James Buchanan

High school (ages 12+)
History & Culture

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/james-buchanan

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. When was James Buchanan born?April 23, 1791
2. When did James Buchanan die?June 1, 1868
3. What is the presidential term?1857 to 1861
4. What is the diplomatic experience?Served as Minister to Russia and Minister to the United Kingdom

Confederacy: The government formed by the seven Southern states that seceded from the United States in 1861, which initiated the American Civil War through the attack on Fort Sumter.
Manifest Destiny: A 19th-century belief that the United States was destined by God to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent.
Secession: The formal withdrawal of a state from the Union, a process that seven Southern states undertook during the final months of the Buchanan administration in 1860 and 1861.
Dred Scott v. Sandford: A landmark 1857 Supreme Court case that ruled that African Americans could not be citizens and that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories.