Re: Help design the ideal Presidential candidate

In article <futlqi$i8k$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
William December Starr <wdstarr@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>In article <193od5xmke.ln2@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>archmage@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Nate Edel) said:
>> Nor do I have any idea of how smart Buchanan was or wasn't.
>
>How bad a president was Buchanan?  Does he deserve the bad rap that
>he often gets, or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time?

The Civil War debate will probably recur now.

Anyway, Buchanan
+ negotiated the Oregon Treaty when secretary of state
But
- as minister to the UK, helped to draft the Ostend Manifesto [0]
- lobbied Associate Justice Grier to get one Northerner to join in
  the Dred Scott majority, and had advance knowledge
- allowed Bleeding Kansas to continue to bleed, and removing
  governors who tried to enforce law, and tried to shove thru the
  Lecompton constitution
- the Utah "War", a.k.a Buchanan's Blunder
but mostly
- declared that secession was illegal but that the President had no
  power to prevent it.  [1] He also did very little to slow down or
  stop the rot or to safeguard Federal property that was in danger of
  being seized.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_United_States_Presidents>
has references to various surveys.
<http://www.americanpresidents.org/survey/historians/performance.asp>
was a 1999 C-SPAN survey of academic historians.  Buchanan came dead
last.  Even his best rating, International Relations, was well below
average.  Crisis Leadership and Vision / Setting an Agenda were
pathetic.  That's the only survey for which the article has a
breakdown of categories available and is among academic historians.


[0] Leaving aside all notions of law or morality, it was in practical
    terms a blunder to insult Spain and to say that Cuba must be
    acquired by force if necessary.

[1] To head off Montestruc and his ilk: the problem is that that
    particular position is senseless.  If secession is legal, then of
    course the President has no power to stop it.  But if secession is
    illegal, then the President took an oath of office to "faithfully
    execute the Office of President" and "to the best of my Ability,
    preserve, protect and defend the Constitution", and "he shall take
    Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" (US Constitution,
    Article II).  Those laws include collecting tariffs and other
    excises, making criminal anyone taking US government property
    without permission, holding US federal courts and arresting and
    trying criminals under US law, summoning the state militias into
    Federal service, et cetera.

    That is, you patently cannot claim both that (1) secession is
    illegal and that (2) the President is powerless and can and should
    do nothing.

-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]