James Buchanan
Overview
James Buchanan, Jr. (April 23, 1791 June 1, 1868, bjuːˈkænən) was the 15th President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 (1857–1861). He is the only president from Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century.

Buchanan (often called Buck-anan by his contemporaries) was a popular and experienced state politician and a successful attorney before his presidency.
Quotations

You have lost a child, a dear, dear child. I have lost the only earthly object of my affection.... I have now one request to make,... deny me not. Afford me the melancholy pleasure of seeing her body before internment.

Letter returned to him unopened, to the father of his former fiancée Ann Coleman, written after her death, rumored to have been suicide soon after her breaking of their engagement. (1819)

I am the last President of the United States!

A statement he is reported to have made several times to others after the secession of South Carolina, or as early as after the election of Abraham Lincoln (1860), as quoted in Lincoln's War: The Untold Story of America's Greatest President as Commander in Chief (2004) by Geoffrey Perret

Liberty must be allowed to work out its natural results; and these will, ere long, astonish the world.

As quoted in Presidential Leadership : Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (2004) edited by James Taranto and Leonard Leo

What is right and what is practicable are two different things.

As quoted in Presidential Leadership : Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (2004) edited by James Taranto and Leonard Leo

 
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