I Wish I Knew That: U.S. Presidents: Cool Stuff You Need to Know (8 page)

15th President ~ 1857–1861

JAMES BUCHANAN

Old Buck

“The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.”

Born

April 23, 1791 Cove Gap, Pennsylvania

Political Party

Democrat

Vice President

John C. Breckinridge

Pets

Lara, a Newfoundland dog; elephants from the King of Siam; a pair of American bald eagles

The Dred Scott Decision

James Buchanan tried running for president three times before he finally won. And it couldn’t have been at a worse time.

Two days into his term, the Supreme Court (which consisted of mostly Southern judges) ruled that slaves are the property of their owners, not citizens, so they had no right to sue for their freedom. The Dred Scott Decision ignited fury among Americans, known as abolitionists, who wanted to abolish slavery.

John Brown

Among them was John Brown, a radical abolitionist who tried to start a slave revolt by stealing weapons from the armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and giving them to slaves. Brown was captured and hanged, but his death made the abolitionists angrier.

Secession

By the time Buchanan’s presidency ended in 1861, seven Southern states had announced that they were leaving the United States and forming a new confederacy of American states where owning slaves would be legal. Buchanan stood by helplessly as the country tore itself apart. He condemned the states for leaving, but argued that he had no power to stop them.

PRESIDENTIAL FIRST

James Buchanan was the first and only president who never married. His niece, Harriet Lane, acted as White House hostess.

FUN FACT

As well as “Old Buck,” Buchanan was known as “TenCent Jimmy.” He got the nickname after he said in the 1856 presidential campaign that a working man could live on ten cents a day.

A Final Message

Buchanan hated slavery. He even bought slaves just to free them. But history blames him for not doing more to prevent the Civil War. On his last day in office, he sent a message to his successor: “My dear sir,” he wrote, “if you are as happy on entering the presidency as I am on leaving it, then you are a happy man indeed.”

The man who received that letter was Abraham Lincoln.

16th President ~ 1861–1865

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Honest Abe

“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”

Born

February 12, 1809 Hodgenville, Kentucky

Political Parties

Whig and Republican

Vice Presidents

Hannibal Hamlin Andrew Johnson

First Lady

Mary

Children

Robert, Edward, William, and Thomas “Tad”

Pets

Old Bob, Lincoln’s horse; Fido, a yellow mutt

Fixing a Broken Nation

Growing up on the frontier, and as a self-taught country lawyer and politician, Abraham Lincoln spoke out against slavery his whole life. And, so, when he won the election in 1860, the pro-slavery Southern states saw what was coming. Seven Southern states left the Union, formed the Confederate States of America, and elected their own president, Jefferson Davis.

President Lincoln believed it was treason for the Southern states to quit, or secede, from the United States. He devoted himself to bringing the nation back together.

The Civil War

When Confederate troops fired on the Union’s Fort Sumter in South Carolina in April 1861, Lincoln called in the army and the bloodiest chapter in American history began—the Civil War.

Lincoln ordered the navy to block Southern ports, so they couldn’t export cotton or import guns. Four more states joined the Confederacy. After the Battle of Antietam, which the Northern states won, Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves in the Confederate states. And in his Gettysburg Address, one of the greatest American speeches ever, he redefined the Civil War as a struggle for true freedom and a unified nation.

FUN FACT

Lincoln was surprisingly disliked during his lifetime. Even though history views him as one of America’s greatest presidents, he received many death threats.

The Cost of War

More than 600,000 soldiers died over the next four years, but in the end, the Union won and slavery was abolished. In his oath of office, Lincoln had promised to “preserve, protect, and defend” the United States. He kept that promise and for it, many people today believe he was our greatest president ever.

A Down-to-Earth President

At six-foot-four, Lincoln was the tallest president. He spoke with a high-pitched prairie accent and used words like “thar” (for “there”) and “git” (for “get”). He used to roughhouse and wrestle with his young sons Willie and Tad. And he liked to tell jokes when people would get too gloomy. “We need diversion at the White House,” he once said.

The Assassination

Five days after the war ended, Lincoln and his wife went to the theater to see a play. John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor who favored the South, slipped into the theater unnoticed, walked up to the president’s box, and shot him with a pistol. Lincoln died just after seven o’clock the next morning. He was the first president to be assassinated. He was only 56 years old.

FUN FACT

Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address—the speech he gave at the dedication of a Civil War cemetery—was only two minutes long. He wrote the speech the day before he arrived in Gettysburg. Five copies are known to exist.

Many people wanted to pay their respects to the dead president, so his coffin was put on a funeral train to bring it to Springfield, Illinois to be buried. Buildings along the tracks were draped in black. All along the route, crowds came to watch the train go by. People were dressed in black and they cried as the car carrying the president’s body made it’s way slowly down the tracks. Some traveled for days just to reach the rail line and have the chance to see the funeral train as it passed by. It took 14 days for the train to get to Illinois.

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

A FEW WORDS NEVER FORGOTTEN

President Abraham Lincoln was asked to speak on November 19, 1863 at the dedication of the cemetery on the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. But Mr. Lincoln was not even the main speaker. That honor went to a famous speaker and minister from Massachusetts, Edward Everett, who later became a congressman and statesman. While Everett had two months to prepare his speech, the president didn’t even get invited until two weeks before the event.

Lincoln began making a few notes about what he wanted to say only four days before going to Gettysburg, and he wrote the first copy of his speech on White House stationery the day before he left Washington. On board the train as he travelled to Pennsylvania, the president gave his speech more thought, and the night before the ceremony he finished his work, writing the last nine lines in pencil.

At the ceremony, the crowd wasn’t surprised when the eloquent Everett delivered a rambling two-hour speech. The president, who wasn’t feeling very well, stood before the audience with a bunch of different-size pieces of paper in his hand. He delivered his ten-sentence speech of only 270 words in less than three minutes. Because it was such a short speech, there was only a little bit of applause because the audience wasn’t even sure if he was finished.

The next day, the newspapers wrote that some people were disappointed by president’s speech. But most agreed that his speech was a fitting tribute to the soldiers who died at Gettysburg and a reminder to the country of the terrible cost of the Civil War.

FAMOUS FIRST LADIES

MARY TODD LINCOLN

December 13, 1818-July 16, 1882

A Popular Girl

Mary Ann Todd was born in Lexington, Kentucky, one of seven children. Her mother died when she was a little girl. She loved school and was an excellent student, and she appeared in school plays and learned to speak French. She was outgoing and popular.