Americans are as fond of rankings as Japanese people, and they want to give a popularity ranking to everything, but among them, the popularity rankings of successive presidents are very intriguing.
It seems that the 1st place really breaks. Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Lincoln, Kennedy, George Washington, etc., the votes are always broken.
On the other hand, the bottom is always fixed. James Buchanan.
Career as a mediocre US president
Buchanan's life was one of the most turbulent times in American history. The rift between the industrialized northern part and the southern part, which is mainly cotton-growing, became decisive, and whether protectionism or free trade, slavery was banned or survived, the United States was about to divide into two.
Buchanan did not have the ability to control such turmoil.
James Buchanan was the first and only former president to come from Pennsylvania, and his parents were immigrants from Scotland and Ireland. His way of life was wealthy, but all his brothers died prematurely.
After growing up safely, Buchanan went to Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, where he graduated with excellent grades and became a lawyer. His supporting party is the Federalist Party, which has also participated in the War of 1812.
He eventually elected to become a representative of Pennsylvania, serving as Minister of Russia in the Andrew Jackson Cabinet and Secretary of State in the Pork Cabinet.
He was supposed to get married during this time, but his fiancé died suddenly, and Buchanan became the only unmarried president in American history through his bachelorhood.
After President Pork, he became Ambassador to the United Kingdom and in 1856 became the 15th President of the United States.
All sufferings
James Buchanan is by no means incompetent as an individual, and may fall into a fairly good category.
That is often the case. Just as Louis XVI was more incompetent as an individual but the most incompetent king of France in history, Buchanan became the most incompetent president of all time because of the domestic depression. This is probably because it caused the Civil War, the worst war in American history.
The cause of the depression was the Crimean War.
Originally it was a war between Russia and Ottoman Turkey, but France and Britain intervened in it, and the price of flour soared in the European market, resulting in a global depression. It was the depression of 1857 in world history. Even in the United States, Moro was hit by this blow, and Buchanan couldn't do anything about it after all.
In this regard, Buchanan was not bad, but the United States was paid for growth by excessive capital investment such as railways, the end of the gold rush, and the chain of bankruptcies of financial companies. But that doesn't overturn the fact that Buchanan couldn't do anything.
And one more thing, the division of the United States from north to south could not be stopped.
James Buchanan himself is a Democratic president, basically a president from the South. However, the position of Buchanan was not clear. He ended up vaguely wondering if he would support slavery or not, leaving the Southern States in 1860 and establishing a new Confederate States of America.
Buchanan is always between the north and south, trying to find a compromise, but in the end he finds nothing and ends up in the worst form of civil war.
Globally, World War II is the worst war in history, but the Civil War has a higher mortality rate in the United States, with a mortality rate of nearly 10 times that of the American people. Was expensive.
The Civil War wasn't caused by James Buchanan, but when Americans seek the cause, it would be unavoidable to ask James Buchanan for the cause.
Buchanan did not have the power to calm the turmoil. Even if it is evaluated from all angles, it will not be shaken.