Video: 'The American President series profiles the 15th president, James Buchanan'

(Saturday, April 23, 1791) — James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States who served from 1857 to 1861 and the 17th U.S. secretary of state (1845–1849), was born today in a log cabin in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania.

Buchanan was a states’ rights advocate, and minimized the role of the federal government in the nation’s final years of slavery.

Modern historians and critics condemn Buchanan for not addressing the issue of slavery or forestalling the secession of the Southern states over it.

Historians and scholars consistently rank him as one of the country’s worst presidents.