In the chap­ter titled “The Unfair­ness of It All,” the nar­ra­tive focus­es on James Buchanan’s sen­ti­ments sur­round­ing Lin­col­n’s elec­tion and the tur­moil fac­ing his pres­i­den­cy. Buchanan, who became pres­i­dent in 1857, yearned for uni­ty and peace, express­ing frus­tra­tion that he might not be able to com­plete his term with­out unrest. He had hoped to restore har­mo­ny among the states dur­ing his pres­i­den­cy but was con­front­ed with esca­lat­ing ten­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing the debate over slav­ery in Kansas. This cri­sis of whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free or slave state over­shad­owed his mod­er­ate view that such issues were of lit­tle con­se­quence, leav­ing it to the Supreme Court for res­o­lu­tion.

The chap­ter high­lights Buchanan’s con­nec­tion to the infa­mous Dred Scott deci­sion deliv­ered by Chief Jus­tice Roger B. Taney just two days after his inau­gu­ra­tion. Taney’s rul­ing not only declared that Blacks could not be cit­i­zens but also affirmed that Con­gress had no author­i­ty to restrict slav­ery in the ter­ri­to­ries. While Buchanan pub­licly sup­port­ed the court’s rul­ing, he had clan­des­tine­ly influ­enced its delib­er­a­tions and was aware of its impli­ca­tions pri­or to his inau­gu­ra­tion. He con­sid­ered slav­ery a “moral evil,” yet he did not oppose its exis­tence in the South and instead blamed abo­li­tion­ists for inflam­ing ten­sions.

As his pres­i­den­cy drew to a close, Buchanan faced the daunt­ing task of writ­ing his final annu­al mes­sage to Con­gress. He rec­og­nized this address, set to be deliv­ered on Decem­ber 3, as a piv­otal moment that could shape his lega­cy. He hoped for a peace­ful tran­si­tion before Lin­coln assumed the pres­i­den­cy, fear­ing for the nation’s sta­bil­i­ty amidst ris­ing ten­sions. The chap­ter con­cludes with Buchanan prepar­ing to artic­u­late his vision of lead­er­ship dur­ing a crit­i­cal time, as the count­down to inau­gu­ra­tion day began and the specter of civ­il upheaval loomed over the nation.