James Buchanan
Buchanan was the 15th president of the United States and served right before Lincoln. Unlike Lincoln, Buchanan was a Democrat and did not like Seward. During his term in the late 1850s, the infamous Dred Scott decision was passed. This declared that slaves could not be citizens, even in free territories or states. He also tried to make Kansas become a slave state and completely divided Congress. All of this triggered the election of Lincoln and the dissolution of the Union.
If it wasn’t obvious, the Seward family members were not fans of Buchanan. Fanny witnessed one of his speeches in 1860 and tore his words apart in her diary. She even disrespectfully called him an “old goose”!
“speech by Buchanan who was to wear a Masonic apron (old goose) and use masonic gavel which the(y) said (what a lie) Washington, who was never a mason, used” Feb 22, 1860
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; transfer from the National Gallery of Art; gift of the A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, 1942