# What could President Buchanan have done differently? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 29, 2020, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-president-buchanan-have-done-differently/929140 "2020-12-29T01:19:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-president-buchanan-have-done-differently/929140/81 "2021-03-10T20:58:20Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What outraged far more northerners was Taney announcing that he was overturning the Missouri Compromise, declaring that Congress could not prohibit slavery in federal territories, and establishing owning slaves as a protected constitutional right. According to Lincoln, that is what enraged him and had him enter the race. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-president-buchanan-have-done-differently/929140/82 "2021-03-10T21:25:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Not necessarily. They could have been non-citizen residents like Native Americans were. People who lived in the United States but were essentially seen as being outside of its political and legal system. > > Or black people could have been seen as having very limited rights, akin to what women or children had. > > But this is beside the point I was going for. As I said, Taney probably could have denied black people their rights and not provoked any major outrage. But by overruling Congress, he was essentially infringing on rights that white men felt that had. They didn’t like the idea that the court could overturn a law they had voted for. Again, and maybe I am being inarticulate, but I am not seeing the legal principle that you are saying Taney could have used. Native Americans were not citizens because they were considered members of independent nation states. I don’t know how one could analogize that to black Americans at the time. If you say they had limited rights like women and children (at the time), women and children could clearly be citizens and sue in federal court, even if they needed a next friend or some other legal fiction. As to the point you were going for, I never understood that the north was wanting to prevent the expansion of slavery because as “white men” they felt they had the right to control their own destiny by passing laws prohibiting slavery. Respectfully, that is a retcon of what happened. If that is what they were going for, then they should have been delighted by the decision. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2021, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-president-buchanan-have-done-differently/929140/83 "2021-03-10T21:58:48Z")
My point was that Taney was not reduced to the two choices of declaring black people were slaves or citizens. There were other existing alternatives that fell between these two. > [@UltraVires](#): > > As to the point you were going for, I never understood that the north was wanting to prevent the expansion of slavery because as “white men” they felt they had the right to control their own destiny by passing laws prohibiting slavery. Respectfully, that is a retcon of what happened. If that is what they were going for, then they should have been delighted by the decision. I think I’m missing your point here. If northerners wanted to control their own destiny by passing laws prohibiting slavery, why would they be delighted by a decision that said they couldn’t pass laws prohibiting slavery? I’m not attributing altruism to northern voters. Most of them opposed slavery because they saw slaves as unfair competition to themselves on the labor market. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2021, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-president-buchanan-have-done-differently/929140/84 "2021-03-11T14:45:29Z")
I admit to my shame that on seeing the thread title, my first thought was along the lines of the “butterfly ballot” being a nationwide thing and _Pat_ Buchanan getting elected in 2000. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-could-president-buchanan-have-done-differently/929140.md?page=4)