Happy Birthday Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States and the only President from New Hampshire, was born on November 23, 1804 (220 years ago today.) Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" (a Northerner with Southern sympathies). Prior to becoming president, Pierce served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. He also fought in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general in the Army. His private law practice in his home state was so successful that he was offered the position of Attorney-General in the Cabinet of James K. Polk, which he turned down, because that would have meant a significant drop in his income.
Pierce was born in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, the son of Benjamin Pierce, who was a former revolutionary war soldier, later a general and governor of the state. Franklin Pierce attended Bowdoin College in Maine where he began his lifelong friendship with the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. He became a lawyer and at age 27 was the youngest member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He later served as a member of the US Senate. In 1834 he married Jane Appleton, who had many opposite character traits to those of her husband.
Pierce served in the Mexican-American War as a brigadier general of volunteers. He was later accused by his political enemies of cowardice during the war, but in his memoirs, Ulysses Grant, who also fought in that war, disputed this allegation and said that Pierce was a gallant soldier.
When Pierce returned home from the war, his private law practice was so successful that he was offered several important positions, which he turned down. He was nominated as the party's candidate for president on the 49th ballot at the 1852 Democratic National Convention. He was a compromise candidate after Lewis Cass, James Buchanan, William Marcy and Stephen Douglas couldn't garner enough support to win the nomination. In the presidential election, Pierce and his running mate William Rufus King defeated the Whig Party ticket of Winfield Scott and William A. Graham by a 50 percent to 44 percent margin in the popular vote and 254 to 42 in the electoral vote.
The Pierces has three sons, all of whom died in infancy. His last born son Benny was killed tragically when the train taking Pierce to his inauguration derailed and eleven year old Benny was decapitated. Jane Pierce saw this as a punishment from God and resented her husband's political ambitions. Jane Pierce was devastated by the incident.
As president, Pierce made many divisive decisions which were widely criticized. His popularity in the Northern states declined sharply after he supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which replaced the Missouri Compromise and renewed debate over the expansion of slavery in the American West. This in turn led to a high level of violence in the Kansas territory between the pro and anti-slavery forces. Pierce's credibility was further damaged when several of his diplomats issued the Ostend Manifesto, a proposal that the United States offer to buy Cuba from Spain, or go to war with the Spanish if the offer was refused.
Despite a reputation as an able politician and a likable man, during Pierce's presidency he failed to moderate the increasingly bitter factions that were driving the nation towards civil war. The Democratic party abandoned him in the 1856 election and Pierce was not renominated to run in the election. After losing the Democratic nomination, Pierce is quoted as saying "after the presidency, what is there to do but drink?" He struggled with alcoholism and his marriage to Jane Pierce was strained. After leaving office, the Pierces spent three years traveling to Europe and to the Bahamas. His reputation was hurt more during the Civil War when he opposed many of the policies of Abraham Lincoln, and when personal correspondence between Pierce and the Confederate President Jefferson Davis was found in a Union army raid on the home of Davis and leaked to the press. Pierce was confronted by an angry mob at his home in Concord following the death of Abraham Lincoln because his house was not decorated in black bunting, as was the custom. He went out to addressed the mob and managed to calm them down by speaking about his service to the nation.
Franklin Pierce died in Concord, New Hampshire, at 4:49 am on October 8, 1869, at the age of 64 from cirrhosis of the liver. President Ulysses S. Grant, who later defended Pierce's Mexican War service in his memoirs, declared a day of national mourning. Pierce was buried next to his wife and two of his sons, all of whom had predeceased him, in the Old North Cemetery in Concord, New Hampshire.