America Already Had a Gay President

Gay Democrat presidential nominee candidate Pete Buttigieg.

With South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a gay man married to a man, showing himself to be surprisingly popular among 2020 Democrat nomination contenders, the chatter classes are talking up a storm about Buttigieg and what his candidacy might mean.  The chatter overlooks the reality that were he to be elected, Buttigieg would not be the first gay president of the United States. All that's needed to understand this truth is  to look at history that has not been re-written to make individuals conform to the heterosexual normative.  Over the years I have written several pieces on the fact that Abraham Lincoln was likely gay.  One such piece can be found here.  

William Rufus King.

But Lincoln was not the only possibly gay president.  A college and law school classmate originally from Alabama cross posted a piece from AL.com on Facebook that looks at President James Buchanan - America's only "bachelor president" - and his relationship with William Rufus King (who also served as U.S. vice president and, maybe more surprisingly, was a gay senator from Alabama).  Here are article excerpts:

“If elected, you would be the first openly gay president of the United States,” Stephen Colbert said to Pete Buttigieg after the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, declared his candidacy. While the characterization of being openly gay or “out” is relatively new, the fact is the United States has already had a gay president whose contemporaries knew it: James Buchanan. Indeed, the United States has also had a gay vice president and, maybe more surprisingly, a gay senator from Alabama.

If students taking U.S. history classes are taught anything about Buchanan, they learn that he was "our only bachelor president." How quaint. But, by using euphemisms, we falsely educate students - indeed all Americans - about the realities of this country's history. We also distort how and why Buttigieg's sexual identity matters today.

Before becoming president in 1857, Buchanan openly lived with William Rufus King, who at various times served as senator from Alabama, ambassador to France and, finally, Franklin Pierce's vice president. They met in Washington as young politicians, and lived together on and off for more than 16 years until King's death from tuberculosis in 1853.

Buchanan’s biographer, Jean H. Baker, believes that his relationship with the Southerner King partially explains why this Pennsylvanian was a “doughface,” a Northerner who did not oppose slavery. Indeed, Buchanan explicitly urged the Supreme Court to deliver an expansive ruling in the Dred Scott case - which denied freed slaves American citizenship and forbade Congress from regulating slavery in U.S. territories - and lobbied Congress to admit Kansas as a slave state.

How do we know Buchanan and King were a couple? In 1844, after King assumed his posting in Paris, Buchanan wrote a letter to a friend, complaining about being alone and not being able to find the right gentleman partner:

"I am now 'solitary and alone,' having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection."

Maybe he was only looking for a roommate, but who "woos" a roommate? And he admits he would not deliver "ardent or romantic affection" to a woman.

Similarly, King wrote Buchanan from Paris:

"I am selfish enough to hope you will not be able to procure an associate who will cause you to feel no regret at our separation. For myself, I shall feel lonely in the midst of Paris, for here I shall have no Friend with whom I shall commune as with my own thoughts."

Their peers knew about their relationship, which Buchanan and King made no real effort to hide. Andrew Jackson referred to King as "Miss Nancy" - a euphemism for a homosexual.

Other contemporaries called King Buchanan's "better half," and one congressman referred to him as "Mrs. B." All this would be quite peculiar if Buchanan was not gay. And we are not likely to get more explicit acknowledgment because both Buchanan and King had their personal papers burned after death. By not openly discussing this moment, we forget that being gay in the mid-19th century did not automatically exclude a man from national leadership. The idea that some people, including politicians and social leaders, are gay was not news or shocking to our forefathers. Americans generally considered it a private matter, and irrelevant to holding or performing public office. We obscure or even deny all this history, and, consequently, we miseducated our children and misdirect our attention. Moreover, we obfuscate perhaps the one positive step we took as a country in electing James Buchanan, who makes almost every list of the worst U.S. presidents. Let's stop pretending Buchanan was a bachelor, and take a lesson from our forebears. Instead of focusing on a candidate's sexuality, let's spend our time assessing their aptitude to lead our country in this perilous moment in history.