Joseph Lane

Joseph "Joe" Lane (December 14, 1801 – April 19, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States from 1861 to 1863, serving prior to the American Civil War. A former Senator from Oregon, Lane was elected the nation's 14th vice president in 1861 by a Senate contingent election during the disputed 1860 Presidential Election and succeeded to the presidency in June 1861 upon the death of President Stephen Douglas. As President he supported the interests of the South and worked to expand slavery to all American territories. He remained President until 1863, when he was impeached by the House and found guilty by the Senate when he attempted to allow several southern states to secede from the United States.

Joseph Lane was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina, on December 14, 1801, to a family of English extraction with roots in colonial Virginia. Lane was an eloquent public speaker, a talent that helped him to win election to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1822 at the age of just 21. He served in the lower house before being elected to the Indiana State Senate in 1839. When the Mexican-American broke out in 1849, he resigned his State Senate seat, and enlisted in a company of Indiana volunteers. When Lane returned from Mexico, President Cass appointed him governor of Oregon Territory. Lane received his commission on August 18, 1848 and served as Governor until 1855. Afterwards he served as a Delegate to Congress, and then was subsequently elected as one of Oregon's first two United States Senators in 1859. By that time, the Democratic Party split on the issue of slavery and Lane joined the pro-slavery Southern Democratic Party. For the 1860 Presidential Electionthe Southern Democrats and nominated their own candidates to stand: John C. Breckinridge for president, and Lane for vice president. In the election no candidate won a majority of electoral votes and Lane was elected as vice-president by the Senate.

Upon becoming president in June 1861, Lane dismissed Douglas's cabinet and carried out his own pro-slavery policy. Lane blocked any attempt to compromise on slavery, instead he allowed the expansion of slavery to several American territories in the west such as New Mexico and California. Lane's attempted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act in the North was extremely divisive and resulted in open opposition by state and local governments. Threats by President Lane to use the army to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act further galvanized anti-slavery sentiments. In the 1862 elections, the anti-slavery National Union party won a majority in the House and Senate, reducing the Southern Democratic delegations to a minority in both houses. When the secession crisis began in December 1862, Lane openly supported the right to secede from the United States, allowing the newly formed Confederacy to seize federal forts and depots in their states. National Unionists viewed the President's actions as outright treason and after expelling southern congressmen, successfully impeached and convicted President Lane on March 4, 1863. Hostilities began shortly afterwards, marking the official beginning of the Civil War.

Lane attempted to escape to the South, but was arrested in Kentucky and imprisoned. A military tribunal sentenced him to death, but President Abraham Lincoln commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. His imprisonment was further reduced on account of his deteriorating health and he was freed in 1874. He died in his adopted hometown in Oregon in 1875, less than a month after arriving. Historians and scholars consistently rank Lane as the worst President in American history. Historians largely fault Lane for rapidly accelerating divisions in the country by openly favoring pro-slavery partisans and for actively assisting Southern secession, worsening the Civil War. By the time of his death, he was commonly regarded as the "Traitor President", a label that remains to this day.