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 lawyer-politicians 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.