Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce (
November 23, 1804 -
October 8, 1869) was the 14th (1853-1857)
President of the
United States, and the first president to be born in the
19th century.
Biography
Franklin Pierce was a
Representative and a
Senator from
New Hampshire prior to his election as President. He was born in Hillsborough, New Hampshire on
November 23, 1804 to
Benjamin Pierce and Anna Kendrick. He attended the academies of Hancock and Francestown. He prepared for college at
Phillips Exeter Academy and graduated from
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, in 1824. He studied law, then was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Hillsborough in 1827. He was a member of the State general court from 1829 to 1833, and served as Speaker from 1832 to 1833. He was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Congresses (
March 4, 1833 -
March 3, 1837). He was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from
March 4, 1837, to
February 28, 1842, when he resigned. He was chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Pensions (Twenty-sixth Congress). He is distant relative of
Barbara Bush, who is mother of US President
George W. Bush and wife of US President George H. W. Bush. His nickname was
Handsome Frank.
After his service in the Senate, Pierce resumed the practice of law in
Concord. He was district attorney for New Hampshire, and declined the appointment as
Attorney General of the United States tendered by President James Polk. He served in the
Mexican War as a colonel and brigadier general. He was a member of the New Hampshire State constitutional convention in 1850 and served as its president.
Presidency
Pierce was nominated by the Democratic Party as a dark horse candidate after the 1852 Democratic convention deadlocked between supporters of
Stephen A. Douglas,
Lewis Cass, and
James Buchanan. Pierce faced Whig candidate General
Winfield Scott, whom Pierce served under during the Mexican War, in the Presidential contest. Pierce easily prevailed, as Scott, nicknamed "Old Fuss and Feathers," ran a blundering campaign in the last Presidential contest in which the Whigs would field a candidate. Pierce served as President from
March 4, 1853, to
March 3, 1857.
Two months before he took office, he and his wife saw their eleven-year-old son killed when their train was wrecked. Grief-stricken, Pierce entered the Presidency nervously exhausted.
In his Inaugural he proclaimed an era of peace and prosperity at home, and vigor in relations with other nations. The United States might have to acquire additional possessions for the sake of its own security, he pointed out, and would not be deterred by "any timid forebodings of evil." He chose to affirm, rather then swear, the "Presidential Oath," being the first president to do so.
Pierce aroused sectional apprehension when he pressured
Britain to relinquish its special interests along part of the Central American coast, and even more when he tried to persuade Spain to sell 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 rode to victory in 1844.
Franklin Pierce postage stamp
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 to California through Nebraska. 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 $10,000,000 commonly known as the
Gadsden Purchase.
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 manipulable, 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 Kansas-Nebraska 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 provoke secession in 1861.
Meanwhile, Pierce lost all credibility he may have had in the North and was not renominated. After losing the Democratic nomination, Pierce reportedly quipped "there's nothing left to do but get drunk", which he apparently did frequently, once running down a pedestrian while drunk-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 the few friends to stick by Pierce was his college friend and biographer,
Nathaniel Hawthorne. Franklin Pierce died in Concord on
October 8, 1869, from
cirrhosis of the liver, and was interred in Minat Inclosure in the Old North Cemetery.
Cabinet
Supreme Court appointments
Pierce appointed the following Justices to the
Supreme Court of the United States:
Major presidential acts
Related articles
External links
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