American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 15.2 James Buchanan

Episode Date: May 11, 2019

Often ranked among the worst of presidents and one of the people who helped bring on the civil war - find out just why this is as Rob explains it to an increasingly angry Jamie. 

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, James Buchanan Part 2. Hello and welcome to American Presidents Totalus Rankium. I am Jamie. And I'm up ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Trump. And this is 15.2. James Buchanan. Oh yeah. Or James Buchanan. What?

Probably not. Probably not how they said his name. Probably James Buchanan. Buchanan. Butch Hannon. Yeah. We just had a very brief conversation before air because we were sampling some whiskey. And you said you grew to like him less and less last time. I think I did, yeah. Yeah.

That's a shame, isn't it? Do you think things are going to pick up a bit in this episode for him? I'll be honest. Yeah? My feeling is no. Let's start, shall we? Wonderful. Here we go.

Bring on the hate. Start with a Christmas tree. Have they reached America by this time? I knew you'd ask that. So I actually researched this. That's why I just paused for a moment there. It's like, he's going to ask. He's going to ask.

You know me well. And yes, they had Franklin Pierce's time, apparently. Oh, really? I wonder. They first started to become popular in upper echelons of society. There was evidence of some, like, way back, when the first immigrants came over, went over. But, yeah, there is speculation that Pierce had a Christmas tree. I don't know how accurate this is, but didn't it start off, it was a German tradition. Yeah.

And the Hanover family made it very popular. Yes. Because Victoria used to first post cards, didn't she? Yes, exactly. And that became fashionable. And that famous picture of Queen Victoria was used in America. I think this is right. This is me half remembering a fact I was once told.

Where they airbrushed Queen Victoria out because it was a bit too royal, but they liked the image in America, so they just got rid of the green bit. It's like those big redacted black Marcos in Victoria. Yeah, anyway. So a Christmas tree. Yeah, you are right, we might not have had a Christmas tree, but artistic license, we've got a Christmas tree, okay? So a Christmas tree. With little electric trains that go around the bottom. Yeah, you are right, we might not have had a Christmas tree, but artistic license, we've got a Christmas tree, okay? So, Christmas tree.

With little electric trains that go around the bottom. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, artistic license. And, like, not electric lights, though, because that would be wrong. Ridiculous. So, candles. Lots of candles. Yeah.

Okay, so, pull out until you see the whole room. It's a cheery room. Yeah, Christmas time. Fire, decorations, snow outside. A whiskey, a bourbon. Yeah, Christmas time. Fire, decorations, snow outside. A whiskey. A bourbon. Yeah, yeah. A Christmas log, which is just a log of wood. Yeah. A yule log. A yule log, yeah. You can

hear in the distance carols being sung. Aiden Wise. That's not Christmas time. No. Some warming up there. Last Christmas I gave you my heart. But the very next day you gave it away. This year to save you from tears.

I'll give it to someone special. Special. It went. Right. Yeah. Lovely scene, yeah? Oh, yeah. Okay.

By this point, you can see the whole room and there is the back of buchanan just staring out the window you realize you're in the white house here because you can see a half finished washington monument in the distance out the window now i know something about that but i guess we'll come to that later on not really that's the same time i'm mentioning it this episode. As in like, in the podcast because I know it took ages to build. Yeah, yeah.

At this point they've ran out of funds so it's been half finished for quite a while at this point. It took 150 years to build us. Not quite that

but yeah, it takes a while so you know you're in the White House you can see Buchanan he's just staring out the window and then you hear

the door open and off screen someone says something along the lines of mr president the news is true south carolina has announced they are leaving the union buchanan does not move but stares and sort of swing around him so you're no longer looking at his back but you're looking at his front. Right. And just zoom into his face. Keep zooming until you're really close to his eyes. One of the eyes is just twitching. And that's not me making it up.

Apparently he developed a twitch. Did he? Oh, dear. Stressful presidency there. Oh, yeah. Twitching away. And then you just start to see the flames reflected in his eyes. And then go straight into his eye until you're black james buchanan part two nice the reckoning okay here we go buchanan is now president elect he's won the election he is determined he's going to swing this ship around and the future of

america is a new golden age yeah a first A first golden age, in fact. Yeah, just over the horizon. Oh, yes. All he has to do is choose his cabinet very carefully. Things are a bit tense. If you remember, Pierce didn't do such a great job at this, and he was hated throughout his whole presidency. Yeah. He was trying to bring people in from a white tent, and everyone just got fed up with him. Yeah. Yeah, and that kind of just ruined everything for him because no one would deal with him after that. Yeah. So perhaps due to this, Buchanan approached the cabinet in a different way to Pierce. He decided he

was going to choose people he personally knew and liked. There were four Southerners and three Northerners. That's good balance. Good balance. In theory. In theory, because all of them were just as pro-South as Buchanan was. Wonderful. Obviously was a Northerner himself.

Yes. Yeah. One concession to the party was the appointment of Lewis Cass as the Secretary of State. But James Buchanan was fully intending to be his own Secretary of State anyway, so this didn't really count. Okay. Yeah. So apart from that, it was very pro-Southern people.

The Cabinet were very close. I mean, this is a close-knit group of people. They have sleepovers and stuff. Yeah, so apart from that, it was very pro-southern people. The cabinet were very close. I mean, this is a close-knit group of people. They have, like, sleepovers and stuff. Yeah, yeah. It's actually the ghost stories. Yeah. Torch under the face. Yeah.

Yeah. And then the hook was embedded in the car roof! Ah! The telegram was coming from inside the house! Yeah, things like that. Yeah, wonderful. Yeah, apparently they'd meet daily, and they worked so close together

that some people accused James Buchanan of being their puppet. However, some people just said that he just was very much in agreement with the rest of his cabinet, so they worked as a group. What do you think? You can decide as we go on, whether you

think Buchanan was a puppet figure or not. Okay, so after selecting his cabinet in January, Buchanan heads for the capital early. He doesn't need to be there quite that early, but he wants to just get things set up. So, approaching Washington, he stays in a hotel and he works on his inaugural speech. Like you do. Nice. Unfortunately, it was a harsh winter and the pipes froze.

Oh, no water. No, it's worse than that. Oh. The pipes froze. Oh, they expand. What do you think's the worst case scenario for pipes freezing? They crack and then when it melts

they spray water everywhere. No, flash forward about a week or so to a period where people are taking body bags out of the hotel. Oh, no, literally no water. And locked in. Dehydration. No, it wasn't that. No, she can melt it.

Oh, what? Let's just say the plumbing wasn't great. And when the pipes froze, the way that it was set up led to waste pipes backing up and getting into the kitchen supply of water. Oh, one... Yeah, unknowingly, everyone in that hotel was eating poo pie. Hello, monsieur. I have a new dish for you today. This is a poo soup. Is that a new French dish?

No poo soup? It's nutty. Ew. Yeah, several guests died. I feel bad, man. Yeah. Died of dysentery, they did. Including Harriet Lane's brother.

Harriet Lane, remember, is Buchanan's favourite niece, who I mentioned at the end of the last episode. Yeah, so he died. Several people did. And Buchanan got very ill himself. So that would have been embarrassing if he died that way. But he pulls through. Yay! Yeah. What happened then? I guess the rudder up for the election would be the next

or the Tausigino elections. I don't know if a president-elect dies. I've never thought about it. Would it be the vice-president-elect? Would that make more sense? Or would they do... I don't know. It's a very good question. If you know, write in on a postcard. Wonderful.

Anyway, getting over all this. Yes, Harriet, your brother's dead, but I've got a speech to do. Inauguration day arrives and Buchanan gives his speech. Time to unite the union. He stated he would only serve one term. That's becoming a bit of a tradition recently. Yeah. Magnanimous. Only serve one term. That's becoming a bit of a tradition recently. Yeah, magnanimous. Only serve one term, less likely there'll be infighting in your own party because everyone's thinking

ahead to the next election and trying to make themselves look good. Apart from that, he talked about how divisions over slavery were awful and tearing the country apart. Time to do something about that. He's got a solution you'll be happy to know. Oh dear. He agreed with those in the Democratic Party such as Jefferson Davis. Do you remember him? Mm-hmm. That, and I quote, the sacred right of each individual must be preserved. By each individual, obviously, white male.

Yeah. And that the federal government must safeguard the southern rights to take their property into new territories. So straight off the bat, he's just saying, look, I'm with the South here. He stated also that the Supreme Court, the third branch of government, would be able to settle all of the problems about slavery that are going on. All the arguments... That is beautiful.

Yeah. Not my problem anymore. Trust me, the Supreme Court, they've got something on the back burner right now. I know about it. It's going to come out soon. It's going to be brilliant. It's going to solve all the problems with slavery. All the arguments about who can take slaves where,

and whether they can appeal, and whether they can be free or not, and the Compromise of 1850, the Futuristic Slave Act, all of that is just going to be settled. It's going to be sorted. Trust me. Oh dear. He was, in fact fact alluding to a case that was indeed pending. He wasn't just making this up. He's got his eye on something. He also already knew which way this case was going to go, even though the ruling hadn't been done yet, because he very much had a hand in it. Justice. Yes. This is the infamous Dred Scott v. Stanford case. Oh yes,

of course. Which sounds a bit like a superhero film if you're not from America. If you're from America, I'm guessing you know this because this is one of these big moments in American history. I'll admit, in this country I vaguely recognise the name. I know nothing. I've heard the name Scott. I've heard Stanford. It's a place in Connecticut. Yeah, okay. You're not going to forget it easily. Trust me. Yeah. Dred Scott

was a man who had been enslaved in a slave-owning Missouri. He was at one point taken by his enslavers into the Missouri territory, which at that point was labelled free. Yeah. So they go into the free territory. With their slave.

With their slave. Then they return to the state of Missouri. Right. Scott, upon returning, sued in court for he and his family's freedom. Claiming that, well, hang on, I've just been on free land. I can't be a slave on free land. I'm free now, surely. I was free when I was there and now I've been taken back against my will.

Yeah, exactly. That's kidnapping. Yeah, a good point to argue. Yeah. So, they go to the Missouri courts. Oh, this is going to end badly, isn't it? How badly do you think it could end? Like, worst case scenario, DressCost is going to get hung or get hanged.

Um, no, but it doesn't end well, we're saying. Okay. Right. Anyway, yeah, it goes to the Missouri courts. You're going to be shocked to learn that the Missouri state told him that, no, you're still a slave. Oh. Yeah. Did not expect that. Well, actually, being a bit flippant

here, it was a shock because the court had freed ten other people in similar cases not long ago. So they were expecting to win their freedom here. Was it the President's hand that had... No. But Buchanan's not involved at this point. I'll get into that in a moment. Yeah, it was only a technicality

that Scott lost the case on. He had not actually proven that he was enslaved to begin with by Irene Emerson, his current enslaver. And because he hadn't proved that he was a slave to begin with, he couldn't prove that he had been taken out as a slave in Edmonton. It was a stupid technicality, but he lost the case on it. Was he obviously a slave when he was in the courthouse? Yes. I should probably point out that he's getting help, like legal aid help, from prominent abolitionist lawyers. It's not just him on his own trying to fight the might of the Missouri state.

He does have some help. But even then, it just doesn't work. But it's fine. They're going to appeal the case. They're going to take it to the federal court. Right. And he won his freedom. Oh, brilliant.

Brilliant. But then the decision was overturned. What? Yeah, it was overturned by Chief Justice William Scott, who said the following, and I quote, Times are not now as they were when the former decisions on this subject were made. So, yeah, I know we freed ten people earlier, but times have changed. Since then, not only individuals but states have been processed with

a dark and foul spirit in relation to slavery, whose gratification is sought in the pursuit of measures, whose inevitable consequences must be the overthrow and destruction of our government. Under such circumstances, it does not behoove and destruction of our government. Under such circumstances, it does not behoove the state of Missouri to show the least countenance to any measure that might gratify this spirit. What?

So in other words, those bloody abolitionists are trying to ruin our union, so we're just gonna fight against anything they want. So yeah, we may have freed people with the identical case to you before, but we just don't like the abolitionists, so you're still a slave. That's awful. Oh, just wait. Because this isn't the end.

Oh. Oh, no. The case looked hopeless, and Scott lost his financial backing and his lawyers. I mean, it fell apart. I'm out, yeah. Yeah. But another anti-slavery lawyer, another prominent one, came along and took the case pro bono. So that's good.

That sounds rude. It does sound a bit rude, but everyone was assured that it's fine. Yeah. It's normal in the legal world. It's fine. Perfectly legal, though, right? The case then went to the Supreme Court. That's the big one.

That's the big one. That's the big one. Things don't go well. In fact, the decision the Supreme Court makes is widely held as being the worst Supreme Court ruling in history. Oh, wonderful. And I quote, and remember, this was all about whether Dred Scott could be free or not. Yeah.

The ruling was thus, Black people are not included and were not intended to be included under the word citizens in the Constitution and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, there were at the time of the Constitution's framing considered a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race considered a subordinate and inferior class of being,

who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, had no rights or privileges. S***. Yeah. In other words, no black person in the entire country could ever be a citizen of the United States, therefore Dred Scott could not, by default, appeal to the court's rulings. He is a slave. That, they've just, an entire nation. Yeah. Representing a nation has just dehumanised a

human being. They've literally compared them almost to an animal. So that's happened. Yeah. them almost to an animal. So that's happened. Yeah. I paused in my research at this point and I had a bit of a break. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, you might be wondering, however, what is Buchanan's hand in all this? What's Buchanan's hand in all this? Well, I'll tell you. This is all going on around the time of his inauguration. During the speech. Yeah. The ruling's not been given yet. That quote I just did at the end has not been made. But Buchanan already knows that's what's going to happen. Because Buchanan

saw this case as an opportunity to solve the slavery issue once and for all. By shutting it down. By dehumanising it. So you might be wondering why a case about one man's freedom suddenly shifts to announcing that all black people were not citizens. Well, Buchanan had written to a couple of the chief justices,

expressing a desire that the case move beyond the case of Dred Scott and settle matters involving all black Americans. Including three. Yeah. So Buchanan just puts a word in and says, look, can we make this court ruling, like, just a blanket, so everything is settled? And then we can just put that issue away.

It's sorted. It will be law, and all this talk of freedom and territories and things getting caught up in trials, it's just annoying. All these judges around and all these lawyers around slowing things down all the time. Let's just make the issue go away. Although Buchanan technically is not part of the Dred Scott decision, because obviously different branch of government, many historians have stated that his fingerprints are all over this. Well, he's trying to quash a problem, isn't he?

Yeah. Now, it's certainly not just him. No, of course not. But he is very much in that faction of people who are making this happen. Right. Yeah, and as president-elect, he's got a bit more clout. So, when joined the inaugural address, he alluded to the pending case. He knew full well what the ruling was going to be. So, yeah, you're going to be shocked to learn that this move backfires

massively. I was going to say, because every single northern state is just going to go, excuse me? What? A? Yeah, exactly. You've got it in one there. Many in the north saw this as yet another example of how the south was spreading slavery. And many started to wonder just how long is it going to be before the free states have slavery forced upon them. But Buchanan and many others felt that this was a moot point. It doesn't matter what you think. It's now law. It doesn't matter if something's morally right or wrong.

The law is the law. Yeah. If these horrible new Republicans disliked the Dred Scott verdict, then they were arguing against law itself and therefore America the traitors. Oh, it's really scary, this rhetoric being used. It's scary, isn't it? And it's also familiar, which makes it more scary. Oh yes. Anyway, believing fully that he'd actually put the slavery question down, atast in part. All sorted.

Right, next. Job done. This being a president's easy. Right, next. Economy. Funny you should say. We'll get to that in just a second. Yeah, so he believes he's sorted out the slavery. He also believes that he's sorted out the rise of the Republican Party

because there's no need for the Republican Party trying to stop the spread of slavery because it's now law. Yeah. Yeah. So he's sorted that out as well. And all those dangerous abolitionists, it's all gone. Buchanan's okay to go about his duties. So he starts thinking about running the country. He looks at his cabinet again and starts thinking about appointing other positions within the executive branch. A good spread of northern and southern people. Yeah. Makes sense. A big tent.

Everyone's involved. Very much so. But actually, now he thinks about it, all those Democrats that supported Douglas against him in the convention. Yeah. Well, they're clearly up to no good, are they? Yeah. Yeah. Can't trust them. You can't. So maybe don't give those jobs. And in fact, generally, if they're from the North, I mean, it's a bit anti-slavery up there. Liberal hippies is what they are. That's what they are. So maybe not give those jobs. So in the end, pretty much, you only got a job if you were pro-slavery Southerner.

Wonderful. Yeah. So anyway, that's sorted. The White House itself needed to be looked at, of course, because the Pearsons were not the most lively of couples, were they? They weren't the happiest. I mean, they had their reasons. Yes, they did.

Apparently the White House was a bit sombre, a bit gloomy. Just walked down corridors and people were weeping in the corners, that kind of thing. Walls that are painted black. Yeah, there's lots of twiglets sellotaped to the ceiling. It was depressing. Yeah, so Buchanan decides he's going to cheer the place up a bit. He's not got a First Lady though, and usually it's kind of their job to do the hosting and the cheering the place up a bit his wife dies no he's never had a wife oh if you remember the story of ann coulter his fiance who killed herself yes that's right and then obviously his good

friend king who may well probably most likely was his partner yeah he spent most of his time yeah so yeah so without a first lady he he turns to his favourite niece, Harriet. So she can take on those roles and responsibilities. The wine cellar was once more well stocked. And Buchanan declared that the small bottles of champagne that the White House was getting in were no good at all. This was awful. I'll quote here, Pints are all very inconvenient in this house,

as this article is not used to drinking in such small quantities. Yeah. So he needed much bigger than a pint of champagne. Wow. Yeah. He was also known to go and pick up 10-gallon casks of whiskey personally to take back to the White House. Right.

Ten points there for statesmanship. Yeah. I mean, that's brilliant. There you go, that's your light-hearted story for the week. Oh. Yeah, because then things get a bit tricky. If he hoped he'd be able to simply righten the sinking ship of a country simply by being president, he was mistaken.

Three major issues blew up at roughly the same time. Number one, the one you predicted earlier, the economy fell apart. Yay. The Panic of 57. Number two, the Mormons in Utah have revolted. Sort of. We'll go into more details in a moment.

And three, the Kansas problem was not going away. Yeah. Yeah, despite the Kansas- was not going away. Yeah. Yeah, despite the Kansas-Nebraska Act, well, in fact, more to point because of it, there was a huge problem in that region. So let's look at that panic first. As ever, the economy is incredibly complex, but a few things have made the economy shaky recently. Number one was nothing to do with the US whatsoever. But in 1844, Britain had made a change to their banking laws,

which didn't go down very well, and the economy kind of fell apart. And that had a knock-on effect around the entire world. Okay. Because Britain was leading the world at this time. So, yeah, that's not great. But also, there were some internal factors. The Californian gold rush was coming to an end. So all that free gold just flying around all over the place suddenly dries up that has an effect on people banks became far more cautious lending money as reports of declining

gold fines were coming back to the east basic banking is not working very well no the banks aren't trusting that people will be able to repay debts. Yeah, and then they've got to, you know, people have put money in here, I can't just give it to you because everything will go to crap soon. Yeah. They've got to hold on to it.

Before, any crazy man with a sieve and a hat could turn up and get a loan because they were bound to find something in California. The place is made of gold. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas times are changing. No.

Also, the ripping up of the compromise and also the dred scott ruling led to investors wondering just what kind of economy is this country heading to her yeah because you've got two options like should we keep investing in the the slave trade or well he's edging more with that with this current government it's certainly looking towards that way so you might start investing in that but you're going to have more people cautious going like this this isn't sustainable yeah exactly are we going to be a manufacturing country or are we just going to become a slave economy throughout the whole country um and that could be a problem with like yes north versus the south eventually might be like a bit of arguments

a scuffle yeah civil scuffle tiff yeah so yeah uh things are starting to grind to a halt economy wise uh and then finally the rapid rise of the railroad companies led to a stock bubble burst that's a great sentence yeah bubble burst yeah so the market saturated yeah and it collapses yeah so yeah that get scared, they take the money out of those companies. Yeah, exactly. So the highly industrialised North felt the shock of this panic far more than the relatively stable slave economy of the South. Which, at the time, would make people believe that's the most stable economy. Exactly, yes.

And again, we have stories, just as we have in previous panics, of people literally starving to death, businesses going under, farmers unable to do anything but just watch as their crops rot in their barns because they can't sell them for anything apart from less than what they bought the seeds for. Yeah it would cost them more for the transport of the goods than they would be able to sell it. It just everything falls apart basically. It's not good but because for the transport of the goods than they would be able to sell it. It just, everything falls apart, basically. It's not good. But because of the feeling at the time, and because of the effects falling differently on North and South,

like you say, this led to even more anger in the North about the current government. People in the South were going, well, that's your problem, isn't it? Way. You're the greedy Northerners with your businesses ripping people off all the time. You reap what you sow, whereas we don't reap anything because we get our slaves to do it. And as you say, they use the panic as an argument that the Northern economy was inherently flawed and slavery is the only way forward. Buchanan and his administration did very little. Now, to be fair, this is at a time where the government was not seen as something that should get involved in personal

things, such as money. Yeah, no president has really done much in any of the panics previously. No, that's true. He just naturally sorts himself out, doesn't he? Yeah, after lots of people starved to death. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we've seen a little bit. Van Buren attempted

to do a bit, but was held back. But, yeah, so I don't think we could criticise Buchanan too much for not doing much here. It certainly wasn't innovative. And he didn't grab the bull by the horns and take it on. No. It's a very depressed bull anyway. It's a sick looking bull. Okay, so that's going on. Everyone's starving to death and no one's got any money, apart from the rich people. However, something that Buchanan could grapple with was the possible uprising of the Mormon settlers in the East. Now, we're going to need to know a little bit of background on this. So, a very, very simple background, because obviously this is a huge history, so I'll be skimming over a lot.

But, in 1820, going back in time, and this is a story that really would feel right at home in our Roman Emperor series. It honestly felt like going and doing some Roman Emperor notes this did. A man in 1820 claimed to have spoken to God and Jesus. Wonderful. Yeah. This new self-proclaimed prophet, a man named Joseph Smith, then started to gain some followers. And he wrote a book that he claimed was a translation

of the words given to him by an angel. Right. This was the Church of Christ, to begin with, but then the Church of the Latter-day Saints. Or Mormons, as they're also known. A young man named Brigham Young joined this new religion shortly after 1830. Ooh.

Yeah. Over the next decade, Young rose through the ranks of the church as they moved... Rose through the ranks. Roman emperor reference there. Yeah, rose through the ranks of the church as they moved to Ohio to live life with more freedom from that pesky government constantly telling them to do things like stop marrying lots of wives. In the 1840s, the Mormons were in Illinois.

But internal tensions had led to Smith ordering the destruction of a printing press that accused him of polygamy. But it's true. Well, yeah, but he didn't like it. The riots start, and Smith, who was the mayor of the town, declared martial law. Yeah. Smith then voluntarily gave himself up over to the authorities in Carthage. What? Yeah, in Carthage.

We really are in the road. This is insane. Yes. New religion, a prophet, Carthage. Wow, rising through ranks. Yeah, it's good, isn't it? Yeah. Anyway, Smith and his brother were accused of treason.

But awaiting trial, the prison was stormed and the two brothers were killed. So that's the founder of the Mormons dead, killed in a riot. As you can imagine, this leads to a succession crisis. Who's going to lead them now? Who's going to take the purple? I mean, become the next leader, eh? Yes. Not sure any purple was involved, but maybe.

Maybe there was. Yeah, the aforementioned Brigham Young won this power struggle. Although there were splinters and offshoots that didn't accept him. But Brigham Young is now pretty much in charge. Young then leads the Mormons even further east, searching for a land that they could practice their religion in without interference from the government. They would head to the relatively unpopulated lands of northern Mexico.

Ooh, wonderful. No pesky US government. And the Mexican government are so far away, they want bottles. Yeah. So they set off, they trek through the desert, hard times. They finally arrive, sit down, wipe their brow, have a drink, big sigh. They look up, and which flag do they see flying on top of that mountain? Oh, it's the US flag, because the Mexican War's just finished,

and this land is now part of America. Ah, son of a... Yeah. Damn it. Fine, well, we'll stay here anyway. Yeah, so the land's near this this massive great salt lake that they found, they thought would do well. Do they build a city there?

They do. What do they call it? Well, as you know, Americans are very good at naming things. Very good at naming things. So they go for Mormonville. After some wrangling that we just don't have time to go into, unfortunately, Young was appointed the governor of this new territory by President Fillmore. We did mention briefly how the Utah region was created.

So yeah, Young's in charge of it. He ruled the Salt Lake City area, determined for freedom for his people, shall we say. Yes. We shall also say he was very hostile to outside influence. Wonderful. Yeah. There were roughly 40,000 followers of the religion by this point. It had grown rapidly. And Jung did not want to lose control over his new land. Now, federal politicians were sent there, obviously. It's US territory. But they soon left, unable to talk to the local government. Things were fractured.

Tense. They're a bit unwilling to listen. Yeah. They threw things at us. Yeah. More sinister, however, reports of a federal surveyor being assassinated on the orders of Yong reached the ears of those in the East. It starts getting some sinister overturns.

It's not just, oh, they're being a bit unpleasant. It's, they're starting to kill people who go over there. What's going on over there? Buchanan, when he becomes president, obviously is not happy with these reports. Now, everyone agreed that what a person got up to in their own home was obviously nothing to do with the government. Yeah. Yeah. After all, this is the argument that Buchanan and those around him made for slavery. Slavery was a personal property issue, not one that can be infringed upon by the federal government. That's horrible. Yeah.

But that's the argument they made. So what a man and a woman got up to was obviously up to them. But these stories of polygamy, I mean, these Mormons went just too far, dammit. Yeah, so something needs to be done. Yeah. Buchanan ordered that some troops go east and just find out exactly what's going on over

there in the desert. We've got some troubling reports of assassinations and polygamy. Doesn't look good. It doesn't. Take two and a half thousand troops with you, with some politicians to replace those that we're going to find are up to no good, let's face it.

And yeah, just go west. Meanwhile, in Utah, Young and his followers obviously feared the worst. I mean, two and a half thousand armed men are coming towards us. We did all we could to get away from the US government, and now here they are trying to dominate us again. So they assumed they were all about to be

attacked, and the anti-outsider rhetoric heightened. Reports soon came through of 125 travellers heading to the East Coast, heading to California to make their fortune, being massacred by the Mormon militon militia the mormon leadership attempted to blame it on the local american indian tribes they'd even dressed

up as the local american indian tribes uh but it just didn't work there were too many witnesses it's like you're clearly a white man just dressed up so so what you're fooling no one. Yeah. The US troops arrived, but it was close to winter, and the mountain passes were being howled by the Mormon militia. So the troops decide to set up a fort, wait till spring, and then who knows? Maybe we'll be able to peacefully go into the city and it will be fine. Yeah. Maybe we might need to bash some heads together.

We'll find out then. We will find out in the spring. Merry Christmas, guys. Yeah. Maybe we might need to bash some heads together. We'll find out then. We will find out in the spring. Merry Christmas, guys. Yeah. There were a few victims over winter, usually innocent travellers accused of being spies from either side. Yeah. Yeah. However,

Buchanan then sent a man called Thomas Paine to negotiate with Young. Paine was sympathetic with the Mormons, so the talks were actually quite productive. Paine said to Young, if you step down as governor and allow some of our secular politicians in, we'll say no more on the matter. Bygones be bygones. Until we change all your laws. Yeah. The situation was, from the US point of view, successfully doubt with. And there you go. So this almost war,

almost uprising, just kind of filters away. They managed to talk... Fizzles out. Yeah, fizzles out. Those in the East happy. The residents of Salt Lake City grumbling a bit, but there's not much they can do. So there you go. That's that crisis dealt with. So far,

Buchanan has dealt with slavery. He has dealt with the Republicans rising. He has dealt with slavery. He has dealt with the Republicans rising. He's dealt with the abolitionist movement. He has dealt with the panic of 57 because that's nothing to do with him really so he doesn't need to do that. But cross it off the list anyway, it looks good. And now

he's dealt with Utah revolting. He's a very successful president so far. But let's face it, these are all a sideshow to the big problem. The country's splitting too. Well, yes, and where is this most highlighted?

At this time, it is Kansas. What is fast becoming known as Bleeding Kansas. That's not a good name. It's not great, is it? Right, quick recap on this issue then. The Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 had created the Kansas and Nebraska territories. Yes.

But more importantly, opened the possibility for new states in these regions to become slave states. Yeah. Now, they're above the Missouri Compromise Line. They should never be slave states according to the Compromise. Yeah. But that's just kind of been pushed to one side. Yeah. It's only law. As we saw in Pierce's episode,

the region filled with many anti-slavery immigrants, but with some powerful pro-slavery ones. This is Kansas, not Nebraska. The territorial elections were held and if you remember the neighbouring slave-owning Missouri wanted to see Kansas as a

slave state. So they helped rig the election so a pro-slavery territorial government was created. Yes. Yeah. Those that lived there were outraged, or at least a good roughly 75% of the population, we think, were outraged. And a second anti-slavery government was illegally created. and a second anti-slavery government was illegally created. So you've now got the pro-slavery government in Kansas based in a place called Lecompton. I've only seen that written down. I don't know if you pronounce it that way. I don't know.

You can say it with an American accent. Lecompton. Yeah, okay. I'll splice that in every time I say it. And the anti-slavery government in Topeka. Topeka. Topeka? Topeka. Topeka. Topeka? To-peka? Topeka. Yeah, anyway.

So we've got Lecompton pro-slavery, Topeka anti-slavery. And if I'm saying those names wrong and you're wincing every time I say them, well, that happens to me a lot when I listen to podcasts. So, deal with it. Anyway, Pierce resorted to the use of federal

troops, sending in 1,500 troops to just keep the peace. But that did little to stop the two sides from fighting each other, as we saw in Pierce's episode. And this is the mess that Buchanan inherits. So, two governments, both started, if not outright

illegally, then through obvious voter fraud. Both on opposite sides of a powder keg of an argument that was ripping up the political parties of the entire country. So what would you do? Well, judging from his past, he's just going to go, well, pro-slavery, that's it now. Band-aid on, sorted. Uncanny. Amazing. Claps his hands. Right, next.

Well, perhaps you could start the process again. Perhaps you could say, okay, both these governments haven't been set up in a brilliant way. We need to reset. Yeah. New votes, new government. Yeah, yeah. Appoint a new territorial governor that can bring the sides together, maybe. Yeah.

But you're absolutely right. He certainly doesn't do that. He decides to get 100% behind the pro-slavery Lecompton government. It was, after all, the officially elected government. Well, from a legal point of view, he does have a point. Yeah. It's the law, damn it. It's the law.

And you know how we respect the law. Yeah. We'll ignore the fact that this government was just elected in an election that was full of false ballots, obviously, and the fact that anti-slavery Tepeka was representing, like I say, three quarters of the population. No, definitely Lecompton. That's the way forward. This is, again, sort of highlighting that just shutting down the other side doesn't help. That just creates divisions more so. Rather than listening and talking,

quashing something never helps. Yeah, it's not great. And you can imagine how well this goes down in the North. Yeah. Yeah. Although not all in the South were happy, you'll be interested to hear. Georgia and Mississippi didn't think things were going fast enough.

They started talking about seceding from the Union if Kansas was made a free state. Even records of death threats against Buchanan if he did not manage to get Kansas through as a slave state. Wow. Yeah. Feelings are high on both sides. A frustrated Buchanan tried to point out that what's going on? Why is everyone still arguing about this

and protesting and fighting? This is all pointless. The Dred Scott case has sorted this. It's the law. Slaves were property and could be taken into new territories and they have no rights because they're not citizens.

It's the law. Why are we even talking about this still? I've crossed this off my to-do list. I'm liking him less and less. Really? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Some encouraged the president to send troops against the Tepeka government. What? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But in Buchanan's defence, he refused. And I'll quote. The one good thing he does. Unless they shall attempt to perform some act which will bring them into actual contention with the Constitution and its laws. So, to his credit, he at least doesn't send troops in against the Topeka government.

Yet. So then the Compton delegates meet up october to write a constitution for their proposed state yes a pro-slavery constitution obviously remember they've already brought in these territorial laws that are very very pro-slavery death sentence if you're passing on literature anti-slavery literature wow yeah uh and now they're they're writing up their constitution however they did face a problem. To ratify a potential state constitution, they needed to take it to the people in a referendum. That was just what was agreed upon. And the potential state was mostly anti-slavery.

Right. So how are they going to get that through? Do a Turkey. Do a Florida. Yes. All these votes have just got lost. Well, to get round this, they decide to simply approve the document and send it to Buchanan. And should we just forget about the whole referendum thing? Yeah, refer what? They just cause trouble. Yeah, they really do.

They really do. Yeah, this, again, I suppose to Buchanan's credit, was a step too far for him. It's like, no, you can't just ignore the referendum stage. You've got to actually get this ratified by the people. So he sent some men to go and talk to the Lecompton legislature, and a compromise was reached. They hammered out some ideas. And this is what they came up with. Only part of the constitution would be put to a referendum. And that was the part on slavery. The rest of the constitution would not be voted upon.

Ooh, to sneak the rest through. Yeah. But there can be some technicalities in there as well. Oh, oh, it's almost like you can see into the future, Jamie. Oh. Yeah. So it doesn't really matter what you vote for. The rest is going to go through regardless. Yes.

And one of the things that was going to go through regardless is the status of around 200 enslaved people who were already in Kansas. What the hell is wrong with these people? Seriously. Even if people voted against slavery, there would still be slaves in the state. And if you've already got 200 slaves in the state, well, that's just opening the barn doors. It's going to flood in. The floodgates, not the barn doors.

Mixing my metaphors. But yeah, if you've got slaves in the estate, you're a slave state. So even if they say no to slavery, it's going to be a slave state. What is wrong with people? The governor of the territory himself argued against this. It's so obviously ridiculous. He wasn't governor for long.

No. No. The vote went ahead. Around 6,000 people voted for slavery and the constitution and 500 voted for no slavery and the constitution with slavery in it. Yeah.

However, three weeks later later topeka had their own elections 10 000 against slavery 162 for wow two slightly different results from the two governments there and even if you can bind them yeah yeah it's uh like i say that most of the population were against slavery yeah i feel i should probably say that most of them wasn't because they thought slavery was bad. Most of them, well, it was a case of we don't want any black people to live near us. Oh. Yeah. Don't get the feeling that everyone who opposed slavery in the early US were just really lovely people who hated slavery.

I had that in my head. No. No one's nice, Jamie. No one's nice. I don't mean so depressed. It's doing this podcast. Seriously. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's going to get better. Briefly. And then things get... Oh. Anyway.

It's fine. It's fine. I had to podcast. Here we go. Right. By this time, three former governors of the region were stating that they just needed to start again. Come on, etch a sketch. Reset here. Just shake it all off. Shake the whole territory.

It's a mess. We need to start again. Buchanan then met with Douglas, the Democrat senator who had introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act in the first place. We came across him before. We're going to see a lot more of him next time in Lincoln's episode.

Oh, yes. It's like good times are ahead then for the US. Yeah, well, Douglas is very much a rival of Lincoln's. We'll get to see him next time. Anyway, Douglas was the head of the Committee on Territories. So he's actually in charge of moving Kansas from a territory into a state. He's the official who's going to make it happen. Douglas was not happy with the amount of obvious

fraud that had taken place, along with the fact that this referendum's useless. Why did he even do it? What's going on here? If Kansas went through as a slave state, his northern home state of Illinois was not going to be happy with him.

And he's up for re-election soon. So he doesn't want to make waves. And there's this very lanky man fighting against him in Illinois. So he's not too happy. He doesn't have a beard yet, but he might. Yeah, he looks like someone who would have a beard, but not a moustache. Buchanan was not happy

and pointed out to Douglas that since the days of Jackson, no senator had ever voted against the administration and survived. Get behind me, Douglas, on this. Don't fight me. Yeah. Douglas responded, and I quote, Mr. President, Andrew Jackson is dead. Oh, which is brilliant. That's awesome. That is awesome. There's not many quotes from Douglas where you go, oh, well done, Douglas. But that's one of them. Nice.

Anyway, Buchanan pushed ahead anyway. He doesn't care. He is supporting Lecompton, saying that if Kansas changed their minds about slavery, they could always change their minds after the Constitution's been put into effect. After all, we can't let dangerous abolitionist free-soilers destroy our union. Kansas needs to become a slave state and become a slave state now. They can change their mind later. That was

a lie. They couldn't. They'd set up to make sure it couldn't change any time soon. But why let the truth get in the way of political rhetoric? In fact, more and more often Buchanan was starting to employ lies, shall we say, in his rhetoric. Yeah, why not? Yeah. In fact, more and more often, Buchanan was starting to employ lies, shall we say, in his rhetoric. So just saying things that were absolutely

demonstrably not true that could be easily proven to be false. Yeah, these things were obvious lies. He would talk about how half the people in the Union would be disadvantaged if the abolitionists got their way. He'd talk about the South as if it was half the Union, always. But the white population of the South is actually only one-fifth of the population of the US. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow.

This is not a half-and-half split. This is a 20% of people in the South. But even that rhetoric, though, that's splitting the country in half. That's divisive rhetoric. Yeah, it certainly is. Also, obviously, only a tiny fraction of this one-fifth of the population were actually the ones benefiting from slavery. It was the rich plantation owners. Yeah, so anyway, in the end, the Senate, currently two-thirds of which were slaveholding Democrats, passed the Lecompton

Constitution. Wow. The House, however, was a different story. The Democrats were the most popular, with 128 members, but only 75 were Southern slave owners. The Republicans and the know-nothings made up 106. Right. So, things were a bit tougher in the House, and the House needed to pass this as well for Kansas to become

a state. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, it's looking close. The Senate have passed it through. Kansas is about to be a slave state. So Buchanan's going to go on the offensive. He tries his very hardest to get the representatives in the House to his cause. He really tries. How do you convince people? Halt their family and beat them up.

I don't think he did that. That's what I would do. That's why I've gone to his podcast. That's a good point. No, he offered shipbuilding contracts, mail routes, promises of future jobs, rumours of even cash

exchanging hands. Anyone he think he could woo to his side, he basically bribed. The House Committee that inevitably sprang up to investigate this blatant... Excuse few questions you literally just tried to bribe me five minutes ago where there's a suitcase full of cash yeah the rumors uh even suggested that uh prostitutes were being used as bribes yeah this wasn't proven this was

just a rumor but let's just say an investigation starts up. Right. And things aren't looking great. Especially because all of this failed anyway. Douglas, outraged by everything that's going on, had led a splinter faction of Democrats and voted against the Constitution going through. Now, Douglas had swung his support behind Buchanan in the last national convention. So, in his mind, he had made Buchanan, and he now swore that he was going to unmake him.

I should probably make clear Douglas is a Northern Democrat. Yeah. Yeah, so we're really starting to see the Democrats really splitting here. Yeah. Faced with this defeat, Buchanan, through a man named William English, went to Congress. Tally-ho. Yes, he would speak like that, William English. Gosh.

Gosh golly. But then in our podcast, everyone sounds like that. Well, tis true, Rob. Yes. Anyway, he goes to Congress and he offered the following. Kansas are going to have another stab at this whole Constitution thing, this time a fair one, don't worry. But if they support it, we, the federal government,

will give them the usual land grant of 4 million acres and therefore they'll be able to become a state immediately. Right. If they don't go for the constitution, we won't give them their land and they will be forced to wait until their population reaches 93,000 to become a state and who knows when that will happen. Oh, bribery. Yeah, I mean, this is an obvious bribe again.

But it was subtle enough for Congress to allow this one to pass. So off to Kansas this goes. A referendum on the Constitution. And it's going to be a fair one this time. Vote on the Constitution or don't. None of this half in, half out. Just don't go on Facebook or Twitter. Yes.

As a paid Russian. Yes. However, Buchanan's attempts of bribing to shift everyone's opinions utterly fails. Because Kansas utterly rejects the Constitution. less than one in ten voted for it wow yeah less than 10 percent yeah that is insane really no one really thought kansas was ever going to be able to be a slave state the fact they got this far was amazing that's rubbish yeah exactly that's why the north was so angry it's couldn't believe that Kansas was going to become a slave state, because like you say, it's all rubbish. How are you forcing this through? But eventually, it is crushed. The pro-slavery movement in the territory collapses.

Buchanan, attempting to get something out of this mess, declared the situation was sorted. Of course, yeah. There you go, that's the Nebraska-Kansas problem. Bleeding Kansas, done. Crosses it off his list. There you go, that's the Nebraska-Kansas problem. Bleeding Kansas, done. Crosses it off his list. He's not managed to make it a slave state for his southern chums, but the arguing's over now.

It's not bleeding anymore, put a plaster on it. Let the scab appear. The scab just festers underneath. Buchanan then enters the last year of his presidency. So far he's doing really well, isn't he? He's ticking those things off his list. He's solved loads of problems. Yeah. Brilliant. He wanted to focus on what he's always preferred and that is his attempts to expand the United States. Remember he was a bit obsessed with expanding. Yeah. Yeah. Ideally he wants to get Cuba and a bit more land off Mexico.

He felt they didn't quite get enough. Oh that that's very British Victorian mentality, isn't it? Yes, it really is. So he starts thinking about putting military posts on the Mexican border. You know, a mile beyond the actual border. Well, many were worried about the tone that Buchanan was taking. I know. They pointed out that invading Mexico for no reason whatsoever is illegal. I know we did it before, but...

We're more enlightened now than we were 10 years ago. We kind of fudged it a bit before. We blamed it on them. And I don't know if we can get away with that twice. Yeah, so without Congress declaring war, look, it can't happen. Buchanan, however, argued that Mexico was an exception to this. I don't need to wait for Congress to declare war. We can just start taking over Mexico if we want,

because they were their neighbours, and therefore they were an exception. And I will quote here, the anarchy and confusion in their country affected the United States. As a good neighbour, shall we not extend her a helping hand and save her? How very British. That is obscene. We'll go in there and civilise them.

Yeah. Why is there all this anarchy and confusion? I mean, obviously... Who knows? What caused that? Obviously, it wasn't just the Mexican War. There was a lot to do with Spain and confusion. I mean, obviously Who knows? What caused that? Obviously it wasn't just the Mexican War. There was a lot to do with Spain and everything, but the Mexican War didn't help.

Anyway, in the end, Buchanan's musings on expanding the United States didn't go anywhere. The North were utterly horrified by the idea, and the South was worried that Buchanan wanted to strengthen the executive branch a bit too much.

So he wasn't really getting any support for this. And the South was worried that Buchanan wanted to strengthen the executive branch a bit too much. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so he wasn't really getting any support for this. And besides, we're kind of busy at the moment, Mr. President. I don't know if you've noticed, but half the country hates the other half. Do we really want to be going off and invading other countries or trying to take Cuba? Come on now. And also then there's the problem with the British. Oh, wonderful. There's's the problem with the British. Oh.

There's always a problem with the British. Wonderful. The British were stopping and searching ships suspected of being slave vessels in the Caribbean. As in because they disagree with it? Yeah. Oh, with abolished slavery? Oh, yeah.

Britain did that quite a while ago. Hell yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'd love to say it's because we're really lovely in Britain, but mainly it was a way just to control the economies of countries. No one's nice, Jamie. No, no. I live in such a little bubble of everyone should be lovely.

But yeah, no, Britain doesn't want any slave trading going around this time. They've gone into an agreement with the United States. We're both cracked down on these illegal slave ships. Right. Yeah. Britain really are going for it. America less so. They're kind of turning a bit of a blind eye to it,

as you can imagine. Those in the South aren't too bothered by the whole slavery thing. Oh, suddenly the ship of 2,000 slaves turned up. That's unfortunate. Set them to work. Yeah. So these illegal slave ships had come up with a cunning way

to make sure that they weren't raided by the British. They would just fly the American flag. Did it work? No. No, because the British just boarded the ships anyway and went, no, you're a slave ship. You're not an American training vessel. So what this means is the British just boarded the ships anyway and went, no, you're a slave ship. You're not an American training vessel. So what this means is the British are boarding ships that are flying American flags.

Which is enticement to a potential war. Well, yeah. You're invading our property. Well, let me point out, ships that were flying the American flag, not American ships. Ah. Yeah. Okay. I mean, some of them might have been American ships,

but it was anyone who was illegally shipping slaves at the time would just put the American flag up anyway. We've boarded your vessel, Captain. We want to see your cargo. No, no, no, Monsieur. American born and bred. As you can imagine, Buchanan is outraged. It didn't matter that the ships were not actually American and were illegally carrying slaves.

This was an insult to the American flag. You can see that of you, though. It's like, you know, you're disrespecting the American America because... Yeah, you think you can just board ships with American flags on it. How dare you? How very dare you? So he wrote several sharply worded notes to Britain, possibly to his good friend Clarendon. You cad.

Yeah. And the British eventually agreed to stop. So there you go, he ticks that one off his list. British sorted out, won that war. Yes. However, whilst all this is going on, that investigation's not stopped. Investigations take a while. They're not done with overnight.

Many, including Democrats, in fact, felt that Buchanan had gone a little too far using bribes to swing votes his way over the whole Kansas thing. So the House had created the Kvode Committee. Angered, Buchanan denounced this investigation into him as an inquisition and accused those that appeared before the committee of being parasites and informers trying to curry favour. Wow. Imagine living in such times. Now, the committee... Witch hunt, sounds like. The committee was made up of three Republicans and two Democrats,

and was obviously partisan, to be fair. Those two Democrats were not Buchanan fans. So all five of them were gunning for the President. But even so, when Buchanan's allies and friends could not actually defend the President, it didn't look good. The committee may have been partisan, but the bribes were happening, and the

committee were finding them. The reason why they were partisan was because they didn't like Buchanan, because Buchanan had done it. Testimonies were taken in private meetings, but as these things happened, soon leaked to the press. There were stories of cash changing hands, of rumours, like I said, of women being used, and in one case, people being given jobs just to punish Douglas. It turns out Buchanan had attempted to oust Douglas from the Illinois state campaign that he was running against Lincoln by giving other people jobs to just try and disrupt things. Publicly fighting against people in his own party

just because they disagreed with him. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, not great. Wow. Yeah. Why would you do that? Why would you do that? Yeah, there's a lot of talk about corruption, shall we say. Now, Buchanan tried to fight against this. Yeah. He made the argument public that he couldn't possibly be corrupt. After all, he was too rich to be bribed. This is insane. Yeah.

Wow. However, the more people looked, the more people noticed. Actually, it's not just Buchanan. Buchanan's whole cabinet seems to be getting in on this. He seems to have surrounded himself by people who just didn't actually care about the rule of law and the Constitution. The Secretary of the Interior had sent agents to Kansas to further the administration's interests, shall we say. Right, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

And he paid them using the department funds. So you've got government payments going to people trying to influence elections. Yeah. But you pass that off now as their advisors. Yeah. The war secretary was found to have sold a military fort way under the price to some fellow Virginians and then overbought arms from a company ran by a friend. Yeah, the Navy Department bought overpriced coal from a company with connections to the department.

So, yeah, basically dodgy deals going on all over the place. Personally embarrassing for the president, his nephew by marriage was caught with a job that he only turned up for on the day that the pay was handed out. Yeah, so a bit of nepotism going on as well. Yeah, yeah. Just giving jobs to his family. They don't really need to do anything, but it's a nice paycheck, isn't it?

So he's putting his family in governmental positions. Yeah, yeah. During the investigation, Buchanan attempted to shut it down. Because, let's face it, he doesn't want this happening. He stated that Congress did not have the constitutional authority to investigate him, unless it was impeaching him. Impeach me, that's your right, but you can't investigate me. And then he said if the committee did move for impeachment, then his accusers would become his judges, and that's clearly not fair. I defy all charges. Nothing but perjury can sully my name,

he tweeted. Now, the committee responded that this is obviously nonsense. At least three previous occasions could be found where Congress had investigated the executive branch. You're just making stuff up. Yeah, yeah. At last, the Kvode report was released. Right. Everyone was really excited about this. The report's coming out finally.

What's going on? It's taken two years. Yeah. It's taken two years. Yeah. The report found evidence of corruption and abuse of power within Buchanan's government and believable allegations of bribery from the president himself. However, it was not able to find impeachable evidence. In other words, we all know he did it. It's really obvious he's done it.

We're not going far enough to say impeachment. There's not enough concrete... Evidence. Yeah. Here's a list of ten times where it's really obvious that it's happened. Yeah. But we just can't prove it solidly. Buchanan was very pleased and stated that he had, and I quote,

passed triumphantly through this ordeal. Bloody hell. This is weird. And that he was completely vindicated. Exonerated. However, the public and the politicians of the time were quite shocked at the levels of obvious corruption. Okay, they might not have impeached you,

but wow, did all that really happen? So Buchanan's reputation really suffers. This is like a preview. I feel like what you're going to say next is kind of going to happen. That's scary. Oh dear. Right, so there you go. That was the Kvode report.

Wow. Then the Democratic National Convention of 1860 was upon them. Buchanan, true to his word, didn't run for another term. He said he'd only be a one-term president, and he was going to stick that way. But let's face it, it was very unlikely he would have got anywhere if he'd tried. Absolutely not. Yeah. The Democrats, by this time, has completely split,

with Northern Democrats putting forth Douglas as a nominee and Southern Democrats the current ignored Vice President Breckinridge. And this doesn't get sorted. So you get two Democratic nominees, a Northern one and a Southern one. So essentially it's two parties now. Yeah, it's now two parties.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have chosen their nominee, a lawyer and politician from Douglas' state, Abraham Lincoln. Who? Some guy. We're doing next. A fourth party. Spoiler. Yeah.

A fourth party, the Constitutional Union Party, which was sort of the know-nothings and some northern Democrats and some other splinter groups. Bridging. But yeah, that's where this comes from they put forth john bell so you've got four parties for this election buchanan was horrified when the republican lincoln won now buchanan's eyes the republicans are traitors like literally traitors because they're trying to break apart the union with all their talk about slavery. Yeah. Yeah.

So he was utterly horrified by this. As in Lincoln won the whole election? Yeah. Lincoln is now the president-elect. Oh, wow. Yeah. Didn't see that coming. Oh, yeah.

Buchanan's not alone in thinking that Lincoln was a dangerous man to have in charge. After all, the rhetoric that had been flying around in the previous election was now coming home to roost. Many in the South fully believed that Lincoln wanted to free all slaves and unleash them upon the white population in the South. It's not like he's going to release, like, an immense, patient proclamation or anything ridiculous like that. Well, Lincoln very clearly ran on a, I'm not an abolitionist,

I will not try and get rid of slavery, I just want to stop the spread of slavery. That's what he wanted to do. Yeah, I'm halting the spread. However, to fight that, many in the South turned that into a, he wants to free all slaves, because it sounds scarier, so you get people riled up. In the same way the NRA say, if people want gun control, they meant to get rid of your guns. Exactly. Exactly the same kind of thing. Yeah. The problem with this of course is when Lincoln became president you've now got a huge portion

of the population who genuinely think that Lincoln's going to emancipate all the slaves. Even though that was not Lincoln's intention. So you now get a lot of talking about secession. Ooh. Yeah.

So it's Lincoln's fault the Civil War happened. Yeah. Lincoln's won. Many in the South fear for their future. This feeling is strongest in South Carolina. Remember, this is Calhoun's stomping ground, so they've always been a bit crazy. They have now beheaded rabbit statues just for...

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they've got a long history of bad feeling towards the North and the federal government. So movements in South Carolina start to talk about leaving the Union. Buchanan, in his address to Congress after the election, stating that, and I quote here, slaves' vague notions of freedom was undermining the feelings of safety in the South, all thanks to the Republicans. Yeah. He then went on to state that seceding from the Union was obviously illegal.

You can't do that. It's in the Constitution. That's weird, isn't it? But he then went on to say that the federal government also did not have the legal right to stop any state from doing so. So it's illegal, but no one can stop you doing it. Yeah. Yeah, that was my thought.

It's like, well, stop me. Yeah. In this simple speech, Buchanan managed to anger everyone. The North were angry that the President was saying that the United States could not stop a state from leaving, and the South was angry that the President said that the state leaving would be illegal. So he tried to placate everyone and in fact just annoyed everyone.

He's really bad, isn't he? I'm not prejudging him here. There's no prejudice involved in that statement, but he's awful. Yeah, we're not quite finished. The Treasury Secretary then resigned in disgust. Screw you. Buchanan was then advised shortly afterwards by the general-in-chief, General Scott. Yeah, he's still hanging around. It's a bit old now, but he's still going.

That perhaps sending some troops down to South Carolina, just to let the flag fly a bit. That'll calm everything down. Might be a good idea, unless you want to lose the South. We're going to need to get some troops down there. I'm not saying we go to war, but we need to start thinking about troop movement here. Show a bit of muscle. Yeah. Or at least prepare for the worst. Exactly.

Like, yeah, I'm doing my job as a general here. If you turn around to me in two months' time and say you suddenly need troops in South Carolina, we're not ready right now. We need to do some maneuvering. Buchanan, disliking the old Whig general, just didn't listen to him. On the 20th of December, South Carolina announced it was indeed seceding from the Union.

A delegation was sent to Washington to discuss many things, one of which was the matter of the forts in South Carolina, the federal forts. Right. Yeah, occupied by federal troops. Well, if we're leaving the Union, your troops on our land. We're not too happy about that. So, South Carolina proposed a truce. Look, if you don't reinforce the troops,

you don't go on a war footing, we won't attack them. Let's all just hold off. Yeah, we want to leave, and there will be a process, but let's not all start attacking each other. Buchanan didn't promise anything, because obviously he realised that talking to South Carolina and saying, yeah, yeah, do what you want, South Carolina, be a process, but let's not all start attacking each other. Buchanan didn't promise anything, because obviously he realised that talking to South Carolina and saying, yeah, yeah, do what you want, South Carolina, wouldn't go down too well. But he gave the indication that this could possibly work. And he also sent word to South Carolina suggesting that perhaps you wait till

Lincoln's in charge before you formally secede. That it's not my fault. Yeah. Those around Buchanan started to notice. He was starting to look a little bit stressed. He's getting a bit twitchy, sir. Yes, his cheek was twitching. His hair was a mess. He seems to suffer a bit of a mental breakdown here. He starts forgetting orders that he's given. He starts repeating himself a lot.

He's struggling. He's literally watching the Union dissolve around him. Then his Secretary of State quit because the forts were not being reinforced. Everyone starts asking around him, why aren't you reinforcing the forts in South Carolina? But if things kick off here, we need our troops in place. What troops? Why? Why are you just letting South Carolina do whatever they want? Hooray! Then, Mississippi announced that it was also thinking of seceding. Wonderful. Yeah, after all, South Carolina's been talking about it for a while,

and nothing bad's happened there, so... They also announced that Buchanan's own Secretary of the Interior was going to be their agent to discuss options. Wonderful. Yeah, that's right, a paid-up member of the federal government was going to represent the state. Yeah. Not only that, Buchanan then paid out of federal funds for the Secretary of the Interior to go to Mississippi to discuss things. He caught a bit of flack for that. Yeah. The optics are just wrong. And it also didn't help matters that his war secretary, you know, the really corrupt one. Oh, yeah, yeah. He was the most corrupt of his cabinet. He really should have been fired a while ago, but he's still in the job.

And he publicly announced that he would cut off his own hands before sending troops to the South. I hope he's held to that. So he was eventually asked to resign, but not very quickly, and he had enough time to send a large shipment of arms to the South, just in case you need them in the future. Wow. Yeah. They're enabling this. They're actively enabling division.

Well, Buchanan's found himself in a very strange position. He's the president of a United States, but he's always sided with the side who are now leaving. But it's all the people around him. Who is the puppet? Is he a puppet though? Partially. Because he agrees with everything that's going on.

But it's like, he's almost like, no, no, say this, it'll be fine, it'll be fine. Then behind his back, maybe unwittingly unaware of what's going on. He has his own view and stuff, but... But he's also actively, he's slowing things down he's allowing south carolina more time to sort themselves out i i'd say he's he's not being controlled by his cabinet he's acting in unison with his cabinet oh that's even worse yeah oh wow yeah i respect belgis even

more yeah i i personally think calling him a puppet is too kind he's just an idiot yeah so yeah things start falling around. Rumours that other states are thinking of following really start swirling around. On Christmas night, Buchanan receives news. A Major Anderson had moved to Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Right. From a nearby weak, indefensible fort. Right.

Now, Anderson had moved without any orders because he realised that they're sitting ducks. If anything does kick off here, we're in an indefensible fort. We're in a really bad position, and there's a fort just over there that's brilliant. And we're wearing bright red coats. Yeah, with targets on. We need to stop doing this.

Let's take the bells off, lads. Yeah. So, yeah, Major Anderson decides, right, let's move to the defensible fort, just in case. Yeah, an Anderson shelter, if you will. Yes. And if anything happens, then we'll be a bit safer. Now, does this count as reinforcements? It's more troop movements?

Either way, though, Buchanan was not happy, and I quote, My God, a calamity's never to come singly. Buchanan was worried that this was going to ruin part of his latest plan, which was a truce with South Carolina, keep things ticking along there, until a national convention could take place, almost like the start, right at the start of the Union, where a big national convention took place to rewrite the government and create the Constitution. What they need is a whole nation get together, a big convention, and sort slavery out once and for all. Yeah, whitewash. You can imagine what sorting slavery out once and for all meant to Buchanan and those that agreed with this idea.

That's what they've already been doing. Anyway, the delegates from South Carolina were angry at Anderson's move on Fort Sumter. So Buchanan, after talking to them, ordered Anderson back to his original indefensible position and suggested that the previous truce does continue. Many around the president start getting cold feet around this point. It's like, what are we doing here?

You have essentially ordered a death sentence to Anderson and the federal troops with him. Because if any fighting starts and they're in that position, they will be killed because it's indefensible. Yeah. You have troops in a defensible position, you're ordering them to an indefensible one. Do you think it's a retaliation? What, for Anderson's original move? Yeah. I think it was more Buchanan trying to hit the reset button.

Let's pretend that didn't happen. Ah, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So those around the president point out that this order is practically treason. You're ordering the death of US troops, or at least potentially. Many in this cabinet said... Needless death. It's like, you can send people to war and you can expect people to die, but this is a... There's got to be a reason, and there's no reason for this move.

Yeah. Yeah. Many in this cabinet say, we're going to resign if you give that order. Buchanan, therefore, was forced to say to South Carolina that Anderson would stay in Fort Sumter. So he's acquiesced to that sort of thing here. South Carolina then accused Buchanan, breaking their pledge, and demanded that the US troops get out of their fort. And this is a step too far for Buchanan. Finally, it's almost like Buchanan wakes up and goes, oh. Three in the morning. Oh my god! We're on the eve of civil war! Yeah.

He sent them away. His hand was forced. Buchanan starts listening to General Scott. And finally... Imagine that conversation. Yes. Hey, Scott! Yeah, finally he orders reinforcements to force Sumpter to hold it from the rebels. Right. A ship of men and supplies were sent on the 5th of January,

the same day that Anderson wrote to the capital saying he didn't need any supplies. Just one of those unfortunate coincidences. Yeah, but that letter was sent too late to be of any use. So as the supply ship headed into the channel towards the fort, South Carolinian batteries opened fire upon it. Wow. Yeah. That's literally the first shot.

Yeah, we're getting actual fire. Now, the ship, seeing that Fort Sumter itself was not doing anything to aid, was forced to retreat. The reason why Fort Sumter wasn't doing anything to aid is because Buchanan had not sent word to the fort about the ship. And Anderson was under strict orders not to start a war. So he was forced to just not join

in. Had to just watch as people opened fire on his own supply ship. Stop? Yeah. Then word reached Washington. Mississippi had announced that it was also leaving the Union on the 9th of January. And that opens the floodgates. Florida left the next day on the 10th.

Alabama the day after that. A week later, Georgia. Another week after, Louisiana, gone. Texas on the 1st of February. Like dominoes, southern states just start leaving the Union. So fast as well. They were all watching, waiting, what's going to happen here. It's the excuse. It's the catalyst.

And actually, I think we can do this. I think we can leave. There doesn't seem to be that much of a pushback. We'll form our own nation, our own confederate sea. Buchanan then received word from Anderson. They were in urgent need of supplies now. He didn't need them to begin with, but now he does. And South Carolina has heavily defended the area.

It would now take a major assault to keep the fort. Things are looking bad. And the next day, his presidency was up. Time to go home. Well, job well done. Time to go home. Well, John Weldon. That's me then. Lincoln was sworn in with General Scott and the army nearby, just in case. Buchanan said to the Republican,

if you're as happy in entering the White House as I am in returning to Wheatfield, you are a happy man. Lincoln probably just looked around. He was like, you complete unuttered. Buchanan then spent his retirement attempting to defend his performance as president. He regularly received death threats in the mail. Newspapers attacked him,

and even his own cabinet, who were so close and friendly to begin with, mostly refused to defend his actions as president eight years later he caught a cold he did not get better and he died at the age of 77 in his home that's a shame i'm surprised no legal action was taken i guess they were busy to be fair so that's's Buchanan wow yeah literally wow he's up there

with the worst emperors oh yeah he's just bad let's rate this mother okay just when I'm like staring in that direction I can

I can't generally read words and I can't I can't read the words on there it's too small too far away but I can see a good section and a bad section yeah they're disproportionate go on tell me the good the good

he did a lot he was in the house in the senate he was secretary of state under polk he was the ambassador to russia and to britain and then he was the president he is one of the most experienced presidents to date in terms of being in politics and having different roles. That does prove something. Like, experiences mean everything. Yeah. So there you go. That's good.

His good amounts to he should have known better. Yes. That's fantastic. All right. Bad. He was awful. Like, really, really awful. Now if we're being generous we could say he wasn't strong enough to stand up to the South. But as we already started discussing earlier, is this true? Many

historians have taken this view. He was a weak president who couldn't stand up to the South and they led him and he didn't really do anything to fight back. But he defended that. He actively pursued that though. He built the South up to be that way. He dilly dallied. That's what he did with South Carolina. Giving South Carolina more time to organise and showing the South that they

could just leave the Union. But it's like building a patio. If you dilly dally with a patio, you don't even get started with it. He laid the foundation for that patio, which was the South Rising. Not just him. He sprinkled the sand. No, it wasn't just him. I get that.

But he was the site supervisor. Yeah, exactly. He was saying, yep, put that foundation down. Yeah, that's fine. Put the sand down. Stamp it down. So, if we're being generous, we're saying that he is a weak-minded puppet of a president. That's generous.

And that's the generous. Okay, so there's that. Let's face it, he wanted the South to win over the North. Yeah. He wanted slavery to spread, and he was prepared to break the law to do it. We can't blame the Civil War on him solely, obviously, but he is a personification of the problem. Yes. He is a rich partisan politician who thought that the opposition were traitors

and therefore it doesn't matter what you do to stop them. Yeah. You're always going to be right. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't want to sound rude, but he's a massive exacerbator. Yes, he is. Yeah.

He exacerbated all through his presidency. If you constantly talk about the people who oppose you as traitors, as the enemy, then you lay a foundation to justify any action that you yourself take. Yes. Because you can't do wrong. Exactly. And that is what Buchanan did, and therefore he was fine that his cabinet were completely corrupt. They were corrupt because they were trying to defeat those traitors

in the North. The ends justify the means. Exactly. His obvious support of corruption in Kansas, and then the corruption in his own administration is obviously terrible. And his attempts to practically give Fort Sumter to South

Carolina is, as members of his own cabinet pointed out, practically treasonous. He was essentially giving forts away to what was fast becoming an enemy in a war. Also, his war hawking was not good. This doesn't really get much mention because it didn't really go anywhere because other things happened. But he was more than willing to go off and invade other countries for no reason whatsoever, just because he wanted more land. He wanted to take Cuba off Spain with no justification, and he wanted to go and invade Mexico again.

These didn't even get off the ground. But in an ideal world, that's what he would have spent his presidency doing. Yeah. So you can't even say, in fortunate circumstances, he would have been good if all this terrible stuff wasn't happening. No, if he had an ideal presidency, he would have just been a horrible war hawk. Yeah.

And last and not least at all, the Dred Scott ruling. Oh, lovely. Oh, yes. Not him personally, but strongly suspected he has a large hand in it. He has just stripped citizenship off all black people in the country and said that they have no legal recourse whatsoever. The only defence you could give to him would be he didn't directly make the decision.

No, it's a separate branch of government. It wasn't him, but some backroom chats were had. Yeah. Yeah. And that makes it almost even worse because he knows like if you have to do it that way you know it's not a good thing to do yeah you know it's divisive you know yeah probably morally he doesn't he doesn't care that's irrelevant to him because he doesn't he probably does think well yeah then they're not citizens which is worse yeah doesn't he probably does think well yeah they're not citizens which is worse yeah um so how much of a zero should we both give him i'm gonna stick to a regular zero i think a regular zero i'm gonna go all the way up to a massive zero yeah i think that's fair okay so zero zero um actually the way

we divide things into statesmanship and disgrace gate, perhaps not as much as you're thinking, but there's certainly some stuff here. He may have driven a young woman to suicide. Yeah, now the Anne Coleman affair, we don't really know the details, so is it fair that we're judging on this because maybe it was something completely different, but let's face it, he didn't come out well in that story, did he?

Okay. To tell us ranking style, we go with the most interesting because that's what our past... That's the philosophy of our podcast. That is true. Yeah. So he absolutely drove a person to suicide. Yeah. It wasn't good.

So there's that. He was a very petty individual. Yes. He, remember, refused to help out his old school because they wouldn't give him the honours at the end of the year. Why would a president be so petty? I don't, yeah, he's just these petty little grudge holding that he had. He's almost like a list of enemies he wants to get his own back on, that sort of ridiculous. He was corrupt. Now, obviously, part of that is knocking off statesmanship, but he's also got the personal philosophy that being corrupt is absolutely fine.

Yeah, there's no moral... Yeah. The events justify the means. Yeah. But his own morality is not in a good place for that to be a good... Yeah. No slaves, but he was happy to say that black people were not citizens. And that's his own moral that's his

own personal view yeah yeah so minus 20. um it's it's not great i'm gonna go let's break this down a bit we're gonna give a couple of points to the uh suicide story because it's debatable if that was certain i think i would have gone up to a four or five for that just being petty individual I give another point the corruption that influenced everything yeah his own purse I'm gonna give a three for the corruption I think because that definitely happened and then the just the horrible involvement in Dred Scott and him being happy with that I'm gonna put a four on so what's that add up to four five six seven eight oh no no I think that's too much I can't go for a full ten yes but you broke it down broke it down I'm gonna go I'm gonna go for an overall feel knowing that

we have presence in future that we might want to give more to yeah but you can still be corrupt for different things like that I would say he is very similar to Jefferson, but with an added level of corruption. Jefferson was horribly racist. Jefferson wasn't very nice to women. Jefferson, I don't know, was he petty? I can't remember offhand him being petty. So yeah, I'm going to go higher than Jefferson. You're going to go higher than Jefferson? What do I give Jefferson? Minus eight. Minus nine it is. Oh, no, no, no. We adjusted that.

We thought that was too high. We took that down to a minus seven, if I remember correctly. So, yeah, I'm going to go for minus eight. All right. I'm going to go for minus nine because there may be someone that might be worse. And that's the only reason. So minus 17. Silver screen.

Oh, see, he's going to pick up points here. This certainly is his round to score. Yeah. Okay. Born to a relatively rich family, although that family itself came from humble beginnings. Yeah. So you could pull that in. Yeah.

Dad was an orphan from Ireland, remember? Yeah. Antics at school. He was pompous. He got expelled, and then he got back in because Daddy kicked up a fuss. You could do a bit of that. The whole arguing about the honours at the end of the graduation. Then you've got a whole Anne Coleman arc with her committing suicide

at the end. That's high drama. Then his father died in a carriage accident. We speculated that he drove straight off a cliff so I mean, just the explosion as it hits the bottom for a start. Yeah. That looks good, doesn't it?

That does look good. Yeah. Then he goes to work in the House of Representatives and meets King. So you've got all of that starting. Oh, yeah. Because how would you play that? Would you go for full on, it's obviously a relationship, or would you be more suggestive with it? You could go either way, couldn't you? That's what I mean. What would you do? I personally think they were very much in a relationship or would you be more suggestive with it? You could go either way couldn't you?

That's what I mean. What would you do? I personally think they were very much in a relationship so I think I'd bring that out into the fore and just have it build up slowly until eventually it becomes very obvious with Buchanan struggling through the problems at the time, trying to find out how he did, people accusing him. You've just got high drama

out of that. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Yeah out how he did people accusing him you've just got high drama out of that yeah i was thinking the same thing yeah uh then he goes off to russia so you can do some nice snowy scenes he meets a honky monk remember yeah so that's good honky monk so you could just get some really honky monk to play your honky monk oh yeah oh i just think of the honky monk from christian bale oh that that would i'll get christian bells with the hunky monk from Peep Show. Christian Bale. Oh, that would work. I'll get Christian Bale's With a Monk. Have you seen Peep Show? Yeah. With the hunky monk? Oh, yes. The guy, yes.

Yeah, yeah. I've just got him. Yeah. He can come in and play the hunky monk. Just gets a hug. Yeah. Then back to the US. He joins the Senate.

This is where he lives with King for like over a decade. This is where he seems happy. They're going to parties. They're always seen together. So you can definitely get some good drama out of that. Again with that level of slight dread because obviously society wouldn't accept

them. Then you've got Polk's Mexican War. He's Secretary of State so you can do some stuff about that. Nice trip to Britain. The fuss with Clarendon. Queen Vic. Yeah, meeting Queen Victoria. That's nice. Back to the US. Then the whole Dred Scott stuff happens.

The Utah thing happens. The Kansas thing happens. Everything's falling apart, including his mental health. See, that's the thing, though. At the beginning, you can make him look good. A great protagonist. You can easily spin it. And then it just gets worse and worse and worse.

You think, oh, he is a horrible person. When's he going to pull it round? When's it going to... And then it doesn't. He murders. You just got him on his own with his eye twitching in his house. Great show called You on Netflix. Oh, I've seen that.

I've seen that. Oh, yeah. That. Yeah. You think it's always a bit weird and creepy, but you kind of like him, and then go, oh, no, oh no he's genuinely horrible at the end yeah and then you go you just end with disgraced retirement

I think you should get quite a lot of this it's quite good actually I don't think you'd be able to sell this I don't think there are many executives in America chomping on the bit to make the Buchanan film but you'd sell a lot of them I would argue they're missing out

on something. Yeah, I think so. I think this is actually an interesting story. It's depressing. There are hideous elements. But it's a fascinating story. I'm going to give him 6. You give him 6. I'm going to go for 7. You like it a bit more.

I'm going to give him 13. 13. So that's a minus four so far. Canvas ability. Canvas ability. What's he look like? I imagine a bit sad. I tried to look into this and I honestly couldn't find out. So if anyone knows, please let me know.

But this painting is by far the most shoddy out of all the official presidential paintings I could find. And I can only assume that's because no one really wanted to do it. They just had to pick an art student. is by far the most shoddy out of all the official presidential paintings I could find. And I can only assume that that's because no one really wanted to do it. They just had to pick an art student. Because they're usually done after the fact, and everyone's at war. Yeah. Anyway, here you go. The artist had his hands full of, oh, wow. He's got a mohawk.

He's got a bit of a pointy hairdo, hasn't he? Oh, wow, yeah, it's like a dot painting. Yeah, he just looks a bit sad and a bit... Dumb. He looks like a fish. It's not a good portrait, is it? He's got sad eyes. You can definitely get better portraits of Buchanan, clearer portraits, ones that catch him much better.

Just crying. But this is his official one, and it's just not good it's a black background and i don't know it just seems oversaturated and he just he's staring off into the middle distance in a kind of oh dear yeah you can tell he's watching his fort burn in carolina it's it's my it's my least favorite so far. Absolutely. It's dull. There's nothing to it. I will give... One.

A one. Why am I even giving it one point? Because of his hair, do I quite like his pointy hair? Yeah. There we go. So that is 0.5 for canvas ability.

Bonus! Okay, can I get a couple of bonus points here? He served one term. One term. Brilliant. He was not assassinated and no one tried to. And his election, Bonus. Okay, can I get a couple of bonus points here? He served one term. One term, brilliant. He was not assassinated and no one tried to. And his election, he only gets one point because he did not win by a landslide. Minus 1.5.

Minus 1 point. He's not last. It's his story. Yeah, well, we've just popped it into the spreadsheet. He's second to last. He's 14 out of 15. Obviously, our last place at the moment is Tyler. So Tyler, the reason why he's scored less is that his silver screen was only six, whereas

Buchanan's 13. Buchanan, however, is last place in statesmanship. He is our worst president without a doubt, in my mind. Currently. Yeah, he's the worst president currently. But he's got an interesting life story. And our final score is not who's the best president. It's who's got an interesting life story and our final score is not who's the best president.

It's who's the most interesting president. That's a minus 1.5. But there is one more question we need to ask ourselves. Is there? Not really, but let's do the sound bite anyway. American or American? No. No.

He's destroyed the union. At this point, the country is destroyed. He's destroyed the union. He's, at this point, the country is destroyed. He's destroyed a country. Yeah. Not just him, but the book stops here. Someone said that. I'm sure someone said that. Yeah.

So, yeah. He's literally destroyed a country. It's a no. It's an absolute no. It's an absolute no. And he's an absolute. Yeah. Well, you see I'm holding this bell. See the end of it. Yeah, yeah. It's an absolute no. It's an absolute no. And he's an absolute. Yeah. Well, you see I'm holding this bell.

See the end of it. Yeah. That's what it is. That's what it is. Ding-a-ling. Yeah. Well, that was depressing. He's terrible.

And what struck me with this is the history of, because a good historian, which we obviously are, compares history to modern events. It's uncannyanny isn't it? It genuinely is, it's quite scary But what's going to happen next? Wait! Abraham Lincoln, we're finally there The one I've been most looking forward to I must admit because I just want to know more about him

How far are you in the research? About half way through, I've done most of the research for the first episode I really want to keep everyone on two episodes. And if I can do Washington in two episodes and Jackson in two episodes, I'm sure I can do Lincoln in two episodes. I mean, there are other podcasts that do way more detail. Yeah. Just to warn you now, though, it's not going to be an in-depth look at the Civil War.

Go to a Civil War podcast if you want that. It's going to be a biography of Lincoln. Good. So that's next time, however. All we need to do now is say thank you very much for listening. Hope you were not too depressed after all of that. It's going to be a biography of Lincoln. Good. So, that's next time, however. All we need to do now is say thank you very much for listening. Hope you were not too depressed after all of that. And, yeah, download us,

rate us, review us, speak well of us. To your friends and family. Yes. Goodbye. Goodbye. Mr. Buchanan, Mr. President, sir. Oh, I do enjoy hearing that. Welcome to your new office. Yes. We've tidied it up a little bit.

We've got rid of all the tear stains from the pierces. Oh, yes, yes. No, lively White House. That's what I want. Gallons of champagne, whiskey, brandy. You sound fantastic, sir. Oh, yes. Here's your desk.

We've removed the twiglets above the desk, sir. Yes, I'm not entirely sure what that was about. It's real, but never mind. Come on then, lay it on me. I'm not shy of hard work, as they say. Excellent. Well, there's a problem with slavery. What?

Slavery. The problem with slavery. No problem? It's wonderful. Well, there are a few individuals, well, states, that disagree with that and feel that it is quite a big problem. Ah, don't worry. I've been chatting it over. you know, what, what, nudge, nudge, wink, wink and all that with some

of my pals, chums. Something's coming through, don't worry about that. Yes, we're just going to sort that out with a little legal case. Would this happen to be the Dred Scott case, sir? That's the one, yes, no, it's going to be sorted.

No, it's going to be illegal to disagree with me. That's what I've decided on slavery. So, yes, just cross that off the list. No one's going to be able to argue about it again. Okay. Right, crossed off. Oh, good crossed off list. I do enjoy it.

Go on, number two. The economy's collapsing, sir. We're starving. Woodworth! Actually, can I call you Chad? No. Woodworth, I'm the president. I don't need to get involved in these little personal issues

such as money. But some needs are sorted, sir. They are sorted out themselves if they work badly hard enough. Now, next. Cross it off. People are starving, sir. My wife died of dysentery like two days ago. Exactly. No one dead's ever complained of hunger. Cross it off. Um,

crossed off. Next, this Church of Latter Day Saints. Ah, the cult. A bit insensitive, sir. No, I've been thinking about this. I think we just send some armed troops over and give them what for. It's very British of you, sir. Look, I'm the president, and what happens in personal houses is exactly my responsibility. I'm the president, and what happens in personal houses is exactly my responsibility. So, we're going to send some troops over there and send some politicians.

Just sort it out. Look, just flex a bit of muscle. They're cave. Oh, good God. Anyway, cross it off. Bleeding Kansas. There's blood everywhere. Literally.

Yes. Now, I must admit, this one is a bit tricky. I did have to have a think about this over the cornflakes. Two governments, you say? Yes, two governments. Right, and you say one's illegal and one was put in, well, essentially illegally with dubious elections, yes? Yes. It's really hard to choose between the two. Can't put a piece of paper there.

Do they have any differences at all? Which government shall I go for? Well, there are two distinct differences, sir. Yes. One is very, very, very pro-slavery. Go for that one. Would you care to hear the other option? No, no, you've sold it to me.

Born salesman, you are. No, it's an abhorrence of God. We'll call it the Whitworth Amendment. No, good God. Right, OK. Yes, so that government's in charge now. We just need to pass the Constitution. Oh, actually, people are going to object, aren't they?

They may. Right, here you go. Have this wad of cash. Just, like, spread that around. This may be considered illegal, sir. Only by knaves and fools and Republicans. So don't worry about that. No, no, that's fine. Just spread the love.

We'll soon get that one through. Cross that off. Anything else? Yes, there's just one more tiny issue that I feel needs your attention. Oh, yes. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas have all

seceded from the Union. Well, that's my time done. Who's the next chap in? Do you not remember that advert? There's a Twiglet advert. There's lots of Twiglets just hanging from the ceiling and someone looking really scared. It's a very strange advert.

Yeah, I don't know why that popped into my head, but it did. Anyway.