Franklin Pierce Biography

Dromo's Den

PIERCE, Franklin (1804–69). The fourteenth President of the United States. He was the son of Gen. Benjamin Pierce, a soldier of the Revolution and twice Governor of New Hampshire, and was born at Hillsborough, N. H., Nov. 23, 1804. He graduated in 1824 at Bowdoin College, where he formed a lifelong friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne and had among his other college mates John P. Hale, S. S. Prentiss, and Henry W. Longfellow. After leaving college he studied law in the law office of United States Senator Levi Woodbury, also in offices at Northampton, Mass., and at Amherst, N. H., and was admitted to the bar in 1827. Two years later he took a seat in the State House of Representatives as a Democrat. He was thrice reëlected and for two terms served as Speaker. In 1832 he was elected a Representative in Congress and was reëlected in 1834. In 1837 he was elected to the United States Senate, and when he took his seat he was the youngest member of that body. As a member of Congress he supported by his speeches and votes the policy of President Jackson. He opposed appropriations for the Military Academy at West Point, the renewal of the United States Bank charter, and the policy of internal improvements and was averse to the spoils system. In 1842, before the expiration of his term as Senator, he resigned and resumed his law practice, settling in Concord, N. H. He successively declined an appointment to fill a vacancy in the Senate, refused the nomination for Governor of New Hampshire, would not accept the office of Attorney-General of the United States tendered by President Polk, and announced it as his fixed purpose never again to accept public office. He did not, however, cease to take interest in public affairs and during his retirement took an active part in the councils of his party, openly advocated the annexation of Texas, and took the stump against his former college mate, John P. Hale (q.v.), the successful Antislavery candidate for the United States Senate. Upon the outbreak of the Mexican War Pierce promptly volunteered as a private soldier. He was soon appointed colonel, and in March, 1847, received a commission from the President as brigadier general of volunteers. He at once sailed for Vera Cruz and joined General Scott in time to participate in the battles of Contreras and Churubusco. In the former engagement he was thrown from his horse, but, although painfully injured, he refused to leave the field. Upon the conclusion of peace he resumed his law practice, which was again interrupted in 1850 by his election as a delegate to the New Hampshire Constitutional Convention, over the deliberations of which he was chosen to preside by an almost unanimous vote. At the Democratic National Convention, held at Baltimore in June, 1852, he was brought forward, after 35 ballotings, as a compromise candidate for the presidency and was nominated on the forty-ninth ballot, defeating Buchanan, Douglas, Cass, and Marcy. On account of his personal popularity and his conservative position with regard to the slavery question, General Pierce was able to draw to his support a large number of voters in the North, among them many Whigs, and consequently defeated General Scott, the Whig candidate, by a vote of 254 to 42. He carried every State except Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee and received a larger electoral vote than had ever before been cast for a presidential candidate. He chose a strong cabinet: William L. Marcy, Secretary of State; Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War; James Guthrie, Secretary of the Treasury; James C. Dobbin, Secretary of the Navy; Robert McClelland, Secretary of the Interior; James Campbell, Postmaster-General; Caleb Cushing, Attorney-General. This is the only cabinet in the history of the country that did not suffer a break during the presidential term. The chief events of Pierce's administration were the Gadsden Purchase (q.v.), the Koszta affair (q.v.), the conclusion of commercial treaties with Great Britain and Japan, the bombardment of Greytown, Nicaragua, the reorganization of the diplomatic and consular service, and the creation of a United States court of claims. In the matter of foreign relations the administration was quite successful. As regards the slavery question the policy of President Pierce, who was concerned chiefly about the preservation of the Union and cared little about the abolition of slavery, caused much discontent in the North. The chief events under this head were the promulgation of the Ostend Manifesto (q.v.) and the enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill (q.v.), which brought on strife between the proslavery and free-State settlers in Kansas. From 1855 to the end of Pierce's term the chief problem was that of governing Kansas and maintaining peace therein—a matter in which the President supported the proslavery party. Upon the expiration of his term Pierce traveled for several years in Europe, taking no further part in politics. He died Oct. 8, 1869. A monument was erected to him at Concord, N. H., in 1914.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol XVIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 611-612.