Who was a gay president

They came from different parts of the country: Buchanan was a lifelong Pennsylvanian, and King was a North Carolina transplant who helped found the city of Selma, Alabama. Simply put, the characterization underscores a powerful force at work in historical scholarship: the search for a usable queer past.

Moreover, openly LGBTQ politicians who have served in other positions, such as acting president, deputy prime minister, and leaders of subnational entities, are excluded from this list. Let's find out if the rumors are true.

The nation's 15th president is the nation's only bachelor president. My research led me to archives in 21 states, the District of Columbia, and even the British Library in London. Google James Buchanan and you inevitably discover the assertion that American history has declared him to be the first gay president.

Both men equally detested abolitionists. A generation of scholarship has uncovered numerous such intimate and mostly platonic friendships among men though some of these friendships certainly included an erotic element as well. There has never been an openly gay president of the United States, but some historians have argued that James Buchanan, the only president who never shared the White House with a first lady, may have had feelings for a member of the same sex.

They came by their politics differently. My findings suggest that theirs was an intimate male friendship of the kind common in 19th-century America. Therefore, LGBTQ national leaders who were closeted or outed during their tenure as a national leader are not included.

Revealing queer influence in

James Buchanan, the only president to remain a bachelor his entire life, may have also been the first gay president in U.S. history. By the time of his election to that office inBuchanan was a staunch conservative, committed to what he saw as upholding the Constitution and unwilling to quash southern secession during the winter of to He had become the consummate northern doughface.

Does the evidence presented here suggest the possibility of the existence of gay U.S. presidents? King, for his part, was first elected to the U. House of Representatives in His commitment to the racial hierarchy of the slaveholding South was whole cloth.

Who Was Our First

A recent spat in the Washington Daily Globe had stirred his political rivals into full froth—Aaron Venable Brown of Tennessee was especially enraged. King was a Jeffersonian Democrat, or Democratic-Republican, who held a lifelong disdain for the national bank, was opposed to tariffs, and supported the War of By the s, both men had been pulled into the political orbit of Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party.

While exploring a same-sex relationship that powerfully shaped national events in the antebellum era, Bosom Friends demonstrates that intimate male friendships among politicians were—and continue to be—an important part of success in American politics.

Simply put, friendships provided the political glue that bound together a nation on the precipice of secession. They soon shared similar views on slavery, the most divisive issue of the day. This understanding of male friendship pays close attention to the historical context of the time, an exercise that requires one to read the sources judiciously.

In the years before the Civil War, friendships among politicians provided an especially important way to bridge the chasm between the North and the South. The premise raises many questions: What was the real nature of their relationship? Buchanan started out as a pro-bank, pro-tariff, and anti-war Federalist, and held onto these views well after the party had run its course.

The Year History of Speculating About President James Buchanan’s Bachelorhood Was his close friendship with William Rufus King just that, or was it evidence that he was the nation’s first. In the rush to make new meaning of the past, I have come to understand why today it has become de rigeur to consider Buchanan our first gay president.

And why do Americans seem fixated on making Buchanan our first gay president?