James is considered the worst president in history due to his lack of action to prevent the Civil War. Only time will tell if George Bush will take his place
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GWB is in no way worthy of "worst" president. I say this as someone from the center-left, politically, and who think he's the worst president in modern times.

What Buchanan and Pierce did brought upon the Civil War.

The war in which more Americans died... than all other wars combined.

Buchanan and Pierce fall in to a special place of "bad".

The trio of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover were not so great from 1920 onwards...

Bush belongs in the bottom quarter of presidents, but the bottom is a special place, and it will be hard to compare to the presidents that created the environment that led to the civil war.
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Buchanan's administration was plagued by a number of problems. For one thing, many of the actions of his presidency helped precipitate the Civil War. (Interestingly, he's the first and only president from Pennsylvania. Despite being a Northerner, he had active Southern sympathies, and believed that the Federal government was constitutionally incapable of precluding new states from being classified as "slave states.") A few items during his presidency actively contributed to the Civil War:

1- Bleeding Kansas: Buchanan fully endorsed the entry of Kansas as a slave state by backing the LeCompton Constitution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecompton_Constitution). He offered cash and patronage in exchange for Congressional approval of Kansas' entry as a slave state. Buchanan's position badly divided the Democratic party and set the stage for a North/South struggle over States' Rights
2- Personal views on slavery: Buchanan strongly supported the rights of states to hold slaves, and also supported slavery advocates who wanted to expand slave trade to Cuba. In his 1860 State of the Union address, he also stated that "the slaves were treated with kindness and humanity.... Both the philanthropy and the self-interest of the master have combined to produce this humane result." Buchanan's status as a "doughface" (a Northerner with Southern principles -- the phrase of the era) greatly accelerated sectional difficulties.
3- Financial Panic: Buchanan had his own economic troubles. The government faced a significant shortfall of revenue due to the Democrats' push to lower the tariff. Buchanan's Treasury Secretary ordered the issuance of deficit financing for the government -- causing a financial panic and claims of the Buchanan administration's financial irresponsibility (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1857)
4- Utah War: Remember David Koresh and Waco? Think of that type of episode, raised to an exponent of 100. Buchanan received false reports of a planned Mormon revolt led by Brigham Young, and sent the Army to replace Young with a non-Mormon governor. Layer on top of that anti-Mormon speech coming from DC. Poor planning, the Army's inadequate supplies, and the failure of the President to verify the reports of rebellion and warning the territorial government of his intentions led to widespread condemnation of Buchanan from Congress and the press, who labeled the war "Buchanan's Blunder". When Young agreed to be replaced by Cumming and to allow the Army to enter the Utah Territory and establish a base, Buchanan attempted to save face by issuing proclamations detailing his merciful pardoning of the "rebels".
5- Disintegration of the Union: In Buchanan's Message to Congress (December 3, 1860), he denied the legal right of states to secede but held that the Federal Government legally could not prevent them. He hoped for compromise, but secessionist leaders did not want it. He then watched silently as South Carolina seceded on December 20, followed by six cotton states. Before Buchanan left office on March 4, all arsenals and forts in the seceded states were lost (except Fort Sumter)

Buchanan's failure to deal with the secession issue is the reason that most historians rate his performance so poorly....this failure led directly to the Civil War, and it's also why most people think he rates lower than Bush - especially since Buchanan had only 4 years and accomplished this much (bad), while Bush had 8. A survey of the rankings here:

Chronological order President Schlesinger 1948 poll rank Schlesinger 1962 poll rank 1982 Murray-Blessing survey of 846 historians Chicago Tribune 1982 poll rank Siena 1982 poll rank Siena 1990 poll rank Siena 1994 poll rank Ridings- McIver 1996 poll rank CSPAN 1999 poll rank Wall Street Journal 2000 poll rank Siena 2002 poll rank Wall Street Journal 2005 poll rank CSPAN 2009 poll rank
01 George Washington 02 02 03 03 04 04 04 03 03 01 04 01 02
02 John Adams 09 10 09 14 (tie) 10 14 12 14 16 13 12 13 17
03 Thomas Jefferson 05 05 04 05 02 03 05 04 07 04 05 04 07
04 James Madison 14 12 14 17 09 08 09 10 18 15 09 17 20
05 James Monroe 12 18 15 16 15 11 15 13 14 16 08 16 14
06 John Quincy Adams 11 13 16 19 17 16 17 18 19 20 17 25 19
07 Andrew Jackson 06 06 07 06 13 09 11 08 13 06 13 10 13
08 Martin Van Buren 15 17 20 18 21 21 22 21 30 23 24 27 31
09 William Henry Harrison – – – 38 26 35 28 35 37 – 36 — 39
10 John Tyler 22 25 28 29 34 33 34 34 36 34 37 35 35
11 James K. Polk 10 08 12 11 12 13 14 11 12 10 11 09 12
12 Zachary Taylor 25 24 27 28 29 34 33 29 28 31 34 33 29
13 Millard Fillmore 24 26 29 31 32 32 35 36 35 35 38 36 37
14 Franklin Pierce 27 28 31 35 35 36 37 37 39 37 39 38 40
15 James Buchanan 26 29 33 36 37 38 39 40 41 39 41 40 42
16 Abraham Lincoln 01 01 01 01 03 02 02 01 01 02 02 02 01
17 Andrew Johnson 19 23 32 32 38 39 40 38 40 36 42 37 41
18 Ulysses S. Grant 28 30 35 30 36 37 38 38 33 32 35 29 23
19 Rutherford B. Hayes 13 14 22 22 22 23 24 26 25 22 27 24 33
20 James Garfield – – – 33 25 30 26 30 29 – 33 — 28
21 Chester A. Arthur 17 21 26 24 24 26 27 32 28 26 30 26 32
22, 24 Grover Cleveland 08 11 17 13 18 17 19 17 16 12 20 12 21
23 Benjamin Harrison 21 20 23 25 31 29 30 31 31 27 32 30 30
25 William McKinley 18 15 18 10 19 19 18 17 15 14 19 14 16
26 Theodore Roosevelt 07 07 05 04 05 05 03 05 04 05 03 05 04
27 William Howard Taft 16 16 19 20 20 20 21 20 24 19 21 20 24
28 Woodrow Wilson 04 04 06 07 06 06 06 06 06 11 06 11 09
29 Warren G. Harding 29 31 36 37 39 40 41 38 38 37 40 39 38
30 Calvin Coolidge 23 27 30 27 30 31 36 33 27 25 29 23 26
31 Herbert Hoover 20 19 21 21 27 28 29 24 34 29 31 31 34
32 Franklin D. Roosevelt 03 03 02 02 01 01 01 02 02 03 01 03 03
33 Harry S. Truman – 09 08 08 07 07 07 07 05 07 07 07 05
34 Dwight D. Eisenhower – 22 11 09 11 12 08 09 09 09 10 08 08
35 John F. Kennedy – – 13 14 (tie) 08 10 10 15 08 18 14 15 06
36 Lyndon B. Johnson – – 10 12 14 15 13 12 10 17 15 19 11
37 Richard Nixon – – 34 34 28 25 23 32 25 33 26 32 27
38 Gerald R. Ford – – 24 23 23 27 32 27 23 28 28 28 22
39 Jimmy Carter – – 25 26 33 24 25 19 22 30 25 34 25
40 Ronald Reagan – – – – 16 22 20 26 11 08 16 06 10
41 George H. W. Bush – – – – – 18 31 22 20 21 22 21 18
42 Bill Clinton – – – – – – 16 23 21 24 18 22 15
43 George W. Bush – – – – – – – – – – 23 18 36
44 Barack Obama – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Hope this helps!
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