For the presidential election of 1856, the Democrats nominated James Buchanan and John Breckenridge, the newly formed Republican party nominated John Fremont and William Drayton, the American [or Know-Nothing] party nominated former president Millard Fillmore and Andrew Donelson, and the Abolition Party nominated Gerrit Smith and Samuel McFarland. Buchanan started his political career as a state representative in Pennsylvania, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1821, appointed minister to Russia in 1832, and elected US Senator in 1834. He was appointed Secretary of State in 1845 by President Polk and in that capacity helped forge the Treaty...
voter participation. Anti-slavery forces regained control of the territorial legislature in the next election and voted down the document. [Brinkley, pg 375]

Buchanan, against clear evidence to the contrary, decided to side with the Lecompton proposal. Stephen Douglas, in another bizarre moment of political suicide, argued against the Lecompton document. The statehood constitution was ultimately submitted to the general population of Kansas, who overwhelmingly defeated the illegitimate document. However, Kansas was not admitted to the union, as a free state, until the closing days of the Buchanan administration. By then several southern states had already seceded. Buchanan had failed.