Was James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States, gay?
Elected to the Presidency as a bachelor in 1865, there has been speculation about his sexual identity for years. The jury is still out and opposing sides continue to argue the issue. But if true, it makes for a sensational history lesson.
At the age of 27 he was engaged to Anne Coleman, the daughter of the wealthy iron monger. But because of his busy law practice, they spent little time with each other. He came from more modest means, and rumors spread that he was marrying her for her money. And there is evidence she was aware of the rumors. Coleman broke off the engagement and inexplicable died a short time later.
Buchanan never “courted” another woman.
Buchanan was close friends with William Rufus King (Senator from Alabama). In the 1830s & 1940s they lived together in a boarding house while working as Senators. King himself described their relationship as a “communion”.
Their friendship didn’t go unnoticed. Andrew Jackson (an opponent) called King “Miss Nancy”
Aaron Burr referred to King as Buchanan’s “better half” or “Aunt Fancy”.
Catherine Thompson, the wife of cabinet member, wrote “there was something unhealthy in the president’s attitude”.
Buchanan later in life wrote a letter saying that he might marry if the woman who could accept his "lack of ardent or romantic affection”.
Buchanan and King continued to be roommates during King’s brief tenure as Vice-President under Franklin Pierce. King died of tuberculosis six weeks after taking his oath.
James Buchanan became president 4 years later. He served during tenuous times with growing secession sentiment between the North and South.
Buchanan was succeeded as president in 1861 by Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War that soon followed was often called “Buchanan’s War” and he spend the rest of his life trying to defend his legacy. He died in 1868 of Respiratory failure.
So was Buchanan gay? We may never know for sure because his family burned most of the letters between him and King. Historian Thomas Balcerski doesn’t think do (Balcerski is gay himself). Biographer Jean Baker argued that Buchanan was asexual.
But historians Jim Loewen, John Howard, Robert Watson and Shelley Ross think so. As does Larry Flynt (publisher of Penthouse) who cowrote “One Nation Under Sex” with history professor David Eisenbach in 2011. (But Flynt has an agenda of his own).
