Abundant circumstantial evidence says James Buchanan, America’s 15th president, was gay, but it’s hard to know for sure. He was a lifelong bachelor and lived with William Rufus DeVane King in a Washington boardinghouse and they attended social functions together from 1834 until 1844. Buchanan’s nieces destroyed letters between the two men when the president died in 1868. Several biographers assert he was a homosexual and rampant speculation swirled around him during his life. More important, his political record is a rocky one.
© 2024 John Oliver
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