1. Resume
    1. Military Service: War of 1812
    2. 1821 - 1823: Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 3rd district
    3. 1823 - 1831: Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 4th district
    4. 1829 - 1831: Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary
    5. 1832 - 1833: United States Minister to Russia
    6. 1834 - 1845: United States Senator from Pennsylvania
    7. 1845 - 1849: Secretary of State
    8. 1857 - 1861: 15th President of the United States
  2. Chronology
    1. 1791
      1. Born in Cove Gap, Franklin County, Pennsylvania
    2. 1809
      1. Got expelled for poor behavior, was given a second chance, and graduated from Dickinson College
    3. 1812
      1. Studied law and was admitted to the bar in Lancaster
    4. 1814 - 1816
      1. Served as a Federalist in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives
    5. 1834, 1837, 1843
      1. Elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate with the Federalist Party defunct
    6. 1846
      1. Helped negotiate the Oregon Treaty
    7. 1853 - 1856
      1. Helped to draft and sign the Ostend Manifesto
    8. 1857 - 1860
      1. Battled over Kansas
    9. 1857 - 1858
      1. Utah War, which had no battles and was won through negotiation
  3. Summary
    1. Only president from Pennsylvania
    2. Neutral figure between North-South tensions
    3. Only president to remain a lifelong bachelor
    4. Compromise between the two sides of the slavery question
    5. "I acknowledge no master but the law."
    6. Historians say his failure to deal with secession was the worst presidential mistake ever made
    7. No Secretary of State has become President since James Buchanan
    8. Helped negotiate the Oregon Treaty
    9. Helped to draft and sign the Ostend Manifesto - which weakened his administration and support for Manifest Destiny
    10. Abraham Lincoln denounced him as an accomplice of the Slave Power
    11. Condemned both free trade and prohibitive tariffs, since either would benefit one section of the country to the detriment of the other.
    12. Panic of 1857 brought on mostly by the people's over-consumption of goods from Europe
    13. With Lincoln's victory, talk of secession and disunion reached a boiling point.
    14. Bunchanan failed to stop secession and made no further moves to prepare for war or to avert it
    15. Spent most of his remaining years defending himself from public blame for the Civil War
    16. Vetoed the Morrill Act and the Homestead Act, which Abraham Lincoln would sign and prove to be two of the most influential ever passed in the United States in the nineteenth century