Buchanan Administration - Buchanan and Congress
Buchanan and Congress
Buchanan presided over a fragmented and hostile Congress, and he sought to resolve the growing conflicts between North and South through compromise and constitutional argument. Every political choice he made, however, seemed to anger the North without appeasing the South. Even before his inauguration, he clashed with antislavery advocates over the Dred Scott decision, which voided the right of Congress to ban slavery from the territories (See also, Buchanan and the Judiciary). Shortly after he became president, Buchanan squandered much of his remaining goodwill with northerners in Congress when he supported Kansas's pro-slavery Lecompton constitution, even though the majority of Kansas voters opposed it (See also, Domestic Issues).
The Kansas issue was essentially a question of who would control Congress in the future: if Kansas was admitted as a free state, the southerners would lose...
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