James Buchanan: Inaugural Address

In his Inaugural Address as fifteenth U.S. president, James Buchanan urged the nation to accept slavery's constitutionality as the first step to quell ongoing agitation on the issue. Buchanan took office at a time when the United States was well on the way to civil war. The nation's dispute over slavery was steadily intensifying and, indeed, reaching fever pitch. At the same time, the Supreme Court was considering the constitutionality of restricting slavery in the territories. In his address, Buchanan pledged to support the principle of popular sovereignty and voiced the hope that the Supreme Court would soon have the last word on the question of slavery in the territories, bringing to an end further divisiveness and sectional strife. Two days after he took office, a decision was reached in Dred Scott v. Sandford, denying that Congress could legislate on the issue of slavery in the territories or delegate that authority to the residents of the territory. By the time Buchanan's term ended, the southern states were seceding from the Union in the wake of the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln in November 1860. Buchanan, who thought secession was unconstitutional but that the government had no authority to stop it, could only look on as the Union splintered.