The Unfair­ness of It All cap­tures the deep­en­ing frus­tra­tions and polit­i­cal tur­moil expe­ri­enced by Pres­i­dent James Buchanan dur­ing the final stages of his pres­i­den­cy, as he nav­i­gat­ed the ever-wors­en­ing divi­sions in the Unit­ed States. Buchanan had entered office in 1857 with a sense of opti­mism and a desire to restore peace to a nation increas­ing­ly divid­ed over the issue of slav­ery. How­ev­er, by the end of his term, he found him­self over­whelmed by the esca­lat­ing con­flict, par­tic­u­lar­ly the polit­i­cal bat­tle over whether Kansas would join the Union as a free or slave state. This issue, which he ini­tial­ly saw as rel­a­tive­ly incon­se­quen­tial and one best left to the Supreme Court to decide, came to dom­i­nate his pres­i­den­cy, expos­ing the deep sec­tion­al rifts with­in the nation. Despite his efforts to mod­er­ate the debate, Buchanan could not quell the ris­ing ten­sions, and as his term drew to a close, he faced the bit­ter real­iza­tion that the country’s divi­sions might be irre­versible.

The chap­ter delves fur­ther into Buchanan’s con­tro­ver­sial role in the Dred Scott deci­sion, which had a pro­found impact on the nation’s under­stand­ing of slav­ery and cit­i­zen­ship. The rul­ing, deliv­ered by Chief Jus­tice Roger B. Taney in 1857, declared that African Amer­i­cans could not be cit­i­zens and that Con­gress had no author­i­ty to restrict slav­ery in the ter­ri­to­ries. While Buchanan pub­licly sup­port­ed the deci­sion, he had been pri­vate­ly involved in influ­enc­ing the court’s delib­er­a­tions, a fact that became wide­ly known after the deci­sion was made pub­lic. Buchanan had been aware of the court’s like­ly rul­ing before tak­ing office, and despite claim­ing to view slav­ery as a “moral evil,” he nev­er took a stand against its pres­ence in the South. Instead, he placed the blame for the nation­al cri­sis square­ly on the shoul­ders of abo­li­tion­ists, whom he accused of inflam­ing ten­sions and lead­ing the nation toward inevitable con­flict. Buchanan’s incon­sis­tent stance on slav­ery, cou­pled with his fail­ure to act deci­sive­ly, con­tributed to his grow­ing frus­tra­tion and inabil­i­ty to address the mount­ing cri­sis fac­ing the nation.

As Buchanan pre­pared for his final year in office, the loom­ing threat of seces­sion and civ­il war cast a shad­ow over his pres­i­den­cy. On Decem­ber 3, 1860, he faced the daunt­ing task of deliv­er­ing his final annu­al mes­sage to Con­gress. The speech was seen as a piv­otal moment for Buchanan to address the nation’s wors­en­ing divi­sions and attempt to restore some sense of calm before Lincoln’s inau­gu­ra­tion. Yet, with the elec­tion of Abra­ham Lin­coln and the increas­ing calls for seces­sion from South­ern states, Buchanan feared that his pres­i­den­cy would end in chaos rather than peace. As ten­sions flared and South­ern states like South Car­oli­na moved toward seces­sion, Buchanan knew that his efforts to main­tain the Union had failed. His final address to Con­gress would have to bal­ance his desire to assure the pub­lic of a peace­ful tran­si­tion of pow­er with the stark real­i­ty of the deep­en­ing divi­sions that threat­ened to tear the coun­try apart. Buchanan’s inter­nal con­flict over how to han­dle the cri­sis became increas­ing­ly evi­dent as he pre­pared for the speech, know­ing that any mis­step could has­ten the country’s descent into war.

Buchanan’s inabil­i­ty to quell the sec­tion­al strife also high­light­ed his grow­ing real­iza­tion that his admin­is­tra­tion had been inef­fec­tive in pre­vent­ing the Union’s dis­in­te­gra­tion. Despite his attempts to remain neu­tral and avoid tak­ing strong posi­tions on the issue of slav­ery, the polit­i­cal forces he had hoped to appease had moved far beyond com­pro­mise. His efforts to pla­cate both the North and the South had ulti­mate­ly alien­at­ed both sides, leav­ing him with lit­tle polit­i­cal sup­port as the coun­try stood on the brink of civ­il war. Buchanan’s final year in office was marked by a sense of help­less­ness, as he was unable to pre­vent the dis­union that was sweep­ing the nation. As he wrote his final mes­sage to Con­gress, Buchanan reflect­ed on his failed attempts to secure peace, acknowl­edg­ing that the nation’s future now rest­ed in the hands of his suc­ces­sor, Abra­ham Lin­coln. The chap­ter high­lights the pro­found sense of frus­tra­tion that Buchanan felt dur­ing this time, as he real­ized that the fate of the Union was no longer in his con­trol, and that the actions of the states would soon lead to a much larg­er con­flict.

The grow­ing cri­sis in 1860, cou­pled with Buchanan’s inde­ci­sive­ness and fail­ure to act swift­ly, served as a warn­ing for the incom­ing Lin­coln admin­is­tra­tion. Buchanan’s final months in office were fraught with polit­i­cal mis­steps and a sense of des­per­a­tion as he strug­gled to pre­vent the coun­try from spi­ral­ing into civ­il war. Despite his efforts to main­tain peace, the deep divi­sions over slav­ery and states’ rights could not be bridged, and the nation was left tee­ter­ing on the edge of col­lapse. The chap­ter con­cludes by empha­siz­ing Buchanan’s bit­ter frus­tra­tion, as he faced the prospect of a divid­ed nation that would soon be engulfed in con­flict. His pres­i­den­cy, marked by inde­ci­sion and missed oppor­tu­ni­ties, became a stark reminder of the dif­fi­cul­ties in bal­anc­ing nation­al uni­ty dur­ing a peri­od of intense ide­o­log­i­cal con­flict.