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James Buchanan

James Buchanan

: For the economist of this name, see James M. Buchanan. James Buchanan (April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868) was the 15th president of the United States (1857–1861). He was the only bachelor president, and the only resident of Pennsylvania to hold that office. He has been criticized for failing to prevent the country from sliding into schism and the American Civil War and generally lacking good judgment and moral courage. As a result, he is considered, together with his predecessor President Franklin Pierce, to be one of the worst presidents in U.S. history.

Biography

Buchanan was a Representative and a Senator from Pennsylvania. He was born in a log cabin at Cove Gap, near Mercersburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, on April 23, 1791 to James Buchanan and Elizabeth Spear. He moved to Mercersburg with his parents in 1799, was privately tutored and then attended the village academy and was graduated from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In 1809 he moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The same year he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1812 and practiced in Lancaster. He was one of the first volunteers in the War of 1812 and served in the defense of Baltimore, Maryland. He was a member of the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives from 1814 to 1815. He was elected to the Seventeenth and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1821 - March 3, 1831). He was chairman of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary (Twenty-first Congress). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1830. Buchanan served as one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1830 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against James H. Peck, judge of the United States District Court for the District of Missouri. Buchanan served as Minister to Russia from 1832 to 1834. Buchanan was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of William Wilkins. He served from December 6, 1834; was reelected in 1837 and 1843, and resigned on March 5, 1845, to accept a Cabinet portfolio. He was chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations (Twenty-fourth through Twenty-sixth Congresses). Buchanan served as Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President James K. Polk from 1845 to 1849, during which he negotiated the 1846 Oregon Treaty establishing the 49th parallel as the northern boundary in the western U.S. No Secretary of State has become President since James Buchanan. In 1853, Buchanan was named president of the Board of Trustees of Franklin and Marshall College in his hometown of Lancaster. He served in this capacity until 1865. He served as Minister to the United Kingdom from 1853 to 1856, during which time he helped to draft the Ostend Manifesto which proposed the purchase of Cuba under the threat of force.

Presidency

The Democrats nominated Buchanan in 1856 largely because he was in England during the Kansas-Nebraska debate, and thus remained untainted by either side of the issue. Millard Fillmore's "Know-Nothing" candidacy helped Buchanan defeat John C. Frémont, the first Republican candidate for president in 1856 and he served from March 4, 1857 to March 3, 1861. In regard to the growing schism in the country, as President-elect he intended to sit out the crisis by maintaining a sectional balance in his appointments and persuading the people to accept constitutional law as the Supreme Court interpreted it. The Court was considering the legality of restricting slavery in the territories, and two justices hinted to Buchanan what the decision would be. In his inaugural address, besides promising not to run again, Buchanan referred to the territorial question as "happily, a matter of but little practical importance" since the Supreme Court was about to settle it "speedily and finally." Two days later Chief Justice Roger B. Taney delivered the Dred Scott Decision, asserting that Congress had no constitutional power to exclude slavery in the territories. Much of Taney’s written judgment is widely interpreted as obiter dictum — statements made by a judge that are unnecessary to the outcome of the case, which in this case, while they delighted Southerners, created a furor in the North. Buchanan was widely believed to have been personally involved in the outcome of the case, with many Northerners recalling Taney whispering to Buchanan during Buchanan's inauguration. Buchanan wished to see the territorial question resolved by the Supreme Court. To further this, Buchanan personally lobbied his fellow Pennsylvanian Justice Robert Cooper Grier to vote with the majority in that case to uphold the right of owning slave property. Buchanan, however, faced further hardship on the territorial question. Buchanan threw the full prestige of his administration behind congressional approval of the Lecompton Constitution in Kansas, which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state, going so far as to offer patronage appointments and even cash bribes in exchange for votes. The Lecompton government was wildly unpopular to Northerners, as it was dominated by slaveholders who had enacted laws curtailing the rights of non-slaveholders. Even though the voters in Kansas had rejected the Lecompton Constitution, Buchanan managed to ram his bill through the House, but it was blocked in the Senate by Northerners led by Stephen A. Douglas. Eventually, Congress voted to call a new vote on the Lecompton Constitution, a move which infuriated Southerners. Buchanan, meanwhile, was by now tremendously unpopular in the North. Economic troubles also plagued Buchanan's administration with the outbreak of the Panic of 1857. The government suddenly faced a shortfall of revenue, due in part to the Democrats' successful push to lower the tariff. Buchanan's administration, at the behest of Treasury Secretary Howell Cobb, began issuing deficit financing for the government, a move which flew in the face of two decades of Democratic support for hard-money policies and allowed Republicans to attack Buchanan for financial mismanagement. When Republicans won a plurality in the House in 1858, every significant bill they passed fell before southern votes in the Senate or a Presidential veto. The Federal Government reached a stalemate. Bitter hostility between Northern and Southern members prevailed on the floor of Congress, where memories of the caning of Charles Sumner in 1856 by a Southern Democrat still burned. Sectional strife rose to such a pitch in 1860 that the Democratic Party split. The southern wing walked out of the convention and nominated its own candidate for the presidency, incumbent vice-president John C. Breckinridge, whom Buchanan refused to support. Consequently, when the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, it was a foregone conclusion that he would be elected even though his name appeared on no southern ballot. Rather than accept a Republican administration, the southern "Fire-Eaters" advocated secession. President Buchanan, dismayed and hesitant, denied the legal right of states to secede but held that the Federal Government legally could not prevent them. He hoped for compromise, but secessionist leaders did not want it. Then Buchanan took a more militant tack. As several Cabinet members resigned, he appointed Northerners, and chartered the civilian steamer Star of the West to secretly carry reinforcements and supplies to Fort Sumter. However, the attempt to maintain secrecy failed. Newspapers published stories that the ship was headed for Charleston, and South Carolina officials received confirmation from Louis T. Wigfall, still a United States senator from Texas, as well as from Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior, Jacob Thompson of Mississippi. In the early morning of January 9, 1861, South Carolina's batteries opened on the Star of the West. The unarmed ship was caught in a crossfire. Receiving no assistance from Fort Sumter, it turned back to New York after suffering minor damage. As a result of the operation, Thompson resigned from the cabinet. As such, the first shots of the American Civil War were fired during the Buchanan Administration. Before he left office, seven slave states seceded, several seizing other federal forts and property within their boundaries. Buchanan retired to his home "Wheatland," near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he died June 1, 1868, at the age of 77. He was interred in Woodward Hill Cemetery, in Lancaster. On the day before his death, he predicted that "history will vindicate my memory," but historians continue mainly to denigrate him.

Cabinet

Supreme Court appointments

Buchanan appointed the following Justice to the Supreme Court of the United States:
- Nathan Clifford - 1858

States admitted to the Union

- Minnesota – May 11, 1858
- Oregon – February 14, 1859
- Kansas – January 29, 1861

External links

- [http://www.usa-presidents.info/inaugural/buchanan.html Inaugural Address]
- [http://tompaine.com/Archive/scontent/2458.html The Other Buchanan Controversy]
- [http://www.usa-presidents.info/union/buchanan-1.html First State of the Union Address of James Buchanan]
- [http://www.usa-presidents.info/union/buchanan-2.html Second State of the Union Address of James Buchanan]
- [http://www.usa-presidents.info/union/buchanan-3.html Third State of the Union Address of James Buchanan]
- [http://www.usa-presidents.info/union/buchanan-4.html Fourth State of the Union Address of James Buchanan]
- [http://www.americanpresident.org/history/jamesbuchanan University of Virginia article: Buchanan biography]
- [http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jb15.html White House Biography]
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- [http://ca.geocities.com/econ_0909meet/buchanan-lecture.html James M. Buchanan Jr. – Prize Lecture] Buchanan, James Buchanan, James Buchanan, James Buchanan, James Buchanan, James Buchanan, James Buchanan, James Buchanan, James Buchanan, James Buchanan, James Buchanan, James ko:제임스 뷰캐넌 ja:ジェームズ・ブキャナン

James M. Buchanan

For the president of this name, see James Buchanan. James McGill Buchanan Jr. (born October 3, 1919) is an American economist most renowned for his work on Public Choice Theory, and who won the 1986 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. He originally graduated from Middle Tennessee Normal School in 1940. He has long been professor at George Mason University. He has also held teaching positions at the University of Virginia (founding the Thomas Jefferson center), UCLA, and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute (with the [http://www.gmu.edu/centers/publicchoice/ Center for the Study of Public Choice]). He moved with the center to its new home at GMU. His work in economics included a rigorous analysis of the theory of logrolling. His book The Calculus of Consent is considered to be one of the classic works that founded the discipline of public choice in economics and political science.

List of publications

- [http://www.econlib.org/library/Buchanan/buchCContents.html The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan] by James M. Buchanan, at the [http://www.econlib.org Library of Economics and Liberty]. Multi-volume work; copyrighted but free to read and access; fully searchable online. Includes:

Public Principles of Public Debt: A Defense and Restatement,

The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy,

Public Finance in Democratic Process: Fiscal Institutions and Individual Choice,

The Demand and Supply of Public Goods,

Cost and Choice: An Inquiry in Economic Theory,

The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan,

Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes,

The Power to Tax: Analytical Foundations of a Fiscal Constitution,

The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy,

External links

- [http://www.gmu.edu/jbc/faculty_bios/buchananbio.html Biography at GMU]
- [http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Buchanan.html Biography of James M. Buchanan] at the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

1791

1791 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar).

Events

- Unknown date - First American ship reaches Japan
- January 25 - The British Parliament passes the Constitutional Act of 1791, splitting the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada
- March 4 - Vermont is admitted as the 14th U.S. state.
- May 3 - The Polish Sejm (Parliament) proclaims the Constitution of third May, the first modern codified constitution in Europe
- July 14 - The Priestley Riots in Birmingham, England.
- June 20 - The French Royal Family is captured when they try to flee in disguise
- August 26 - John Fitch is granted a patent for the steamboat in the United States.
- December 4 - The first issue of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, is published.
- December 15 - Ratification by the states of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution is completed, creating the United States Bill of Rights. Two additional amendments remain pending, and one of these is finally ratified in 1992, becoming the Twenty-seventh Amendment.
- Slave rebellion in Haiti has begun
- Brandenburg Gate in Berlin finished

Ongoing events

- French Revolution (1789-1799)

Births

- January 15 - Franz Grillparzer, Austrian writer (d. 1872)
- January 28 - Louis Joseph Ferdinand Herold, French composer (d. 1833)
- February 21 - Carl Czerny, Austrian composer (d. 1857)
- Feburary 21 - John Mercer, chemist and industrialist (d. 1866)
- April 23 - James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States (d. 1868)
- April 27 - Samuel Morse, American inventor (d. 1872)
- July 26 - Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, Austrian composer and pianist (d. 1844)
- September 22 - Michael Faraday, British scientist (d. 1867)
- September 26 - Théodore Géricault, French writer (d. 1824)
- November 11 - Josef Munzinger, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1855)
- December 26 - Charles Babbage, British mathematician and inventor (d. 1871)

Deaths

- January 11 - William Williams Pantycelyn, Welsh hymnist (b. 1717)
- March 2 - John Wesley, English founder of Methodism (b. 1703)
- March 14 - Johann Salomo Semler, German historian and Bible commentator (b. 1725)
- April 19 - Richard Price, Welsh philosopher (b. 1723)
- May 9 - Francis Hopkinson, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1737)
- June 5 - Frederick Haldimand, Swiss-born British colonial governor (b. 1718)
- June 10 - Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte, French admiral (b. 1720)
- July 17 - Martin Dobrizhoffer, Austrian Jesuit missionary (b. 1717)
- July 25 - Isaac Low, American delegate to the Continental Congress (b. 1735)
- August 16 - Charles-François de Broglie, marquis de Ruffec, French soldier and diplomat (b. 1719)
- September 25 - William Bradford, American printer (b. 1719)
- December 5 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer (b. 1756) Category:1791 ko:1791년 ms:1791

1868

1868 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar).

Events

- January 3 - Meiji Emperor declares "Meiji Restoration", his own restoration to full power, against the supporters of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
- January 6 - Asa Mercer and number of new "Mercer Girls" sail from Massachusetts for West Coast - they arrive in Seattle in May 23
- January 10 - Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu declares emperor's declaration "illegal" and attacks Kyoto. Pro-Emperor forces drive his troops away. Shogun surrenders in May.
- February 13 - The War Office sanctions the formation of what will become the Army Post Office Corps
- February 16 - In New York City the Jolly Corks organization is renamed the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE).
- February 24 - The first parade to have floats occurs at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana.
- February 24 - After Andrew Johnson tried to dismiss United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, he becomes the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. Johnson would later be acquitted by the United States Senate.
- March 5 - A court of impeachment is organized in the United States Senate to hear charges against President Andrew Johnson.
- March 23 - The University of California is founded in Oakland, California when the Organic Act is signed into California law.
- April 1 - Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute is established in Hampton, Virginia
- March 24 - Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is formed.
- May 16 - President Andrew Johnson is acquitted during his impeachment trial, by one vote in the United States Senate.
- May 30 - Memorial Day is observed in the United States for the first time (it was proclaimed on May 5 by General John Logan).
- May 31 - Thomas Spence declares himself president of the Republic of Manitoba. He soon alienates the locals
- July 5 - Preacher William Booth establishes the Christian Mission, predecessor of the Salvation Army, in the East End of London
- July 25 - Wyoming becomes a United States territory.
- July 28 - The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is adopted guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.
- late September - Queen Isabella II of Spain effectively deposed and goes into exile; she will formally abdicate June 25, 1870.
- September 23 - Rebels in the town of Lares declare Puerto Rico independent. Local militia defeats them a week later.
- October 28 - Thomas Edison applied for his first patent, the electric vote recorder.
- November - Ulysses S. Grant defeats Horatio Seymour in the U.S. presidential election.
- November 2 - New Zealand officially adopts nationally observed standard time, and was perhaps the first country to do so.
- December 25 - US President Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War rebels.
- November 27 - Indian Wars: Battle of Washita River - In the early morning, United States Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on a band of peaceful Cheyenne living on reservation land with Chief Black Kettle, killing 103 Cheyenne (later regarded as the first substantial US victory in the war).
- Thomas Henry Huxley discovers what he thinks is a primordial matter and names it bathybius haecklii (he admits his mistake in 1871)
- German ophthalmologist August Rothmund defines Rothmund-Thompson's syndrome.
- First edition of the World Almanac published.
- Académie Julian - a major art school in Paris, France that admitted women.

Births

- January 9 - S.P.L. Sørensen, Danish chemist (d. 1939)
- January 31 - Theodore William Richards, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)
- February 10 - William Allen White, American journalist (d. 1944)
- February 23 - W.E.B. DuBois, American civil rights leader (d. 1963)
- March 22 - Robert Millikan, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1953)
- March 25 - William Lockwood, English cricketer (d. 1932)
- March 28 - Maxim Gorky, Russian author (d. 1936)
- April 10 - George Arliss, English actor (d. 1946)
- May 6 - Nicholas II of Russia (d. 1918)
- May 6 - Gaston Leroux, French writer (d. 1927)
- May 29 - Abdul Mejid II, last Caliph of the Ottoman Empire (d. 1944)
- June 7 - Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Scottish architect (d. 1928)
- June 14 - Karl Landsteiner, Austrian biologist and physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1943)
- June 18 - Georges Lacombe, French artist (d. 1916)
- July 12 - Stefan George, German poet (d. 1933)
- July 14 - Gertrude Bell, English archaeologist, writer, spy, and administrator (d. 1926)
- August 26 - Charles Stewart, Premier of Alberta (d. 1946)
- September 1 - Henri Bourassa, Canadian politician and publisher (d. 1952).
- October 18 - Ernst Didring, Swedish writer (d. 1931)
- November 8 - Felix Hausdorff, German mathematician (d. 1942)
- November 9 - Marie Dressler, Canadian actress (d. 1934)
- November 24 - Scott Joplin, American musician and composer (d. 1917)
- December 9 - Fritz Haber, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1934)

Deaths

- February 11 - Léon Foucault, French astronomer (b. 1819)
- February 29 - King Ludwig I of Bavaria (b. 1786)
- March 4 - Jesse Chisholm, American pioneer (b. 1805)
- March 28 - James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, British military leader (b. 1797)
- April - Isami Kondo, Japanese fighter (b. 1834)
- April 3 - Franz Berwald, Swedish composer (b. 1796)
- April 7 - Thomas D'Arcy McGee, Irish-Canadian journalist, politician and Canadian father of confederation (assassinated) (b. 1825)
- May 7 - Henry Peter Brougham, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1778)
- May 23 - Kit Carson, American trapper, scout, and Indian agent (b. 1809)
- June 1 - James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States (b. 1791)
- June 22 - Heber C. Kimball, Mormon church leader (b. 1801)
- September 26 - August Ferdinand Möbius, German mathematician and astronomer (b. 1790)
- October 17 - Laura Secord, Canadian patriot (b. 1775)
- November 13 - Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer (b. 1792)
- November 15 - James Mayer Rothschild, German-born banker (b. 1792)
- December 6 - August Schleicher, German linguist (b. 1821)
- Charles Thomas Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1794)
- August Ferdinand Möbius, German mathematician and theoretical astronomer (b. 1790) Category:1868 ko:1868년 ms:1868 simple:1868 th:พ.ศ. 2411

President of the United States

The President of the United States (unofficially abbreviated "POTUS") is the head of state of the United States. Under the U.S. Constitution, the President is also the chief executive of the federal government and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The full title is President of the United States of America. Because of the superpower status of the United States, the American President is widely considered to be the most powerful person on Earth, and is usually one of the world's best-known public figures. During the Cold War, the President was sometimes referred to as "the leader of the free world," a phrase that is still invoked today. The United States was the first nation to create the office of President as the head of state in a modern republic. Today the office is widely emulated all over the world in nations with a presidential system of government. Many countries with a parliamentary system also have an office named "president", but the roles of this office vary widely, and the President in such systems usually has far more limited powers than the Prime Minister. The 43rd and current President of the United States is George W. Bush. His first term ran from January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2005; his second term began on January 20, 2005 and ends on January 20, 2009; and President Bush is constitutionally barred from a third term.

Requirements to hold office

Section One of Article II of the U.S. Constitution establishes the requirements one must meet in order to become President. The president must be a natural-born citizen of the United States (or a citizen of the United States at the time the U.S. Constitution was adopted), be at least 35 years old, and have been a resident of the United States for 14 years. The natural-born citizenship requirement has been the subject of controversy. Critics argue that this requirement arbitrarily excludes some highly qualified candidates for the Presidency. They also charge that supporters fail to appreciate the contributions made by immigrants to American society. Proponents of the requirement argue that the requirement helps to ensure that the President fully understands and is a part of the American people and their outlook. Proponents also argue that the clause helps protect the country from foreign interference—another country could send an emigrant to the United States and through subterfuge get them elected. Many prominent public officials, such as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA; born in Austria) and Governor Jennifer Granholm (D-MI; born in Canada), are barred from the presidency because they were not natural-born citizens. Constitutional amendments are occasionally proposed to remove or modify this requirement, but none have been successful.

Election

Presidential elections are held every four years. Presidents are elected indirectly, through the Electoral College. The President and the Vice President are the only two nationally elected officials in the United States. (Legislators are elected on a state-by-state basis; other executive officers and judges are appointed.)

Old system

Originally, each elector voted for two people for President. The votes were tallied and the person receiving the greatest number of votes (provided that such a number was a majority of electors) became President, while the individual who was in second place became Vice President.

Current system

The Amendment XII in 1804 changed the electoral process by directing the electors to use separate ballots to vote for the President and Vice President. To be elected, a candidate must receive a majority of electoral votes, or if no candidate receives a majority, the President and Vice President are chosen by the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, as necessary.

Campaign

The modern Presidential election process begins with the primary elections, during which the major parties (currently the Democrats and the Republicans) each select a nominee to unite behind; the nominee in turn selects a running mate to join him on the ticket as the Vice Presidential candidate. The two major candidates then face off in the general election, usually participating in nationally televised debates before Election Day and campaigning across the country to explain their views and plans to the voters. Much of the modern electoral process is concerned with winning swing states, through frequent visits and mass media advertising drives.

Inauguration and oath of office

mass media Since 1933, with the ratification of Amendment XX, a newly elected President, or a re-elected incumbent, is sworn into office on January 20 of the year following the election, an event called Inauguration Day. Although the Chief Justice of the United States usually administers the presidential oath of office, the Constitution does not specify any requirements; thus, anyone with the legal authority to administer oaths can perform the duty. In accordance with Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 8 of the Constitution, upon entering office, the President must take the following oath or affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Only presidents Franklin Pierce and Herbert Hoover have chosen to affirm rather than swear. The oath is traditionally ended with, "So help me God," although for religious reasons some Presidents have said, "So help me", or "and thus I swear." On Inauguration Day, following the oath of office, the President customarily delivers an inaugural address which sets the tone for his administration. These addresses can reach the level of high oratory, from such stand-alone lines as Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," to entire speeches, such as Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.

Term(s) of office

Under the Constitution, the President serves a four-year term. Amendment XXII (which took effect in 1951 and was first applied to Dwight D. Eisenhower starting in 1953) limits the president to either two four-year terms or a maximum of ten years in office should he have succeeded to the Presidency previously and served two years at most completing his predecessor's term. Since then, three presidents have served two full terms: Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. Incumbent President George W. Bush would become the fourth if he completes his current (and second) term in 2009. (Richard Nixon was elected to a second term but resigned before completing it.)

Succession

The United States presidential line of succession is a detailed list of government officials to serve or act as President upon a vacancy in the office due to death, resignation, or removal from office (by impeachment and conviction). impeachment, following the assassination of John F. Kennedy]] The line of 17 begins with the Vice President and ends with the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Legislation to add the Secretary of Homeland Security to the line of succession is pending in Congress. The Constitution provided that, if a President were to die, resign, or be removed from office, the "powers and duties" of the office would devolve upon the Vice President, Article II, Section 1 (which seems to imply the position of acting president), and that he [Vice President] shall "exercise the office of President of the United States," Article I, Section 2 (which seems to imply actual assumption of the presidency itself). People did not agree as to the exact meaning and intention of the text, and whether the Vice President would succeed to the office of President or merely act as President. After the death of William Henry Harrison, however, Vice President John Tyler asserted that he had become the President, not merely Acting President, and this precedent was followed in all subsequent cases. The 25th amendment eliminated this ambiguity by confirming that the Vice President fully becomes President, not Acting President, if the presidency becomes vacant. It sets the Vice President first in the line of succession and spells out a process for him to serve as Acting President should the President become temporarily disabled. A provision of the United States Code () establishes the rest of the succession line. To date, no officer other than the Vice President has been called upon to act as President.

Powers

The President, according to the Constitution, must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." To carry out this responsibility, the president presides over the executive branch of the federal government; a vast organization of about 4 million people, including 1 million active-duty military personnel. A President-elect will make as many as 6,000 appointments to government positions, including appointments to the federal judiciary. The Senate must consent to all judicial appointments as well as the appointments of all principal officers. The President may veto laws made by the United States Congress but cannot personally initiate laws. Congress can overturn the veto with a two-thirds majority in both houses. He is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The President may make treaties, but the Senate must ratify them by a two-thirds supermajority. The political scientist Richard Neustadt said, "Presidential power is the power to persuade and the power to persuade is the ability to bargain". He was commenting on the fact that the President's domestically constitutional power is limited, despite the modern expectation of Presidents to have a legislative program, and successful bargaining with Congress is usually essential to Presidential success.

Presidential salary and benefits

Salary

The First U.S. Congress voted to pay George Washington a salary of $25,000 a year—a significant sum in 1789. (Washington, already a successful man, refused to accept his salary.) Traditionally, the President is the highest-paid government employee. Consequently, the President's salary serves as a traditional cap for all other federal officials, such as the Chief Justice. A raise for 2001 was approved by Congress and President Bill Clinton in 1999 because other officials who receive annual cost-of-living increases had salaries approaching the President's. Consequently, to raise the salaries of the other federal employees, the President's salary had to be raised as well. While far higher than the median wage in the United States, in modern times the President's salary is paltry compared to the Chief Executive Officers of many publicly-listed companies, and indeed modern Presidents have typically earned far more in the corporate world after the end of their term than they did as President.

Residences

Chief Executive Officer Among the many non-salary benefits are living and working in the White House mansion in Washington, DC The President's principal workplace and official residence is the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW in Washington, DC. His official vacation or weekend residence is Camp David in Maryland. Many presidents have also had their own homes.

Travelling

While travelling, the President is able to conduct all the functions of the office aboard several specially built Boeing 747s, known as Air Force One. The President travels around Washington in an armored Cadillac limousine, often referred to informally as "Cadillac One," equipped with bullet-proof windows and tires and a self-contained ventilation system in the event of a biological or chemical attack. When traveling longer distances around the Washington area or on presidential trips, the President travels aboard the presidential helicopter, Marine One. The President also has the use of: Army One, Coast Guard One, Executive One, and Navy One. Additionally, the President has full use of Camp David in Maryland, a retreat which is occasionally used as a casual setting for hosting foreign dignitaries.

Secret Service

The President and his family are always protected by a Secret Service detail. Until 1997, all former Presidents and their families were protected by the Secret Service until the President's death. The last President to have lifetime Secret Service protection is Bill Clinton; George W. Bush and all subsequent Presidents will be protected by the Secret Service for a maximum of 10 years after leaving office.

Benefits after Presidency

Presidents continue to enjoy other benefits after leaving office such as free mailing privileges, free office space, the right to hold a diplomatic passport and budgets for office help and staff assistance. However, it was not until after Harry S. Truman (1958) that Presidents received a pension after they left office. Additionally, since the presidency of Herbert Hoover, Presidents receive funding from the National Archives and Records Administration upon leaving office to establish their own presidential library. These are not traditional libraries, but rather repositories for preserving and making available the papers, records, and other historical materials for each President since Herbert Hoover.

Officeholders

: See: List of Presidents of the United States.

Timeline

- Martin Van Buren, born December 5, 1782, was the first president born after the Declaration of Independence and was thus arguably the first president who was not born a British subject. Interestingly, he is also the first president not of Anglo-Celtic origin.
- John Tyler, born March 29, 1790, was the first president born after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution. All presidents born before him were eligible to be president because they were citizens at the time the Constitution was adopted. (Zachary Taylor was born on November 24, 1784, before the Constitution was adopted).
- Franklin Pierce, born November 23, 1804, was the first president born in the 19th century. (Millard Fillmore was born January 7, 1800, the last year of the 18th century.)
- Warren Harding, born November 2, 1865, was the first president born after the American Civil War. Robert E. Lee surrendered April 9, 1865.
- John F. Kennedy, born May 29, 1917, was the first person born in the 20th century to become president (1961).
- Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, was born on August 27, 1908. Three other Presidents who followed Johnson in office were also born before Kennedy (in order of birth, Reagan, Nixon, and Ford).
- Jimmy Carter, born October 1, 1924, was the first person born after World War I to become president.
- George H. W. Bush, who succeeded Carter's successor, was born on June 12, 1924.
- Bill Clinton, born August 19, 1946, was the first person born after World War II to become president.
- Clinton's successor, George W. Bush, was born July 6, 1946.

Life after the Presidency

1946, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and their wives at the funeral of President Richard Nixon on April 27, 1994.]] After a president of the U.S. leaves office, the title "President" continues to be applied to that person the rest of his life. Former presidents continue to be important national figures, and in some cases go on to successful post-presidential careers:
- John Quincy Adams enjoyed a prosperous career in the House of Representatives after his term in the White House.
- Andrew Johnson was elected to the same Senate that tried his impeachment, although he died before he could take office.
- Theodore Roosevelt wrote many books, went on safari, toured Europe, ran again for President in 1912, went on an expedition into the Brazilian jungle where he discovered the Rio Roosevelt, and was widely believed to be the front-runner for the 1920 presidential elecion when he died in 1919.
- William Howard Taft became Chief Justice of the United States.
- Jimmy Carter has been a global human rights campaigner and best-selling writer.
- George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton teamed together to appeal for donations from Americans after the Asian tsunami of 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. As of 2005, there are four living former presidents: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The most recently deceased President is Ronald Reagan, who died in June 2004. There have never been more than five former presidents alive at any given time in American history. There have been three periods during which five former presidents were alive:
- From March 4, 1861 to January 18, 1862, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan were living (during the Lincoln Administration, until the death of Tyler).
- From January 20, 1993 to April 22, 1994, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush were living (during the Clinton Administration, until the death of Nixon).
- From January 20, 2001 to June 5, 2004, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton were living (during the G.W. Bush Administration, until the death of Reagan). There have been six periods in American history during which no former presidents were alive:
- (beginning of time) – March 3, 1797: until the first President left office, there could be no former presidents, alive or otherwise.
- December 14, 1799 – March 3, 1801: from the death of former President George Washington until incumbent President John Adams left office (no former president would die until Adams and his successor, Thomas Jefferson, both did so on July 4 1826).
- July 31, 1875 – March 3, 1877: from the death of former President Andrew Johnson until incumbent President Ulysses Grant left office (no former president would die until Grant did so in 1885 although incumbent President James Garfield was assassinated in 1881).
- June 24, 1908 – March 3, 1909: from the death of former President Grover Cleveland until incumbent President Theodore Roosevelt left office (no former president would die until Roosevelt did so in 1919).
- January 5, 1933 – March 3, 1933: from the death of former President Calvin Coolidge until incumbent President Herbert Hoover left office (no former president would die until Hoover did so in 1964 although incumbent President Franklin Roosevelt died in office in 1945 and incumbent President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963).
- January 22, 1973 – August 9, 1974: from the death of former President Lyndon Johnson until incumbent President Richard Nixon resigned (no former president would die until Nixon did so in 1994). Herbert Hoover had the longest post-presidency, 31 years. He left office in 1933 and died in 1964. Still alive today is Gerald Ford, who has been an ex-president for 28 years, as of 2005. James K. Polk had the shortest post-presidency. He died on June 15, 1849, a mere three months after the expiration of his term. Between the birth of George Washington in 1732 and the birth of Bill Clinton in 1946, future presidents have been born in every decade except two: the 1810s and the 1930s. Between the death of George Washington in 1799 and the present, presidents or ex-presidents have died in every decade except four: the 1800s, 1810s, 1950s, and 1980s.

Presidential facts

Transition events

- Four U.S. Presidents have been assassinated while in office:
- Abraham Lincoln in 1865 by John Wilkes Booth
- James Garfield in 1881 by Charles J. Guiteau (Guiteau shot him but Garfield arguably died due to subsequent incorrect medical care)
- William McKinley in 1901 by Leon Czolgosz
- John F. Kennedy in 1963, officially by Lee Harvey Oswald alone[http://www.archives.gov/research_room/jfk/warren_commission/warren_commission_report_chapter1.html] although many theories suggest additional gunmen or a different person altogether. [http://www.archives.gov/research_room/jfk/house_select_committee/committee_report_gunmen.html]
- Four others died in office of natural causes:
- William Henry Harrison, died of pneumonia in 1841
- Zachary Taylor, died of "acute indigestion" in 1850. Taylor's body was exhumed in 1991 to test if he had died of arsenic poisoning. It was determined he did not.
- Warren G. Harding, died of heart attack in 1923. There has been speculation that [http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1374.html Harding was poisoned]—in particular, Gaston Means had a book ghost-written that spread that notion—but that theory appears to be baseless.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, died of cerebral hemorrhage in 1945
- One President resigned from office:
- Richard Nixon in 1974
- Two Presidents have been impeached, though neither was subsequently convicted:
- Andrew Johnson in 1868
- Bill Clinton in 1999
- Four Presidents have been elected without a plurality of popular votes:
- John Quincy Adams - trailed Andrew Jackson by 44,804 votes in the 1824 election
- However, in six of the then twenty-four states in 1824, the electors were chosen by the state legislature, with no popular vote.
- Rutherford B. Hayes - trailed Samuel J. Tilden by 264,292 votes in the 1876 election
- Benjamin Harrison - trailed Grover Cleveland 95,713 votes in the 1888 election
- George W. Bush - trailed Al Gore by 543,895 votes in the 2000 election (http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm)
- A possible addition to this list is John F. Kennedy, who may have trailed Richard Nixon in the 1960 election. The precise gap in votes is difficult to determine because voters in Alabama were not given Kennedy as an option on their ballot - they could only vote "Democratic", without choosing a candidate. So, when the Democrats won Alabama, half of the state's electoral votes were pledged to Kennedy, and the other half were not pledged at all, and those votes all went to Harry F. Byrd. So it is impossible to know how many of those voters meant to vote for Kennedy, or for Byrd. The margin between Kennedy and Nixon was smaller than the number of Democratic votes in Alabama. The official figure from the U.S. government states includes the Alabama votes in Kennedy's total, giving Kennedy the popular plurality.
- Eleven Presidents have been elected fourteen times without a majority of popular votes (but with a plurality of popular votes):
- James K. Polk - 49.3% of the popular vote in the 1844 election
- Zachary Taylor - 47.3% of the popular vote in the 1848 election
- James Buchanan - 45.3% of the popular vote in the 1856 election
- Abraham Lincoln - 39.9% of the popular vote in the 1860 election
- James A. Garfield - 48.3% of the popular vote in the 1880 election
- Grover Cleveland - 48.8% of the popular vote in the 1884 election
- Grover Cleveland - 46.0% of the popular vote in the 1892 election
- Woodrow Wilson - 41.8% of the popular vote in the 1912 election
- Woodrow Wilson - 49.3% of the popular vote in the 1916 election
- Harry S. Truman - 49.7% of the popular vote in the 1948 election
- John F. Kennedy - 49.7% of the popular vote in the 1960 election
- Richard Nixon - 43.2% of the popular vote in the 1968 election
- Bill Clinton - 42.9% of the popular vote in the 1992 election
- Bill Clinton - 49.2% of the popular vote in the 1996 election
- Two Presidents have been elected without a majority of electoral votes, and were chosen by the House of Representatives:
- Thomas Jefferson - finished with same number of electoral votes as Aaron Burr in the 1800 election
- John Quincy Adams - trailed Andrew Jackson by 15 electoral votes in the 1824 election
- Eight Presidents took office without being elected to the Presidency, having been elected as Vice President and then promoted from that position. In all eight cases, they succeeded to the Presidency upon the death of the incumbent:
- Four of them were never elected in their own right:
- John Tyler - Succeeded William Henry Harrison
- Millard Fillmore - Succeeded Zachary Taylor
- Fillmore did run for President in the 1856 election as a Know Nothing Party candidate and received 873,053 votes (21.6%), finishing third
- Andrew Johnson - Succeeded Abraham Lincoln
- Chester A. Arthur - Succeeded James Garfield
- The other four were all elected in their own right for the immediately succeeding presidential term:
- Theodore Roosevelt - Succeeded William McKinley, elected as president in the 1904 election
- Calvin Coolidge - Succeeded Warren G. Harding, elected as president in the 1924 election
- Harry S. Truman - Succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected as president in the 1948 election
- Lyndon B. Johnson - Succeeded John F. Kennedy, elected as president in the 1964 election
- One President, Gerald Ford, was appointed Vice President by Richard Nixon (with approval from Congress) upon the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew, succeeded to the Presidency after Nixon's resignation, and was defeated in the 1976 election by Jimmy Carter. He remains the only President who was not elected as either President or Vice President.
- An urban legend claims that David Rice Atchison was the 11½th president of the United States for one day on March 4, 1849 in between the terms of James K. Polk (whose term expired at noon on March 4) and Zachary Taylor (who chose not to be sworn in until March 5). However, the logic of this is contradictory. If one does not consider Taylor to have officially become President until the administration of his Oath of Office, then the same logic precludes any person from having automatically succeeded before likewise having taken the same Oath. In fact, Taylor, as President-elect, automatically acceded to the Office of President upon the expiration of Polk's term, even if he did not yet enter into the execution of that Office until the Oath was administered. This fact was confirmed by Congress when it certified his election, as it defined the beginning of the administration as the instant Polk left office. Even if supposing, for the sake of argument, the rather odd interpretation that only Presidents-elect are required to take the Oath before officially occupying the Office, whilst officials in the Presidential Line of Succession occupy the Presidency ipso facto, then there would be a long list of dozens of additional "Presidents" who only held the office for a matter of hours or minutes.
- There were seven presidents whose oaths of office were administered by someone other than the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court :
- Robert Livingston, as Chancellor of the State of New York, administered the oath of office to George Washington at his first inauguration; William Cushing, an associate justice of the Supreme Court, administered the second
- Calvin Coolidge's father, a notary public, administered the oath to his son after the death of Warren Harding
- United States District Court Judge Sarah T. Hughes administered the oath to Lyndon Johnson after the assassination of John F. Kennedy
- John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Chester Arthur, and Theodore Roosevelt's initial oaths reflected the unexpected nature of their taking office.

Other facts

Theodore Roosevelt]]
- Grover Cleveland had two non-consecutive terms as President, and is counted twice, both as the 22nd and the 24th President. Consequently, the "25th President" is actually the 24th person to be President, the "26th President" is actually the 25th person to be President, and so on—e.g., George W. Bush, 43rd President, is actually the 42nd person to be President.
- Since the federal government started operations under the Constitution on March 4, 1789, there has been only one period of time in which the office was vacant. The First Congress did not meet to count the electoral vote until April 6, 1789 and thus George Washington did not accede to the office until then.
- A presidential term is normally 1461 days. There have been three presidential terms which were shorter:
- Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term began March 4, 1933, but the twentieth amendment changed the start of the next term to noon on January 20, 1937, giving Roosevelt a first term of 1418.5 days.
- Due to the vagaries of the Gregorian calendar, 1800 and 1900 were not leap years, so John Adams' term and William McKinley's first term were shortened to 1460 days.
- Five Presidents had never held any prior elected office:
- Zachary Taylor
- Ulysses S. Grant
- Herbert Hoover
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- William Howard Taft
- All presidents have been white males and nominally Christian (mostly Protestant). Most presidents have been of substantially British descent, but there have been a few who came from a different background:
- Predominantly Dutch: Martin Van Buren
- Although Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt had Dutch names, neither was predominantly Dutch; each had only one Dutch grandfather. Theodore's other three grandparents were all British; Franklin's other three grandparents were of Puritan stock.
- Predominantly German: Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower
- Predominantly Irish:William McKinley, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton
- Kennedy was also America's only Roman Catholic president.
- Only one president, James Buchanan, remained a bachelor. Bachelor Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom while in office, while both John Tyler and Woodrow Wilson became widowers and remarried while in office.
- Historical rankings of U.S. Presidents by academic historians usually regard three Presidents — in chronological order, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt — to be the three most successful presidents by a wide margin.
- The Secret Service and some agencies in the government use acronyms as jargon. Since the Truman Administration the President of the United States has been called POTUS, pronounced "poh-tuss". The wife of the President, traditionally referred to as the First Lady is called FLOTUS, pronounced "flo-tuss". The Vice President of the United States is often abbreviated to VPOTUS, pronounced "vee-poh-tuss".
- The President is known to be able to affect trends in popular culture. An endorsement of a book or a movie by a president can easily launch the career of a author or a filmmaker. For example, Ronald Reagan's admiration of The Hunt For Red October may have helped to cause Tom Clancy to become a nationally acclaimed bestselling author, something that may never have happened had it not been for Reagan's endorsement.

Lists

Notes

# Kamen, Al. "[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55411-2004Nov16.html If You're Available Jan. 20 . . .]" Washington Post, 17 November 2004. # Library of Congress. "[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pihtml/pioaths.html Presidential Inaugrations: Presidential Oaths of Office.]" # [http://www.historicvermont.org/coolidge/oathrm.html Excerpt from Coolidge's autobiography.]

External links

Official

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Presidential histories

- - A collection of over 52,000 Presidential documents
- - Brief biographies, election results, cabinet members, notable events, and some points of interest on each of the presidents.
- - A companion website for the C-SPAN television series: American Presidents: Life Portraits
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Speeches

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Miscellaneous

- - Brief histories of the Masonic careers of Presidents who were members of the Freemasons.
- - A resource for educators teaching the American Presidency
- - The author of this blog posts links to sites relating to the American Presidency or specific American Presidents
- [http://www.quotesandpoem.com/quotes/listquotes/subject/American_Presidential_Quotes Collection of Quotes by American Presidents]
- - Listing of the cabinet members for each Presidential Administration
- - Opinion poll of how great each President is believed to be. Category:Executive Branch of the United States Government Category:Executive heads of state United States, President Category:Presidency of the United States ko:미국의 대통령 ja:アメリカ合衆国大統領 simple:President (United States) th:ประธานาธิบดีแห่งสหรัฐอเมริกา

1861

1861 is a common year starting on Tuesday.

Events

January

- January 1 - Benito Juárez captures Mexico City
- January 2 - Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia dies and is succeeded by Wilhelm I
- January 3 - American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States
- January 9 - Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union, preceding the American Civil War.
- January 10 - American Civil War: Florida secedes from the United States
- January 11 - American Civil War: Alabama secedes from the United States
- January 18 - American Civil War: Georgia joins the Confederacy
- January 21 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate
- January 26 - American Civil War: Louisiana secedes from the Union.
- January 29 - Kansas is admitted as the 34th U.S. state.

February

- February 1 - American Civil War: Texas secedes from the United States.
- February 4 - American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama the Confederate States of America is formed by delegates from six break-away United States.
- February 8 - American Civil War: The Confederate States of America are formed.
- February 9 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.
- February 11 - American Civil War: US House unanimously passes resolution guaranteeing non-interference with slavery in any state.
- February 13 - Capture of Gaeta, last stronghold of the Neapolitan King Francis II, by Piedmontese forces. Francis goes into exile.
- February 18 - American Civil War: In Montgomery, Alabama Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional president of the Confederate States of America.
- February 18 - Victor Emmanuel of Savoy becomes King of Italy. See: Kingdom of Italy
- February 19 - Serfdom is abolished in Russia.
- February 23 - President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives secretly in Washington, DC after an assassination attempt in Baltimore, Maryland.
- February 27 - A crowd in Warsaw protesting Russian rule over Poland is fired upon by Russian troops killing five protesters.
- February 28 - Colorado is organized as a United States territory.

March-April

- March 2 - Nevada is organized as a United States territory.
- March 3 - Formal emancipation of the serfs in Imperial Russia
- March 4 - End of term for President of the United States James Buchanan. He is succeeded by Abraham Lincoln.
- March 4 - American Civil War: The "Stars and Bars" is adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America.
- March 11 - American Civil War: The Constitution of the Confederate States of America is adopted.
- March 17 - Proclamation of the kingdom of Italy with Victor Emanuel II as its king
- March 19 - First Taranaki War ends in New Zealand
- March 30 - Sir William Crookes announces his discovery of Thallium (see Discovery of the chemical elements)
- April 12 - American Civil War begins at Fort Sumter, South Carolina
- April 27 - American Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus in the United States.
- April 27 - American Civil War: West Virginia secedes from Virginia.

May-June

- May 6 - American Civil War: Arkansas secedes from the Union.
- May 7 - American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.
- May 8 - American Civil War: Richmond, Virginia is named the capital of the Confederate States of America.
- May 13 - American Civil War: Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognizes the breakaway states as having belligerent rights.
- May 13 - Comet C/1861 J1 (the "Great Comet of 1861") discovered in Australia.
- May 14 - The Canellas meteorite, an 859 gram chondrite type meteorite struck earth near Barcelona, Spain.
- May 20 - American Civil War: Kentucky proclaims its neutrality which will last until September 3 when Confederate forces enter the state. North Carolina secedes from the United States
- June 8 - American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.
- June 9

James Buchanan

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