title: Chongqing

text: the proviso that foreign ships should not be at liberty to trade there until Chinese-owned steamers had succeeded in ascending the river. This restriction was abolished by the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, which declared the city open on the same terms as other ports, although it was not until 1907 that a steamship made the journey without the help of manual haulers. From 1896 to 1904, the American, German, French, and Japanese consulates were opened in Chongqing.


title: Chongqing

text: During and after the Second Sino-Japanese War, from Nov 1937 to May 1946, it was Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's provisional capital. After the General and remaining army had lived there for a time following their retreat in 1938 from the previous capital of Wuhan, it was formally declared the second capital city (, "péi dū") on 6 September 1940. After Britain, the United States, and other Allies entered the war in Asia in December 1941, one of the Allies' deputy commanders of operations in South East Asia (South East Asia Command SEAC), Joseph Stilwell, was based in the city. This made it a city of world importance in the fight against Axis powers, together with London, Moscow and Washington, D.C.


title: Chongqing

text: The city was also visited by Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Supreme Commander of SEAC which was itself headquartered in Ceylon, modern day Sri Lanka. Chiang Kai Shek as Supreme Commander in China worked closely with Stilwell. From 1938 to 1943, the city suffered from continuously massive bombing campaigns of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army Air Forces; battles of which were fought entirely by the Chinese Air Force squadrons and anti-aircraft artillery units. Many lives were saved by the air-raid shelters which took advantage of the mountainous terrain. Chongqing was acclaimed to be the "City of Heroes" due to the indomitable spirits of its people as well as their contributions and sacrifices during the War of Resistance-World War II. Many factories and universities were relocated from eastern China and ultimately to Chongqing during years of setbacks in the war, transforming this city from inland port to a heavily industrialized city. In late November 1949, the Nationalist KMT government retreated from the city.


title: Chongqing

text: On 14 March 1997, the Eighth National People's Congress decided to merge the sub-provincial city with adjacent Fuling, Wanxian, and Qianjiang prefectures that it had governed on behalf of the province since September 1996. The resulting single entity became Chongqing Municipality, containing 30,020,000 people in forty-three former counties (without intermediate political levels). The municipality became the spearhead of China's effort to develop its western regions and to coordinate the resettlement of residents from the reservoir areas of the Three Gorges Dam project. Its first official ceremony took place on 18 June 1997.


title: Chongqing

text: On 8 February 2010, Chongqing became one of the four National Central/Core cities, the other three are Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. The same year on June 18, the Liangjiang New Area was established in Chongqing, which was the third state-level new area at the time of its establishment.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing is situated at the transitional area between the Tibetan Plateau and the plain on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the sub-tropical climate zone often swept by moist monsoons. It often rains at night in late spring and early summer, and thus the city is famous for its "night rain in the Ba Mountains", as described by poems throughout Chinese history including the famous "Written on a Rainy Night-A Letter to the North" by Li Shangyin. The municipality reaches a maximum length of from east to west, and a maximum width of from north to south. It borders the following provinces: Hubei in the east, Hunan in the southeast, Guizhou in the south, Sichuan in the west and northwest, and Shaanxi to the north in its northeast corner.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing covers a large area crisscrossed by rivers and mountains. The Daba Mountains stand in the north, the Wu Mountains in the east, the Wuling Mountains in the southeast, and the Dalou Mountains in the south. The whole area slopes down from north and south towards the Yangtze River valley, with sharp rises and falls. The area is featured by a large geological massif, of mountains and hills, with large sloping areas at different heights. Typical karst landscape is common in this area, and stone forests, numerous collections of peaks, limestone caves and valleys can be found in many places. The "Longshuixia Gap" (), with its natural arch-bridges, has made the region a popular tourist attraction. The Yangtze River runs through the whole area from west to east, covering a course of , cutting through the Wu Mountains at three places and forming the well-known Three Gorges: the Qutang, the Wuxia and the Xiling gorges. Coming from northwest and running through "the Jialing Lesser Three Gorges" of Libi, Wentang and Guanyin, the Jialing River joins the Yangtze in Chongqing.


title: Chongqing

text: The central urban area of Chongqing, or Chongqing proper, is a city of unique features. Built on mountains and partially surrounded by the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, it is known as a "mountain city" and a "city on rivers". The night scene of the city is very illuminated, with millions of lights and their reflection on the rivers. With its special topographical features, Chongqing has the unique scenery of mountains, rivers, forests, springs, waterfalls, gorges, and caves. Li Bai, a famous poet of the Tang dynasty, was inspired by the natural scenery and wrote this epigram.


title: Chongqing

text: Specifically, the central urban area is located on a huge folding area. Yuzhong District, Nan'an District, Shapingba District and Jiangbei District are located right on a big syncline. And the "Southern Mountain of Chongqing" (Tongluo Mountain), along with the Zhongliang Mountain are two anticlines next to the syncline of downtown.


title: Chongqing

text: Zhongliang Mountains () and Tongluo Mountains () roughly forms the eastern and western boundaries of Chongqing's urban area. The highest point in downtown is the top of Eling Hill, which is a smaller syncline hill that separates the Yangtze River and Jialing River. The elevation of Eling Hill is . The lowest point is Chaotian Gate, where the two rivers merge with each other. The altitude there is . The average height of the area is . However, there are several high mountains outside central Chongqing, such as the Wugong Ling Mountain, with the altitude of , in Jiangjin.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen "Cfa"), bordering on a monsoonal humid subtropical climate (Köppen "Cwa") and for most of the year experiences very high relative humidity, with all months above 75%. Known as one of the "Three Furnaces" of the Yangtze River, along with Wuhan and Nanjing, its summers are long and among the hottest and most humid in China, with highs of in July and August in the urban area. Winters are short and somewhat mild, but damp and overcast. The city's location in the Sichuan Basin causes it to have one of the lowest annual sunshine totals nationally, at only 1,055 hours, lower than much of Northern Europe; the monthly percent possible sunshine in the city proper ranges from a mere 8% in December and January to 48% in August. Extremes since 1951 have ranged from on 15 December 1975 (unofficial record of was set on 8 February 1943) to on 18 and 19 August 2022 (unofficial record of was set on 8 and 9 August 1933).


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing, with over 100 days of fog per year, is known as the "Fog City" (); this is because in the spring and fall, a thick layer of fog enshrouds it for 68 days per year. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, this special weather possibly played a role in protecting the city from being overrun by the Imperial Japanese Army.


title: Chongqing

text: As exemplified by Youyang County below, conditions are often cooler in the southeast part of the municipality due to the higher elevations there.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing has been, since 1997, a direct-controlled municipality in the Chinese administrative structure, making it a provincial-level division with commensurate political importance. The municipality's top leader is the secretary of the municipal committee of the Chinese Communist Party ("party chief"), which, since 2007, has also held a seat on the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, the country's second highest governing council. Under the Soviet-inspired nomenklatura system of appointments, individuals are appointed to the position by the central leadership of the Communist Party, and bestowed to an official based on seniority and adherence to party orthodoxy, usually given to an individual with prior regional experience elsewhere in China and nearly never a native of Chongqing. Notable individuals who have held the municipal Party Secretary position include He Guoqiang, Wang Yang, Bo Xilai, Zhang Dejiang, and Sun Zhengcai, the latter three were Politburo members during their term as party chief. The party chief heads the municipal party standing committee, the "de facto" top governing council of the municipality. The standing committee is typically composed of 13 individuals which includes the party chiefs of important subdivisions and other leading figures in the local party and government organization, as well as one military representative.


title: Chongqing

text: The municipal People's Government serves as the day-to-day administrative authority, and is headed by the mayor, who is assisted by numerous vice mayors and mayoral assistants. Each vice mayor is given jurisdiction over specific municipal departments. The mayor is the second-highest-ranking official in the municipality. The mayor usually represents the city when foreign guests visit.


title: Chongqing

text: The municipality also has a People's Congress, theoretically elected by lower level People's Congresses. The People's Congress nominally appoints the mayor and approves the nominations of other government officials. The People's Congress, like those of other provincial jurisdictions, is generally seen as a symbolic body. It convenes in full once a year to approve party-sponsored resolutions and local regulations and duly confirm party-approved appointments. On occasion the People's Congress can be venues of discussion on municipal issues, although this is dependent on the actions of individual delegates. The municipal People's Congress is headed by a former municipal official, usually in their late fifties or sixties, with a lengthy prior political career in Chongqing. The municipal Political Consultative Conference ("zhengxie") meets at around the same time as the People's Congress. Its role is to advise on political issues. The "zhengxie" is headed by a leader who is typically a former municipal or regional official with a lengthy career in the party and government bureaucracy.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing was the wartime capital of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War (i.e., World War II), and from 1938 to 1946, the seat of administration for the Republic of China's government before its departure to Nanjing and then Taiwan. After the eventual defeat at the Battle of Wuhan General Chiang-Kai Shek and the army were forced to use it as base of resistance from 1938 onwards. It also contains a military museum named after the Chinese Korean War hero Qiu Shaoyun.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing used to be the headquarters of the 13th Group Army of the People's Liberation Army, one of the two group armies that formerly comprised the Chengdu Military Region, which in 2016 was re-organized into the Western Theater Command.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing is the largest of the four direct-controlled municipalities of the People's Republic of China. The municipality is divided into 38 subdivisions (3 were abolished in 1997, and Wansheng and Shuangqiao districts were abolished in October 2011), consisting of 26 districts, 8 counties, and 4 autonomous counties. The boundaries of Chongqing municipality reach much farther into the city's hinterland than the boundaries of the other three provincial level municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin), and much of its administrative area, which spans over , is rural. At the end of year 2018, the total population is 31.02 million.


title: Chongqing

text: The main urban area of Chongqing city () spans approximately , and includes the following nine districts:


title: Chongqing

text: According to a July 2010 article from the official Xinhua news agency, the municipality has a population of 32.8 million, including 23.3 million farmers. Among them, 8.4 million farmers have become migrant workers, including 3.9 million working and living in urban areas of Chongqing.


title: Chongqing

text: , the metropolitan area encompassing the central urban area was estimated by the OECD to have, a population of 17 million.


title: Chongqing

text: This would mean that the locally registered farmers who work in other jurisdictions number 4.5 million, reducing the local, year-round population of Chongqing in 2010 to 28.3 million, plus those who are registered in other jurisdictions but live and work in Chongqing. According to China's 2005 statistical yearbook, of a total population of 30.55 million, those with residence registered in other jurisdictions but residing in the Chongqing enumeration area numbered 1.4 million, including 46,000 who resided in Chongqing "for less than half-year". An additional 83,000 had registered in Chongqing, but not yet settled there.


title: Chongqing

text: The 2005 statistical yearbook also lists 15.22 million (49.82%) males and 15.33 million (50.18%) females.


title: Chongqing

text: In terms of age distribution in 2004, of the 30.55 million total population, 6.4 million (20.88%) were age 0–14, 20.7 million (67.69%) were 15–64, and 3.5 million (11.46%) were 65 and over.


title: Chongqing

text: Of a total 10,470,000 households (2004), 1,360,000 consisted of one person, 2,940,000 two-person, 3,190,000 three-person, 1,790,000 four-person, 783,000 five-person, 270,000 six-person, 89,000 seven-person, 28,000 eight-person, 6,000 nine-person, and 10,000 households of 10 or more persons per household.


title: Chongqing

text: The predominant religions in Chongqing are Chinese folk religions, Taoist traditions and Chinese Buddhism. According to surveys conducted in 2007 and 2009, 26.63% of the population believes and is involved in cults of ancestors, while 1.05% of the population identifies as Christian (see also Christianity in Sichuan).


title: Chongqing

text: The reports did not give figures for other types of religion; 72.32% of the population may be either irreligious or involved in worship of nature deities, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, or folk religious sects.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing is facing rapid urbanization. For instance, statistics suggest that new construction added approximately daily of usable floor space to satisfy demands for residential, commercial and factory space. Thus, Chongqing was separated from Sichuan province and made into a municipality in its own right on 14 March 1997 in order to accelerate its development and subsequently China's relatively poorer western areas (see China Western Development strategy). An important industrial area in western China,


title: Chongqing

text: , the economy of Chongqing was China's 16th largest economy with a GDP of CNY¥ 2,789 billion or USD$439 billion in (nominal), which is equivalent to the GDP of Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa. However, its overall economic performance is still lagging behind coastal cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. For example, its GDP per capita was 87,000 yuan (USD13,400 $), which is around the national average. Nevertheless, there is a massive government push to transform Chongqing into the region's economic, trade, and financial center and use the municipality as a platform to open up the country's western interior to further development.


title: Chongqing

text: Compared to a country, it would be the 33rd-largest economy and the 45th most populous with the total perminant population of 32.05 millions as of 2021.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing has been identified by the Economist Intelligence Unit in the November 2010 Access China White Paper as a member of the CHAMPS (Chongqing, Hefei, Anshan, Maanshan, Pingdingshan and Shenyang), an economic profile of the top 20 emerging cities in China.


title: Chongqing

text: Traditionally, due to its geographic inaccessibility, Chongqing and Sichuan have both been important military bases in weapons research and development. Even though Chongqing's industries are diversified, unlike eastern China, its export sector is small due to its relatively disadvantageous inland location. Instead, factories producing local-oriented consumer goods such as processed food, cars, chemicals, textiles, machinery, sports equipment and electronics are common.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing is China's third largest motor vehicle production center and the largest for motorcycles. In 2007, it had an annual output capacity of 1 million cars and 8.6 million motorcycles. Leading makers of cars and motorbikes includes China's fourth biggest automaker; Changan Automotive Corp and Lifan Hongda Enterprise, as well as Ford Motor Company, with the US car giant having 3 plants in Chongqing. The municipality is also one of China's nine largest iron and steel producers in China as well as one of its three major aluminum producers. Important manufacturers include Chongqing Iron and Steel Company (重庆钢铁股份有限公司) and Southwest Aluminum (西南鋁業), which is Asia's largest aluminum plant. Agriculture remains significant. Rice and fruits, especially oranges, are the area's main produce. Natural resources are also abundant with large deposits of coal, natural gas, and more than 40 kinds of minerals such as strontium and manganese. Coal reserves total approximately . Chuandong Natural Gas Field is China's largest inland gas field with deposits of around 270 billion m – more than 1/5 of China's total. Has China's largest reserve of strontium (China has the world's 2nd biggest strontium deposit). Manganese is mined in the Xiushan area. Although the mining sector has been denounced as heavily polluting and unsafe. Chongqing is also planned to be the site of a 10 million ton capacity refinery operated by CNPC (parent company of PetroChina) to process imported crude oil from the Sino-Burma pipelines. The pipeline itself, though not yet finished, will eventually run from Sittwe (in Myanmar's western coast) through Kunming in Yunnan before reaching Chongqing and it will provide China with fuels sourced from Myanmar, the Middle East and Africa. Recently, there has been a drive to move up the value chain by shifting towards high technology and knowledge intensive industries resulting in new development zones such as the Chongqing New North Zone (CNNZ). Chongqing's local government is hoping through the promotion of favorable economic policies for the electronics and information technology sectors, that it can create a 400 billion RMB high technology manufacturing hub which will surpass its car industry and account for 25% of its exports.


title: Chongqing

text: The city has also invested heavily in infrastructure to attract investment. The network of roads and railways connecting Chongqing to the rest of China has been expanded and upgraded reducing logistical costs. Furthermore, the nearby Three Gorges Dam which is the world's largest, supplies Chongqing with power and allows oceangoing ships to reach Chongqing's Yangtze River port. These infrastructure improvements have led to the arrivals of numerous foreign direct investors (FDI) in industries ranging from car to finance and retailing; such as Ford, Mazda, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, ANZ Bank, Scotiabank, Wal-Mart, Metro AG and Carrefour, among other multinational corporations.


title: Chongqing

text: As of 2022, Chongqing hosts 70 institutions of higher education (excluding adult colleges), making it the fourth city with most higher education institutions nationwide and the first city in Southwest China, which comprises Chongqing, Sichuan Province, Guizhou Province, Yunnan Province, and Tibet Autonomous Region with a combination of more than 180 million population.


title: Chongqing

text: Since its elevation to national-level municipality in 1997, the city has dramatically expanded its transportation infrastructure. With the construction of railways and expressways to the east and southeast, Chongqing is a major transportation hub in southwestern China.


title: Chongqing

text: , the municipality had 31 bridges across the Yangtze River including over a dozen in the city's urban core. Aside from the city's first two Yangtze River bridges, which were built, respectively, in 1960 and 1977, all of the other bridges were completed since 1995.


title: Chongqing

text: Public transport in Chongqing consists of metro, intercity railway, a ubiquitous bus system and the world's largest monorail network.


title: Chongqing

text: According to the Chongqing Municipal Government's ambitious plan in May 2007, Chongqing is investing 150 billion RMB over 13 years to finish a system that combines underground metro lines with heavy monorail.


title: Chongqing

text: , four metro lines, the long CRT Line 1, a conventional subway, and the long heavy monorail CRT Line 2 (through Phase II), Line 3, a heavy monorail connects the airport and the southern part of downtown. Line 6, runs between Beibei, a district in the city's far north to downtown. Line 5 opened in late 2017.


title: Chongqing

text: By 2020 CRT will consist of 6 lines and 1 loop line resulting in of road and railway to the existing transportation infrastructure and 93 new metro stations will be added to the 111 stations that are already in place.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing is the only Chinese city that keeps public aerial tramways. Historically there were three aerial tramways in Chongqing: the Yangtze River Tramway, the Jialing River Tramway and the South Mountain Tramway. Currently, only Yangtze River Tramway is still operating and it is Class 4A Tourist Attractions in China. The -long tramway connects the southern and northern banks of Yangtze River; its daily passenger volume is about 10,000.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing is a major freight destination for rail with continued development with improved handling facilities. Due to subsidies and incentives, the relocation and construction of many factories in Chongqing has seen a huge increase in rail traffic.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing is one of the most important inland ports in China. There are numerous luxury cruise ships that terminate at Chongqing, cruising downstream along the Yangtze River to Yichang, Wuhan, Nanjing or even Shanghai. In the recent past, this provided virtually the only transportation option along the river. However, improved rail, expressways and air travel have seen this ferry traffic reduced or cancelled altogether. Most of the river ferry traffic consists of leisure cruises for tourists rather than local needs. Improved access by larger cargo vessels has been made due to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. This allows bulk transport of goods along the Yangtze River. Coal, raw minerals and containerized goods provide the majority of traffic plying this section of the river. Several port handling facilities exist throughout the city, including many impromptu river bank sites.


title: Chongqing

text: Traditionally, the road network in Chongqing has been narrow, winding and limited to smaller vehicles because of the natural terrain, large rivers and the huge population demands on the area, especially in the Yuzhong District. In other places, such as Jiangbei, large areas of homes and buildings have recently been cleared to improve the road network and create better urban planning; thus, several ring roads have also been constructed. This has seen many tunnels and large bridges needing to be built across the city. The construction of many expressways have connected Chongqing to its neighbors. The natural mountainous terrain that Chongqing is built on makes many road projects difficult to construct, including for example some of the world's highest road bridges.


title: Chongqing

text: Unlike many other Chinese cities, it is rare for motorbikes, electric scooters or bicycles to be seen on Chongqing's Roads. This is due to the extremely hilly and mountainous nature of Chongqing's roads and streets. However, despite this, Chongqing is a manufacturing center for these types of vehicles.


title: Chongqing

text: With so many bridges crossing the Yangtze and Jialing rivers in the urban area, Chongqing is sometimes known as the 'Bridge Capital of China'. The first important bridge in urban Chongqing was the Niujiaotuo Jialing River Bridge, built in 1958. The first bridge over the Yangtze river was the Shibanpo Yangtze River Bridge (or Chongqing Yangtze River Bridge) built in 1977.


title: Chongqing

text: , within the area of the 9 districts, there were 20 bridges on the Yangtze river and 28 bridges on the Jialing river. The bridges in Chongqing exhibit a variety of shapes and structures, making Chongqing a showcase for bridge design.


title: Chongqing

text: The major airport of Chongqing is Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport (IATA: CKG, ICAO: ZUCK). It is located in Yubei District. The airport offers a growing network of direct flights to China, South East Asia, the Middle East, North America, and Europe. It is located north of the city center of Chongqing and serves as an important aviation hub for south-western China. Jiangbei airport is a hub for China Southern Airlines, Chongqing Airlines, Sichuan Airlines, China Express Airlines, Shandong Airlines and Hainan Airlines's new China West Air. Chongqing also is a focus city of Air China, therefore it is very well connected with Star Alliance and Skyteam's international network. The airport currently has three parallel runways in operation. It serves domestic routes to most other Chinese cities, as well as international routes to Auckland, New York City, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Doha, Dubai, Seoul, Bangkok, Phuket, Osaka, Singapore, Chiang Mai, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Malé, Bali, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Batam, Rome and Helsinki. , Jiangbei Airport was the 4th busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic in mainland China.


title: Chongqing

text: Currently, Jiangbei airport has three terminals. Chongqing Airport has metro access (CRT Line 3 and Line 10) to its central city, and two runways in normal use.


title: Chongqing

text: There are four other airports in Chongqing Municipality: Qianjiang Wulingshan Airport, Wanzhou Wuqiao Airport, Chongqing Xiannüshan Airport, and Chongqing Wushan Airport. They are all class 4C airports and serve passenger flights to domestic destinations including Beijing, Shanghai and Kunming.


title: Chongqing

text: The language native to Chongqing is Southwestern Mandarin. More precisely, the great majority of the municipality, save for Xiushan, speak Sichuanese, including the primary Chengdu-Chongqing dialect and Minjiang dialect spoken in Jiangjin and Qijiang. There are also a few speakers of Xiang and Hakka in the municipality, due to the great immigration wave to the Sichuan region () during the Ming and Qing dynasties. In addition, in parts of southeastern Chongqing, the Miao and Tujia languages are also used by some Miao and Tujia people.


title: Chongqing

text: As the provisional Capital of China for almost ten years (1937 to 1945), the city was also known as one of the three headquarters of the Allies during World War II, as well as being a strategic center of many other wars throughout China's history. Chongqing has many historic war-time buildings or sites, some of which have since been destroyed. These sites include the People's Liberation Monument, located in the center of Chongqing city. It used to be the highest building in the area, but is now surrounded and dwarfed by numerous shopping centers. Originally named the "Monument for the Victory over Axis Armies", it is the only building in China for that purpose. Today, the monument serves as a symbol for the city. The General Joseph W. Stilwell Museum, dedicated to General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, a World War II general. the air force cemetery in the Nanshan area, in memory of those air force personnel killed during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), and the Red Rock Village Museum, a diplomatic site for the Communist Party in Chongqing led by Zhou Enlai during World War II, and Guiyuan, Cassia Garden, where Mao Zedong signed the "Double 10 (10 October) Peace Agreement" with the Kuomintang in 1945.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing food is part of Sichuan cuisine. Chongqing is known for its spicy food. Its food is normally considered numbing because of the use of Sichuan pepper, also known as Sichuan peppercorn, containing hydroxy alpha sanshool. Chongqing's city center has many restaurants and food stalls where meals often cost less than RMB10. Local specialties here include dumplings and pickled vegetables and, different from many other Chinese cuisines, Chongqing dishes are suitable for the solo diner as they are often served in small individual sized portions. Among the delicacies and local specialties are these dishes:


title: Chongqing

text: The Chongqing People's Broadcast Station is Chongqing's largest radio station. The only municipal-level TV network is Chongqing TV, claimed to be the 4th largest television station in China. Chongqing TV broadcasts many local-oriented channels, and can be viewed on many TV sets throughout China.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing Soaring Dragons became the 20th team playing in Chinese Basketball Association in 2013. They play at Datianwan Arena, in the same sporting complex as Datianwan Stadium. The team moved to Beijing in 2015 and is currently known as Beijing Royal Fighters.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing Lifan is a professional Chinese soccer club that currently plays in the Chinese Super League. They are owned by the Chongqing-based Lifan Group, which manufactures motorcycles, cars and spare parts. Originally called "Qianwei (Vanguard) Wuhan", the club formed in 1995 to take part in the recently developed, fully professional Chinese Soccer League. They would quickly rise to top tier of the system and experience their greatest achievement in winning the 2000 Chinese FA Cup, and coming in fourth within the league. However, since then they have struggled to replicate the same success, and have twice been relegated from the top tier.


title: Chongqing

text: Chongqing FC was a soccer club located in the city that competed in China League One, the country's second-tier soccer division, before being relegated to the China League Two, and dissolved due to a resultant lack of funds.


title: Chongqing

text: At the end of 2020, a collaboration between a Danish architecture firm and a Chinese tech company Terminus was announced, taking the form of an AI-controlled campus. The project is named Cloud Valley and aims to use sensors and WiFi-controlled devices to collect data on the city's residents and atmosphere, including weather and eating and sleeping habits. The AI will adapt devices to work in a way that fits the gathered information and improves residents' lives.


The 1972 United States presidential election was the 47th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 1972. Incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon defeated Democratic Senator George McGovern of South Dakota. Until the 1984 election, this was the largest margin of victory in the Electoral College in a U.S. presidential election, and as of 2022, it remains the last time a presidential candidate captured more than 60% of the popular vote. It was also the first presidential election that would see California move ahead of New York in each state's number of electoral votes, a gap that has since widened.


title: 1972 United States presidential election

text: Nixon swept aside challenges from two Republican congressmen in the 1972 Republican primaries to win renomination. McGovern, who had played a significant role in changing the Democratic nomination system after the 1968 election, mobilized the anti–Vietnam War movement and other liberal supporters to win his party's nomination. Among the candidates he defeated were early front-runner Edmund Muskie, 1968 nominee Hubert Humphrey, Governor George Wallace, and Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first African American person to run for a major party's presidential nomination.


text: Nixon emphasized the strong economy and his success in foreign affairs, while McGovern ran on a platform calling for an immediate end to the Vietnam War, and the institution of a guaranteed minimum income. Nixon maintained a large, and consistent, lead in polling. Separately, Nixon's reelection committee broke into the Watergate complex to wiretap the Democratic National Committee's headquarters, a scandal that would later be known as "Watergate". McGovern's campaign was seriously damaged by the revelation that his running mate, Thomas Eagleton, had undergone electroconvulsive therapy as a treatment for depression. Eagleton was replaced on the ballot by Sargent Shriver.


text: Nixon won the election in a landslide, taking 60.7% of the popular vote and carrying 49 states, while being the first Republican to sweep the South. McGovern took just 37.5% of the popular vote, while John G. Schmitz of the American Independent Party won 1.4% of the vote. Nixon received almost 18 million more votes than McGovern, and he holds the record for the widest popular vote margin in any post–World War II United States presidential election and the record for widest raw vote margin in any presidential election. The 1972 presidential election was the first since the ratification of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, further expanding the electorate. Within two years of the election, both Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned from office: the former in August 1974, due to Watergate; the latter in October 1973, due to a separate corruption charge. Gerald Ford succeeded Agnew as vice president, then, in the following year, succeeded Nixon as president, making him the only U.S. president in history not to be elected to the office on a presidential ticket.


text: Despite this election delivering Nixon's greatest electoral triumph, Nixon later wrote in his memoirs that "it was one of the most frustrating and in many ways the least satisfying of all".


text: Nixon was a popular incumbent president in 1972, as he was credited with opening the People's Republic of China as a result of his visit that year, and achieving détente with the Soviet Union. Polls showed that Nixon held a strong lead in the Republican primaries. He was challenged by two candidates: liberal Pete McCloskey from California, and conservative John Ashbrook from Ohio. McCloskey ran as an anti-war candidate, while Ashbrook opposed Nixon's détente policies towards China and the Soviet Union. In the New Hampshire primary, McCloskey garnered 19.8% of the vote to Nixon's 67.6%, with Ashbrook receiving 9.7%. Nixon won 1323 of the 1324 delegates to the Republican convention, with McCloskey receiving the vote of one delegate from New Mexico. Vice President Spiro Agnew was re-nominated by acclamation; while both the party's moderate wing and Nixon himself had wanted to replace him with a new running-mate (the moderates favoring Nelson Rockefeller, and Nixon favoring John Connally), it was ultimately concluded that such action would incur too great a risk of losing Agnew's base of conservative supporters.


text: Seven members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War were brought on federal charges for conspiring to disrupt the Republican convention. They were acquitted by a federal jury in Gainesville, Florida.


text: Senate Majority Whip Ted Kennedy, the youngest brother of late President John F. Kennedy and late United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was the favorite to win the 1972 nomination, but he announced he would not be a candidate. The favorite for the Democratic nomination then became Senator Ed Muskie, the 1968 vice-presidential nominee. Muskie's momentum collapsed just prior to the New Hampshire primary, when the so-called "Canuck letter" was published in the "Manchester Union-Leader". The letter, actually a forgery from Nixon's "dirty tricks" unit, claimed that Muskie had made disparaging remarks about French-Canadians – a remark likely to injure Muskie's support among the French-American population in northern New England. Subsequently, the paper published an attack on the character of Muskie's wife Jane, reporting that she drank and used off-color language during the campaign. Muskie made an emotional defense of his wife in a speech outside the newspaper's offices during a snowstorm. Though Muskie later stated that what had appeared to the press as tears were actually melted snowflakes, the press reported that Muskie broke down and cried, shattering the candidate's image as calm and reasoned.


text: Nearly two years before the election, South Dakota Senator George McGovern entered the race as an anti-war, progressive candidate. McGovern was able to pull together support from the anti-war movement and other grassroots support to win the nomination in a primary system he had played a significant part in designing.


text: On January 25, 1972, New York Representative Shirley Chisholm announced she would run, and became the first African-American woman to run for the Democratic or Republican presidential nomination. Hawaii Representative Patsy Mink also announced she would run, and became the first Asian American person to run for the Democratic presidential nomination.


text: On April 25, George McGovern won the Massachusetts primary. Two days later, journalist Robert Novak quoted a "Democratic senator", later revealed to be Thomas Eagleton, as saying: "The people don't know McGovern is for amnesty, abortion, and legalization of pot. Once middle America – Catholic middle America, in particular – finds this out, he's dead." The label stuck, and McGovern became known as the candidate of "amnesty, abortion, and acid". It became Humphrey's battle cry to stop McGovern—especially in the Nebraska primary.


text: Alabama Governor George Wallace, an infamous segregationist who ran on a third-party ticket in 1968, did well in the South (winning nearly every county in the Florida primary) and among alienated and dissatisfied voters in the North. What might have become a forceful campaign was cut short when Wallace was shot in an assassination attempt by Arthur Bremer on May 15. Wallace was struck by five bullets and left paralyzed from the waist down. The day after the assassination attempt, Wallace won the Michigan and Maryland primaries, but the shooting effectively ended his campaign, and he pulled out in July.


text: In the end, McGovern won the nomination by winning primaries through grass-roots support, in spite of establishment opposition. McGovern had led a commission to re-design the Democratic nomination system after the divisive nomination struggle and convention of 1968. However, the new rules angered many prominent Democrats whose influence was marginalized, and those politicians refused to support McGovern's campaign (some even supporting Nixon instead), leaving the McGovern campaign at a significant disadvantage in funding, compared to Nixon. Some of the principles of the McGovern Commission have lasted throughout every subsequent nomination contest, but the Hunt Commission instituted the selection of Superdelegates a decade later, in order to reduce the nomination chances of outsiders like McGovern and Carter.


text: Most polls showed McGovern running well behind incumbent President Richard Nixon, except when McGovern was paired with Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. McGovern and his campaign brain trust lobbied Kennedy heavily to accept the bid to be McGovern's running mate, but he continually refused their advances, and instead suggested U.S. Representative (and House Ways and Means Committee chairman) Wilbur Mills of Arkansas and Boston Mayor Kevin White. Offers were then made to Hubert Humphrey, Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff, and Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, all of whom turned it down. Finally, the vice presidential slot was offered to Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, who accepted the offer.


text: With hundreds of delegates displeased with McGovern, the vote to ratify Eagleton's candidacy was chaotic, with at least three other candidates having their names put into nomination and votes scattered over 70 candidates. A grass-roots attempt to displace Eagleton in favor of Texas state representative Frances Farenthold gained significant traction, though was ultimately unable to change the outcome of the vote.


text: The vice-presidential balloting went on so long that McGovern and Eagleton were forced to begin making their acceptance speeches at around 2 am, local time.


text: After the convention ended, it was discovered that Eagleton had undergone psychiatric electroshock therapy for depression and had concealed this information from McGovern. A "Time" magazine poll taken at the time found that 77 percent of the respondents said, "Eagleton's medical record would not affect their vote." Nonetheless, the press made frequent references to his "shock therapy", and McGovern feared that this would detract from his campaign platform. McGovern subsequently consulted confidentially with pre-eminent psychiatrists, including Eagleton's own doctors, who advised him that a recurrence of Eagleton's depression was possible and could endanger the country, should Eagleton become president. McGovern had initially claimed that he would back Eagleton "1000 percent", only to ask Eagleton to withdraw three days later. This perceived lack of conviction in sticking with his running mate was disastrous for the McGovern campaign.


text: McGovern later approached six different prominent Democrats to run for vice-president: Ted Kennedy, Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey, Abraham Ribicoff, Larry O'Brien, and Reubin Askew. All six declined. Sargent Shriver, brother-in-law to John, Robert, and Ted Kennedy, former Ambassador to France, and former Director of the Peace Corps, later accepted. He was officially nominated by a special session of the Democratic National Committee. By this time, McGovern's poll ratings had plunged from 41 to 24 percent.


text: The only major third party candidate in the 1972 election was conservative Republican Representative John G. Schmitz, who ran on the American Independent Party ticket (the party on whose ballot George Wallace ran in 1968). He was on the ballot in 32 states and received 1,099,482 votes. Unlike Wallace, however, he did not win a majority of votes cast in any state, and received no electoral votes, although he did finish ahead of McGovern in four of the most conservative Idaho counties. Schmitz's performance in archconservative Jefferson County was the best by a third-party Presidential candidate in any free or postbellum state county since 1936 when William Lemke reached over twenty-eight percent of the vote in the North Dakota counties of Burke, Sheridan and Hettinger.


text: John Hospers and Tonie Nathan of the newly formed Libertarian Party were on the ballot only in Colorado and Washington, but were official write-in candidates in four others, and received 3,674 votes, winning no states. However, they did receive one Electoral College vote from Virginia from a Republican faithless elector (see below). The Libertarian vice-presidential nominee Theodora "Tonie" Nathan became the first Jew and the first woman in U.S. history to receive an Electoral College vote.


text: Linda Jenness was nominated by the Socialist Workers Party, with Andrew Pulley as her running-mate. Benjamin Spock and Julius Hobson were nominated for president and vice-president, respectively, by the People's Party.


text: McGovern ran on a platform of immediately ending the Vietnam War and instituting guaranteed minimum incomes for the nation's poor. His campaign was harmed by his views during the primaries (which alienated many powerful Democrats), the perception that his foreign policy was too extreme, and the Eagleton debacle. With McGovern's campaign weakened by these factors, the Republicans successfully portrayed him as a radical left-wing extremist incompetent to serve as president. Nixon led in the polls by large margins throughout the entire campaign. With an enormous fundraising advantage and a comfortable lead in the polls, Nixon concentrated on large rallies and focused speeches to closed, select audiences, leaving much of the retail campaigning to surrogates like Vice President Agnew. Nixon did not, by design, try to extend his coattails to Republican congressional or gubernatorial candidates, preferring to pad his own margin of victory.


text: Nixon's percentage of the popular vote was only marginally less than Lyndon Johnson's record in the 1964 election, and his margin of victory was slightly larger. Nixon won a majority vote in 49 states, including McGovern's home state of South Dakota. Only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia voted for the challenger, resulting in an even more lopsided Electoral College tally. McGovern garnered only 37.5 percent of the national popular vote, the lowest share received by a Democratic Party nominee since John W. Davis won only 28.8 percent of the vote in the 1924 election. The only major party candidate since 1972 to receive less than 40 percent of the vote was Republican incumbent President George H. W. Bush who won 37.4 percent of the vote in the 1992 election, a race that (as in 1924) was complicated by a strong third party vote.


text: Although the McGovern campaign believed that its candidate had a better chance of defeating Nixon because of the new Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution that lowered the national voting age to 18 from 21, most of the youth vote went to Nixon. This was the first election in American history in which a Republican candidate carried every single Southern state, continuing the region's transformation from a Democratic bastion into a Republican stronghold as Arkansas was carried by a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in a century. By this time, all the Southern states, except Arkansas and Texas, had been carried by a Republican in either the previous election or the one in 1964 (although Republican candidates carried Texas in 1928, 1952 and 1956). As a result of this election, Massachusetts became the only state that Nixon did not carry in any of the three presidential elections in which he was a candidate. This is one of only two elections since 1856 that Massachusetts and Rhode Island did not support the same candidate. The other election which the two states did not do so is 1980.


text: This presidential election was the first since 1808 in which New York did not have the largest number of electors in the Electoral College, having fallen to 41 electors vs. California's 45. Additionally, through 2020 it remains the last one in which Minnesota was carried by the Republican candidate.


text: McGovern won a mere 130 counties, plus the District of Columbia and four county-equivalents in Alaska, easily the fewest counties won by any major-party presidential nominee since the advent of popular presidential elections. In nineteen states, McGovern failed to carry a single county; he carried a mere one county-equivalent in a further nine states, and just two counties in a further seven. In contrast to Walter Mondale's narrow 1984 win in Minnesota, McGovern comfortably did win Massachusetts, but lost every other state by no less than five percentage points, as well as 45 states by more than ten percentage points – the exceptions being Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and his home state of South Dakota. This election also made Nixon the second former vice president in American history to serve two terms back-to-back, after Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and 1804.


text: Since McGovern carried only one state, bumper stickers reading "Nixon 49 America 1", "Don't Blame Me, I'm From Massachusetts", and "Massachusetts: The One And Only" were popular for a short time in Massachusetts. Nixon became the first Republican to ever win two terms without Massachusetts at least once, in fact, Massachusetts was the only state Nixon failed to win in any of his three bids for the presidency.


text: Nixon managed to win 18% of the African American vote (Gerald Ford would get 16% in 1976). He also remains the only Republican in modern times to threaten the oldest extant Democratic stronghold of South Texas: this is the last election when the Republicans have won Hidalgo or Dimmit counties, the only time Republicans have won La Salle County between William McKinley in 1900 and Donald Trump in 2020, and one of only two occasions since Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 that Republicans have gained a majority in Presidio County. More significantly, the 1972 election was the most recent time several highly populous urban counties – including Cook in Illinois, Orleans in Louisiana, Hennepin in Minnesota, Cuyahoga in Ohio, Durham in North Carolina, Queens in New York, and Prince George's in Maryland – have voted Republican.


text: The Wallace vote had also been crucial to Nixon being able to sweep the states that had narrowly held out against him in 1968 (Texas, Maryland, and West Virginia), as well as the states Wallace won himself (Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia). The pro-Wallace group of voters had only given AIP nominee John Schmitz a depressing 2.4% of its support, while 19.1% backed McGovern, and the majority 78.5% broke for Nixon.


text: Nixon, who became term-limited under the provisions of the Twenty-second Amendment as a result of his victory, became the first (and, as of 2020, only) presidential candidate to win a significant number of electoral votes in three presidential elections since the ratification of that Amendment. As of 2020, Nixon was the seventh of seven presidential nominees to win a significant number of electoral votes in at least three elections, the others being Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland, William Jennings Bryan, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.


text: Counting Nixon's successful runs for vice president in the 1950s, he matched Franklin Roosevelt's achievements of winning the presidency or vice presidency in four elections and polling significant electoral votes in five, while over-reaching Roosevelt by winning electoral votes for president or vice president in every state. The 520 electoral votes received by Nixon, added to the 301 electoral votes he received in 1968, gave him the most total electoral votes received by any candidate who had been vice president to be elected to the office of president (821), and the fourth largest number of electoral votes received by any candidate who was elected to the office of the president behind Dwight Eisenhower's 899, Ronald Reagan's 1,014 and Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1,876 total electoral votes.


text: For the first time since 1828 Maine allowed its electoral votes to be split between candidates. Two electoral votes were awarded to the winner of the statewide race and one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. This was the first time the Congressional District Method had been used since Michigan used it in 1892. Nixon won all four votes.


text: States where margin of victory was more than 5 percentage points, but less than 10 percentage points (43 electoral votes):


text: Nixon won 36 percent of the Democratic vote, according to an exit poll conducted for CBS News by George Fine Research, Inc. This represents more than twice the percentage of voters who typically defect from their party in presidential elections. Nixon also became the first Republican presidential candidate in American history to win the Roman Catholic vote (53–46), and the first in recent history to win the blue-collar vote, which he won by a 5-to-4 margin. McGovern narrowly won the union vote (50–48), though this difference was within the survey's margin of error of 2 percentage points. McGovern also narrowly won the youth vote (i. e., those aged 18 to 24) 52–46, a narrower margin than many of his strategists had predicted. Early on, the McGovern campaign also significantly over-estimated the number of young people who would vote in the election: They predicted that 18 million would have voted in total, but exit polls indicate that the actual number was about 12 million. McGovern did win comfortably among both African-American and Jewish voters, but by somewhat smaller margins than usual for a Democratic candidate.


text: On June 17, 1972, five months before election day, five men broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel in Washington, D. C.; the resulting investigation led to the revelation of attempted cover-ups of the break-in within the Nixon administration. What became known as the Watergate scandal eroded President Nixon's public and political support in his second term, and he resigned on August 9, 1974, in the face of probable impeachment by the House of Representatives and removal from office by the Senate.


text: As part of the continuing Watergate investigation in 1974–1975, federal prosecutors offered companies that had given illegal campaign contributions to President Nixon's re-election campaign lenient sentences if they came forward. Many companies complied, including Northrop Grumman, 3M, American Airlines, and Braniff Airlines. By 1976, prosecutors had convicted 18 American corporations of contributing illegally to Nixon's campaign.


title: James Buchanan

text: James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician who served as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861. He previously served as secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and represented Pennsylvania in both houses of the U.S. Congress. He was an advocate for states' rights, particularly regarding slavery, and minimized the role of the federal government preceding the Civil War. Buchanan was the last president born in the 18th century.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan was a prominent lawyer in Pennsylvania and won his first election to the state's House of Representatives as a Federalist. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1820 and retained that post for five terms, aligning with Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party. Buchanan served as Jackson's minister to Russia in 1832. He won the election in 1834 as a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and continued in that position for 11 years. He was appointed to serve as President James K. Polk's secretary of state in 1845, and eight years later was named as President Franklin Pierce's minister to the United Kingdom.


title: James Buchanan

text: Beginning in 1844, Buchanan became a regular contender for the Democratic party's presidential nomination. He was finally nominated in 1856, defeating incumbent Franklin Pierce and Senator Stephen A. Douglas at the Democratic National Convention. He benefited from the fact that he had been out of the country as ambassador in London and had not been involved in slavery issues. Buchanan and running mate John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky carried every slave state except Maryland, defeating anti-slavery Republican John C. Frémont and Know-Nothing former president Millard Fillmore to win the 1856 presidential election.


title: James Buchanan

text: As President, Buchanan intervened to assure the Supreme Court's majority ruling in the pro-slavery decision in the "Dred Scott" case. He acceded to Southern attempts to engineer Kansas’ entry into the Union as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution, and angered not only Republicans but also Northern Democrats. Buchanan honored his pledge to serve only one term and supported Breckinridge's unsuccessful candidacy in the 1860 presidential election. He failed to reconcile the fractured Democratic party amid the grudge against Stephen Douglas, leading to the election of Republican and former Congressman Abraham Lincoln.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan's leadership during his lame duck period, before the American Civil War, has been widely criticized. He simultaneously angered the North by not stopping secession and the South by not yielding to their demands. He supported the ineffective Corwin Amendment in an effort to reconcile the country. He made an unsuccessful attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter, but otherwise refrained from preparing the military. His failure to forestall the Civil War has been described as incompetence, and he spent his last years defending his reputation. In his personal life, Buchanan never married and was the only U.S. president to remain a lifelong bachelor, leading some historians and authors to question his sexual orientation. Buchanan died of respiratory failure in 1868 and was buried in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he had lived for nearly 60 years. Historians and scholars often rank Buchanan as the worst president in American history.


title: James Buchanan

text: James Buchanan Jr. was born April 23, 1791, in a log cabin in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania, to James Buchanan Sr. (1761–1821) and Elizabeth Speer (1767–1833). His parents were both of Ulster Scot descent, and his father emigrated from Ramelton, Ireland in 1783. Shortly after Buchanan's birth, the family moved to a farm near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, and in 1794 the family moved into the town. His father became the wealthiest resident there, working as a merchant, farmer, and real estate investor.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan attended the Old Stone Academy in Mercersburg and then Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He was nearly expelled for bad behavior but pleaded for a second chance and ultimately graduated with honors in 1809. Later that year, he moved to the state capital at Lancaster. James Hopkins, a leading lawyer there, accepted Buchanan as an apprentice, and in 1812 he was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar. Many other lawyers moved to Harrisburg when it became the state capital in 1812, but Buchanan made Lancaster his lifelong home. His income rapidly rose after he established his practice, and by 1821 he was earning over $11,000 per year (). He handled various types of cases, including a much-publicized impeachment trial, where he successfully defended Pennsylvania Judge Walter Franklin.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan began his political career as a member of the Federalist Party, and was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1814 and 1815. The legislature met for only three months a year, but Buchanan's service helped him acquire more clients. Politically, he supported federally-funded internal improvements, a high tariff, and a national bank. He became a strong critic of Democratic-Republican President James Madison during the War of 1812.


title: James Buchanan

text: He was a Freemason, and served as the Master of Masonic Lodge No. 43 in Lancaster and as a District Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.


title: James Buchanan

text: When the British invaded neighboring Maryland in 1814, he served in the defense of Baltimore as a private in Henry Shippen's Company, 1st Brigade, 4th Division, Pennsylvania Militia, a unit of yagers. Buchanan is the only president with military experience who was not an officer. He is also the last president who served in the War of 1812.


title: James Buchanan

text: In 1820 Buchanan was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, though the Federalist Party was waning. As a young Representative, Buchanan was one of the most prominent leaders of the "Amalgamator party" faction of Pennsylvanian politics, named that because it was made up of both Democratic-Republicans and former Federalists. During the 1824 presidential election, Buchanan initially supported Henry Clay, but switched to Andrew Jackson (with Clay as a second choice) when it became clear that the Pennsylvanian public overwhelmingly preferred Jackson. After the election, Buchanan continued supporting Jackson and helped organize his followers into the Democratic Party, afterwards becoming a prominent Pennsylvania Democrat. In Washington, Buchanan became an avid defender of states' rights, and was close with many southern Congressmen, viewing some New England Congressmen as dangerous radicals. He was appointed to the Agriculture Committee in his first year, and he eventually became Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He declined re-nomination to a sixth term and briefly returned to private life.


title: James Buchanan

text: After Jackson was re-elected in 1832, he offered Buchanan the position of United States Ambassador to Russia. Buchanan was reluctant to leave the country but ultimately agreed. He served as an ambassador for 18 months, during which time he learned French, the trade language of diplomacy in the nineteenth century. He helped negotiate commercial and maritime treaties with the Russian Empire.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan returned home and was elected by the Pennsylvania state legislature to succeed William Wilkins in the U.S. Senate. Wilkins, in turn, replaced Buchanan as the ambassador to Russia. The Jacksonian Buchanan, who was re-elected in 1836 and 1842, opposed the re-chartering of the Second Bank of the United States and sought to expunge a congressional censure of Jackson stemming from the Bank War.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan also opposed a gag rule sponsored by John C. Calhoun that would have suppressed anti-slavery petitions. He joined the majority in blocking the rule, with most senators of the belief that it would have the reverse effect of strengthening the abolitionists. He said, "We have just as little right to interfere with slavery in the South, as we have to touch the right of petition." Buchanan thought that the issue of slavery was the domain of the states, and he faulted abolitionists for exciting passions over the issue.


title: James Buchanan

text: His support of states' rights was matched by his support for Manifest Destiny, and he opposed the Webster–Ashburton Treaty for its "surrender" of lands to the United Kingdom. Buchanan also argued for the annexation of both Texas and the Oregon Country. In the lead-up to the 1844 Democratic National Convention, Buchanan positioned himself as a potential alternative to former President Martin Van Buren, but the nomination went to James K. Polk, who won the election.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan was offered the position of Secretary of State in the Polk administration, as well as the alternative of serving on the Supreme Court. He accepted the State Department post and served for the duration of Polk's single term in office. He and Polk nearly doubled the territory of the United States through the Oregon Treaty and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which included territory that is now Texas, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. In negotiations with Britain over Oregon, Buchanan at first preferred a compromise but later advocated for annexation of the entire territory. Eventually, he agreed to a division at the 49th parallel. After the outbreak of the Mexican–American War, he advised Polk against taking territory south of the Rio Grande River and New Mexico. However, as the war came to an end, Buchanan argued for the annexation of further territory, and Polk began to suspect that he was angling to become president. Buchanan did quietly seek the nomination at the 1848 Democratic National Convention, as Polk had promised to serve only one term, but Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan was nominated.


title: James Buchanan

text: With the 1848 election of Whig Zachary Taylor, Buchanan returned to private life. He bought the house of Wheatland on the outskirts of Lancaster and entertained various visitors while monitoring political events. In 1852, he was named president of the Board of Trustees of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, and he served in this capacity until 1866. He quietly campaigned for the 1852 Democratic presidential nomination, writing a public letter that deplored the Wilmot Proviso, which proposed to ban slavery in new territories. He became known as a "doughface" due to his sympathy toward the South. At the 1852 Democratic National Convention, he won the support of many southern delegates but failed to win the two-thirds support needed for the presidential nomination, which went to Franklin Pierce. Buchanan declined to serve as the vice presidential nominee, and the convention instead nominated his close friend, William R. King. Pierce won the 1852 election, and Buchanan accepted the position of United States Minister to the United Kingdom.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan sailed for England in the summer of 1853, and he remained abroad for the next three years. In 1850, the United States and Great Britain signed the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which committed both countries to joint control of any future canal that would connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through Central America. Buchanan met repeatedly with Lord Clarendon, the British foreign minister, in hopes of pressuring the British to withdraw from Central America. He also focused on the potential annexation of Cuba, which had long interested him. At Pierce's prompting, Buchanan met in Ostend, Belgium, with U.S. Ambassador to Spain Pierre Soulé and U.S. Ambassador to France John Mason. A memorandum draft resulted, called the Ostend Manifesto, which proposed the purchase of Cuba from Spain, then in the midst of revolution and near bankruptcy. The document declared the island "as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present ... family of states". Against Buchanan's recommendation, the final draft of the manifesto suggested that "wresting it from Spain", if Spain refused to sell, would be justified "by every law, human and Divine". The manifesto, generally considered a blunder, was never acted upon. It weakened the Pierce administration and reduced support for Manifest Destiny.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan's service abroad allowed him to conveniently avoid the debate over the Kansas–Nebraska Act then roiling the country in the slavery dispute. While he did not overtly seek the presidency, he assented to the movement on his behalf. The 1856 Democratic National Convention met in June 1856, producing a platform that reflected his views, including support for the Fugitive Slave Law, which required the return of escaped slaves. The platform also called for an end to anti-slavery agitation and U.S. "ascendancy in the Gulf of Mexico". President Pierce hoped for re-nomination, while Senator Stephen A. Douglas also loomed as a strong candidate.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan led on the first ballot, supported by powerful Senators John Slidell, Jesse Bright, and Thomas F. Bayard, who presented Buchanan as an experienced leader appealing to the North and South. He won the nomination after seventeen ballots. He was joined on the ticket by John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, placating supporters of Pierce and Douglas, also allies of Breckinridge.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan faced two candidates in the general election: former Whig President Millard Fillmore ran as the American Party (or "Know-Nothing") candidate, while John C. Frémont ran as the Republican nominee. Buchanan did not actively campaign, but he wrote letters and pledged to uphold the Democratic platform. In the election, he carried every slave state except for Maryland, as well as five slavery-free states, including his home state of Pennsylvania. He won 45 percent of the popular vote and decisively won the electoral vote, taking 174 of 296 votes. His election made him the first president from Pennsylvania.


title: James Buchanan

text: In a combative victory speech, Buchanan denounced Republicans, calling them a "dangerous" and "geographical" party that had unfairly attacked the South. He also declared, "the object of my administration will be to destroy sectional party, North or South, and to restore harmony to the Union under a national and conservative government." He set about this initially by feigning a sectional balance in his cabinet appointments.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan was inaugurated on March 4, 1857, taking the oath of office from Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. In his inaugural address, Buchanan committed himself to serve only one term, as his predecessor had done. He expressed abhorrence for the growing divisions over slavery and its status in the territories while saying that Congress should play no role in determining the status of slavery in the states or territories. He also declared his support for popular sovereignty. Buchanan recommended that a federal slave code be enacted to protect the rights of slave-owners in federal territories. He alluded to a then-pending Supreme Court case, "Dred Scott v. Sandford", which he said would permanently settle the issue of slavery. Dred Scott was a slave who was temporarily taken from a slave state to a free territory by his owner, John Sanford (the court misspelled his name). After Scott returned to the slave state, he filed a petition for his freedom based on his time in the free territory. The Dred Scott decision, rendered after Buchanan's speech, denied Scott's petition in favor of his owner.


title: James Buchanan

text: As his inauguration approached, Buchanan sought to establish an obedient, harmonious cabinet to avoid the in-fighting that had plagued Andrew Jackson's administration. He chose four Southerners and three Northerners, the latter of whom were all considered to be doughfaces (Southern sympathizers). His objective was to dominate the cabinet, and he chose men who would agree with his views. Concentrating on foreign policy, he appointed the aging Lewis Cass as Secretary of State. Buchanan's appointment of Southerners and their allies alienated many in the North, and his failure to appoint any followers of Stephen A. Douglas divided the party. Outside of the cabinet, he left in place many of Pierce's appointments but removed a disproportionate number of Northerners who had ties to Democrat opponents Pierce or Douglas. In that vein, he soon alienated their ally and his vice president, Breckinridge; the latter therefore played little role in the administration.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan appointed one Justice, Nathan Clifford, to the Supreme Court of the United States. He appointed seven other federal judges to United States district courts. He also appointed two judges to the United States Court of Claims.


title: James Buchanan

text: Two days after Buchanan's inauguration, Chief Justice Taney delivered the "Dred Scott" decision, denying the enslaved petitioner's request for freedom. The ruling broadly asserted that Congress had no constitutional power to exclude slavery in the territories. Prior to his inauguration, Buchanan had written to Justice John Catron in January 1857, inquired about the outcome of the case, and suggested that a broader decision, beyond the specifics of the case, would be more prudent. Buchanan hoped that a broad decision protecting slavery in the territories could lay the issue to rest, allowing him to focus on other issues.


title: James Buchanan

text: Catron, who was from Tennessee, replied on February 10, saying that the Supreme Court's Southern majority would decide against Scott, but would likely have to publish the decision on narrow grounds unless Buchanan could convince his fellow Pennsylvanian, Justice Robert Cooper Grier, to join the majority of the court. Buchanan then wrote to Grier and prevailed upon him, providing the majority leverage to issue a broad-ranging decision sufficient to render the Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional. Buchanan's letters were not then public; he was, however, seen at his inauguration in whispered conversation with the Chief Justice. When the decision was issued, Republicans began spreading the word that Taney had revealed to Buchanan the forthcoming result. Rather than destroying the Republican platform as Buchanan had hoped, the decision outraged Northerners who denounced it.


title: James Buchanan

text: The Panic of 1857 began in the summer of that year, ushered in by the collapse of 1,400 state banks and 5,000 businesses. While the South escaped largely unscathed, numerous northern cities experienced drastic increases in unemployment. Buchanan agreed with the southerners who attributed the economic collapse to over-speculation.


title: James Buchanan

text: Reflecting his Jacksonian background, Buchanan's response was "reform not relief". While the government was "without the power to extend relief", it would continue to pay its debts in specie, and while it would not curtail public works, none would be added. In hopes of reducing paper money supplies and inflation, he urged the states to restrict the banks to a credit level of $3 to $1 of specie and discouraged the use of federal or state bonds as security for bank note issues. The economy recovered in several years, though many Americans suffered as a result of the panic. Buchanan had hoped to reduce the deficit, but by the time he left office the federal deficit stood at $17 million.


title: James Buchanan

text: The Utah territory, settled in preceding decades by the Latter-day Saints and their leader Brigham Young, had grown increasingly hostile to federal intervention. Young harassed federal officers and discouraged outsiders from settling in the Salt Lake City area. In September 1857, the Utah Territorial Militia, associated with the Latter-day Saints, perpetrated the Mountain Meadows massacre against Arkansans headed for California. Buchanan was offended by the militarism and polygamous behavior of Young.


title: James Buchanan

text: Believing the Latter-day Saints to be in open rebellion, Buchanan in July 1857 sent Alfred Cumming, accompanied by the Army, to replace Young as governor. While the Latter-day Saints had frequently defied federal authority, some historians consider Buchanan's action was an inappropriate response to uncorroborated reports. Complicating matters, Young's notice of his replacement was not delivered because the Pierce administration had annulled the Utah mail contract. Young reacted to the military action by mustering a two-week expedition, destroying wagon trains, oxen, and other Army property. Buchanan then dispatched Thomas L. Kane as a private agent to negotiate peace. The mission succeeded, the new governor took office, and the Utah War ended. The President granted amnesty to inhabitants affirming loyalty to the government, and placed the federal troops at a peaceable distance for the balance of his administration.


title: James Buchanan

text: The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 created the Kansas Territory and allowed the settlers there to decide whether to allow slavery. This resulted in violence between "Free-Soil" (antislavery) and pro-slavery settlers, which developed into the "Bleeding Kansas" period. The antislavery settlers, with the help of Northern abolitionists, organized a government in Topeka. The more numerous proslavery settlers, many from the neighboring slave state Missouri, established a government in Lecompton, giving the Territory two different governments for a time, with two distinct constitutions, each claiming legitimacy.


title: James Buchanan

text: The admission of Kansas as a state required a constitution be submitted to Congress with the approval of a majority of its residents. Under President Pierce, a series of violent confrontations escalated over who had the right to vote in Kansas. The situation drew national attention, and some in Georgia and Mississippi advocated secession should Kansas be admitted as a free state. Buchanan chose to endorse the pro-slavery Lecompton government.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan appointed Robert J. Walker to replace John W. Geary as Territorial Governor, with the expectation he would assist the proslavery faction in gaining approval of a new constitution. However, Walker wavered on the slavery question, and there ensued conflicting referendums from Topeka and Lecompton, where election fraud occurred. In October 1857, the Lecompton government framed the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution and sent it to Buchanan without a referendum. Buchanan reluctantly rejected it, and he dispatched federal agents to arrange a compromise. The Lecompton government agreed to a referendum limited solely to the slavery question.


title: James Buchanan

text: Despite the protests of Walker and two former Kansas governors, Buchanan decided to accept the Lecompton Constitution. In a December 1857 meeting with Stephen Douglas, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, Buchanan demanded that all Democrats support the administration's position of admitting Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution. On February 2, he transmitted the Lecompton Constitution to Congress. He also transmitted a message that attacked the "revolutionary government" in Topeka, conflating them with the Mormons in Utah. Buchanan made every effort to secure congressional approval, offering favors, patronage appointments, and even cash for votes. The Lecompton Constitution won the approval of the Senate in March, but a combination of Know-Nothings, Republicans, and northern Democrats defeated the bill in the House. Rather than accepting defeat, Buchanan backed the 1858 English Bill, which offered Kansans immediate statehood and vast public lands in exchange for accepting the Lecompton Constitution. In August 1858, Kansans by referendum strongly rejected the Lecompton Constitution.


title: James Buchanan

text: The dispute over Kansas became the battlefront for control of the Democratic Party. On one side were Buchanan, most Southern Democrats, and the "doughfaces". On the other side were Douglas and most northern Democrats plus a few Southerners. Douglas's faction continued to support the doctrine of popular sovereignty, while Buchanan insisted that Democrats respect the "Dred Scott" decision and its repudiation of federal interference with slavery in the territories. The struggle ended only with Buchanan's presidency. In the interim he used his patronage powers to remove Douglas sympathizers in Illinois and Washington, D.C., and installed pro-administration Democrats, including postmasters.


title: James Buchanan

text: Douglas's Senate term was coming to an end in 1859, with the Illinois legislature, elected in 1858, determining whether Douglas would win re-election. The Senate seat was the primary issue of the legislative election, marked by the famous debates between Douglas and his Republican opponent for the seat, Abraham Lincoln. Buchanan, working through federal patronage appointees in Illinois, ran candidates for the legislature in competition with both the Republicans and the Douglas Democrats. This could easily have thrown the election to the Republicans, and showed the depth of Buchanan's animosity toward Douglas. In the end, Douglas Democrats won the legislative election and Douglas was re-elected to the Senate. In that year's elections, Douglas forces took control throughout the North, except in Buchanan's home state of Pennsylvania. Buchanan's support was otherwise reduced to a narrow base of southerners.


title: James Buchanan

text: The division between northern and southern Democrats allowed the Republicans to win a plurality of the House in the 1858 elections, and allowed them to block most of Buchanan's agenda. Buchanan, in turn, added to the hostility with his veto of six substantial pieces of Republican legislation. Among these measures were the Homestead Act, which would have given 160 acres of public land to settlers who remained on the land for five years, and the Morrill Act, which would have granted public lands to establish land-grant colleges. Buchanan argued that these acts were unconstitutional.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan took office with an ambitious foreign policy, designed to establish U.S. hegemony over Central America at the expense of Great Britain. He hoped to re-negotiate the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, which he thought limited U.S. influence in the region. He also sought to establish American protectorates over the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora, and most importantly, he hoped to achieve his long-term goal of acquiring Cuba. After long negotiations with the British, he convinced them to cede the Bay Islands to Honduras and the Mosquito Coast to Nicaragua. However, Buchanan's ambitions in Cuba and Mexico were largely blocked by the House of Representatives.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan also considered buying Alaska from the Russian Empire, as a colony for Mormon settlers, but he and the Russians were unable to agree upon a price. In China, the administration won trade concessions in the Treaty of Tientsin. In 1858, Buchanan ordered the Paraguay expedition to punish Paraguay for firing on the , and the expedition resulted in a Paraguayan apology and payment of an indemnity. The chiefs of Raiatea and Tahaa in the South Pacific, refusing to accept the rule of King Tamatoa V, unsuccessfully petitioned the United States to accept the islands under a protectorate in June 1858.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan was offered a herd of elephants by King Rama IV of Siam, though the letter arrived after Buchanan's departure from office. As Buchanan's successor, Lincoln declined the King's offer, citing the unsuitable climate. Other presidential pets included a pair of bald eagles and a Newfoundland dog.


title: James Buchanan

text: In March 1860, the House impaneled the Covode Committee to investigate the administration for alleged impeachable offenses, such as bribery and extortion of representatives. The committee, three Republicans and two Democrats, was accused by Buchanan's supporters of being nakedly partisan; they charged its chairman, Republican Rep. John Covode, with acting on a personal grudge from a disputed land grant designed to benefit Covode's railroad company. The Democratic committee members, as well as Democratic witnesses, were enthusiastic in their condemnation of Buchanan.


title: James Buchanan

text: The committee was unable to establish grounds for impeaching Buchanan; however, the majority report issued on June 17 alleged corruption and abuse of power among members of his cabinet. The report also included accusations from Republicans that Buchanan had attempted to bribe members of Congress, in connection with the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution of Kansas. The Democrats pointed out that evidence was scarce, but did not refute the allegations; one of the Democratic members, Rep. James Robinson, stated that he agreed with the Republicans, though he did not sign it.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan claimed to have "passed triumphantly through this ordeal" with complete vindication. Republican operatives distributed thousands of copies of the Covode Committee report throughout the nation as campaign material in that year's presidential election.


title: James Buchanan

text: As he had promised in his inaugural address, Buchanan did not seek re-election. He went so far as to tell his ultimate successor, "If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland [his home], you are a happy man."


title: James Buchanan

text: The 1860 Democratic National Convention convened in April of that year and, though Douglas led after every ballot, he was unable to win the two-thirds majority required. The convention adjourned after 53 ballots, and re-convened in Baltimore in June. After Douglas finally won the nomination, several Southerners refused to accept the outcome, and nominated Vice President Breckinridge as their own candidate. Douglas and Breckinridge agreed on most issues except the protection of slavery. Buchanan, nursing a grudge against Douglas, failed to reconcile the party, and tepidly supported Breckinridge. With the splintering of the Democratic Party, Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln won a four-way election that also included John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party. Lincoln's support in the North was enough to give him an Electoral College majority. Buchanan became the last Democrat to win a presidential election until Grover Cleveland in 1884.


title: James Buchanan

text: As early as October, the army's Commanding General, Winfield Scott, an opponent of Buchanan, warned him that Lincoln's election would likely cause at least seven states to secede from the union. He recommended that massive amounts of federal troops and artillery be deployed to those states to protect federal property, although he also warned that few reinforcements were available. Since 1857, Congress had failed to heed calls for a stronger militia and allowed the army to fall into deplorable condition. Buchanan distrusted Scott and ignored his recommendations. After Lincoln's election, Buchanan directed War Secretary Floyd to reinforce southern forts with such provisions, arms, and men as were available; however, Floyd persuaded him to revoke the order.


title: James Buchanan

text: With Lincoln's victory, talk of secession and disunion reached a boiling point, putting the burden on Buchanan to address it in his final speech to Congress on December 10. In his message, which was anticipated by both factions, Buchanan denied the right of states to secede but maintained the federal government was without power to prevent them. He placed the blame for the crisis solely on "intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States," and suggested that if they did not "repeal their unconstitutional and obnoxious enactments ... the injured States, after having first used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the Union." Buchanan's only suggestion to solve the crisis was "an explanatory amendment" affirming the constitutionality of slavery in the states, the fugitive slave laws, and popular sovereignty in the territories. His address was sharply criticized both by the North, for its refusal to stop secession, and the South, for denying its right to secede. Five days after the address was delivered, Treasury Secretary Howell Cobb resigned, as his views had become irreconcilable with the President's.


title: James Buchanan

text: South Carolina, long the most radical Southern state, seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860. However, Unionist sentiment remained strong among many in the South, and Buchanan sought to appeal to the Southern moderates who might prevent secession in other states. He proposed passage of constitutional amendments protecting slavery in the states and territories. He also met with South Carolinian commissioners in an attempt to resolve the situation at Fort Sumter, which federal forces remained in control of despite its location in Charleston, South Carolina. He refused to dismiss Interior Secretary Jacob Thompson after the latter was chosen as Mississippi's agent to discuss secession, and he refused to fire Secretary of War John B. Floyd despite an embezzlement scandal. Floyd ended up resigning, but not before sending numerous firearms to Southern states, where they eventually fell into the hands of the Confederacy. Despite Floyd's resignation, Buchanan continued to seek the advice of counselors from the Deep South, including Jefferson Davis and William Henry Trescot.


title: James Buchanan

text: Efforts were made in vain by Sen. John J. Crittenden, Rep. Thomas Corwin, and former president John Tyler to negotiate a compromise to stop secession, with Buchanan's support. Failed attempts were also made by a group of governors meeting in New York. Buchanan secretly asked President-elect Lincoln to call for a national referendum on the issue of slavery, but Lincoln declined.


title: James Buchanan

text: Despite the efforts of Buchanan and others, six more slave states seceded by the end of January 1861. Buchanan replaced the departed Southern cabinet members with John Adams Dix, Edwin M. Stanton, and Joseph Holt, all of whom were committed to preserving the Union. When Buchanan considered surrendering Fort Sumter, the new cabinet members threatened to resign, and Buchanan relented. On January 5, Buchanan decided to reinforce Fort Sumter, sending the "Star of the West" with 250 men and supplies. However, he failed to ask Major Robert Anderson to provide covering fire for the ship, and it was forced to return North without delivering troops or supplies. Buchanan chose not to respond to this act of war, and instead sought to find a compromise to avoid secession. He received a March 3 message from Anderson, that supplies were running low, but the response became Lincoln's to make, as the latter succeeded to the presidency the next day.


title: James Buchanan

text: On March 2, 1861, Congress approved an amendment to the United States Constitution that would shield "domestic institutions" of the states, including slavery, from the constitutional amendment process and from abolition or interference by Congress. The proposed amendment was submitted to the state legislatures for ratification. Commonly known as the Corwin Amendment, it was never ratified by the requisite number of states.


title: James Buchanan

text: The Civil War erupted within two months of Buchanan's retirement. He supported the Union, writing to former colleagues that, "the assault upon Sumter was the commencement of war by the Confederate states, and no alternative was left but to prosecute it with vigor on our part." He also wrote a letter to his fellow Pennsylvania Democrats, urging them to "join the many thousands of brave & patriotic volunteers who are already in the field."


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan was dedicated to defending his actions prior to the Civil War, which was referred to by some as "Buchanan's War". He received threatening letters daily, and stores displayed Buchanan's likeness with the eyes inked red, a noose drawn around his neck and the word "TRAITOR" written across his forehead. The Senate proposed a resolution of condemnation which ultimately failed, and newspapers accused him of colluding with the Confederacy. His former cabinet members, five of whom had been given jobs in the Lincoln administration, refused to defend Buchanan publicly.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan became distraught by the vitriolic attacks levied against him, and fell sick and depressed. In October 1862, he defended himself in an exchange of letters with Winfield Scott, published in the "National Intelligencer". He soon began writing his fullest public defense, in the form of his memoir "Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of Rebellion", which was published in 1866.


title: James Buchanan

text: Soon after the publication of the memoir, Buchanan caught a cold in May 1868, which quickly worsened due to his advanced age. He died on June 1, 1868, of respiratory failure at the age of 77 at his home at Wheatland. He was interred in Woodward Hill Cemetery in Lancaster.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan was often considered by anti-slavery northerners a "doughface", a northerner with pro-southern principles. Shortly after his election, he said that the "great object" of his administration was "to arrest, if possible, the agitation of the Slavery question in the North and to destroy sectional parties". Although Buchanan was personally opposed to slavery, he believed that the abolitionists were preventing the solution to the slavery problem. He stated, "Before [the abolitionists] commenced this agitation, a very large and growing party existed in several of the slave states in favor of the gradual abolition of slavery; and now not a voice is heard there in support of such a measure. The abolitionists have postponed the emancipation of the slaves in three or four states for at least half a century." In deference to the intentions of the typical slaveholder, he was willing to provide the benefit of the doubt. In his third annual message to Congress, the president claimed that the slaves were "treated with kindness and humanity. ... Both the philanthropy and the self-interest of the master have combined to produce this humane result."


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan thought restraint was the essence of good self-government. He believed the constitution comprised "... restraints, imposed not by arbitrary authority, but by the people upon themselves and their representatives. ... In an enlarged view, the people's interests may seem identical, but to the eye of local and sectional prejudice, they always appear to be conflicting ... and the jealousies that will perpetually arise can be repressed only by the mutual forbearance which pervades the constitution." Regarding slavery and the Constitution, he stated: "Although in Pennsylvania we are all opposed to slavery in the abstract, we can never violate the constitutional compact we have with our sister states. Their rights will be held sacred by us. Under the constitution it is their own question; and there let it remain."


title: James Buchanan

text: One of the prominent issues of the day was tariffs. Buchanan was conflicted by free trade as well as prohibitive tariffs, since either would benefit one section of the country to the detriment of the other. As a senator from Pennsylvania, he said: "I am viewed as the strongest advocate of protection in other states, whilst I am denounced as its enemy in Pennsylvania."


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan was also torn between his desire to expand the country for the general welfare of the nation, and to guarantee the rights of the people settling particular areas. On territorial expansion, he said, "What, sir? Prevent the people from crossing the Rocky Mountains? You might just as well command the Niagara not to flow. We must fulfill our destiny." On the resulting spread of slavery, through unconditional expansion, he stated: "I feel a strong repugnance by any act of mine to extend the present limits of the Union over a new slave-holding territory." For instance, he hoped the acquisition of Texas would "be the means of limiting, not enlarging, the dominion of slavery."


title: James Buchanan

text: In 1818, Buchanan met Anne Caroline Coleman at a grand ball in Lancaster, and the two began courting. Anne was the daughter of wealthy iron manufacturer Robert Coleman. She was also the sister-in-law of Philadelphia judge Joseph Hemphill, one of Buchanan's colleagues. By 1819, the two were engaged, but spent little time together. Buchanan was busy with his law firm and political projects during the Panic of 1819, which took him away from Coleman for weeks at a time. Rumors abounded, as some suggested that he was marrying her only for money; others said he was involved with other (unidentified) women. Letters from Coleman revealed she was aware of several rumors. She broke off the engagement, and soon afterward, on December 9, 1819, suddenly died. Buchanan wrote to her father for permission to attend the funeral, which was refused.


title: James Buchanan

text: After Coleman's death, Buchanan never courted another woman. At the time of her funeral, he said that, "I feel happiness has fled from me forever." During his presidency, an orphaned niece, Harriet Lane, whom he had adopted, served as official White House hostess. There was an unfounded rumor that he had an affair with President Polk's widow, Sarah Childress Polk.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan's lifelong bachelorhood after Anne Coleman's death has drawn interest and speculation. Some conjecture that Anne's death merely served to deflect questions about Buchanan's sexuality and bachelorhood. Several writers have surmised that he was homosexual, including James W. Loewen, Robert P. Watson, and Shelley Ross. One of his biographers, Jean Baker, suggests that Buchanan was celibate, if not asexual.


title: James Buchanan

text: Buchanan had a close relationship with William Rufus King, which became a popular target of gossip. King was an Alabama politician who briefly served as vice president under Franklin Pierce. Buchanan and King lived together in a Washington boardinghouse and attended social functions together from 1834 until 1844. Such a living arrangement was then common, though King once referred to the relationship as a "communion". Andrew Jackson called King "Miss Nancy" and Buchanan's Postmaster General Aaron V. Brown referred to King as Buchanan's "better half", "wife", and "Aunt Fancy". Loewen indicated that Buchanan late in life wrote a letter acknowledging that he might marry a woman who could accept his "lack of ardent or romantic affection". Catherine Thompson, the wife of cabinet member Jacob Thompson, later noted that "there was something unhealthy in the president's attitude." King died of tuberculosis shortly after Pierce's inauguration, four years before Buchanan became president. Buchanan described him as "among the best, the purest and most consistent public men I have known". Biographer Baker opines that both men's nieces may have destroyed correspondence between the two men. However, she believes that their surviving letters illustrate only "the affection of a special friendship".


title: James Buchanan

text: Though Buchanan predicted that "history will vindicate my memory," historians have criticized Buchanan for his unwillingness or inability to act in the face of secession. Historical rankings of presidents of the United States without exception place Buchanan among the least successful presidents. When scholars are surveyed, he ranks at or near the bottom in terms of vision/agenda-setting, domestic leadership, foreign policy leadership, moral authority, and positive historical significance of their legacy.


title: James Buchanan

text: A bronze and granite memorial near the southeast corner of Washington, D.C.'s Meridian Hill Park was designed by architect William Gorden Beecher and sculpted by Maryland artist Hans Schuler. It was commissioned in 1916 but not approved by the U.S. Congress until 1918, and not completed and unveiled until June 26, 1930. The memorial features a statue of Buchanan, bookended by male and female classical figures representing law and diplomacy, with engraved text reading: "The incorruptible statesman whose walk was upon the mountain ranges of the law," a quote from a member of Buchanan's cabinet, Jeremiah S. Black.