Nope. I've read the King letters. I understand that language was more flowery then, and its highly unlikely they like did anything together, but if I were making a movie he'd be gay .
You know, living with the same guy for 13 years but never having the courage to make a move is about what I’d expect from the guy who didn’t have the courage to stop half the country from leaving-
@@akorn9943 A man living with another man in the same house at the time was not really a big of a deal. Due to much less developed economy at the time, 2 or more single men would just live together. Lincoln even used to share a bed with men in his youth, because America was not industrialized enough to produce enough beds for all.
well depending on context i feel like it could be sarcastic if he's using it to convey his loneliness. it greatly depends on where that excerpt is from/ who its too and the literary context. it could go either way tho
I mean this is the same with Tolkien. He wrote a lot about one of his friends from high school in a semi romantic way. A lot of his poems were homerotic and even LOTR is kinda gay but it’s not fair to say he was bi (I say bi because he loved his wife dearly). Although it’s pretty accepted he most likely was.
"I've tried *wooing several men* and being unsuccessful", "i should find myself lucky to marry a woman [...] who * requires no affection"* Scholar: "You think he could be gay?" Other scholar: "Nah"
Snivelling little Mr Beat. Why don't you make a video about the current Dementia plagued Prez? Who cares about spurious claims regarding long dead individuals? Are you going to speculate on your next video about which President was a paedophile or practiced incest? Spineless little geek
I read a piece by Jim Loewen in Salon a few years ago in which he argued that Buchanan was probably gay, and that people in his time probably knew and didn't care. What I thought was most interesting about the essay, however, was just the way Loewen challenged us to question some of our assumptions about the past, and specifically how people of the past thought about homosexuality. He noted that the late 19th century ushered in a time of rather unprecedented social conservatism in the United States, and that prior to that, people were often a lot more blasé about sexual matters than we sometimes assume. So the argument would be that Buchanan, whose political career was mostly in the 1840s, was a guy who preceded late Victorian neo-Puritanism, and thus someone who could get away with being gay, just because sexual propriety hadn't yet emerged as this thing other elites, or the broader public, were obsessed with. I mean, the first true presidential sex scandal wasn't until Grover Cleveland in the late 1880s, right? Before then, did anyone really talk much about who presidents were sleeping with?
I dont buy it. In ancient Greece homosexuality was considered the norm and we have plenty of proof of that because it was recorded in writing dispassionately. The simple fact that it is virtually never mentioned in early America or Europe without the taint of scandal tells you that it was not a norm people tolerated. If it was something they just looked the other way on, you'd at least have the satirists and humorists of the day poking fun of the "unsaid-ness" of it.
Abraham Lincoln was most likely bi-sexual, according to some historians. He and his best friend a store owner named Joshua Speed lived together and slept in the same bed for 4 years. Maybe not too unusual for the time but they also wrote empassioned letters longing for each others company. And its said that it wasnt much of an issue to most people back then
While that extract may imply him being gay, you have to remember that in the olden days men would write about one another like that. As homosexuality was unquestionable in most minds at the time, men would write about other men in a way that would be viewed today as “gay” because homosexuality has become more accepted so along with the change of modern masculinity, heterosexuals distanced themselves from using this language. A similar thing was seen with Shakespeare in Elizabethan England as a letter was found that had similar language, which without historical context, would be viewed as heavily gay in today’s world.
That also applies to the David and Jonathan narrative in the Bible (what with David saying, "his love to me was greater than the love of women," and all). I've heard pop-theology types claim that as evidence of a homosexual relationship between the two in the same vein as Buchanan. At its most benign, those sorts of interpretations anachronistically impose modern sentiments on people of a different time and place. At its worst, it's a cynical example of historical revisionism to conform the past to whatever is currently fashionable. There's a quote by C. S. Lewis somewhere that laments how men can no longer have meaningfully intimate relationships without society perceiving them as homosexual.
But it's also important to understand that the intimate men from before the 1950s could actually be gay, or queer. It is good and should be more allowed to have men be intimate with each other, without it being sexual, but it's also important to not assume that they weren't gay because there definitely are gay/queer people from back then, they were just forced to hide it.
As a gay man myself, I don't consider a relationship based on whether it had a sexual element or not. Being gay is about that, it's about who you are romantically compatible with.
@@therealspeedwagon1451 Fredrick literally had a room full of Greek and Roman statue depicted in acts of homosexuality that he called "the friendship room"
"The First Gay President in American History?" First sentence: "Historians often view James Buchanan as the worst president in American history" 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀bro lmao I know it wasn't intentional but man that's funny
We all know Obama was the worst president in US history ... but it wasn't because of the fact that he was homosexual. It was his leftist ideology that had no basis in the "real world" of causes and effects and his apologetic hatred for the country he purported to lead.
Statistically at least one of those guys had to have been lgbt. There’s been too many for them all to have been straight. But realistically we are applying today’s conceptions on sexuality and relationships to people that lived up to 300 years ago. They probably thought differently about relationships and sexuality.
I recognise this from when people try to speculate if royalty who lived a long time ago was gay. I feel like it is impossible to know if the person lived before 1850 was gay or not. Friends letters to each other was more loving, and might seem obviously romantic with our eyes. But in many cases that was only how you talked with your friends back then.
They did try to get elected as POTUS/VP together. Buchanan and King each ran for Prez and VP several times - in 1844, 1848, and 1852 - and even though they both got what they wanted eventually - they never got the chance to win the nomination together. In 1852, Buchanan lost the Democratic nomination for prez to Franklin Pierce but King would win nomination as Pierce's VP. Most tragically, despite the fact Buchanan did get nominated for prez and elected in 1856...it wasn't before King had died of tuberculosis weeks into his term as Pierce's VP.
@@TheHappyTruckShunter King actually spent all of his very short term as VP in Cuba, even was sworn in there. He was hoping the climate would improve his health.
Zachary Taylor died one year into his Presidency, succeeded by Millard Fillmore. Before the 25th Amendment there was no mechanism to replace the Vice President if he died or succeeded to the job. So if Fillmore had died the next president would have been William R King, the President pro tempore of the Senate. As the next term approached King stood for Veep, but fell ill and had to go to Cuba. He won the election, and promptly died, making the Vice Presidency vacant again.
Quit gossiping. “He who sings," said St. Augustine, "prays twice." The holy Bishop of Hippo meant that singing adds to our praise and worship of God-that our voices are gifts.🎶🙏
We'll probably never know. But what I do know is that if I was part of the LGBTQ+, I wouldn't like to be represented by one of the worst presidents in US history.
basically, unless someone finds a surviving secret diary that somehow corroborates any claims of attraction towards men, the best we can do is speculate on Buchanan's sexuality.
that being said, I'm pretty sure he had a thing for men (exclusive or not), for reasons stated in this short, on top of how Buchanan is documented as having panicked for repentance on his deathbed.
This is awesome. Mr. Beat, I can not overstate how much I enjoy your content. Sometimes you post videos about topics of which I knew I wanted a deeper explanation. Other times, you post videos about topics of which I DIDN’T know I wanted to explore further. Either way, I am always left feeling well informed and with a thirst for more information, leading me to dig deeper for myself. This topic has piqued my interest since I learned that President Buchanan may have been America’s first President in a same-sex relationship. Previously, I have been saddened when my searches for more information have been fruitless. Even though it is only a short, I was excited to see you post about it; I was thrilled to have finally learned more about President Buchanan’s possible relationships. Thank you, Mr. Beat!
Snivelling little Mr Beat. Why don't you make a video about the current Dementia plagued Prez? Who cares about spurious claims regarding long dead individuals? Are you going to speculate on your next video about which President was a paedophile or practiced incest? Spineless little geek
You can't get much worse than a president that's barely coherent, has early dementia, and shit his pants in front of the Queen. But then again, he's not even actually running the country anyway.
@@finnl6887 No Sir you are not. "A new poll of historians coming out on Presidents’ Day weekend ranks Mr. Biden as the 14th-best president in American history, just ahead of Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan and Ulysses S. Grant. While that may not get Mr. Biden a spot on Mount Rushmore, it certainly puts him well ahead of Mr. Trump, who places dead last as the worst president ever." ~New York Times. You will, of course, call it "fake news" or some other such drivel to save yourself the trouble of acknowledging cruel truth. Feel free. It's what we expect of your kind.
I mean in a time when being gay was still punishable by death in some parts of the US, I have to think that he would try to hide it as best he could if he was gay. Whenever historians say that there’s ‘not enough evidence’, I tend to think ‘Well maybe that’s on purpose’ Also, most people got married whether they wanted to or not. A lot of times without much of a say in the matter. You’d have to go out of your way to not get married. I see no reason why Buchanan couldn’t be seen as gay.
I do agree that if he was gay he would want to hide it, the lack of evidence is not itself evidence. That’s the same argument that people who think the pyramids were built by aliens use. “If aliens did build the pyramids they would have hidden all traces of what they did. That’s why there isnt any evidence” The lack of evidence isn’t valid evidence, that argument is a fallacy.
@@childeryeeter4202 but there is a difference here. It more likely he would hide his homosexual feeling. Than aliens building a pyramid in ancient Egypt.and the fact he never really have a sex life/marriage. There could be hint that he could be homosexual or asexual to.
Thanks Mr. Beat, I've always wondered about this. ive heard both sides of the story, so thanks for clearing this up. (I hope my grandpa doesn't see this, I already asked him the trivia question "which president was secretly gay")
One thing that always stands out to me in questioning the sexuality (or sexual preference) of past politicians, royalty, millionaires, etc. is that the speculators seem to forget that they were being gossiped about during their lifetimes and they had plenty of enemies. So contemporary DC speculation that Buchanan was homosexual could easily have been more of a dig on his political performance in the same vein that people question whether Trump and Biden have dementia because they don’t like their politics. We rarely hear the “good” leaders speculated to be gay. Being interested romantically or sexually in people of the same sex was just considered a vice, not an identity.
At the time, being gay was not a thing you were, it was a thing you did. They didn't associate the act with an identity. Today we recognize that desires are persistent and at least relatively inherent. They may shift somewhat overtime, but usually not drastically (even when people genuinely try to make them shift) and even when they do shift slightly, they persist for a long time. So it is sensible to consider it a trait, part if someone's identity. That was not recognized then. Very few people considered themselves to be homosexual, they just liked to have homosexual sex. That's one of the reasons its hard to determine if historical figures are gay. VERY few of them thought of themselves that way and very few people thought of others that way. There was also a lot of stigma and bigotry, so when people engaged in homosexual acts or had homosexual desires, they tended to keep it hidden.
It is certainly possible, however we should keep in mind that what we view as gay now may not have been seen as odd behaviour between two men at the time. That being said, some things about his relationship with King do seem like they would have been considered strange even back then. Overall I don't think this is something we can really answer definitively, though I think supposing he was gay is not too wild an idea.
Well it could be taken that way, possibly. His fiance did pass away not long after their engagement was ended and he called her passing his "great grief". King also suggested he had a great love but she married another. So they may have just been close friends, understanding each others grief. Granted, they were called "Buchanan and his wife" by people in DC. Or "Aunt Nancy and Aunt Fancy". They were very close but how close, no one knows.
On one hand, men were generally a lot more "expressive" with their feelings, especially towards men just as a sign of their close, brotherly bonds. On the other hand...
Of all the historical figures people do the "historians will call them roomates" thing, this might actually be the most likely. It's not a lot of evidence, but that's pretty damning.
Hey Mr. Beat, I watched your video on the Dred Scott Decision again and I was wondering could I get a link to the song in the background? It was really great! I know your band made it.
Look what channel is knocking on the 500,000 subscriber's door---It's Mr. Beat! I subscribed way back when you had about 10,000-20,000. Now look at the subscriber count! Congrats, Mr. Beat...you've always been a favorite of mine!
It's freaking crazy. But I still love making the videos, and probably will for the rest of my life. Thanks for being here for so long. That means a lot.
Doesn't anyone else see where in the letter he says he's "gone a' wooing" to "several gentlemen" and that he had not "succeeded with any of them"?!? Or later where he says he wants an "old maid" to take care of him and not expect any affection from him....?
Hey, shoutout to Mr. Beat for pointing out that there’s not any evidence that Buchanan was straight either! Really tired of people automatically assuming that when there’s literally no evidence of ANY relationships
I mean he lived with the same man for 13 years! That seems like evidence of a relationship if you ask me. So though not definitive he seems to be the one president with more evidence of being LGBT than not.
@@dictatorofcanada4238 Like Buchanan, King was mainly just odd. Unlike Buchanan, King was a fairly good leader because he was re-elected multiple times despite being odd. I mean, even now, if you want to get elected, it helps to be married and have some kids or grandkids (stepkids also acceptable) because you are seen as more relatable to the electorate as well as having more of a stake in the future. (This is more the case in North America, though. In other parts of the world, having sacrificed having your own children in order to serve the nation is seen as a positive thing.)
Please, make a video or several videos about some particular higly important congresspeople. I think it’s your obligation to properly cover Thaddeus Stevens. Most based politician in American history!
Well during both Buchanan's and King's time in Congress, a lot of their contemporaries (especially President Andrew Jackson) used to refer to them as "Aunt Nancy & Miss Fancy;" so,... do whatever you will with that.
The evidence for Buchanan being "Mansexual" (If there's an actual term that covers all orientations gay/bi/pan/etc. that are a fan of the man I'd love to hear it) seems about as strong as the evidence for Lincoln. For reference Lincoln shared a bed with a man named Joshua Fry Speed, and during the civil war wrote him love letters.
Another thing was that he was unmarried. It was really hard in those times to not get married, Doesn't matter if you wanted to or not, you would probably be married. They were both unmarried. James B had the most evidence, granted it's not enough to prove that he was mlm (man loving man). He still had the most compelling evidence
@@Excepnexcep MLM doesn't work for me as a term because it's also the acronym for modern pyramid schemes. It's just as possible that Lincoln had two beards: One literal, one metaphorical.
@@gabrielrussell5531 oh ok, I don't know any other terms, sorry. And I'm not saying that President Buchanan was LGBTQ2S+, It's just that we aren't particularity sure if he was or not, unlike other presidents who we can confidentially say were straight
Anyone who thinks he isn't gay has not paused the video to read the damn letter. xD You don't have to be explicitly sexual to be gay btw...you said it yourself, his male-male relationship was his "most intimate."
Lincoln would be a lot better (even though we can't 100% tell for sure if he was gay) Edit: What just happened??? *Reminder that "gay" is an umbrella term for anyone that is attracted to the same gender (this includes bisexual people) and that anyone of any religious background can be gay/bisexual since it's the way people are born*
According to your logic every president is now bisexual. Your argument holds no substance at all whatsoever. Hey I can do it too, Lincoln could be straight because he has a wife and kids. See how stupidly flawed your argument isA?@@TheSlipperyNUwUdle
I really do hate how everyone tries to apply sexuality to literally everything...constantly...it's annoying. Heads up everyone: men are allowed to be friends with each other, and men are allowed to be celibate
The vibe I got is that he was gay. A reach could be made for asexual. Just because in the writing, he makes it clear he might marry a woman but never be able to give her affection. He was aware he couldn't feel completely fulfilled with a woman. The question would then be: was he attracted to men, or was the company of men just better for him because he related to them more, and he was actually asexual? Either way, he fits under the Q. So. ONE OF US ONE OF US
Language evolves. Just think about how 2A enthusiasts and anti-gunners argue over what "well regulated" means. Or how before the 1970s the word "gay" just meant "happy". The word "woo" could have gone through a similar change in meaning. I don't know, I'm not a linguist.
Soooo...what do YOU think? Was James Buchanan a heterosexual?
Nope. I've read the King letters. I understand that language was more flowery then, and its highly unlikely they like did anything together, but if I were making a movie he'd be gay .
Yes he sure is:)
Possibly, when we have the technology to revive him we can ask him.
He never had any gay relations w me. That is about all I can definitively say on this matter.
@@parkmannate4154 MAKE THE MOVIE
Buchanan was indecisive on his sexuality the same way he was indecisive about the South.
Oh snap. You've already won the comment section.
You know, living with the same guy for 13 years but never having the courage to make a move is about what I’d expect from the guy who didn’t have the courage to stop half the country from leaving-
@@akorn9943 A man living with another man in the same house at the time was not really a big of a deal. Due to much less developed economy at the time, 2 or more single men would just live together. Lincoln even used to share a bed with men in his youth, because America was not industrialized enough to produce enough beds for all.
@@iammrbeat C-SPAN ranked Buchanan as the worst president in American history in 2021.
@@Pravdacz-tp8zu nah I know I was just making jokes. They still probably were hella gay tho 😌
Buchanan: never slept with a woman, lived with another man for 13 years, and wrote about trying to seduce men
Historians: we'll just never know
😂😂😂😂😂
well depending on context i feel like it could be sarcastic if he's using it to convey his loneliness. it greatly depends on where that excerpt is from/ who its too and the literary context. it could go either way tho
I read that excerpt and was like thats too sus for him not to be gay 😂
I mean this is the same with Tolkien. He wrote a lot about one of his friends from high school in a semi romantic way. A lot of his poems were homerotic and even LOTR is kinda gay but it’s not fair to say he was bi (I say bi because he loved his wife dearly). Although it’s pretty accepted he most likely was.
Any gay person seeing this shit is just like "y'all serious? Bro definitely wasn't only batting for the one team"
I tried asking him through my ouija board and he wouldn't respond. Then I asked Freddie Mercury and he said Buchanan's super gay.
Thanks for the update. I think that's all the evidence we need, folks. Shut 'er down.
Tell Freddie that we miss him.
Lmfao
Now you have 4 demons!! Is it worth it to chase after gays..? Probably not
@@iammrbeat 😂😂😂
You're awesome!!!
"I've tried *wooing several men* and being unsuccessful", "i should find myself lucky to marry a woman [...] who * requires no affection"*
Scholar: "You think he could be gay?"
Other scholar: "Nah"
Clearly you don't have any white guy friends. There is much wooing
I think that sentence is more misogynistic than gay
Yeah, he’s not exactly being vague
@@garret7919Nah it"s just gay
🤣
the "or heterosexual" at the end is one of the most important parts of these conversations that nobody usually says
James just didn’t wanna make it Facebook official I guess..
"It's complicated"
@@iammrbeat “ Facebook “ interested in? “ James “ I’d prefer not to answer.
Snivelling little Mr Beat. Why don't you make a video about the current Dementia plagued Prez? Who cares about spurious claims regarding long dead individuals? Are you going to speculate on your next video about which President was a paedophile or practiced incest? Spineless little geek
I read a piece by Jim Loewen in Salon a few years ago in which he argued that Buchanan was probably gay, and that people in his time probably knew and didn't care. What I thought was most interesting about the essay, however, was just the way Loewen challenged us to question some of our assumptions about the past, and specifically how people of the past thought about homosexuality. He noted that the late 19th century ushered in a time of rather unprecedented social conservatism in the United States, and that prior to that, people were often a lot more blasé about sexual matters than we sometimes assume. So the argument would be that Buchanan, whose political career was mostly in the 1840s, was a guy who preceded late Victorian neo-Puritanism, and thus someone who could get away with being gay, just because sexual propriety hadn't yet emerged as this thing other elites, or the broader public, were obsessed with.
I mean, the first true presidential sex scandal wasn't until Grover Cleveland in the late 1880s, right? Before then, did anyone really talk much about who presidents were sleeping with?
I dont buy it. In ancient Greece homosexuality was considered the norm and we have plenty of proof of that because it was recorded in writing dispassionately. The simple fact that it is virtually never mentioned in early America or Europe without the taint of scandal tells you that it was not a norm people tolerated. If it was something they just looked the other way on, you'd at least have the satirists and humorists of the day poking fun of the "unsaid-ness" of it.
They talked quite a bit about Jefferson and Sally Hemings.
Abraham Lincoln was most likely bi-sexual, according to some historians. He and his best friend a store owner named Joshua Speed lived together and slept in the same bed for 4 years. Maybe not too unusual for the time but they also wrote empassioned letters longing for each others company. And its said that it wasnt much of an issue to most people back then
Well, the first major sex scandal involving an American president was Thomas Jefferson's involvement with the 14-year-old African American girl.
insightful!
While that extract may imply him being gay, you have to remember that in the olden days men would write about one another like that. As homosexuality was unquestionable in most minds at the time, men would write about other men in a way that would be viewed today as “gay” because homosexuality has become more accepted so along with the change of modern masculinity, heterosexuals distanced themselves from using this language.
A similar thing was seen with Shakespeare in Elizabethan England as a letter was found that had similar language, which without historical context, would be viewed as heavily gay in today’s world.
Thank you Liam, this was super cool to read. 😎 I long to hear from you again my sweet~♡~ 😉
That also applies to the David and Jonathan narrative in the Bible (what with David saying, "his love to me was greater than the love of women," and all). I've heard pop-theology types claim that as evidence of a homosexual relationship between the two in the same vein as Buchanan. At its most benign, those sorts of interpretations anachronistically impose modern sentiments on people of a different time and place. At its worst, it's a cynical example of historical revisionism to conform the past to whatever is currently fashionable.
There's a quote by C. S. Lewis somewhere that laments how men can no longer have meaningfully intimate relationships without society perceiving them as homosexual.
But it's also important to understand that the intimate men from before the 1950s could actually be gay, or queer. It is good and should be more allowed to have men be intimate with each other, without it being sexual, but it's also important to not assume that they weren't gay because there definitely are gay/queer people from back then, they were just forced to hide it.
@@re1n441 That is indeed so, but I think the pendulum of popular perception currently swings very far the other way.
Yeah, this
Historians: honestly who doesn't write love letters to their purely platonic friends
As a gay man myself, I don't consider a relationship based on whether it had a sexual element or not. Being gay is about that, it's about who you are romantically compatible with.
Then why do pride parades include so much sexual themes?
Doesn't add up.
Bro of you don't get a hard on from beautiful women but you do from a beautiful man then you are gay.
'Cause this dude doesn't speak for everyone in the parade.
@@blobjorn3248same reason beer posters have tits on em
...okay?? Anyway this man fruity as hell
“Nah guys, they were just very good friends”
-Historians
They were literally roommates
This has gotta the only time this joke was used and they were literally roommates
@@TheSpiralProgression And they were roommates
Nah he was an incel. Just as how Frederick the Great was
@@therealspeedwagon1451 Fredrick literally had a room full of Greek and Roman statue depicted in acts of homosexuality that he called "the friendship room"
"The First Gay President in American History?"
First sentence: "Historians often view James Buchanan as the worst president in American history"
💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀bro lmao I know it wasn't intentional but man that's funny
Thats what I thought when I heard it too. Hahaha
Me too
We all know Obama was the worst president in US history ... but it wasn't because of the fact that he was homosexual. It was his leftist ideology that had no basis in the "real world" of causes and effects and his apologetic hatred for the country he purported to lead.
@@joeradler lol
@@joeradler it's funny cuz racism
Statistically at least one of those guys had to have been lgbt. There’s been too many for them all to have been straight. But realistically we are applying today’s conceptions on sexuality and relationships to people that lived up to 300 years ago. They probably thought differently about relationships and sexuality.
Well put
More like 150 years ago but yeah. The US isn't even 300 years old
@@JonBrownSherman the USA turns 250 in 2026. The first presidents were in close to 50. Thus 300 years
@@carschmn Buchanan was born in 1791, 233 years ago. He became president in 1857 at the age of 66, 170 years ago.
@@JonBrownSherman i am not talking about just buchanan
Ah, the classic very intimate roommates.
@@ebob4177 bert n ernie
I recognise this from when people try to speculate if royalty who lived a long time ago was gay. I feel like it is impossible to know if the person lived before 1850 was gay or not. Friends letters to each other was more loving, and might seem obviously romantic with our eyes. But in many cases that was only how you talked with your friends back then.
Indeed. Even when Buchanan was alive, our modern classification of sexual orientations didn’t really exist.
Pretty sure Sappho was gay.
@@bubblegodanimation4915 facts
@@bubblegodanimation4915 she was bisexual
Fredrick the Great was undoubtedly gay, though.
Man when you said William King became VP I thought you were going to say he was VP under Buchanan. Wouldn't that have been something.
🤦😍
They did try to get elected as POTUS/VP together. Buchanan and King each ran for Prez and VP several times - in 1844, 1848, and 1852 - and even though they both got what they wanted eventually - they never got the chance to win the nomination together. In 1852, Buchanan lost the Democratic nomination for prez to Franklin Pierce but King would win nomination as Pierce's VP. Most tragically, despite the fact Buchanan did get nominated for prez and elected in 1856...it wasn't before King had died of tuberculosis weeks into his term as Pierce's VP.
@@TheHappyTruckShunter King actually spent all of his very short term as VP in Cuba, even was sworn in there. He was hoping the climate would improve his health.
Zachary Taylor died one year into his Presidency, succeeded by Millard Fillmore. Before the 25th Amendment there was no mechanism to replace the Vice President if he died or succeeded to the job. So if Fillmore had died the next president would have been William R King, the President pro tempore of the Senate. As the next term approached King stood for Veep, but fell ill and had to go to Cuba. He won the election, and promptly died, making the Vice Presidency vacant again.
Quit gossiping.
“He who sings," said St. Augustine, "prays twice." The holy Bishop of Hippo meant that singing adds to our praise and worship of God-that our voices are gifts.🎶🙏
We'll probably never know. But what I do know is that if I was part of the LGBTQ+, I wouldn't like to be represented by one of the worst presidents in US history.
I hear you
Same
@@iammrbeat actually, I think you *read* him.
Bi guy here, yeah that’s probably just about the worst thing tbh… like we’ve got some cool historical icons and then there’s this guy…
@@21centuryhippie61 I mean to be fair to the man, if you have gay icons you also need bad gays so...
“Only gay president”
Lets see if joan rivers has something to say about that
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! EPIC!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Another fun fact: William and Buchanan got the team nickname of "Mr. Buchanan and his Wife"
basically, unless someone finds a surviving secret diary that somehow corroborates any claims of attraction towards men, the best we can do is speculate on Buchanan's sexuality.
that being said, I'm pretty sure he had a thing for men (exclusive or not), for reasons stated in this short, on top of how Buchanan is documented as having panicked for repentance on his deathbed.
They literally did! Did you not read the excerpt in the video!?
Maybe this was the only time in history we’re ‘good roommates’ were just roommates haha
*where
Cmon.
This is awesome. Mr. Beat, I can not overstate how much I enjoy your content. Sometimes you post videos about topics of which I knew I wanted a deeper explanation. Other times, you post videos about topics of which I DIDN’T know I wanted to explore further. Either way, I am always left feeling well informed and with a thirst for more information, leading me to dig deeper for myself. This topic has piqued my interest since I learned that President Buchanan may have been America’s first President in a same-sex relationship. Previously, I have been saddened when my searches for more information have been fruitless. Even though it is only a short, I was excited to see you post about it; I was thrilled to have finally learned more about President Buchanan’s possible relationships. Thank you, Mr. Beat!
Thank you so much, Ben. This comment made my week!
This was posted 53 mins ago, but he posted 17 hours ago
Snivelling little Mr Beat. Why don't you make a video about the current Dementia plagued Prez? Who cares about spurious claims regarding long dead individuals? Are you going to speculate on your next video about which President was a paedophile or practiced incest? Spineless little geek
@@alcapone672 Sometimes my powers surprise me, too.
Plot Twist: He was Asexual
Probably true
That would be so cool
"Historians often view James Buchanan as the worst president in American history" ....not any more they don't.
You can't get much worse than a president that's barely coherent, has early dementia, and shit his pants in front of the Queen.
But then again, he's not even actually running the country anyway.
Yeah they do lol.
@@finnl6887 You're not keeping up with current affairs.
@@LordOfLight yeah I am. As crappy as some recent ones are, they're still not as bad as Buchanan. Yet.
@@finnl6887 No Sir you are not.
"A new poll of historians coming out on Presidents’ Day weekend ranks Mr. Biden as the 14th-best president in American history, just ahead of Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan and Ulysses S. Grant. While that may not get Mr. Biden a spot on Mount Rushmore, it certainly puts him well ahead of Mr. Trump, who places dead last as the worst president ever." ~New York Times.
You will, of course, call it "fake news" or some other such drivel to save yourself the trouble of acknowledging cruel truth. Feel free. It's what we expect of your kind.
We just don’t know which way he swung, if indeed he even swung at all.
I mean in a time when being gay was still punishable by death in some parts of the US, I have to think that he would try to hide it as best he could if he was gay. Whenever historians say that there’s ‘not enough evidence’, I tend to think ‘Well maybe that’s on purpose’ Also, most people got married whether they wanted to or not. A lot of times without much of a say in the matter. You’d have to go out of your way to not get married. I see no reason why Buchanan couldn’t be seen as gay.
Good point!
I do agree that if he was gay he would want to hide it, the lack of evidence is not itself evidence. That’s the same argument that people who think the pyramids were built by aliens use. “If aliens did build the pyramids they would have hidden all traces of what they did. That’s why there isnt any evidence” The lack of evidence isn’t valid evidence, that argument is a fallacy.
@@childeryeeter4202 but there is a difference here. It more likely he would hide his homosexual feeling. Than aliens building a pyramid in ancient Egypt.and the fact he never really have a sex life/marriage. There could be hint that he could be homosexual or asexual to.
@@marvelous971-j6m oh yeah he tottaky coulda been gay or asexual or something. I think that’s possible. Just the comment used a fallacy
@@childeryeeter4202 yea
Thanks Mr. Beat, I've always wondered about this. ive heard both sides of the story, so thanks for clearing this up. (I hope my grandpa doesn't see this, I already asked him the trivia question "which president was secretly gay")
Thank you as always, and be sure to preface the question with "supposedly"
@@iammrbeat will do!
Donald Trump.
My favorite part to read about on his wikipedia page is his love life. Non existent but a trip to read about
"Sex is cringe" - James Buchanan, probably
I was never really interested in history until I began following your channel. Now I can't get enough of it. You rock!
Pretty sure even back then dudes didn’t say they were “wooing” several gentlemen
One thing that always stands out to me in questioning the sexuality (or sexual preference) of past politicians, royalty, millionaires, etc. is that the speculators seem to forget that they were being gossiped about during their lifetimes and they had plenty of enemies. So contemporary DC speculation that Buchanan was homosexual could easily have been more of a dig on his political performance in the same vein that people question whether Trump and Biden have dementia because they don’t like their politics. We rarely hear the “good” leaders speculated to be gay. Being interested romantically or sexually in people of the same sex was just considered a vice, not an identity.
"Or heterosexual for that matter" I love you for that Mr. Beat. Thank you.
At the time, being gay was not a thing you were, it was a thing you did. They didn't associate the act with an identity. Today we recognize that desires are persistent and at least relatively inherent. They may shift somewhat overtime, but usually not drastically (even when people genuinely try to make them shift) and even when they do shift slightly, they persist for a long time. So it is sensible to consider it a trait, part if someone's identity. That was not recognized then. Very few people considered themselves to be homosexual, they just liked to have homosexual sex.
That's one of the reasons its hard to determine if historical figures are gay. VERY few of them thought of themselves that way and very few people thought of others that way. There was also a lot of stigma and bigotry, so when people engaged in homosexual acts or had homosexual desires, they tended to keep it hidden.
It is certainly possible, however we should keep in mind that what we view as gay now may not have been seen as odd behaviour between two men at the time. That being said, some things about his relationship with King do seem like they would have been considered strange even back then. Overall I don't think this is something we can really answer definitively, though I think supposing he was gay is not too wild an idea.
Well put!
Well it could be taken that way, possibly. His fiance did pass away not long after their engagement was ended and he called her passing his "great grief". King also suggested he had a great love but she married another. So they may have just been close friends, understanding each others grief. Granted, they were called "Buchanan and his wife" by people in DC. Or "Aunt Nancy and Aunt Fancy". They were very close but how close, no one knows.
No wonder my homie didnt have the women, you would think that if you were the president all the women would be chasing you around.
This is perhaps a good point
I mean it's his looks that's keeping everyone away...
@@onyxthelifebringer I mean he do be lookin fine no cap
@@jswoozy9666 in some pictures. There’s one picture where he looks like a human Q tip
@@lucabayley1454 Maybe thats why.
Buchanan: never married
Historians: *I diagnose you with gay*
did you watch the short? it said that historians say that there isn't enough evidence to prove he was gay, or straight
He also tried to woo gentlemen
This is a real "Sappho and her friend" moment from historians.
Thanks for the inclusion of several different sexualities at the end. That really happens with "omg were they gay!!!?!!" speculations.
Some people say he was gay without evidence. Interesting video as always Mr. Beat.
Yep, can't make a claim without proof. Thank you Matthew!
@@iammrbeat that’s right.
So people say he was gay because he never had a wife and chilled with a homie in his house for 13 years? People be crazy.
People often are crazy, yes.
yea it's just pleasin' the homies...
On one hand, men were generally a lot more "expressive" with their feelings, especially towards men just as a sign of their close, brotherly bonds.
On the other hand...
This short makes me want to see a video about rumors/speculations for every president. Maybe an interesting video idea.
A dough face and a Yankee doodle dandy! Geez, Buchanan just can't catch a break.
This is my life long goal, to become famous enough that historians? 100s of years from now debate my sexual preferences.....
“Hopefully it’ll distract those everyone from my dismal performance”
William R. King was the 13th Vice President of the United States from March 4, 1853 to April 18, 1853.
Didn't you know him, Abe?
@@iammrbeat Indeed, though he died 12 years before me.
@@abrahamlincoln937 Hi!!!:)
@@jessicacat4418 Hi!
@@abrahamlincoln937 how is my Best Friend doing:)
Not the worst president being the only gay one 😭 this feels homophobic
There no evidence he was though
@@AndrewH1220 there was much evidence it was just not concrete
Well, Obama was finee
jfk might have been bi and he's a lot better
Nah Andrew Johnson was worse
Of all the historical figures people do the "historians will call them roomates" thing, this might actually be the most likely. It's not a lot of evidence, but that's pretty damning.
Buchanan wasn’t gay just really really awkward with women (as some of his letters can attest to)
you can really do this with every president lol
Probs
Hey Mr. Beat, I watched your video on the Dred Scott Decision again and I was wondering could I get a link to the song in the background? It was really great! I know your band made it.
That's my Bill Clinton song
This Brings a Whole New Meaning To "Oh My God,They Were Roommates"
CORRECTION:
They were just really really good friends who deeply valued their relationship
so they were just "friends"
OH MY GOD THEY WERE ROOMMATES
Look what channel is knocking on the 500,000 subscriber's door---It's Mr. Beat! I subscribed way back when you had about 10,000-20,000. Now look at the subscriber count! Congrats, Mr. Beat...you've always been a favorite of mine!
Hey!
I like your picture:)
It's freaking crazy. But I still love making the videos, and probably will for the rest of my life. Thanks for being here for so long. That means a lot.
@@iammrbeat want to be friends?
So historians agreed they were just good friends, roommates even
Imagine not being into relationships and 100+ years later they call you bright, merry and happy.
Doesn't anyone else see where in the letter he says he's "gone a' wooing" to "several gentlemen" and that he had not "succeeded with any of them"?!?
Or later where he says he wants an "old maid" to take care of him and not expect any affection from him....?
Hey, shoutout to Mr. Beat for pointing out that there’s not any evidence that Buchanan was straight either! Really tired of people automatically assuming that when there’s literally no evidence of ANY relationships
I mean he lived with the same man for 13 years! That seems like evidence of a relationship if you ask me. So though not definitive he seems to be the one president with more evidence of being LGBT than not.
JJ can be the first gay prime minister of Canada
That'd be amazing
William Lyon Mackenzie King was a lifelong bachelor, some speculate that he was a closeted homosexual. (This is just speculation obviously)
@@iammrbeat As a Canadian, no it wouldn’t. His videos are considered racist up here. He’d have a hard time getting elected.
@@dictatorofcanada4238 Like Buchanan, King was mainly just odd. Unlike Buchanan, King was a fairly good leader because he was re-elected multiple times despite being odd. I mean, even now, if you want to get elected, it helps to be married and have some kids or grandkids (stepkids also acceptable) because you are seen as more relatable to the electorate as well as having more of a stake in the future. (This is more the case in North America, though. In other parts of the world, having sacrificed having your own children in order to serve the nation is seen as a positive thing.)
Please, make a video or several videos about some particular higly important congresspeople. I think it’s your obligation to properly cover Thaddeus Stevens. Most based politician in American history!
haha great suggestion!
@@iammrbeat Thank you for acknowledging so.
Well during both Buchanan's and King's time in Congress, a lot of their contemporaries (especially President Andrew Jackson) used to refer to them as "Aunt Nancy & Miss Fancy;" so,... do whatever you will with that.
Average day in Historian Department:
"So, did Buchanan have gay sex?!"
First and only?
OBAMA: 🙄🙄am i a joke to you?
Whack
Facts
Was lookin for this comment 😂
@@spokentruth5909more like oBUMa was whacking... other dudes off.
wait what? I thought obama was straight
Guys they were just roommates I swear
2 options:
1. He didn't lose his virginity.
2. He had his relationships private.
Honestly, that text is more than enough proof for me
The evidence for Buchanan being "Mansexual" (If there's an actual term that covers all orientations gay/bi/pan/etc. that are a fan of the man I'd love to hear it) seems about as strong as the evidence for Lincoln.
For reference Lincoln shared a bed with a man named Joshua Fry Speed, and during the civil war wrote him love letters.
Another thing was that he was unmarried. It was really hard in those times to not get married, Doesn't matter if you wanted to or not, you would probably be married. They were both unmarried. James B had the most evidence, granted it's not enough to prove that he was mlm (man loving man). He still had the most compelling evidence
@@Excepnexcep MLM doesn't work for me as a term because it's also the acronym for modern pyramid schemes.
It's just as possible that Lincoln had two beards: One literal, one metaphorical.
@@gabrielrussell5531 oh ok, I don't know any other terms, sorry. And I'm not saying that President Buchanan was LGBTQ2S+, It's just that we aren't particularity sure if he was or not, unlike other presidents who we can confidentially say were straight
Anyone who thinks he isn't gay has not paused the video to read the damn letter. xD
You don't have to be explicitly sexual to be gay btw...you said it yourself, his male-male relationship was his "most intimate."
You already know things are about to go down when a gay man back in the day gets engaged with a senator from ALABAMA. 😂😂😂
Having a sexuality implies Buchanan could actually make a decision.
There’s no way we can tell whether Buchanan was gay or not. It is common knowledge that gaydars were not yet invented in the mid-1800’s.
id never heard of this before thank you mr beat
Yeah this is NOT the kind of representation I want lol 😅
Lincoln would be a lot better (even though we can't 100% tell for sure if he was gay)
Edit: What just happened???
*Reminder that "gay" is an umbrella term for anyone that is attracted to the same gender (this includes bisexual people) and that anyone of any religious background can be gay/bisexual since it's the way people are born*
@@HenryA.Wallace Lincoln had a wife and kids though..
@@person3070 he could be bisexual. 🤷♀️ you can like both dudes and girls and marry a woman.
According to your logic every president is now bisexual. Your argument holds no substance at all whatsoever. Hey I can do it too, Lincoln could be straight because he has a wife and kids. See how stupidly flawed your argument isA?@@TheSlipperyNUwUdle
LINCOLN WAS RELIGIOUS. How the heck would someone be gay if they were literally Christian and had a wife and kids ffs.@ElizaDrawsStuff
"Both James Buchanan and William Rufus King were heterosexual and they were *great* friends"
~ Historians
I really do hate how everyone tries to apply sexuality to literally everything...constantly...it's annoying.
Heads up everyone: men are allowed to be friends with each other, and men are allowed to be celibate
The vibe I got is that he was gay. A reach could be made for asexual.
Just because in the writing, he makes it clear he might marry a woman but never be able to give her affection. He was aware he couldn't feel completely fulfilled with a woman.
The question would then be: was he attracted to men, or was the company of men just better for him because he related to them more, and he was actually asexual?
Either way, he fits under the Q. So. ONE OF US ONE OF US
You know wooing means trying to get someone to fall in love to (sweep them off their feet) unless im wrong but thats what i have heard i may be wrong
Language evolves. Just think about how 2A enthusiasts and anti-gunners argue over what "well regulated" means. Or how before the 1970s the word "gay" just meant "happy". The word "woo" could have gone through a similar change in meaning. I don't know, I'm not a linguist.
From what I know they had letters that were destroyed by their family (which seems pretty sus in my opinion).
Just like the Russians destroying evidence that Tchaikovsky was gay.
Only gay president before Obama.
Obama isn't gay???
@@JeffHoldenWS-NC Obama and Micheal….
“Not the curtains again Mr. President… Buchanan!!!”-oversimplified
According to many videos on this site, there's an argument for a much more recent president being on that list.
@@David_Shipley bingo
Buchanan was just a bottom no question about that
He, "went a wooing" , kinda says it all really.
i expected to see Obama listed as gay.
Bruh how can a historian read that fucking letter and say “nah we don’t know”
Nahhh they really did him like Sappho 😭😭
He wasn't gay, only his boyfriend was
You just said it🤦♂️💀
This comment won't be hearted
Wrong 🙂
I honestly hate it when that works.
@@iammrbeat Ur one of my fav youtuber
Him: *says Buchanan*
My brain immediately thinking of oversimplified: BUCHANAN *cries behind window curtain*
Regardless of his sexuality, Buchanan is still considered to be one of the worst US presidents still to this day.
You forgot to include Andrew Jackson's humorous knickname for the First Couple.
Buchanan watching this from afterlife:
"IM NOT GAY IM NOT GAYYYYY!!!"
He looks like Dara O'Brian in a wig
What’s your sexuality, Mr President?
Mr President - No
i don't think he was gay
because i don't want the only gay president to be the worst one in history
If there is not a single gay person for US president, maybe one day we will all have a president for the United States who is gay.
I started putting listening devices near Graves. Found Buchanan's and put in right in, heard moaning and farting for 46.16 hours