The Political career of James Buchanan began with his participation in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1814-1820. Elected five times to the House of Representatives, James Buchanan went on to serve as Minister to Russia and later served the Senate for a decade. Acting as Polk's Secretary of State and later Pierce's Minister to Great Britain, James Buchanan had acquired a lot of Political experience.
The nomination of James Buchanan by the Democrats in the year 1856 was a fall out of the fact that he was in England during the Kansas-Nebraska debate and therefore was not involved in it.
Presidency in a rapidly dividing Nation taught James Buchanan to realize the Political realities of the time. James Buchanan had expected the crisis to reduce if he maintained a sectional balance in his appointment procedures.
Sectional strife within the Democratic Party led to a split in the party into the Northern and the Southern wing. This division made the election of the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln only obvious. But the Southerners preferred Secession rather than a Republican administration. James Buchanan tried to prevent this secession but finally he took a policy of remaining inactive and continued it till he was in the office. He retired in 1861 and died seven years later.
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