AHC: Buchanan As One Of The “Greats”

Buchanan aspired to be a president who would rank in history with George Washington.
With a POD after his inauguration in 1857, make this happen as plausibly as possible.
 
With a POD after his inauguration in 1857, make this happen as plausibly as possible.
A post-inauguration POD is not going to make this happen. You’d have to go back into his early personal life and make him far less sympathetic to slavery.
 

samcster94

Banned
A post-inauguration POD is not going to make this happen. You’d have to go back into his early personal life and make him far less sympathetic to slavery.
True. That has too many butterflies. Making him merely okay and known for averting secession/war would be possible, even if just barely and would require a different 1860 election(and 1858 by extension).
 
If Buchanan is somewhat less incompetent, secession is delayed, and some version of the Lost Cause (or at least, "slavers and radical abolitionists were just as bad as each other and the answer was in compromise") remains mainstream in historiography, he would probably be seen as somewhere between okay and "moderate hero who tragically failed to stop the takeover of radicals." It's not Washington-level, but it's a start.
 
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Though perhaps it doesn't fulfill the conditions of the OP, I was toying with a scenario that had the South Carolinian battery on Morris Island fire upon, disable, and sink the Star of the West, a civilian ship sent to reinforce Fort Sumter on January 9th 1861. Whereas in OTL, only a handful of shots were fired and the ship retreated, in TTL that's off the table. The prolonged firing convinces Major Anderson to engage in counter-battery fire against Morris Island and Fort Moultrie. This in turn prompts the South Carolinian batteries to open fire on Fort Sumter. Perhaps there might be a way to de-escalate this conflict, but I'm skeptical. IMHO this engagement or a similar escalation of the reinforcement attempt has a good chance of destroying Buchanan's illusions of preventing a Civil War.

While I don't think Buchanan would call for volunteers to put down the rebellion right away, I think he likely begins the process of moving as much war materiel North as possible and reinforcing those forts best suited to withstanding attacks from secessionists. These policies and his earlier replacement of pro-Southern cabinet members, coupled with the increase in secessionist rhetoric prompts a faster secession process in the South. As slave states join South Carolina in outright rebellion, Buchanan is faced with no option other than calling for volunteers and bringing an end to the war. I'd wager that in this scenario a good amount of the war materiel that fell into Southern hands in OTL does not. For the sake of the OP, let's say that Buchanan's policies and appointments during the final days of his presidency prove to be good ones. When he's inaugurated, Lincoln inherits a Union that's well on it's way to winning the nascent civil war. Feeling more connected to politics and determined to see the war through in some capacity, Buchanan remains more politically active in his post-presidency career and is a staunch opponent of Pierce. Though he certainly wouldn't be the greatest president of all time in this scenario, it's hard to do worse.
 
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samcster94

Banned
Though perhaps it doesn't fulfill the conditions of the OP, I was toying with a scenario that had the South Carolinian battery on Morris Island fire upon, disable, and sink the Star of the West, a civilian ship sent to reinforce Fort Sumter on January 9th 1861. Whereas in OTL, only a handful of shots were fired and the ship retreated, in TTL that's off the table. The prolonged firing convinces Major Anderson to engage in counter-battery fire against Morris Island and Fort Moultrie. This in turn prompts the South Carolinian batteries to open fire on Fort Sumter. Perhaps there might be a way to de-escalate this conflict, but I'm skeptical. IMHO this engagement or a similar escalation of the reinforcement attempt has a good chance of destroying Buchanan's illusions of preventing a Civil War.

While I don't think Buchanan would call for volunteers to put down the rebellion right away, I think he likely begins the process of moving as much war materiel North as possible and reinforcing those forts best suited to withstanding attacks from secessionists. These policies and his earlier replacement of pro-Southern cabinet members, coupled with the increase in secessionist rhetoric prompts a faster secession process in the South. As slave states join South Carolina in outright rebellion, Buchanan is faced with no option other than calling for volunteers and bringing an end to the war. I'd wager that in this scenario a good amount of the war materiel that fell into Southern hands in OTL does not. For the sake of the OP, let's say that Buchanan's policies and appointments during the final days of his presidency prove to be good ones. When he's inaugurated, Lincoln inherits a Union that's well on it's way to winning the nascent civil war. Feeling more connected to politics and determined to see the war through in some capacity, Buchanan remains more politically active in his post-presidency career and is a staunch opponent of Pierce. Though he certainly wouldn't be the greatest president of all time in this scenario, it's hard to do worse.
A bit OOC, but having him actually fight a different CW as a lame duck might improve his image too. Yeah, a very different, more moderate{still racist}, Lost Cause(it tries to create a discontinuity between the prewar South and the Confederacy over legitimacy) might rehabilitate him some.
 
After 1857, it's still possible to avert the Civil War and to forge some new states out of Mexican territory but I don't think that's sufficient to make Buchanan one of the "Greats". To do so would require going against the OP's start date a bit, back to 1848, and to have Buchanan help ensure Mexico gets annexed; like many in the Polk Administration, he was in favor of such and also attached a political motive to it as he thought it would help springboard him later on into the Presidency. Have Nicholas Trist die in late 1847 (Cholera, Malaria, etc) so that negotiations fail and the "All Mexico" movement emerges strongly in 1848 with Buchanan as one of its public leaders as well as the Democratic candidate for that year's election. During his time in the Oval Office, Mexico is integrated into the Union and thus he gets a lot of public recognition for that fact.
 

Deleted member 97083

A country other than Britain attempts to invade the United States and drastically fails. James Buchanan is credited with defending the United States against the invasion.
 
I know this is outside the scope of the OP, but Buchanan could have been seen as at least a Polk-like "near great" if elected in 1844. https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-a-great-or-only-near-great-president.432236/

To get back to the OP, though: Kenneth Stampp has suggested that if Buchanan had insisted in 1857 that any proposed Constitution for Kansas must be submitted as a whole to the people of the Territory for acceptance or rejection, he could have avoided a serious split in the Democratic Party, that the South was by no means unanimously pro-Lecompton until after Buchanan made it a test of party loyalty. https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/LRuzFWfhRic/HMFfkVWv7HsJ
Yet even a unified Democratic Party might have lost to the Republicans in 1860. And even if Buchanan had managed to get the Democrats to keep control of the White House after 1860, and a civil war is at least delayed, this would hardly make him a "great" president in historical estimation. After all, it's arguable that Millard Fillmore in 1850 prevented a civil war, but nobody considers him a great president...
 

Infinity

Banned
What if Buchanan's legacy was a massive investment in southern infrastructure? What if the south shared the industrial boom with the north? Would that not make Buchanan a great president?
 
He would be opposed by the Southern Aristocracy

In the specific case of Birmingham, Alabama and the attempts at industrializing it, it was actually the Aristocracy in favor of industry and the yeomen farmers who were opposed to it; the farmers managed to win until after the Civil War.
 
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