James buchanan gay
Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan &#; William Rufus King
On Thursday, October 17, , Dr. Thomas Balcerski will join LancasterHistory to discuss his recent publication Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King. For event details and how to register, please scroll to the bottom of this page.
The friendship of the bachelor politicians James Buchanan () of Pennsylvania and William Rufus King () of Alabama has excited much speculation through the years. Why did neither marry? Might they have been gay? Or was their relationship a nineteenth-century version of the modern-day &#;bromance?&#; In Bosom Friends: The Intimate Planet of James Buchanan and William Rufus King, Dr. Thomas Balcerski explores the lives of these two politicians and discovers one of the most significant collaborations in American political history. His work demonstrates that intimate male friendships among politicians were—and continue to be—an important part of success in American politics.
Thomas Balcerski, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of history
James Buchanan is born
The son of wealthy Scottish and Irish immigrant parents, Buchanan became a successful lawyer and entered politics with his election to the Pennsylvania state legislature as a Federalist in When the Federalist Party later collapsed, he joined Andrew Jackson’s Democratic Party and was elected to Congress in He served five terms in the Property of Representatives until , served as President Jackson’s minister to Russia in and returned to the U.S. to win a Senate seat in Buchanan also served as James Polk’s secretary of articulate from to and as Franklin Pierce’s minister to Great Britain from to before running for the presidency. His overseas duties enabled him to escape becoming embroiled in the domestic conflict over slavery. That isolation, which ended when he was elected president in , contributed to the failure of his administration.
Buchanan’s ignorance of slavery’s divisive role in American domestic politics became apparent soon after he entered the White Dwelling. He actively pressured the Supreme Court to control in the Dred Scott case that Congress had no right
By Timothy Cwiek
More than years before America elected its first ebony president, it most likely had its first gay president: James Buchanan.
Buchanan, a Democrat from Lancaster County, Pa., was the 15th president of the U.S. and a lifelong bachelor. He served as president from , during the tumultuous years that lead up to the Civil War.
Historian James W. Loewen has done extensive research into Buchanan's personal life, and he's convinced Buchanan was gay.
Loewen is the author of the acclaimed book "Lies Across America," which examines how historical sites inaccurately portray figures and events in America's past.
"I'm sure that Buchanan was gay," Loewen said. "There is clear evidence that he was gay. And since I haven't seen any evidence that he was heterosexual, I don't believe he was bisexual."
According to Loewen, Buchanan shared a residence with William Rufus King, a Democratic senator from Alabama, for several years in Washington, D.C.
Loewen said contemporary records indicate the two men were inseparable, and wags would refer to them as "the Siamese twins."
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The Year History of Speculating About President James Buchanan&#;s Bachelorhood
Was his close friendship with William Rufus King just that, or was it evidence that he was the nation&#;s first gay chief executive?
At the start of , James Buchanan’s presidential aspirations were about to enter a world of trouble. A recent spat in the Washington Daily Globe had stirred his political rivals into full froth—Aaron Venable Brown of Tennessee was especially enraged. In a “confidential” letter to future first lady Sarah Polk, Brown savaged Buchanan and “his better half,” writing: “Mr. Buchanan looks gloomy & dissatisfied & so did his better half until a little personal flattery & a certain newspaper puff which you doubtless noticed, excited hopes that by getting adivorce she might set up again in the nature to some tolerable advantage.”
The problem, of course, is that James Buchanan, our nation’s only bachelor president, had no woman to call his “better half.” But, as Brown’s letter implies, there was a man who fit the bill.
Google James Buchanan and you inevitably di