Philip Klein’s biography finally places the presidency of James Buchanan in the favorable light it deserves. Buchanan was discredited and vilified by politicians who put their party ahead of the nation. Power was more important to them than preserving the Union. First they obstructed his peace efforts and then scapegoated him for the Civil War when it began. "Buchanan assumed leadership of the United States when an unprecedented wave of angry passion was sweeping the nation. That he held the hostile sections in check during these revolutionary times was in itself a remarkable achievment. His weaknesses in the stormy years of his presidency were magnified by enraged partisans of the North and the South. His many talents, which in a quieter era might have gained for him a place among the great presidents of his country, were quickly overshadowed by the cataclysmic events of civil war and by the towering personality of Abraham Lincoln. Of Buchanan it might be said, as it was of another, ‘He staked his reputation on the supremacy of reason, and lost.’