[1] 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.

[3] Seeking to further cement his position among white farmers, he campaigned against the federal Lodge Bill, which would have provided protections for voting rights for blacks in the South.

[3]: 84  He also signed a law standardizing the state's public school curriculum, and enacted a measure providing pensions for Confederate veterans.

The striking miners had rounded up the convicts and had sent them to Knoxville via train, and the TCMC demanded Buchanan call up the state guard and put down the insurrection.

Furthermore, while the Farmers' Alliance sought to end convict leasing, Buchanan supported it, arguing it saved the state hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[3]: 53 On July 16, Buchanan, at the head of three state guard companies, personally escorted the convicts from Knoxville back to the stockades in the Coal Creek Valley.

[3]: 85 On July 20, just a few days after Buchanan left the valley, the striking miners overwhelmed the guardsmen protecting the stockades at Briceville and nearby Coal Creek, and once again sent the convicts back to Knoxville.

After meeting with labor and business leaders in Knoxville, Buchanan negotiated a 60-day truce with the miners, agreeing to call a special session of the state legislature to consider ending the convict leasing system.

[3]: 89 The state legislature met in a special session in September 1891 to consider the convict lease system and the events surrounding the Coal Creek War.

Buchanan suggested they modify existing contracts to protect free miners, and called for the establishment of a state penitentiary.

In August, Buchanan dispatched General Samuel T. Carnes to Coal Creek with over 500 militiamen, and order was finally restored.

Buchanan entered the race as an independent, still claiming to represent farmers' interests, and winning the backing of the rising Populist movement.