U.S. Representative, Senator, Secretary of State under Polk, minister to Russia & Great Britain. Fifteenth President of the United States, and the only bachelor in the White House.

James Buchanan became President of United States in 1856 just as the nation reached the crisis point over the slavery issue. He had been a compromise candidate. He was a Northerner and was personally opposed to slavery. Yet, since the Constitution specifically permitted slavery, he had vowed to uphold that law. He saw his job as one of keeping the peace between the two regions. In that he succeeded; it wasn't until the new Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln that South Carolina actually seceded.

Buchanan lived with his partner, Alabama Senator Rufus DeVane King, for 24 years. King died four years before Buchanan became president. Andrew Jackson and writers of the time called him "Miss Nancy" or "Aunt Fancy." Gossip columnists of the day referred to them as '"The Siamese Twins" and even "Buchanan and His Wife."

Rumors about his sexual orientation began circulating in 1857, and remain the subject of speculation to this day. As the country's only bachelor president, writer Carl Sferrazza Anthony fueled the debate over Buchanan sexual orientation, with his discovery of two letters to Buchanan by Alabama Senator William Rufus de Vane King (1786-1853), with whom Buchanan shared rooms in Washington, D.C. Buchanan's grave was recently (1994) vandalized, and unkind words about his sexuality were spray-painted on his tombstone.