Introducing the Worst. President. Ever.

The snow, getting heavier and heavier as the ceremony went on, belied the anticipation. The Washington social world had been waiting for the inaugural ball of James Buchanan. There had been one minor slip-up early in the day, well before the snow started. Buchanan, or someone in his entourage, had forgotten to tell the presidential carriage driver to pick up incumbent president Franklin Pierce first. Pierce had stayed the night before at the stately Willard Hotel, across the way from the White House, from which he had moved out in anticipation of Buchanan moving in the next day. So the driver doubled back from the more raucous National Hotel a few blocks north and west, where the Buchanan bunch was bunking in. It delayed the ceremony about twenty or thirty minutes, but in the end everyone laughed about it and looked forward to a festive day, the kind the renowned party giver Buchanan was famous for.

Since the death of Dolley Todd Madison eight years before, there had been no focus for those who wanted to supplement Washington's dull government work and dubious living conditions with the lavish and fun times expected in a national capital.

Even after her son by her first marriage, James Payne Todd, had run through her money with his mounting debts and legal dustups, Dolley Madison was, essentially, America's Princess or maybe even Queen Mother. She had endeared herself to the masses for saving whatever she could, especially Gilbert Stuart's iconic portrait of George Washington, as the British burned the White House during the War of 1812, when her husband, James, was president. In fact, her popularity extended further back, to the Founding Father era in Philadelphia, when — with her first husband dying young during the 1793 yellow fever epidemic — James Madison, seventeen years older and by that time perhaps the most well-respected legal mind in the new nation, married her the next year.

With the capital moving from Philadelphia to Washington, President Jefferson, by then a widower and having appointed James Madison the secretary of state, asked Dolley to become what came to be termed First Lady — essentially the social chair of the government. Dolley's touch was perfect: a bit of the old world and a good dollop of the new. When it came to White House functions under Dolley Madison, everyone got a chance at the head table, political stances be damned. America's politics of the time generated what was called the "Era of Good Feelings," and it is hard not to give Dolley Madison's creation of a positive social atmosphere some credit for that.

After her husband's own presidential term, the couple retired to their country estate in Virginia, appropriately named Montpelier for the Francophile Madisons, and entertained dignitaries and local politicians alike for the next nineteen years, until James Madison's death. Dolley sold Montpelier, paid off James Payne Todd's debts, and returned to Washington, mostly serving as the doyenne to everyone else's parties, since she was, on her own, practically penniless.

By that time, though, the White House had ceased to be a party place. William Henry Harrison died a month after his March 4, 1841, election, so the John Tylers, who moved into the presidential home, felt too constrained by the first death of a president while in office to do much socializing. In any case, the first Mrs. Tyler, Letitia, was in ill health when Tyler took office, and she herself died in September 1842. Tyler was an embattled president — a Virginia Democrat who had been put on the Harrison Whig ticket to attract some Southern votes and then excommunicated from the Whig Party after his ascension to the presidency. The deaths of President Harrison and Mrs. Tyler notwithstanding, there was really little call for socializing in the White House during the unproductive Tyler years there.

Tyler was followed by James Knox Polk, whose wife, Sarah, was a strict Presbyterian, allowing no dancing, alcohol, cards, or, according to one historian, "loose joviality" in the White House. She was followed by Peggy Smith Taylor, the wife of General Zachary Taylor, who never appeared in public with her husband because "a Maryland blue blood, [she] thought commerce with politicians was degrading." By this time Dolley Madison had appeared at her last White House function, a dinner for President Polk just before his own death, which came only six months after his term ended. Then President Taylor died of cholera in July 1850. He apparently exacerbated the disease, which was not unusual in swamp-filled Washington, by attending a long, hot July 4 celebration at the still-unfinished Washington Monument. The Millard Fillmores, who came next, were never big party folks, Mrs. Fillmore being an incredibly shy and sickly woman, and they used those recent presidential deaths as excuses to tamp down any presidential socializing. Mrs. Fillmore died only three weeks after her husband's term ended, having caught a final chill during the inauguration of his successor, Franklin Pierce. Most tragic of all, Franklin Pierce's eleven-year-old son (his third child) died in a train accident while the family was traveling in the Northeast. Their first son had died in infancy and the second had perished when he was four — unprecedented that a president lost all three of his children before reaching the White House. Mrs. Pierce went into a mourning depression from which she never recovered, and was rarely seen in public during Pierce's term. Even then, she dressed entirely in black.

It had been a long, dreary haul for those who came through official Washington by the time Buchanan was elected in 1856. For the most part, Southern congressmen and high functionaries left their families at home, the legislative sessions normally not taking more than a few months. The Northern politicians were more often able to go in and out of the capital — train connections and roads being far better in their direction — while most of the Southern families had to come by river or sea at least part of the way.

There was every expectation that the Buchanan presidency would bring some calm and at least a modicum of levity to Washington. Buchanan had spent much of the previous four decades in the capital. He had first come to the town during the James Monroe administration, only a few years after the rebuilding following the War of 1812. Buchanan was a member of the House of Representatives from 1821 through 1831, then, following an interlude when he was minister to Russia under President Andrew Jackson, a United States senator from Pennsylvania for more than another decade, from 1834 to 1845. Then he was secretary of state under President James Knox Polk for the next four years, only moving back to Lancaster and his estate, Wheatland, in 1849.

Most of that time, Buchanan lived in boarding houses and moved in circles that were almost entirely Southern, despite his Pennsylvania provenance. He was a bachelor and often the mark for ladies who wanted to pair him up. In the mid-nineteenth century, bachelorhood was practically nonexistent. Only about three in a hundred able-bodied men never married, though, to be sure, childbirth being difficult, another sizable cadre were widowers. There was always some Southern congressman's wife looking to marry off a younger sister or plantation neighbor to a well-off bachelor like Buchanan.

Washington was probably America's first seasonal city. Most government functions, from legislative sessions to cabinet meetings to reception of foreign dignitaries, happened in the cooler months. When Buchanan was first elected, for instance, in 1820, he did not have his first session until December of the next year. It was an extraordinarily compact city, one with little business other than that of government and whatever retail and services were necessary to keep it going. Most congressmen and cabinet members had means, and their wives and children were used to comfort in their homes, so those families were less encouraged to trundle off to Washington, where there was little to attract them, especially in the sultry summer months.

Even fifty years into its existence, Washington was ill developed, only the area around the Capitol and the White House being much of a city at all. It was far more Southern than Northern, slow moving and not particularly sanitary, and though there was no slave trade anymore, there were, indeed, slaves. Nearby farmers let their hogs wallow even along Capitol Hill and near Judiciary Square, the closest thing Washington had to a civic commons. The nearby canal was often filled with discarded dead domestic animals and people routinely just threw their sewage into street gutters. Privy pits were still pretty much the order of the day and the springs and wells that provided the city's water supply were dicey at best. In fact, just days before Buchanan's inauguration, many who had dined at the National Hotel died or were sickened by what some believe was Republican poisoning, but was probably a dysentery caused by foul water in the kitchen. Buchanan himself had sweats and pains during the inaugural ceremonies and three congressmen, Buchanan's own nephew, and about thirty other people were said to have died from the mini-plague.

Those wives and older daughters of the distinguished congressmen and high officeholders who stayed in Washington did their best to be elegant, but it was an overwhelmingly male city. Even then, there was little to recommend a young single man there other than governmental ambition. There were no real gentlemen's clubs, though there were surely bordellos, and few restaurants or cafes that might have lined the byways of European capitals like Paris or London, or even Prague or Stockholm. Crime was rampant, with many of the Congressmen using their own slaves or servants for protection.

Dolley Madison, though, had shown that things in official Washington did not have to be grim. And now there was hope that Buchanan and his favorite niece and titular First Lady, Harriet Lane, would bring some luster back to the Washington scene.

The night of the ball, Harriet, whom several newspapers had already named "Our Democratic Queen," wore a white dress festooned with artificial flowers and a multistrand necklace of pearls. The new president was not feeling well yet, due to the residue of the National Hotel scourge, so he needed to retire early if he wanted to get some rest before earnestly starting his long-sought-after term. Harriet, who always stood on protocol, left the ball with Buchanan, knowing there would be many lively and lovely parties to come over the next four years.

The start of the Buchanan administration, at least his first unofficial appointment — niece Harriet as the White House hostess — was a success. The idea of one inaugural ball rather than several smaller affairs had been out of fashion since the inauguration of John Quincy Adams, but Lane and Buchanan decided to give the big celebration a comeback. A huge temporary structure — 235 feet long, 77 feet wide, and 20 feet high — was erected on Judiciary Square, costing $15,000 alone, a huge sum in donations at the time. The white ceiling of the structure had a "sky" of gold stars, and the walls were red, white, and blue. The most glorious inaugural parade ever had finished only a few hours before the ball, with huge crowds along the route cheering outsized floats, some featuring model battleships, the Goddess of Liberty, and historical scenes.

Six thousand people crammed into the ball, cold and snowy as the evening was, dancing to a forty-piece orchestra. The feast was a gastronome's delight — four hundred gallons of oysters, five hundred quarts of chicken salad, sixty saddles of mutton and four of venison, seventy-five hams, one hundred twenty-five tongues, eight full steers of beef, twelve hundred quarts of ice cream, a cake four feet high, and wine costing more than $3,000, an unheard-of bar tab at the time.

Buchanan's first national mentor, Andrew Jackson, had opened the White House to "regular citizens" when he came to office, so Buchanan did it in a modified manner, offering to shake hands with anyone in the East Room starting at noon on March 5, the day after the inauguration. The next day, he gave his first "levee," an official state dinner with a name of French affectation.

Patrick Lynch, the New York Times correspondent, got to the levee at nine in the evening, while the president was in another several-hour ordeal of hand shaking. Even with Buchanan not in the main ballroom, Lynch was impressed:

As I approached the White House, sounds of music — the illuminated mansion — the flitting of fairy forms — the hum, the buzz, of a human multitude — infixed my attention. With my companion on my arm I ascended the steps of the Palace amidst the rolling of wheels, the prancing of horses, the cracking of whips, the loud voices or rather yells of the coachmen claiming places and precedence. The names of Governor this, General that, Judge somebody else; a Baron with a patronymic of garroting properties; a Lord from some petty German state, more remarkable for titles to words than to broad acres; a Polish Prince and a Russian Nabob; the Turkish Ambassador without his harem; together with a numberless host of Senators, members of Congress, ecclesiastics, editors and laymen, burst with indescribable effect upon my ear.

Harriet Lane was a stickler that everyone should be announced at their entrance, all being equal at least at the start of ceremonies, which the Timesman clearly thought a bit over the top with his ambassadors sans harems and judges-somebody-else. Still, he obviously thought this was a revolution in Washingtonian fetes.

We entered. Never did such a scene meet my astonished gaze before. The subdued murmurs of the human sea within — the swelling choruses of the bands — the promenaders swaying backwards and forwards — the anxiety of some to move forward — the painful desire of others to retire, which it was impossible to accomplish — the gentlemen protecting the ladies endeavoring to preserve their ornaments and jewels and dresses from injury — the stream going out meeting the stream coming in — combined to form a subject for contemplation not easily or soon to be forgotten ... Everyone you met was superbly attired. I never was fortunate enough to fall in with such good humor under such circumstances ... It was essentially a citizen meeting without reference to distinctions of rank. It was a display of democratic elegance and gracefulness of which any country, or nation or court in the world might feel proud.

The buzz around the party gave Buchanan's reputation a clear boost, which did not seem all that unreasonable. He knew and was on generally good terms with every president from James Madison to Franklin Pierce — as wide a set of personalities as could have ever held the office. He was a member of the Federalist Party when it still held a bit of sway, and he became a national leader in the Democratic Party immediately when he switched allegiances. Prior to his governmental service and during breaks from it, he was perhaps the most lauded attorney in Pennsylvania, handling difficult cases and smoothing the way for others. He came from little — his father owned what would now be perceived as a general store in an out-of-the-way crossroads town — and achieved much. His investments were sure enough that they survived his meager government salaries and were able to provide for more than a dozen nieces, nephews, and their progeny. Not everyone in high political places loved Buchanan, but all at least had a begrudging admiration for him, and even his political enemies never accused him seriously of profiting financially from his stations.

That same day of the levee, though, what Buchanan thought might become his signal achievement became public, and the public gaiety of the administration's first two days was immediately negated. It was perhaps the most notorious decision the Supreme Court has ever made, about the ownership of a man named Dred Scott, and all the barons' horses and all the nabobs' men would not be able to put together Buchanan's presidency again.

* * *

There seems to be little Americans like to do more than rank, rate, and compete — and then argue about those rankings, ratings, and competitions. Not that the rest of the world doesn't have its moments (the meanderings of the English soccer leagues come to mind), but in America it is a lifetime kind of thing.

Every Monday, for instance, sports fans, coaches, and players agonize over the polls of their favorite collegiate sports. Usually, there are at least two competing polls. College basketball, for instance, has the Associated Press Top 25, done by sixty-five writers and broadcasters, and the USA Today Coaches Poll, voted on each week by thirty-two college coaches. Never mind that these coaches are spending virtually every waking moment in season trying to get their teams good enough to be in the poll themselves and could hardly be watching enough games, even with the time shifting of TV, in earnest to make a really educated choice, or that sportswriters generally have only cursory knowledge of the game's nuances. It all hardly matters in hoops, since there is a sixty-eight-team, single-elimination tournament at the end of the season, endearingly referred to as "March Madness," which actually pits the teams together, essentially negating any in-season ranking.