James Buchanan
Born: April 23, 1791
Died: June 1, 1868
Term in Office: 1857-1861
This guy is on a lot of 'worst President' lists, so I'm not gonna rag on him too much. I figure others have covered that in depth.
In researching him I found one site that brought up a story of him buying slaves in order to free them. What a guy, I thought.
The story is only true on the surface. Facing a Senate election in 1834, he learned that his sister, living in Virginia, owned a mother and daughter pair of slaves, Daphne and Ann Cook. Though he was a proponent of states' right to decide the slavery issue for themselves, he was running as an abolitionist. He bought the pair from his sister's household... and put them into his own personal servitude, indenturing 22-year-old Daphne to work for his housekeeper for five years before becoming truly free and keeping 5-year-old Ann on as a servant for 23 years prior to gaining freedom.
Yeah, what a guy.
Peace to all, and get the whole story on what you see online (yeah, in what you see in the blog from yours truly, too).
Thanks to www.history.com for giving me the whole story.
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