On Apr 25, 6:50 pm, t...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Tim McDaniel) wrote:
> In article <futlqi$i8...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> William December Starr <wdst...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> >In article <193od5xmke....@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> >archm...@[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_Pre...>
> 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.
I agree that Buchanan was a most inept president. I also disagree
with his read on the legality of secession, and whether or not the
President had authority to prevent breaking of laws.
Clearly I do not think that secession was illegal by a strict
interpretation of the Constitution, treaties and laws of the USA, it
was foolish policy on the part of the Southern states, but more to the
point secession was by the time Lincoln was inaugurated beyond
peaceful reversal. It was massively popular amoung white southerners,
and as history demonstrates, they were willing to fight, and fight
damn hard to stay seceded.
It is my position that trying to force the southern states to stay in
the union against the explicit will of their people was bad policy,
and against the best interests of the American people as a whole.
Then there is the matter of the horrific cost of that war, as a wholly
separate issue. ~600,000 war dead when the whole population of the
USA was on the order of 30 million, you have to look to WWI, or WWII
Russian front to find find casualty to population ratios as high or
higher in western civilization.
This from a nation that had as an ideal the idea of consent of the
governed. If that is indeed a requirement for just government, then
that consent can be withdrawn.
>
> [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 offMontestrucand 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.
I totally agree that Buchanan's statement in that vein was
nonsensical.
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