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.

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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.

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