James Buchanan (Personal Relationships)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan#Personal_relationships
For fifteen years in Washington, D.C., before his presidency, Buchanan lived with his close friend, Alabama Senator William Rufus King. Buchanan’s and King’s close relationship prompted Andrew Jackson to call King “Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy”
James Buchanan was the 15th U.S. president (1857-1861), and the only one to never have been married. The rumors about his sexuality have evidently swirled since even during his own time. The fact that this bigoted, homophobic, Puritan nation *might* have had a gay Commander-in-Chief just tickles me to the core. But this business about his… special friend… being called “Aunt Fancy” by Andrew Jackson just makes me love the dude even more.
Side note: Speaking of Andrew Jackson—lover of slavery, hater of Indians—I’ve never forgotten this fantastic story from a college history class:
Due to a series of escalating arguments in which each party hurled insults at each other, Jackson and an attorney (Charles Dickinson) agreed to a duel— to the death. Because that’s how arguments were settled back then, and Jackson was never one to back down from a challenge. The only problem for Jackson was… Dickinson was known as an expert shot.
Jackson decided to let Dickinson fire first, with the hope that he’d somehow miss his first shot. (This was beyond a Hail Mary pass.)
Now, by some act of God, Dickinson MISSED. Jackson took aim and returned the shot… right in the groin*. Of course, he wasn’t aiming for the groin, per se, but his musket had misfired. Bullets tended to be a little less reliable than they are these days. And that beyond lucky crotch shot caused Dickinson to bleed to death, meaning Jackson would live, go on to become president, indirectly kill thousands of Indians by making them march on the Trail of Tears, and quarantine the survivors on the Reservations.
But that thing about Dickinson missing? He didn’t, really. He most definitely shot Jackson—in the fucking chest —he just happened to miss the heart, lodging a lead bullet in Jackson’s chest that he would carry around for the rest of his life, “rattl[ing] like a bag of marbles,” and eventually causing him to die of lead poisoning.
Fun facts, brought to you by the History majors of America!
</sidenote>
Ok. So Buchanan’s “inability to impose peace on sharply divided partisans on the brink of the Civil War has led to his consistent ranking by historians as one of the worst Presidents.” Whatever. Bro had spunk.
Get your mind out of the gutter.
ALSO: I AM IMMEDIATELY CO-OPTING THE TERM “AUNT FANCY”
*According to Wikipedia, Jackson shot him in the chest, not the groin. But I prefer to take the word of my college professor, a 19th century American history scholar, and the professor that loved me the best.
