JAMES BUCHANAN (1791-1868)
James Buchanan was one of the many US presidents who was born in a log cabin. He was born in Stony Batter, near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania on April 23, 1791. As a young unmarried man, Buchanan spent his life boozing away the hours in taverns and bars, and in his spare time he courted wealthy families in hopes of snaring a wife.
Anne Coleman, daughter of one of the first American millionaires, became the apple of James Buchanan's eye. They became engaged in 1819, but Anne's father, the trustee at Dickson College, dissapproved due to Buchanan's disorderly behavior. That year saw the country fall into a financial panic, and Buchanan feverishly worked to save the old Federalist Party from collapsing as well. It was quite a year for the young Buchanan.
Buchanan began to visit Mrs. William Jenkins, who had a lady friend visiting with her. Word got back to Buchanan's fiancee Anne, and she became enraged. She went to stay with her sister in Philadelphia, and before they could be reconciled, Anne died mysteriously, possibly as a result of suicide. Buchanan had wanted to attend her funeral, but her father would not allow it.
By 1837, Buchanan had walled himself off from the possibility of ever having a real relationship with anyone. Senator William Rufus De Vane King of Alabama teased Buchanan that he suffering the "anxieties of love". There were three other women in Buchanan's life at that time. One was the niece of Dolley Madison. Like many American presidents, Buchanan also tried to be a poet. One of his love poems that he wrote to Anna Payne went like this:
In thee my chilled and blighted heart has found
A green spot in the dreary waster round
Oh! That my fate in youthful days had been
T'have lived with such an one, unknown, unseen,
Loving and lov'd, t'have passed away our days
Sequestered from the world's malignant gaze!
Buchanan never married, the only president to be unmarried in fact. He did have a woman, Ester Parker, live with him until he died, but she only acted as housekeeper. There were reports that Buchanan had been romantically involved with at least two other women, both of whom were married with children at the time.
As president, Buchanan was horribly inept. He was a Democrat when he became president, and few people believed him when he said that the Dred Scott decision would end the slavery issue once and for all. When it did not, Buchanan suggested that Kansas be allowed into the Union as a slave state, a very unpopular idea with the rest of America. The Democratic Party deserted him, and the Republicans won the house in 1858. Buchanan got revenge by vetoing every major issue in Congress after that, stalemating the US government. He inadvertently helped Abraham Lincoln win the election in 1860 by refusing to conciliate his own party.
Throughout his presidency there were rumors that he was a homosexual. He had a twenty-three year friendship with William Rufus De Vane King, who became vice-president under Franklin Pierce. They were roommates in Washington, and King's 'fastidious habits and conspicuous intimacy with bachelor Buchanan gave rise to some cruel jibes'.
Andrew Jackson called King "Miss Nancy". Others called him "Buchanan's better half" and "Aunt Fancy". James K. Polk's law partner called him "Mrs. James Buchanan" and continually made references to "Buchanan and his wife". King himself penned long and intimate letters to Buchanan. When appointed minister to France, King wrote to Buchanan, "I am selfish enough to hope you will not be able to procure an associate who will cause you to feel no regret at our seperation.
King was also this country's only unmarried vice-president, as Buchanan was our only unmarried president.
JAMES A. GARFIELD (1831-1881)
The last of the 'log cabin presidents', Garfield was born in Orange, Ohio on Nov. 19, 1831. When he turned seventeen, he began working at the docks of the Ohio canal. With the money he earned from work, he began attending a school run by the Disciples of Christ, a strict religious sect. He repented of his life on the Canal, an area overrun with brothels, and he became a preacher.
By that time, Garfield had become overly concerned about masturbation. At the Seminary he pored over books like Orson Fowler's Amativeness: Embracing the Evils and Remedies of Excessive and Perverted Sexuality, Including Warning and Advice to the Married and Single, a tract that utterly condemned masturbation. Garfield fervently wished that every town had ten thousand copies of the book at their disposal.
In another book Garfield read, The Young Man, Reverend Todd, the book's author, stated that nine out of ten boys indulged in masturbation. Supposedly it doomed the boy to poverty and insanity, as well as fueling homosexual desires, according to the "word" of the times. Todd believed you could tell an excessive masturbator by their sunken eyes, bloodless countenance, and unwillingness to make eye contact.
Garfield admitted that he frequently masturbated, and suffered all the symptoms that were attributed to masturbation. He tried total abstinence, and frequently took cold showers to take his mind off. He later built his own shower bath at Hiram College.
During this period, Garfield took an inordinate interest in homosexuality. He read what the Bible had to say, and also read Plutarch, Virgil, and Seneca. It was a common belief at the time that the excessive masturbation that Garfield was addicted to was a sign of homosexuality.
More than one source cites that Garfield may have had a juvenile homosexual infatuation with a young man named Oliver B. Stone. Throughout his life, his diary records that Garfield often felt unsure of his masculinity. As a boy, he was often uneasy around women, something that one of his teachers at school helped to put an end to. Garfield would go on to have many sexual affairs with women, turning his sexual interest in masturbation towards sexual interest in women. He became engaged to Mary Hubbell, but as marriage time grew closer he backed out and tried to claim that they had never been engaged to begin with.
Another woman became his fiancee, but the impending nuptials sent him into a black depression. He married Lecretia Rudolph but he was unhappy and took frequent business trips. Then the Civil War came and he joined the Union Army. He later had numerous affairs, and soon after being elected president, there were rumors that he had had sex with a prostitute in New Orleans.
Four months into his term, he was shot by a disgruntled office seeker in the Baltimore and Potomac train depot in Washington, DC. He died on September 19, 1881.
More information on other gay leaders coming soon.