Judiciary Committee Members Elected to the Presidency

While more than 300 Senators have served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, only three have gone on to serve as President of the United States.  Martin Van Buren, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan hold that unique distinction, serving as the eighth, fourteenth and fifteenth Presidents, respectively.

Martin Van Buren 

President Martin Van Buren Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Martin Van Buren was born in 1782 in Kinderhook, New York, and began his political career in 1812, when he was elected to the New York State Senate.  In 1817, President Van Buren joined the Albany Regency, a powerful group of politicians who dominated New York politics for decades.  He then served as Attorney General of New York from 1816 until 1819, and was elected to the United States Senate in 1821.  President Van Buren was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1821 until 1827, serving as Chairman during both the 18th and 19th Congresses.  As chairman of the Committee, he introduced a number of measures for the improvement of judicial procedure. President Van Buren left his Senate career to serve as Governor of New York in 1829.  His governorship was short, as he was appointed by President Andrew Jackson to serve as Secretary of State. He served as Vice President following the 1832 election.

Martin Van Buren was elected as the eighth President of the United States in 1836.  He was the first president from New York, and the first President to be an American-born citizen. Very early in his presidency he was faced with the worst economic crisis of the Nineteenth Century, the Panic of 1837.  The panic involved massive bank failures, record high unemployment levels followed by a five year depression.  He was also left to oversee the Trail of Tears, which expelled the Cherokee Tribe from South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia to the Oklahoma Territory.  In 1837, President Van Buren denied Texas' request to join the Union for fear that it would join as a slave state, opting to preserve peace, rather than create contention by expanding American territory.

President Van Buren passed away on July 24, 1862.

Franklin Pierce

President Franklin Pierce Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Franklin Pierce was born in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, in 1804 and became involved in politics shortly after graduating from Bowdoin College.  He was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1829, where he served until 1833.  President Pierce moved into national politics when he was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1833.  In 1836, he was elected to the United States Senate, where he served on the Judiciary Committee for one term.  During President Pierce's tenure on the Committee, three Supreme Court nominations were considered - William Smith, John Catron, and John McKinley.

After serving in both the Senate and House, Franklin Pierce enlisted to serve during the Mexican American War, where he rose in rank from Private to Brigadier General.  At the conclusion of the War, Franklin Pierce was nominated as the Democratic candidate for president, and was elected in 1852 as the fourteenth President of the United States.  President Pierce began his term during a period of relative economic growth.  The greatest challenge President Pierce faced during his administration was the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, one of many catalysts which led the nation to civil war.  President Pierce also ratified the Gadsden Purchase, under which the United States purchased southern Arizona and southern New Mexico for $10 million from Mexico.

President Pierce passed away on October 8, 1869.

James Buchanan

President James Buchanan Library of Congress, Prints and Photographic Division

James Buchanan, Jr., was born in 1791 in the village of Cove Gap, outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  He graduated from Dickinson college with honors in 1809, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1812.  When the British invaded Maryland, he joined a volunteer light cavalry unit and served in the defense of Baltimore during the War of 1812.  Following the war, he began his political career first in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1814, and later was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1821.  President Buchanan was elected to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat for Pennsylvania in 1834 and was reelected twice.  He served as a member of the Judiciary Committee from 1835 through 1836.

In 1844, President James Polk nominated Buchanan to serve as a Justice on the Supreme Court.  Buchanan declined the nomination, opting instead to complete business being conducted on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which he was Chairman at the time.  He won the 1856 Presidential election, and was sworn in as the fifteenth President of the United States on March 4, 1857.  During President Buchanan's presidency, the country divided further on the issue of slavery.  One of the greatest challenges of his presidency was the administration of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  He was instrumental in securing statehood for Kansas, lobbying Congress to approve the state's Lecompton Constitution and government. While making many attempts to close the widening rift between pro- and anti-slavery groups using constitutional arguments issued by the Taney Supreme Court, President Buchanan saw his presidency end in a period of extreme tension between the North and South.

President Buchanan passed away June 1, 1868, at his home in Wheatland, Pennsylvania.

More information about past presidents is available online.

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