Talk:James Buchanan

James Buchanan's military service

Buchanan was the first of only two presidents in American history with military experience who were not officers. The other was Harry S. Truman.

References

Political party

Why is it so difficult to find his political party? ~2025-36126-23 (talk) 14:47, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Did you look in the first two sentences of the second paragraph of the article? Bruce leverett (talk) 14:54, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Fort Sumter/Star of the West

Hello @Snuggums,

i saw you reverted my recent edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Buchanan&diff=prev&oldid=1356904437. Sorry about the contraction, i wasn't sufficiently familiar with the Wikipedia standards. However, i don't agree with the "too wordy" argument. In my view, my edit clarified a tiny but important detail about the Star of the West affair. The current version makes it seem like Buchanan was negligent in not asking Anderson for assistance. The man certainly had his flaws, but that's a misrepresentation. My aim was to clarify that it was a matter of message delivery and timing rather than negligence on Buchanan's part.

How about this version instead?: "However, the message authorising Major Robert Anderson to provide covering fire did not reach Fort Sumter in time, forcing the Star of the West to return North without delivering troops or supplies." ~2026-30995-00 (talk) 17:28, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Sure, we can go with that, and I implemented your revised idea. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 12:19, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

External links

Further information: Wikipedia: External links

Sometimes content grows during incremental edits, and sometimes it gets out of hand. The "External links" section, one of the optional appendices, was expanded to 16 entries under two subsections. There are now 13, as I removed some.

No link is needed for article promotion.

Some links may be included in WP:ELNO, or What Wikipedia is not (policy) such as WP:NOTREPOSITORY or WP:NOTGUIDE.

*WP:ELDEAD may apply. - Removed dead link.

• In some cases ELCITE applies: Do not use {{cite web}} or other citation templates in the External links section. Citation templates are permitted in the Further reading section. Others, listed below:
• ELpoints #3) states: Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum. A lack of external links or a small number of external links is not a reason to add external links.
• LINKFARM states: There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to the external links section of an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia. On articles about topics with many fansites, for example, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate.

The External links guideline This page in a nutshell: External links in an article can be helpful to the reader, but they should be kept minimal, meritable, and directly relevant to the article. With rare exceptions, external links should not be used in the body of an article.

Second paragraph, acceptable external links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic, information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy.

Links that can be used as a source in the article should be so incorporated.

• • Please also note:
• WP:ELBURDEN: Disputed links should be excluded by default unless and until there is a consensus to include them. -- Otr500 (talk) 03:12, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Please read the documentation of {{Internet Archive author}}. It does not link to a "Wikipedia mirror site". Bruce leverett (talk) 01:53, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Otr500 (talk) 20:26, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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James Buchanan

• ... that James Buchanan (pictured) helped open talks over buying Alaska by spreading a rumor that Mormons planned to emigrate to Russian Alaska?

• Source: John M. Belohlavek, "In Defense of Doughface Diplomacy: A Reevaluation of Foreign Policy of James Buchanan", in James Buchanan and the Coming of the Civil War, ed. by John W. Quist and Michael J. Birkner, (2013), pp. 124

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Begged (song)

Improved to Good Article status by SNUGGUMS (talk) and Ktkvtsh (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 14 past nominations.

SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 12:28, 2 September 2026 (UTC).

• I will review this! Froglord (Finnfrog99) (talk) 13:30, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Add image. I added a better source needed tag to one source, but the GA review should've snuffed out any potential issues. Great work on a vital article! Froglord (Finnfrog99) (talk) 14:23, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Hopefully File:James Buchanan (cropped).jpg can be used, Finnfrog99, and I appreciate the quick review! SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 14:35, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of formatting the suggested image. (For posterity, I discussed this with SNUGGUMS and Ktkvtsh at User talk:Launchballer/archive/2026/1801-1900#Potential DYK nomination, and while I maintain my suggested hook will get more views, the suggested ALT here is absolutely fine.)--Launchballer 20:41, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Even though I still am not convinced anything on presidential rankings would intrigue viewers much compared to things the man himself actually did, I will say thanks for implementing the image. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 20:56, 2 September 2026 (UTC)