I remeber reading somewhere about how there are many personal facts about James Buchanan that suggest he was homosexual. Does this idea have any basis, and is it accepted by historians today?
It can never really be known with certainty - Buchanan never married, the only president so far to remain a bachelor. He courted one woman named Anne Coleman and was briefly engaged to her before she died. Afterwards he didn't do this or show any interest in it again.
The main base of information for this theory is that he lived with another man named William R. King, who became Vice President under Franklin Pierce and died in 1853. He lived with Buchanan for several years and they became quite close. Their correspondence however doesn't show any hard evidence of Buchanan being undoubtedly gay.
hi! you may be interested in responses to these earlier posts