Hardening, 1820–1834

Abstract

Chapter 2 turns to how Buchanan and King established themselves within the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson. In both cases, the chapter stresses the roles of intimate male friendships and the Washington boardinghouse, or mess, in developing a cross-sectional, though partisan, approach to their politics. Equally, it looks at important moments of conflict in each man’s life: King’s factional fighting with Democrats in his adopted state of Alabama, where he established a plantation called Chestnut Hill near Selma, and Buchanan’s struggles against the various elements of the Democratic Party of Pennsylvania. It also recounts Buchanan’s experience as the American minister to Russia, highlighting the ways in which his foreign exile connected him to King and prepared him for his future role as senator and secretary of state. These formative experiences served to harden their future political convictions and bespoke the continued need for intimate male friendships in their future endeavors.