SWE]

Probably Johnson

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

I voted Buchanan but now I think Johnson because of what Mechaman said.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Buchy the Empire Slayer.

[H. Ross Peron]

Buchanan quite easily.

[Lief 🗽]

Mechaman is correct. Buchanan and Pierce were (more or less) only passively terrible; Johnson was actively terrible.

[TNF]

Definitely Andrew Johnson.

[Bigby]

Jimmy Buchanan. I'm certain the the U.S. Civil War was inevitable, but Buchanan simply gave up.

[RR1997]

I'm still deciding between Johnson and Buchanan.

[Rooney]

Buchanan was a snake and a fiend. The other two statesman (both champions of the Constitution) have no business being in the same field as the vermin Buchanan. He was corrupt, invaded Utah for no reason and oversaw the most disorganized, immoral adminsitration the nation would see until after World War I. James Buchanan truly does deserve his low mark from historians.