Sold – Buchanan Demonstrates His Strategy: Appease the South to Isolate the Secessionists

Kansas had for two years been the bone of contention between pro- and anti-slavery forces, and was already bleeding, during the presidential campaign of 1856. Before Buchanan’s inauguration, in February 1857, a Kansas legislature elected by pro-slavery fraud called a constitutional convention at Lecompton. The bill made no provision for submitting the constitution, when drafted, to a vote of the people. Governor Geary vetoed the bill for that reason, but it was passed over his veto. Then Buchanan took office and chose for governor Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, a life-long friend, fellow-member of the Polk Cabinet, and the author of the Walker Tariff. Walker accepted with much reluctance, only after the President had promised to sustain him in dealing justice to both sides. Walker was a slaveholder and a Democrat of the old school, and he had hoped to see Kansas a slave state. But he was honest, and when he looked over the field and saw that 3/4 of the people in Kansas were of the free-state party, he realized that it could not be made a slave state by fair means. He insisted that any constitution framed should be submitted in toto to a vote of the people. The election of delegates for the convention at Lecompton was held June 15, 1857, the free-state men refusing to participate because the constitution would be imposed without a popular vote. The pro-slavery forces elected the delegates and the convention was set to meet at Lecompton in September.

When it became known to the southern leaders at Washington that the upcoming Lecompton convention was composed of pro-slavery men, a movement was set on foot to have the territory apply for immediate statehood under the expected pro-slavery constitution it would produce. But the people of Kansas were clamorous in demanding a vote on their constitution and they had Governor Walker’s support. Buchanan had written Walker on August 12 that he would sustain him. "I am willing to stand or fall, on this question of submitting the constitution to the bona fide settlers of the territory," wrote the President. At this point the state legislative election of October 5-6 intervened. Initial word was that the voting favored the pro-slavery Lecomptonites. Soon, however, the vote was seen as  tampered with and the results as fraudulent. When the suspicious ballots were thrown out by the Governor, it became clear that the free-state supporters had won control of the state legislature.

Meantime the pro-slavery leaders in Kansas, to make a show of fairness, decided to submit their constitution in part to a vote of the people: the vote was to be for the Lecompton constitution with slavery, or for it without slavery. No opportunity was given to vote against the constitution as a whole. But the entire arrangement was a farce, as if the constitution without slavery was adopted, it still contained the clause, "the right of property in slaves now in the territory shall in no measure be interfered with." Thus Kansas would practically become a slave state in any event, as proving when a slave had been brought into the state would be impossible, and the children of slaves would retain that status. The free-state settlers saw the result as rigged and refused to vote at all. Governor Walker stood aghast at these proceedings and the resulting pro-Lecompton victory, which he pronounced as "a vile fraud, a base counterfeit." Despite all this, Buchanan was satisfied with the result and, on February 2, 1858, sent to Congress a copy of the Lecompton constitution, and urged that Kansas be admitted under it as a slave state.

Considering what appeared to be his confirmed pro-southern orientation, many people were confused that after the secession crisis hit in December 1860, Buchanan filled his cabinet with opponents of the southern interests – men like Edwin Stanton and John Dix. Southerners were particularly outraged by what they deemed his hypocracy. This letter, written as Buchanan was preparing for his first State of the Union message to Congress, makes his actions intelligible and enables them to be seen as part of one consistent policy.

Autograph Letter Signed, Soldiers Home near Washington, October 10, 1857, to Robert Tyler, chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Executive Committee. “Seated comfortably at this place preparing my message & having just heard the favorable news from Kansas, I confess your note of yesterday this moment brought from town has given me much uneasiness. It is the first intimation I have ever received from any quarter that a serious doubt existed as to the success of the Democratic candidate in the city & county of Philadelphia. I cherish the hope that you have written in a moment of gloom that the result on next Tuesday will disappoint your apprehensions. It would be the last calamity for Philadelphia at the present moment to become a Black Republican city & thereby throw herself into the arms of the disunionists. I shall not believe it till I see it…”

Buchanan had as his goal maintainence of the Union, but unlike Pierce, he was not a true believer in the southern cause. He considered that the way to prevent secession was to isolate as extemists those who advocated it, and the only viable method to accomplish this was appeasement of the main slaveholding power. In this letter, he is pleased by the first indication that pro-slavery men would dominate the Kansas legislature, as that would be a necessity in appeasing the south. Likewise he was aghast at the thought that the bell-weather northern city of Philadelphia would go Republican, as that would threaten his appeasement policy and thus, as he specifically reveals, play into the hands of the secessionists (who hoped he would fail). His position was similar to that of Neville Chamberlain in 1938, who tried to preserve peace by giving in to the dictators. And like Chamberlain, who ultimately reluctantly went to war and brought Winston Churchill into his cabinet, when Buchanan’s policy failed and secession was abroad in the land, he appointed men who would uphold the Union.

When the war broke out in April 1861, this letter’s recipient, Robert Tyler, showed he was a true southern supporter. He publicly suggested that Pennsylvania join the Confederacy, and was run out of Philadelphia by an irate mob. Buchanan followed a different course. Throughout the war he supported the federal government in its attempt to maintain the Union, issuing a statement that "Mr. Lincoln had no alternative but to defend the country against dismemberment. I certainly should have done the same thing had they begun the war in my time." Thus Buchanan’s policy retained the consistency apparent here.