Franklin Pierce - Council Rock School District



PR14

Franklin Pierce

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At a Glance

Term: 14th President of the United States (1853-1857)

Born: November 23, 1804, Hillsborough (now Hillsboro), New Hampshire

Nickname: "Young Hickory of the Granite Hills" and “Handsome Frank”

Formal Education: Bowdoin College (graduated 1824)

Religion: Episcopalian

Marriage: November 19, 1834, to Jane Means Appleton (1806-1863)

Children: Franklin (1836); Frank Robert (1839-1843); Benjamin (1841-1853)

Career: Lawyer, Public Official

Political Party: Democrat

Died: October 8, 1869, Concord, New Hampshire

Buried: Old North Cemetery, Concord, New Hampshire

Presidential Life in Brief: Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States, came to office during a period of growing tension between the North and South. A politician of limited ability, Pierce was behind one of the most crucial pieces of legislation in American history. Although he did not author the Kansas-Nebraska Act, he did encourage its passage by Congress. And that piece of legislation set the nation on its path to civil war.

Pierce won the election of 1852 easily in a contest in which nearly 70 percent of the eligible voters cast ballots. Pierce had majorities in both houses of Congress, and hopes grew for a cooling of the sectional disagreements dividing Americans. Pierce was the youngest President to date.

Two months before he was inaugurated, Pierce lost his only surviving child (two others had already died) in a train accident witnessed by both parents. Jane Pierce never recovered. She lived in the White House as a recluse, while the President remained distracted from his duties. Jane Pierce was the most tragic and unhappy First Lady in American history. To White House visitors she seemed like a sad ghost. Social functions were almost unheard of during the first half of the Pierce administration, and one official noted in his diary that "everything in that mansion seems cold and cheerless." There were other reasons for sadness in the White House when two of Pierce's closest political allies died.

It could be said that Franklin Pierce had little business being President, but in a nation fragmenting over slavery, only a bland, affable political lightweight was palatable to the electorate. Yet the irony of Franklin Pierce's administration is that a man less than qualified to be President was behind one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation in American history. Once pressured into backing the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Pierce accelerated the course towards civil war. In the 1850s, disputes over slavery were so emotionally charged that both sides sought moderate leaders. Franklin Pierce was one of these and thus became President of the United States.

Committed to a political style that emphasized party cohesion and compromise as a means of downplaying sectional differences, Pierce's leadership lacked the strength and tenacity of a Jackson or a Lincoln. As a result, tumultuous events simply overwhelmed him and he was sometimes dominated by forceful politicians like Stephen Douglas. For most historians, Pierce is viewed as an inept chief executive whose traditional style of leadership failed in the face of the massive electoral divisions over slavery and the aggressiveness of southerners. But other Presidents were unable to solve these issues, short of war. And from that war came two worthwhile results, the emancipation of the slaves and the restoration of the Union. Still, Franklin Pierce serves as an example of why difficult times require forceful leadership that is sensitive to issues both of change and continuity.

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