Pierce, Franklin

Pierce, Franklin, 1804–69, 14th President of the United States (1853–57), b. Hillsboro, N.H., grad. Bowdoin College, 1824. Admitted to the bar in 1827, he entered politics as a Jacksonian Democrat, like his father, Benjamin Pierce, who was twice elected governor of New Hampshire (1827, 1829). He served in the New Hampshire general court (1829–33), being speaker in 1831 and 1832, and had an undistinguished career in the U.S. House of Representatives (1833–37) and in the U.S. Senate (1837–42). On resigning from the Senate, he achieved success as a lawyer in Concord, N.H., and continued to be important in state politics. A strong nationalist, he vigorously supported and then served in the Mexican War, becoming a brigadier general of volunteers.

In 1852 the Democratic party was split into hostile factions led by William L. Marcy, Stephen A. Douglas, James Buchanan, and Lewis Cass, none of whom could muster sufficient strength to secure the presidential nomination. Pierce, personally charming and politically unobjectionable to Southerners since he favored the Compromise of 1850, was made the "dark horse" candidate by his friends. He won the nomination (on the 49th ballot) and went on to defeat the Whig candidate, Gen. Winfield Scott

Military Career

He briefly attended the College of William and Mary, studied law at Petersburg, and joined the military.
..... , his commander in the Mexican War.

Pierce's desire to smooth over the slavery quarrel and unite all factions of the Democratic party was reflected in the composition of his cabinet, for which he chose such outstanding sectional representatives as Marcy, Jefferson Davis

Early Life

Davis's parents moved to Mississippi when he was a boy.
..... , and Caleb Cushing. A vigorous expansionist foreign policy was adopted, but it failed in most of its objectives. After the Black Warrior affair (1854), which brought the United States to the brink of war with Spain, Pierce authorized his European ministers, Pierre Soulé, John Y. Mason, and Buchanan, to confer on the means by which the United States might acquire Cuba. Their report, the so-called Ostend Manifesto, was leaked to the press and caused such an uproar that the administration was forced to disavow it. Troubled relations with Great Britain were not improved by the U.S. naval bombardment (1854) of San Juan del Norte, British protectorate in Nicaragua; the filibustering activities of William Walker further aggravated Central American affairs. Moves to annex Hawaii, acquire a naval base in Santo Domingo, and purchase Alaska ended fruitlessly. One achievement, the successful Japanese expedition of Commodore Matthew C. Perry, had been initiated in Millard Fillmore's administration.

On the domestic scene Pierce stood for development of the West (the Gadsden Purchase was made during his administration), but plans for a transcontinental railroad fell through. The Kansas-Nebraska Act enraged many Northerners and precipitated virtual civil war between the pro- and antislavery forces in Kansas. Pierce, by that time very unpopular, was passed over by the Democrats for renomination, and Buchanan succeeded him. Pierce's opposition to the Civil War made him more than ever disliked in the North, where he died in obscurity.

Bibliography

See biography by R. F. Nichols (rev. ed. 1958).

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Pierce, Franklin

Franklin Pierce.

(credit: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(born Nov. 23, 1804, Hillsboro, N.H., U.S.—died Oct. 8, 1869, Concord, N.H.) 14th president of the U.S. (1853–57). He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1833 to 1837 and in the Senate from 1837 to 1842. At the deadlocked Democratic Party convention of 1852, he was nominated as a compromise presidential candidate; though largely unknown nationally, he unexpectedly trounced Winfield Scott in the general election. For the sake of harmony and business prosperity, he was inclined to oppose antislavery agitation. His promotion of U.S. territorial expansion resulted in the diplomatic controversy of the Ostend Manifesto. He reorganized the diplomatic and consular service and created the U.S. Court of Claims. Pierce encouraged plans for a transcontinental railroad and approved the Gadsden Purchase. To promote northwestern migration and conciliate sectional demands, he approved the Kansas-Nebraska Act but was unable to settle the resultant problems. Defeated for renomination by James Buchanan in 1856, he retired from politics.

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Pierce, Franklin (1804–69) fourteenth U.S. president; born in Hillsborough, N.H. A lawyer, he steadily ascended the political ladder as a Democrat, moving from the state legislature (1829–33) to the U.S. House of Representatives (1833–37) to the U.S. Senate (1837–42). He returned to private law practice in New Hampshire. Expansionist in sentiments, he served as an officer in the Mexican War (1846–47). A staunch Democrat, in 1852 he was nominated as a compromise presidential candidate—a Northerner sympathetic to the South—and he defeated the Whigs' Gen. Winfield Scott. Pierce then proved unable to mediate the issues boiling around slavery, signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) (giving settlers the right to vote for slavery), and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. The successes of his administration included a treaty with Japan and the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, which added 20,000 square miles to the U.S.A., but these did not distract people from the turmoil he unleashed in Kansas. The Democrats ignored the unpopular Pierce at the 1856 convention, and he largely retired from politics, although he revived his unpopularity by attacking Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.