During James Buchanan's presidency (1857-1861), the country was hurdling toward civil war. Seventy years later, the nation experienced another crisis, the Great Depression, with Herbert Hoover in the White House (1929-1933). These two presidents dealt with their respective crisis in similiar styles: going international, lack of consistent political will, and paranoia at the prospect of armed conflict.
Foreign Affairs
In the hope of defusing the sectional strife within the Democratic party and ultimately the nation, Buchanan launched new negotiations with Spain to purchase Cuba. Manifest Destiny and the prospect of more land was seen as a national glue to Democratic leaders, according to historian James McPherson. However, Senate Republicans viewed the $30 million Cuban bill as the work of the "Slave Power conspiracy." They prevented the bill from coming to a vote.
Hoover also took an international view. In October of 1930, so as to not risk alienating the American business community, Hoover stopped blaming domestic speculation for the depression and targeted Europe. The World War left Germany hobbled with steep reparation payments, thus weakening the European economy. Hoover believed this condition eventually spilled into the American economy. He proposed a one-year moratorium on all payments on intergovernmental debts and reparations to relieve the pressure. Hoover also signed the Hawley-Smoot tariff, which strengthened protection against foreign goods.
Secession, Tariff
That very tariff act also indicated Hoover's lack of consistent political will. Although Hoover implemented bold measures like the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, he faltered with Hawley-Smoot. Many economists and advisers implored him to veto the tariff because it would bring more economic hardship. Hoover may have appreciated their arguments, according to historian David Kennedy, but he acquiesced to Congress and Republican protectionist tradition. Commentator Walter Lippman complained that Hoover "surrendered everything for nothing. He gave up the leadership of his party. He let his personal authority be flouted."
Buchanan also lacked political will as sectional acrimony increased. The Kunhardts, in their book The American President, suggested that Buchanan continued a life-long pattern of avoiding conflict as president. On one hand he declared secession illegal. Then on the other hand he withdrew from that position, concluding "after serious reflection" that the federal government constitutionally did not have the power to force a seceeding state to stay in the Union.
Harpers Ferry, Bonus Army
The two presidents each dealt with a potential uprising that exposed their paranoia. After John Brown was executed for attempting to capture the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, VA in aid of a slave insurrection, Buchanan was alarmed, as was the South, by the North's idolization of Brown as a martyr. In order to prevent the anticipated increase of sectional and slave agitation, Buchanan ordered the arrest of black abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass, even though Douglass had refused to participate in Brown's raid.
Hoover contended with the Bonus Army- World War veterans who were demanding early payment of their bonuses. They camped, mostly peacefully, in Washington D.C. for months. Hoover, General Douglas MacArthur, and Army intelligence believed that about 900 Communists and criminals were gaining control of the Bonus Army and were planning violence in the nation's capital. Members of the Bonus Army themselves had evicted some 200 Communists from their camp. Paranoia in the Hoover administration might explain the discrepancy as MacArthur ousted the Bonus marchers at gunpoint and burned their camp.
The style or methods that Buchanan and Hoover employed did not agree well with the times in which they ruled. Their successors- Abraham Lincoln for Buchanan and Franklin Roosevelt for Hoover, became two of the most revered presidents in American history, but they had drawbacks as well. Perhaps if Buchanan and Hoover presided over normal conditions, they might have been seen as decent presidents.
Sources
- Dickson, Paul and Thomas B. Allen, The Bonus Army: An American Epic, New York: Walker, 2004.
- Kennedy, David M., Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, Oxford: Oxford U., 1999.
- Kunhardt, Phillip B. Jr., Phillip B. III, and Peter W., The American President, New York: Riverhead, 1999.
- McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, Oxford: Oxford U., 1988.
William L. Wunder - BA in History, University of Iowa, 1994, with Dean's List honors. History Buff- constant reader of books in American ...
