Franklin Pierce

Franklin Pierce
I

INTRODUCTION

Franklin Pierce (1804-1869), 14th president of the United States (1853-1857). He came to office in the decade before the Civil War. Although his roots and home were
in the Northern, largely antislavery, state of New Hampshire, Pierce sided with the South on the slavery issue. His position on this issue caused him, in the words of a
friend, "to immolate himself on the altar of slavery." Yet Pierce was devoted to the federal Union of the states, his chief aim being to uphold the Constitution of the
United States as a sacred and therefore unchangeable document and to avoid civil war at all costs. Although he was a weak, but well-meaning and honest, man with a
social nature, few presidents have led so tragic a personal life or have left office so publicly hated and discredited. However, it is uncertain that even a president of
superior ability could have dealt effectively with the great problems of the pre-Civil War era.

II

EARLY LIFE

Franklin Pierce was born on November 23, 1804. His family was of pioneer stock, his ancestors having settled at Charlestown, Massachusetts, in the 1630s during the
great Puritan migration from England. He was the second son of Anna Kendrick Pierce and Benjamin Pierce, who was a militia general, a veteran of the American
Revolution (1775-1783), and, at the time of Pierce's birth, a passionate Jeffersonian Democrat. Benjamin Pierce exerted great influence on his son, imbuing him with his
own devotion to public service and sense of patriotism.
Pierce was educated at the local Hillsborough school until the age of 12 and prepared for college at academies in Hancock and Francestown, New Hampshire. Franklin's
older brother was at Dartmouth College, but General Pierce disagreed with the political philosophy at Dartmouth and sent Franklin to the newer Bowdoin College at
Brunswick, Maine. When he entered Bowdoin, Pierce was a sociable and friendly 15-year-old. He quickly made friends, among them future American novelist Nathaniel
Hawthorne, who was to be his friend for life.
Pierce graduated from Bowdoin in 1824 and the following year entered the law office of Levi Woodbury in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In 1826 he transferred to a law
school in Northampton, Massachusetts, and completed his studies with Judge Edmund Parker at Amherst, New Hampshire. Pierce proved to have a keen aptitude for
the law.

III

EARLY CAREER

In 1827 Pierce's father ran successfully for governor of New Hampshire. The same year, Franklin was admitted to the practice of law. It was inevitable that, as the
governor's son, he should be drawn into politics. In 1828 he was elected moderator of the Hillsborough convention, one of five county conventions called to nominate
members of the five-man governor's council. He served as moderator for six successive years.
In 1829 when his father was elected governor for the second time, Pierce was elected to the New Hampshire legislature. He was twice reelected and was speaker of the
house in 1831 and 1832. In 1833, at the age of 29, he was elected to the Congress of the United States as representative from Hillsborough.

A

United States Congressman

Pierce had inherited his father's devotion to the Democratic Party of President Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), which by that time had become the party of President
Andrew Jackson (1829-1837). Pierce joined the Jacksonians in Congress in their fight against a national bank and established himself as an unswerving party supporter.
On November 19, 1834, Pierce married Jane Means Appleton of Amherst, Massachusetts. Although he remained devoted to her, the marriage was an unfortunate one.
Mrs. Pierce was a shy, reserved, deeply religious woman who shrank from the rough-and-tumble life of politics. For years chronic poor health kept her at Concord, New
Hampshire, most of the time, while Pierce needed her in Washington D.C. In addition, Pierce had a tendency toward alcoholism that his wife could neither understand
nor help him to fight. Thus, the wife of the future president hated both the career he had chosen and the problem he fought valiantly all his life.
After his first term in the House of Representatives (the lower chamber of Congress), Pierce returned to Hillsborough to establish a law practice. He hired a young
apprentice named Albert Baker and took a personal interest in Baker's young sister, Mary, a sickly girl whose chronic ill health prevented her from attending school.
Later she became world famous as Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of a new religion called Christian Science.
In the congressional session of 1835 and 1836 a petition to end slavery in Washington, D.C., was brought before the House. Pierce for the first time displayed his
proslavery bias by fighting to prevent the petition from being debated on the floor of the House. He also displayed an anti-West bias by voting against the National Road
bill and a rivers and harbors bill, both of which were designed to promote expansion in the West. Pierce continued to be a rigid party supporter, and he voted against
any investigation of President Jackson's so-called pet banks. In 1836 Pierce met a Mississippi planter, Jefferson Davis, who became his closest political friend and
exerted immense influence when Pierce was president.

B

United States Senator

In 1837 Pierce was elected to the U.S. Senate (the upper chamber of Congress) from New Hampshire. At 33, he was the Senate's youngest member. His career in the
Senate was undistinguished. For the most part he followed the direction of the party leaders. Pierce was content throughout his Senate years to be the protégé of older
senators, chiefly Southerners, whose kindness to him increased his sympathy for the Southern point of view.
During his years in the Senate, the Pierces had two sons, Franklin and Benjamin, who became their father's chief delight. He moved his family to the New Hampshire
state capital at Concord, where he formed a law partnership that was immediately successful. Pierce greatly pleased his wife by resigning his Senate seat in February
1842 and devoting himself to his family and law practice. In 1843, however, a typhus epidemic swept Concord, and both of Pierce's sons became ill. The older boy,
Franklin, died.

C

Mexican War Service

With the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846, Pierce undertook to raise the two companies of men that were New Hampshire's quota. He enlisted as a private but in
1847 was appointed brigadier general of volunteers. In May of that year he sailed with an invasion force of about 2500 men for Veracruz, Mexico. Pierce and his army
marched through 240 km (150 mi) of hostile country and suffered several attacks by Mexican guerrillas before arriving in Puebla to join the army of General Winfield
Scott in a march to Mexico City. At the Battle of Contreras in August, Pierce was injured by a fall from his horse, and during his absence the men under his command
panicked and broke ranks. This incident from the Mexican War was later raked up by the Whig Party and twisted into an unjust charge of cowardice against Pierce.

At the end of the war, Pierce returned home to his wife and six-year-old son. His law partnership had been dissolved, and he took a new partner. The new firm, like the
old one, was highly successful.

D

Elder Statesman

Pierce was by nature a politician. Although still in his early forties, as a retired U.S. senator he became New Hampshire's elder statesman and head of a group of lawyerpoliticians called the Concord Clique, or the Regency. The group controlled the state's Democratic Party. Pierce saw nothing wrong in political machines. On the contrary,
he believed that a political party, like an army, could not be effective without discipline, organization, and a tight chain of command.
All of these were breaking down in the national Democratic Party. In 1848 the first split over the slavery issue appeared in the party's ranks. A group of antislavery
Democrats left the party, formed the Free-Soil Party, and nominated Martin Van Buren for the presidency against the regular Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass, and the
Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor. Pierce disapproved of party divisions in general and that of Free-Soil Democrats in particular.
Pierce's early and bafflingly consistent proslavery bias was in part a result of his belief that the U.S. Constitution sanctioned the existence of slavery. Pierce considered
unconstitutional and therefore wrong any attempt on the part of the North to interfere with slavery or to limit its spread. The moral question involved in selling human
beings into slavery seemed never to trouble him.

IV ELECTION OF 1852
A Presidential Nomination
Pierce's views were known to Democratic leaders by 1852, when the party was hopelessly split into factions. A deadlock was expected at the Democratic national
presidential convention. The leading contenders for the Democratic nomination were Lewis Cass, former Secretary of State James Buchanan, and Senator Stephen A.
Douglas of Illinois. None of them was expected to win sufficient strength from the hodgepodge of Southern Union Democrats, States-Rights Democrats, Free-Soil
Democrats, and Compromise-of-1850 Democrats. Pierce belonged to the compromise group because the Compromise of 1850, which admitted California into the Union
as a free state, also included a strong fugitive slave law. A letter from Pierce, which praised the compromise and defended the constitutional rights of the slave states,
was passed around at the convention, held in Baltimore, Maryland.
Cass, Buchanan, and Douglas vied for the lead for the first 35 ballots. Former Secretary of War William L. Marcy of New York made his bid for lead on the next 10
ballots. On the 49th ballot the convention nominated Pierce as a Northern politician who was acceptable to the South. The convention chose William R. King of Alabama
to be Pierce's running mate and drafted a platform pledging support of the Compromise of 1850 and an end to all further debate on the slavery issue. It was a promise
that no president in the 1850s could have kept.

A1

Campaign

Because the Whigs had nominated General Winfield Scott, a popular war hero, the Democrats presented Pierce as the heir to Andrew Jackson. The Whigs countered by
starting a whispering campaign branding Pierce a coward, a charge easy to disprove but impossible to silence.
Nevertheless, in November 1852, Pierce won a narrow popular victory over Scott and was elected the 14th president of the United States.
At this supreme moment of Pierce's political life, another tragedy occurred in his personal life. In January 1853, two months before his inauguration, Pierce and his
family were riding in a train. Their car was derailed and toppled over an embankment. Pierce and his wife were uninjured, but their young son, Bennie, was killed before
their eyes. Neither parent ever recovered from the blow.

V

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

On March 4, 1853, Pierce took office as president and moved into the executive mansion, the White House, where he presided alone. Mrs. Pierce, wholly preoccupied
with her grief and her ill health, lived there as a recluse, rarely appeared at official dinners, and declined to assume any of the duties of a First Lady.

A

Cabinet

To reunite the factions of his party and his country, Pierce chose a Northerner, William L. Marcy of New York, as secretary of state, and a Southerner, Jefferson Davis,
as secretary of war. These were the Cabinet's most important posts.

B

Manifest Destiny

The Mexican War had ushered in the era of manifest destiny, a belief that territorial expansion of the United States was inevitable. Pierce shared in this American
expansionist fever. He was eager to annex Hawaii and to acquire Alaska. However, he meant first to purchase Cuba from Spain and to acquire additional territory from
Mexico. Cuba had long been regarded by the Southern states as a natural addition to their territory, and Mexican land was needed to make possible a planned
transcontinental southern railway. Both projects would aid the slave states and were thus bound to bring about a resumption of the slavery controversy.

C

Gadsden Purchase

In May 1853 Pierce instructed James Gadsden, U.S. diplomatic representative to Mexico, to make a treaty settling boundary disputes and securing additional territory.
The treaty that Gadsden presented to the Senate provided for the purchase of what is now southern Arizona and part of southern New Mexico (see Gadsden Purchase).
The purchase aroused bitter opposition from Northern congressmen, who feared that the area would become slave territory. However, Pierce managed to bring his
party leaders into line, and in the spring of 1854 the treaty was proclaimed.

D

Ostend Manifesto

In the same year, Pierre Soulé, Pierce's diplomatic representative to Spain, tried unsuccessfully to purchase Cuba from Spain. This purchase had become desperately
important to the South, because Cuba had slaves and uprisings had taken place there. The South feared that to avoid a successful slave revolution, such as the one
François Dominique Toussaint Louverture had led in Haiti, Spain might free the Cuban slaves. Whether or not Soulé shared this fear, he made a high-handed move that
turned out to be an appalling blunder. He met at Ostend (Oostende), Belgium, with James Buchanan, who was diplomatic representative to Britain, and John Y. Mason,
the diplomatic representative to France. They drafted a document known as the Ostend Manifesto, which declared that if Spain refused to sell Cuba to the United

States, the United States would seize the island as its only defense against the threat of slave revolution or slave emancipation in Cuba. The document caused an uproar
both at home and abroad, and Pierce was forced to disclaim it. However, the bungled diplomacy put an end to all hope of acquiring Cuba.

E

Kansas-Nebraska Act

If the Ostend Manifesto severely damaged Pierce's popularity, the Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed it. Senator Douglas introduced the bill, proposing the creation of the
Kansas and Nebraska territories between the Missouri River and the Continental Divide. In each territory the slavery issue was to be decided by vote of the residents.
Because both territories lay north of parallel 36° 30', this was an exception to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which barred the creation of new slavery states north
of that line. Douglas told Congress that the organization of these territories was essential to a major national objective, the construction of a transcontinental railroad.
Southerners in Congress began maneuvering when the bill was introduced. If they supported Douglas, they would be giving up their long-held dream of a southern
route for the transcontinental railroad. In return they demanded that the bill include an outright repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Since the Southerners belonged to
the Democratic Party and Douglas was also a Democrat, it was up to the Democratic president to provide leadership. Democratic President Pierce was no friend of the
compromise because of his belief that any federal restriction on slavery was unconstitutional. He not only yielded to Southern demands, he wrote the repeal clause
himself, declaring that the Missouri Compromise was "inoperative and void."
The repeal clause brought a storm of protest from Northerners in Congress, but once more Pierce helped bring his party into line. In May 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska bill
became law. To make certain that Kansas would vote for slavery, people from Missouri, a slavery state, streamed into Kansas to pack the ballot boxes in favor of a
proslavery legislature. The proslavery forces won, but the North countered with the New England Emigrant Aid Company, which sent Northern settlers into Kansas to
help organize a rival free-soil (antislavery) government. The two Kansas governments occupied separate capitals, those favoring slavery at Lecompton and the freesoilers at Topeka, and both appealed to Washington for recognition. Pierce recognized the Lecompton group, over the bitter opposition of many congressmen who
charged that it was elected through fraud, and condemned the Topeka group as rebels. Meanwhile, bands from both sides made armed raids on each other in a virtual
civil war that was known as the Border War, or Bleeding Kansas. The conflict was a recurring nightmare throughout Pierce's administration.

F

Other Actions

Pierce also became unpopular in the West by failing to support a Western homestead bill that would grant free land to settlers. He also withheld aid from a proposed
Western railroad line. Before his term ended, embittered Western Democrats abandoned Pierce and his party to form the new Republican Party.
Pierce's efforts to annex Hawaii failed, as did his attempts to purchase Alaska. However, his last year in office saw an end to a long quarrel with Britain over its
interference in the internal affairs of Central America. The interference had continued despite the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty that the United States and Britain signed in
1850, by which both powers were to respect the neutrality of Central America. On the American side, the dispute had been aggravated by the political adventuring of a
Tennessean, William Walker, who briefly made himself dictator of Nicaragua and whom Pierce tacitly encouraged. In 1856 the two powers came to an understanding
whereby Britain would withdraw from disputed parts of Central America. Walker was ousted by Nicaragua in 1857, and in 1859 and 1860 Britain quit the disputed areas,
the Bay Islands (Islas de la Bahía) of Honduras and the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua.

VI

LATER YEARS

By 1856 it was obvious that Pierce could not hope to be renominated. The Democrats instead nominated James Buchanan, and with his election the Pierces returned to
New Hampshire. However, Pierce's outspoken condemnation of the New England Emigrant Aid Company and his bitter diatribes against abolitionists, especially
abolitionist clergymen, had so outraged his home state that Concord refused him a public reception on his return.
In the winter of 1857 the Pierces left for Madeira and then continued on to Europe, where they remained for almost two years. Before he left, however, Pierce declared
that the best man to run for president in the election of 1860 was Jefferson Davis.
With the election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. president in 1860 and the outbreak of the Civil War shortly thereafter, Pierce became a bitter and outspoken opponent of
both the Lincoln administration and the war. He spoke of the war as the "butchery of white men" for the sake of "inflicting" emancipation on slaves who did not want it.
His last public speech was a diatribe against Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves in Confederate-controlled regions. Pierce spoke on the day in
July 1863 when his audience was being swept by news of a great Union victory at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. With that speech, Pierce lost the last vestige of public
esteem and his last friend but Nathaniel Hawthorne.
In December 1863 Mrs. Pierce died, and only Hawthorne came to be with Pierce in his bereavement. In the spring of 1864 Hawthorne died and Pierce was completely
alone. For a time he succumbed to alcoholism, but he reformed during the last three years of his life. He died on October 8, 1869, at his home in Concord. President
Ulysses S. Grant declared a period of national mourning, as if in death, Pierce had finally won a pardon from the Union he had worked zealously, if misguidedly, to
preserve.

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