Early Life
Buchanan was born in Williamson County, Tennessee, the son of Thomas and Rebecca (Shannon) Buchanan. He attended common schools, and joined the Confederate Army as a private in the Fourth Alabama Cavalry in 1864. After the war, he moved to Rutherford County, Tennessee, where he engaged in farming and livestock breeding. By the 1880s, his 325-acre (132 ha) farm was one of the most successful in the county. He was elected to the county's seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1886, and again in 1888. Among the legislation he sponsored was a bill exempting farmers' co-ops from the state's merchant tax.
In the decades after the Civil War, Tennessee's farmers struggled with both falling crop prices and rising transportation costs, and called for regulation of railroad rates. Governor William B. Bate had established a railroad commission during his first term, but the party's Bourbon and industrial wings repealed the act authorizing this commission in 1885, leaving farmers outraged. The state's farmers formed a chapter of the Farmers' Alliance, the Tennessee Farmers' Alliance, which elected Buchanan its first president in 1888. The following year, Buchanan helped implement the Farmers' Alliance's merger with a rival group, the Agricultural Wheel, to form the Tennessee Farmers' Alliance and Laborers' Union (TFLU).
Read more about this topic: John P. Buchanan
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