Analysis Of James Buchanan, A Disjunctive President

James Buchanan 's attempt to address the issue of slavery is an example of a president not being able to control the debate over an issue, in particular because of the vulnerable position Buchanan found himself in. James Buchanan is what is known as a Disjunctive President, one that is in power when their party is no longer the resilient regime and whose ideas are on the way out. Unfortunately, Buchanan failed to acknowledge the Democratic parties vulnerable position, which was indicative in the way that he addressed the conflict of free and slave states. Buchanan was the United States 15th president from 1857-1861, as a Democratic president, he was one of Andrew Jackson 's faithful sons at a time that Jacksonian ideals and Jackson economics

Disjunctive presidents are those that are followed by a reconstructive president, which in Buchanan 's case was Abraham Lincoln, because their parties are no longer are reflective of the popular opinion and the party is fragmenting, things that held true for Buchanan. Buchanan, like other Disjunctive presidents, realized that he could not come into office with set policy promises that he could not keep nor to say that he did not have a plan. Instead, Buchanan attempted to be ambiguous and removed from the issue by claiming “I am neither a politician of the West nor the East, of the North nor the South. I therefore shall forever avoid any expressions the direct tenancy of which must be to create sectional jealousies and at length disunion” (Morrison 134). Buchanan failed to understand that his view on the issue of slavery was not aligned with the views of the rest of the country, with Buchanan referring to slavery as, “a domestic issue that had to be left to the will of the states” and one that would figure itself out (White House). With the Democratic party breaking apart and Stephen Douglas leading the charge against Buchanan 's ideas towards slavery, it was clear that he was losing control over the debate over

As a disjunctive president Buchanan did not have the power or the acceptance to make major policy changes that would have been needed. Unfortunately, Buchanan did not understand that the old Democratic ideals that were accepted under Polk and Pierce, were not favored by the growing regionalization of the country. The people in Kansas felt that Buchanan was forcing them to become a slave state without considering the infighting that was breaking out around him. As proof of his position as a disjunctive president, as Morrison describes it “Buchanan’s failure resulted from his inability to recognize – good Jacksonian Democrat that he was – that the territorial crisis that followed the Mexican cession had separated the nation from the ebullient nationalism of the mid-1840s when he was Polk’s Secretary of State and oversaw the expansion of the Union… what Buchanan did not – or could not – realize is that by his presidency the slavery extension issue had become for Americans of the 1850’s what the conflict over the Second Bank was for Jackson: a way of identifying and rooting out subversive elements” only without realizing how vulnerable his position was in comparison (Morrison