Today, it would seem very unethical for a president tried to influence the Supreme Court of the United States about a forthcoming decision, especially one with significant political consequences, and equally if not more unethical for the judge to be a party to such a thing. Yet that seems to be what happened on March 6, 1857 when the Supreme Court ( Read more... )

Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, where his father had been the town constable. His father died from an apparent heart attack, shortly after rescuing three drowning men. His son, the future president, was three years old at the time, and his mother had a difficult time supporting the family following her husband's death. Andrew ( Read more... )

Abraham Lincoln grew up with, and followed, the custom that it was a son's obligation to give his father all earnings from work done outside the home until age 21. As a 22-year-old, in the spring of 1831, Lincoln left home for the village of New Salem in Sangamon County, Illinois. One of his first jobs was to take goods by flatboat from New Salem ( Read more... )

In his 54 years of life, Breckinridge served as the 14th Vice-President of the United States, a senator from Kentucky, a general in the Confederate Army and the last Secretary of War in the Confederate government. He also ran for President in 1860, losing to Abraham Lincoln.


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James Buchanan was the third in a series of "doughface" presidents (northerners with southern sympathies). Although he was from Pennsylvania, a free state, Buchanan's biographer Jean Baker theorizes that Buchanan was "an intellectual and electoral hostage" to the South, and was so enamored with the ways of the south that he let ideology trump ( Read more... )

Perhaps the most difficult presidential transition in history took place in 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected to succeed James Buchanan. It was a time when sectional strife and division rose to such a high level that it split the Democratic Party and caused many to worry that the president-elect would not live to see his inauguration.


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In 2014 I had the privilege of visiting the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, as well as Lincoln's Tomb in Springfield, both of which were experiences I will never forget. This experience reinforced how Abraham Lincoln had a powerful effect on the nation, as evidenced by the Election of 1860 ( Read more... )

In almost all rankings of Presidents, James Buchanan comes in dead last and wins the title of "worst president ever." Partisans of whatever party the president of the day doesn't belong to might argue that whoever the current incumbent happens to be is worse than Buchanan, but it's hard to imagine anyone being a worse president than one who ended ( Read more... )

Franklin Pierce was the first incumbent President to lose his party's nomination for the Presidency. Pierce's time in office had not been easy. Elected to the Presidency in 1852, Pierce's transition into the presidency began tragically. His wife Jane did not want him to run for President, and when Pierce told her that he had received the Democratic ( Read more... )

What was likely the most difficult presidential transition in history took place in 1860, after Abraham Lincoln was elected to succeed James Buchanan. It was a time when sectional strife and division rose to such a high level that it split the Democratic Party and caused many to worry that the president-elect would not live to see his inauguration ( Read more... )