James Buchanan had a troubled relationship with his father. A distant and somewhat effeminate man, James Buchanan Sr. had eleven children who strangely enough looked totally different from him or each other. Young James Buchanan Jr. was much closer to his mother Elizabeth Speer a scion of the German family that produced such luminaries as the Third Reich’s Albert Speer. He spent much of his youth helping her at the family business the Buchanan hotel until an unfortunate incident with a young woman and a spring pump and a kitchen knife. Young Master Buchanan was sent off to boarding school never to return but he did enjoy dressing in some of his mother’s discarded homespun frocks so he might feel closer to her.
He was estranged from his father for the remainder of his life but strangely enjoyed calling his roommate of many decades, Senator and later Vice President William Rufus King by his pet diminutive of Daddy. Unlike Andrew Jackson who called them Nancy and Fancy. Not that theres anything wrong with that.
(Whose You’re Daddy, Presidential Fathers, Doris Kearns Godwin, Bantam Books, 1998)
(Whose You’re Daddy, Presidential Fathers, Doris Kearns Godwin, Bantam Books, 1998)
7 comments:
Buchanan was a very good SecState. He helped keep us out of a 2 front war in the 1840s with Britain over OR (as it most likely would have been a naval war, we'd have lost) and helped formulate the Slidell Mission, which, although it failed to forestall the Mexican War (the Santannistas were of a mind to sell, but his opponents demagogued the issue to engineer a coup), was nonetheless the basis of the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo.
Unfortunately, he was our worst President. Until lately.
No Secretary of State has become President since Buchanan.
And no homosexual. So if Hillary gets in she will be two for two.
We are one comment away from 150,000.
How about that... I hardly ever look at the stats.
150,000!
"AprilApple said...
What Bagoh said times a million.
June 18, 2016 at 7:14 PM"
She did that on purpose, Chick.
Lem said...
We are one comment away from 150,000.
Many congrats.
It's all your work.
Even if your PC doesn't.
Who is your Daddy... who's your Daddy... I'm gonna have nightmares, or PTSD or something. Yes, I know I'm the one who actually published the word "segway" so I'm not claiming moral high ground either.
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