'Franklin Pierce' (
November 23,
1804 –
October 8,
1869) was an
American politician and the fourteenth
President of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857. He is to date the only president from
New Hampshire and was the first president born in the nineteenth century.
Pierce was a
Democrat and a "
doughface" (a Northerner with Southern sympathies) who served in the
U.S. House of Representatives and
Senate. Later, Pierce took part in the
Mexican-American War and became a
brigadier general. His private law practice in his home state,
New Hampshire, was so successful that he was offered several important positions, which he turned down. Later, he was nominated for president as a
dark horse candidate on the 49th ballot at the
1852 Democratic National Convention. In the
presidential election, Pierce and his running mate
William R. King won in a landslide, defeating
Winfield Scott and
William A. Graham by a 50 to 44% margin in the popular vote and 254 to 42 in the
electoral vote.
His good looks and inoffensive personality caused him to make many friends, but he suffered tragedy in his personal life and as president subsequently made decisions which were widely criticized and divisive in their effects, thus giving him the reputation as one of the
worst presidents in U.S. history. Pierce's popularity in the
North declined sharply after he came out in favor of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, repealing the
Missouri Compromise and reopening the question of the expansion of
slavery in the
West. Pierce's credibility was further damaged when several of his diplomats issued the
Ostend Manifesto. Historian David Potter concludes that the Ostend Manifesto and the
Kansas-Nebraska Act were "the two great calamities of the Franklin Pierce administration.... Both brought down an avalanche of public criticism." More important says Potter, they permanently discredited Manifest Destiny and popular sovereignty.
Abandoned by his party, Pierce was not renominated at the
1856 presidential election and was replaced by
James Buchanan, which is to date the only instance of an incumbent President not to win his party's nomination for a second term. After losing the Democratic nomination, Pierce continued his lifelong struggle with
alcoholism as his marriage to
Jane Means Appleton Pierce fell apart. His reputation was further damaged when he declared support for the
Confederacy and died in 1869 from
cirrhosis.
Philip B. Kunhardt and Peter W. Kunhardt reflected the views of many historians when they wrote in ''The American President'' that Pierce was "a good man who didn't understand his own shortcomings. He was genuinely religious, loved his wife and reshaped himself so that he could adapt to her ways and show her true affection. He was one of the most popular men in New Hampshire, polite and thoughtful, easy and good at the political game, charming and fine and handsome. However, he has been criticized as timid and unable to cope with a changing America."
Early life
Franklin Pierce was born in a
log cabin near
Hillsborough,
New Hampshire. The site of his birth is now under
Lake Franklin Pierce. Pierce's father was
Benjamin Pierce, a frontier farmer who became a
Revolutionary War soldier, a state militia general, and a two-time
governor of New Hampshire and tavern owner. Pierce's father was a leading New Hampshire politician. His mother was Anna Kendrick. He was the seventh of eight children; he had four brothers and three sisters.
Pierce attended school at
Hillsborough Center and moved to the Hancock Academy in
Hancock at the age of 11; he was transferred to Francestown Academy in the spring of 1820. Later that year he was transferred to
Phillips Exeter Academy to prepare for college. In fall 1820, he entered
Bowdoin College in
Brunswick, Maine, where he participated in literary, political, and debating clubs.
There he met writer
Nathaniel Hawthorne, with whom he formed a lasting friendship, and
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He also met
Calvin E. Stowe,
Seargent S. Prentiss, and his future political rival,
John P. Hale.
In his second year of college, his grades were the lowest in his class but he worked to improve them, and graduated in 1824, third in his class. After graduation, in 1826, he entered a
law school in
Northampton,
Massachusetts, studying under Governor
Levi Woodbury, and later Judges
Samuel Howe and Edmund Parker, in
Amherst, New Hampshire.
He was admitted to the
bar and began a law practice in
Concord, New Hampshire in 1827.
Early political career
After graduating college Pierce entered local politics and rose to a central position in the Democratic party of New Hampshire and became a member of the Concord Regency leadership group. Pierce began his political career in 1828, when he was elected to the
lower house of the
New Hampshire General Court, the
New Hampshire House of Representatives. He served in the State House from 1829 to 1833, and as
Speaker from 1832 to 1833. Pierce served in the state legislature of New Hampshire while his father was governor.
In 1832, Pierce was elected as a
Democrat to the
23rd and
24th Congresses (
March 4,
1833 –
March 4,
1837). He was only 27 years old, the youngest
U.S. Representative at the time.
In 1836, he was elected by the New Hampshire General Court as a Democrat to the
United States Senate, serving from
March 4,
1837, to
February 28,
1842, when he resigned. He was chairman of the
U.S. Senate Committee on Pensions during the
26th Congress.
After his service in the Senate, Pierce resumed the practice of law in
Concord with his partner
Asa Fowler. He was district attorney for New Hampshire and declined the
Democratic nomination of
Governor of New Hampshire and the appointment as
Attorney General of the United States tendered by
President James K. Polk.
Family
On
November 19,
1834, Pierce married
Jane Means Appleton, the daughter of a former president of Bowdoin College. Appleton, who was born in 1806 and died in 1863, was Pierce's opposite. She came from an aristocratic
Whig family and was extremely shy, deeply religious, often ill, and pro-
temperance. Jane could be described as shy and tubercular and she was never happy with the fact that her husband was in the political world. His personal life imposed a great deal of pain on him and Pierce was known to many as being a heavy drinker.
Mrs. Pierce hated life in
Washington, D.C., and encouraged Pierce to resign his Senate seat and return to
New Hampshire, which he did in 1841. They had three children who all died in childhood. Two of their children died to early deaths and the last one survived until the age of 11 and was killed in a train wreck. None of them lived to see their father become president. This made her believe God was displeased with her husband's political ambitions.
[1] After the deaths of her children, Mrs. Pierce was overcome with
melancholia and disdained herself during her husband's presidency.
'Franklin Pierce, Jr.' (
February 2,
1836 –
February 5,
1836) died three days after birth.
'Frank Robert Pierce' (
August 27,
1839 –
November 14,
1843) died at the age of four from
epidemic typhus.
'Benjamin "Bennie" Pierce' (
April 13,
1841 –
January 16,
1853) died at the age of 11 in a tragic railway accident in
Andover, Massachusetts which his parents witnessed, 1 month before the inauguration of his father.
Mexican War
He enlisted in the volunteer services during the
Mexican-American War and was soon made a colonel. In March 1847, he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers and took command of a brigade of reinforcements for
Winfield Scott's army marching on
Mexico City. His brigade was designated the 1st Brigade in the newly created 3rd Division and joined Scott's army in time for the
Battle of Contreras. During the battle he was seriously wounded in the leg when he fell from his horse.
He returned to his command the following day, but during the
Battle of Churubusco, the pain in his leg became so great that he passed out and was carried from the field. His political opponents used this against him, claiming that he left the field because of cowardice instead of injury. He again returned to command and led his brigade throughout the rest of the campaign culminating in the
capture of Mexico City. Although he was a political appointee, he proved to have some skill as a military commander. He returned home and was a member of the New Hampshire State
constitutional convention in 1850 and served as its president.
Election of 1852
Main articles: United States presidential election, 1852
Pierce drew support because of his long career as Democrat activist and also because he fully supported the party's policy commitments. The Democratic Party nominated Pierce as a "
dark horse" candidate during the Democratic National Convention of 1852. Pierce was considered a darkhorse candidate because he had no credentials as a major political figure or as a statesman. He was also not a military hero, and his tenure in legislative offices was pretty brief. The convention assembled on
June 12 in
Baltimore, Maryland, with four competing contenders—
Stephen A. Douglas,
William L. Marcy,
James Buchanan and
Lewis Cass — for the nomination. Most of those who had left the party with
Martin Van Buren to form the
Free Soil Party had returned. Prior to the vote to determine the nominee, a
party platform was adopted, opposing any further "agitation" over the slavery issue and supporting the
Compromise of 1850 in an effort to unite the various Democratic factions.
When the balloting for president began, the four candidates deadlocked, with no candidate reaching even a simple majority, much less the required
supermajority of two-thirds. On the 35th ballot, Pierce was put forth as a compromise candidate. He had never fully articulated his views on slavery, which allowed him to be acceptable to all factions. He also had served in the Mexican-American War, which allowed the party to portray him as a
war hero. Pierce was nominated unanimously on the 49th ballot on
June 5. Alabama Senator
William R. King was chosen as the nominee for
Vice President.
[2]
Pierce's opponent was the
United States Whig Party candidate,
General Winfield Scott of
Virginia, whom Pierce served under during the Mexican-American War, and his running mate, Senator,
Governor and
Secretary of the Navy William A. Graham of
North Carolina. Pierce easily prevailed as Scott — nicknamed 'Old Fuss and Feathers' — ran a blundering campaign. Two other opponents were Senator
John P. Hale of
New Hampshire, a political foe of Pierce's, and Senator
Daniel Webster of
Massachusetts who at the time was serving as
Secretary of State (However, Webster died before election day).
The Whigs' platform was almost indistinguishable from that of the Democrats, reducing the campaign to a contest between the personalities of the two candidates and helping to drive down the
turnout rates in the election to their lowest level since
1836. Pierce's likable personality, plus his helpful obscurity and lack of strongly held positions, helped him prevail over Scott, whose anti-slavery views hurt him in the South. Scott's advantage as a known war hero was countered by Pierce's service in the same war.
Pierce was also helped by
Irish Catholic support of the Democratic Party and their disdain for the Whig Party.
The Democrats' slogan was "We Polked you in 1844; we shall Pierce you in 1852!" (a reference to the victory of
James K. Polk in the
1844 election).
[1] This proved to be true, as Scott only won the states of
Kentucky,
Tennessee,
Massachusetts, and
Vermont. The total popular vote was 1,601,274 to 1,386,580, or 50.9% to 44.1%. Pierce won 27 of the 31 states, including Scott's home state of Virginia.
John P. Hale, who like Pierce was from New Hampshire, was the nominee of the remnants of the Free Soil Party, garnering 155,825 votes (5% of the total).
The election of 1852 would be the last presidential contest in which the Whigs would field a candidate. In 1854, the
Kansas-Nebraska Act divided the Whigs, with the Northern Whigs deeply opposed, resulting in a split between former Whigs, some of whom joined the
nativist American Party Know-Nothings, others the
Constitutional Union Party, and still others the newly formed
Republicans.
At his inauguration, Pierce was the youngest President ever, age 48, a record he would keep until 46 year old
Ulysses S. Grant was inaugurated president in 1869.
Results of the election:
Pierce/King: 254 electoral votes, 1.6 million popular votes
Scott/Graham: 42 electoral votes, 1.3 million popular votes
Hale/Julian: 0 electoral votes, 155,000 popular votes.
Presidency 1853-1857
Beginnings
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce assumed presidency at a time of tranquility and peace. The Compromise of 1850 seemed to have weathered the storm around the issue of slavery, and things seemed to be a little calmer. This problem suddenly appeared during his administration, and Pierce did little to deal with it and his policies showed how the Union was so disrupted.
[2] Pierce was then forced into handling an administration that was dealing with great national tension.
Pierce was nicknamed "Young Hickory of the Granite Hills". He was able to follow in the footsteps of previous party presidents because he was committed to the same causes they were and because other party members saw the virtues of the qualities he possessed.
Pierce served as U.S. President from
March 4,
1853, to
March 4,
1857. Two months before he took office on
January 6,
1853, shortly after boarding a train in
Boston, president-elect Pierce and his family were trapped in a
derailed car when it rolled over an
embankment near
Andover, Massachusetts. Pierce and his wife survived and were merely shaken up, but they watched as their 11-year-old son Benjamin ("Bennie") was crushed to death in the
train disaster. Grief-stricken, Pierce entered the presidency nervously exhausted.
The family had already lost two children to typhus, and Jane Pierce believed the train accident was divine punishment for her husband's acceptance of the high office of the presidency. Other events deepened the somber mood of the new administration, former
First Lady Abigail Fillmore's death in March and that of
Vice President William R. King's in April. As a result, Pierce chose to "
affirm" his Oath of Office on a law book rather than the Bible, becoming the first president,
[1] and, currently,the only president to have affirmed his oath. He is also among a small number of Presidents who did not take the presidential oath on a Bible. (As an example,
Theodore Roosevelt did not place his hand on anything at all). In his
inaugural address, he proclaimed an era of peace and prosperity at home and vigor in relations with other nations, saying that the United States might have to acquire additional possessions for the sake of its own security and would not be deterred by "any timid forebodings of evil."
Policies
Pierce selected for his
Cabinet not men of similar beliefs but a broad cross-section of people he personally knew. Many thought that the diverse group would soon break up, but instead it became the only Cabinet, as of 2007, that remained unchanged through a four-year term. In the foreign policy realm, Pierce showed a traditional Democratic assertiveness. When Pierce came into office there was significant tensions with a weak Spain, a reclusive Japan, and a powerful Britain creating problems in Central America. Just like in domestic affairs, Pierce's leadership seemed to be one of the main focuses of people because he seemed to be too overwhelmed by forces he could not control.
[4]
Pierce aroused sectional apprehension when he pressured the
United Kingdom to relinquish its special interests along part of the
Central American coast, and when he tried to persuade
Spain to sell
Cuba for $100 million (USD) because of the expansive sugar crop in Cuba.
The release of the
Ostend Manifesto, signed by several of Pierce's cabinet members, caused outrage with its suggestion that the U.S. seize Cuba by force, and permanently discredited the Democratic Party's expansionist policies, which it had so famously ridden to victory in 1844.
But the most controversial event of Pierce's presidency was the
Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the
Missouri Compromise and reopened the question of slavery in the West. This measure, the handiwork of Senator
Stephen A. Douglas, allegedly grew out of his desire to promote a railroad from
Chicago, Illinois to
California through
Nebraska. This problem came as much of a surprise to Pierce and the rest of his party members since they had spent a great deal of time calming down and fixing the difficult sectional tension. The party leaders thought they had succeeded in doing this because of things like the Compromise of 1850.
Secretary of War
Jefferson Davis, advocate of a southern transcontinental route, had persuaded Pierce to send
James Gadsden to Mexico to buy land for a southern railroad. He purchased the area now comprising southern
Arizona and part of southern New Mexico for $10 million (USD), commonly known as the
Gadsden Purchase. This became known as the greatest success of the Pierce presidency.
Douglas, to win Southern support for the organization of Nebraska, placed in his bill a provision declaring the Missouri Compromise null and void. Douglas provided in his bills that the residents of the new territories could decide the slavery question for themselves. Pierce, who had acquired a reputation as untrustworthy and easily manipulated, was persuaded to support Douglas' plan in a closed meeting between Pierce, Douglas, and several southern Senators, with Pierce consulting only
Jefferson Davis of his cabinet.
The passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Act brought about a sequence of events that developed into
Bleeding Kansas. Pro-slavery
Border Ruffians, mostly from
Missouri, illegally voted in a government that Pierce recognized, and Pierce called the
Topeka Constitution, a
shadow government set up by
Free-Staters an act of "rebellion." Pierce continued to recognize the pro-slavery legislature even after a congressional investigative committee found its election illegitimate. He furthermore sent in federal troops to break up a meeting of the shadow government in
Topeka.
The Act also caused widespread outrage in the North and spurred the creation of the Republican Party, a sectional Northern party which was organized as a direct response to the bill. The election of Republican
Abraham Lincoln would lead to declarations of secession in 1860 and 1861.
Meanwhile, Pierce lost all credibility he may have had in the North and in the South and as of 2007, was the only elected president (rather than a Vice President who succeeded to the position) to fail to be renominated by his party for a second term. Pierce is ranked among the least effective Presidents as well as an indecisive politician who was easily influenced. He was unable to command as President or to provide the required national leadership.
Major legislation signed
★ Signed ''
Kansas-Nebraska Act''.
Portrait of Franklin Pierce as a
General mounted on a horse.
Administration and Cabinet
Supreme Court appointments
Pierce appointed the following Justices to the
Supreme Court of the United States:
★ '
John Archibald Campbell' – 1853
States admitted to the Union
''none''
Pierce postage stamp
Later life
After losing the Democratic nomination, Pierce reportedly quipped "there's nothing left to do but get drunk" (quoted also as "after the
White House what is there to do but drink?") which he apparently did frequently. He once ran over an elderly woman while driving a carriage. During the Civil War, Pierce further damaged his reputation by declaring support for the Confederacy, headed by his old cabinet member Davis. One of the few friends to stick by Pierce was his college friend and biographer,
Nathaniel Hawthorne although he had fallen so low that he was not asked to stand as a pallbearer for Hawthorne's funeral.
In 1863 during the aftermath of
Vicksburg, Union Soldiers under General
Hugh Ewing's command captured Confederate President
Jefferson Davis' Fleetwood Plantation, and Ewing turned over Davis' personal correspondence to his brother-in-law
William T. Sherman.
[5] However, Ewing also sent copies of the letters to a few people he had known in Ohio, which after publishing, permanently ruined the reputation of former President Pierce.
[6] Their release coincided with that of Pierce's book, ''Our Old Home''. As early as 1860, Pierce had written to Davis about "the madness of northern abolitionism", and other letters uncovered stated that he would "never justify, sustain, or in any way or to any extent uphold this cruel, heartless, aimless unnecessary war", and that "the true purpose of the war was to wipe out the states and destroy property."
[6] His reputation was destroyed. Even author
Harriet Beecher Stowe referred to him as "the archtraitor."
[6]
Franklin Pierce died in
Concord, New Hampshire at 4:40 a.m. on
October 8,
1869 at 64 years old, from
cirrhosis of the liver, which had to do with his heavy drinking problem that he carried throughout his life, and was interred in the 'Minot Enclosure' in the Old North Cemetery of Concord.
Legacy
Pierce's tomb at the Old North Cemetery, Concord, NH
Places named after President Pierce:
★
Franklin Pierce University in
Rindge, New Hampshire.
★ Franklin Pierce School District in
Tacoma,
Washington
★
Pierce Elementary School in
Flint, Michigan.
★ Franklin Pierce High School in the South Central Los Angeles and in
Tacoma, Washington
★ Pierce County in
Washington,
Nebraska,
Georgia, and
Wisconsin (But not in
North Dakota)
★ The
Franklin Pierce Law Center in
Concord, New Hampshire
★ Mt. Pierce in the
Presidential Range of the
White Mountains,
New Hampshire
In fiction
★
Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce from ''
M
★ A
★ S
★ H'' is named after
Benjamin Franklin and
President Franklin Pierce. In one episode of the
''M
★ A
★ S
★ H'' television series, his tentmate,
B.J., while drunk, exclaims, "Well, if it isn't Benjamin Franklin Pierce Hawkeye, named for a president, an Indian, and a stove!"
★ Appearing in 9 episodes of Season 5 of ''
The West Wing'',
Ryan Pierce, the nephew of a powerful Senator and related to Franklin Pierce, was a White House intern assigned to
Josh Lyman.
Preserved home
★
Franklin Pierce Homestead now a New Hampshire
state park
Notes
1. http://fs6.depauw.edu:50080/~jkochanczyk/president/pierce.html
2. www.franklinpierce.org/
3. http://fs6.depauw.edu:50080/~jkochanczyk/president/pierce.html
4. Brinkley, A. and Dyer, D. ''The American Presidency''.2004. Houghhton Mifflin Company.
5. Allen 1999, p. 359
6. Allen 1999, p. 360
7. Allen 1999, p. 360
8. Allen 1999, p. 360
References
★ Allen, Felicity. ''Jefferson Davis, Unconquerable Heart.'' St. Louis, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. 1999. ISBN 0826212190.
★ Brinkley, A. and Dyer, D. ''The American Presidency''.2004. Houghhton Mifflin Company.
★ Gara, Larry, ''The Presidency of Franklin Pierce'' (1991), standard history of his administration
★ Nichols; Roy Franklin. ''Franklin Pierce, Young Hickory of the Granite Hills'' (1931), standard biography
★ Nichols; Roy Franklin.''The Democratic Machine, 1850-1854.'' Columbia University Press, 1923.
online version
★ Potter, David M, ''The Impending Crisis, 1848 - 1861''. New York, New York: Harper & Row, 1976. ISBN 0-06-013403-8.
★ Taylor; Michael J.C. "Governing the Devil in Hell: 'Bleeding Kansas' and the Destruction of the Franklin Pierce Presidency (1854-1856)" ''White House Studies'', Vol. 1, 2001, pp 185-205 He hade sex with a woman
External links
★
Extensive essay on Franklin Pierce and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
★
★
White House biography
★
Presidential Biography by Appleton's and Stanley L. Klos
★
Inaugural Address
★
The Life of Franklin Pierce By Nathaniel Hawthorne
★
Franklin Pierce Homestead
★
Pierce Manse
★ State of the Union:
1853,
1854,
1855,
1856
★
Franklin Pierce - 2004 article on the centennial of his birth
★
Franklin Pierce and His Services in the Valley of Mexico
★
The Health and Medical History of President: Franklin Pierce
★
''The life of Gen. Frank. Pierce, of New Hampshire, the Democratic candidate for president of the United States '' by D.W. Barlett
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