Well, I have not selected my next book as of yet, so perhaps I will dip into Furst. Right now, I am trudging through James Buchanan's annual addresses and proclamations, and his 1866 autobiography. Riveting for me, dull as dull can be for most.

Watched a portion of C-Span's James Buchanan special, aired a couple of years ago in their well done presidential series. Predictably, the first question asked by the very first caller was "is it true James Buchanan was a homosexual?" I've always thought this a profoundly stupid question, based in a thorough misunderstanding of the nineteenth century. Evidence for this shoddy case is apparently based on four things: his bachelor status, his close friendship with Franklin Pierce's Vice-President William King, affectionate language used in letters to King, and contemporary quips about Buchanan being a dandy. Let's break this down:

1.) It hardly needs to be said that being a bachelor indicates nothing. Buchanan was so miserably upset with a broken engagement in his youth that he never allowed himself to be hurt by a woman again. One vicious (and false) rumor was that he cocked his head noticably to one side because he tried unsuccessfully to hang himself after that breakup-- the truth was that he did not see well out of one eye.

2.) He was a close friend of King's, I believe even rooming with King at one point. This rather ordinary fact has been transformed into evidence of something sexual. But rooming together was quite common, especially in DC during this era. Congressman and Senator Franklin Pierce roomed with other men at the same time, as did most senators and congressmen of the era. That's what boarding house life was like in the 1830s and 1840s; it's not evidence of anything untoward.

3.) This one gets me the most, that Buchanan wrote rather touching letters to King. Anyone with any experience in looking at nineteenth century letters knows that the preferred idiom was highly sentimental, romantic language, typical of the Victorian-era on both sides of the Atlantic. Simply put, everyone wrote this way: men-women, women-men, men-men, women-women. It indicates nothing. Pierce and Hawthorne often said they loved one another -- only living in a 2003 vacuum, totally ignorant of nineteenth century history, can give his any sexual meaning. Go read Karen Hansen's marvelous social history A Very Social Time and then look at Buchanan again. His writing was ordinary, not notable at all.

4.) Apparently Buchanan was a fop and liked nice clothes, and this led some contemporaries to label him a dandy or a "nancy." Big deal. The great Democratic historian George Bancroft used to walk around Boston in the 1830s and 1840s wearing purple knee breeches from France, years after they were out of style, causing everyone to laugh at him. Was he homosexual too? Chester Alan Arthur was roundly mocked for dressing to the nines and wearing the latest New York fashions in the 1870s and 1880s. How about him?

The case for a homosexual Buchanan is bad history.