23, 1804 - October 8, 1869
Official U. S. Biography
March 4, 1853 to
March 3, 1857
Franklin Pierce became President at a
time of apparent tranquility. The United States, by virtue of the
Compromise of 1850, seemed to have weathered its sectional storm. By
pursuing the recommendations of southern advisers, Franklin Pierce,
a New Englander, hoped to prevent still another outbreak of that
storm. But his policies, far from preserving calm, hastened the
disruption of the Union.
Born in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, in
1804, Pierce attended Bowdoin College in Maine.
After graduation he studied law then
entered politics. At 24 he was elected to the New Hampshire
legislature. Two years later he became its Speaker.
During the 1830s he went to Washington
first as a Representative then as a Senator.
Franklin Pierce, after serving in the
Mexican War, was proposed by New Hampshire friends for the Presidential
nomination in 1852. At the Democratic Convention, the delegates
agreed easily enough upon a platform pledging undeviating support of the
Compromise of 1850 and hostility to any efforts to agitate the slavery
question. But they balloted 48 times and eliminated all the
well-known candidates before nominating Franklin Pierce a true "dark
Probably because the Democrats stood
more firmly for the Compromise than the Whigs, and because Whig candidate
General Winfield Scott was suspect in the South, Franklin Pierce won with
a narrow margin of popular votes.
Two months before he took office, he and
his wife saw their eleven-year-old son killed when their train was
wrecked. Grief stricken, Franklin Pierce entered the presidency
In his Inaugural he proclaimed an era of
peace and prosperity at home and vigor in relations with other nations.
The United States might have to acquire additional possessions for the
sake of its own security he pointed out and would not be deterred by
"any timid forebodings of evil."
Franklin Pierce had only to make
gestures toward expansion to excite the wrath of Northerners who accused
him of acting as a cat's paw of Southerners eager to extend slavery into
other areas. Therefore he aroused apprehension when he pressured Great
Britain to relinquish its special interests along part of the Central
American coast, and even more when he tried to persuade Spain to sell
But the most violent renewal of the
storm stemmed from the Kansas-Nebraska Act which repealed the Missouri
Compromise and reopened the question of slavery in the West. This
measure, the handiwork of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, grew in part out of
his desire to promote a railroad from Chicago to California through
Already, Secretary of War Jefferson
Davis, advocate of a southern transcontinental route, had persuaded
Franklin Pierce to send James Gadsden to Mexico to buy land for a
southern railroad. He purchased the area now comprising southern
Arizona and part of southern New Mexico for $10,000,000.
Stephen Douglas' proposal to organize
western territories through which a railroad might run caused extreme
trouble. Stephen Douglas provided in his bills that the residents of
the new territories could decide the slavery question for themselves. The
result was a rush into Kansas as Southerners and Northerners vied for
control of the territory. Shooting broke out, and "bleeding
Kansas" became a prelude to the Civil War.
By the end of his administration,
Franklin Pierce could claim "a peaceful condition of things in
Kansas." But to his disappointment, the Democrats refused to
renominate him turning to the less controversial James Buchanan.
Franklin Pierce returned to New Hampshire leaving his successor to face
the rising fury of the sectional whirlwind.
He died in 1869.
The White House sends a wreath to the
Old North Cemetery in Concord, New Hampshire, every year on Franklin
Donald Mark - See more President Franklin Pierce photographs
President Franklin Pierce is buried in Old North
Cemetery in Concord, New Hampshire. 50 tombstones in Old North
Cemetery were toppled some time between 9:00 P. M. on June 15 and
5:00 A. M. on June 17, 2008, but President Pierce's tomb was not
President Franklin Pierce
Young Hickory of the Granite Hills
General Benjamin Pierce
Ann Hendrick Pierce
Means Appleton (March 12, 1806 - December 2, 1863)
Franklin Pierce (February 2, 1836 - February 5, 1936) died shortly
after birth; Frank Robert Pierce (August 27, 1839 - November 14, 1843)
died of typhoid fever; Benjamin Pierce (April 13, 1841 - January
6, 1853) died in a train accident while traveling with his parents.
College votes: 254
opponent: Winfield Scott, Whig Party, received 1,385,453
popular votes and 42 Electoral College votes
William R. King was Vice President
William L. Marcy was Secretary of State
James Guthrie was Secretary of the Treasury
Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War
Caleb Cushing was Attorney General
James Campbell was Postmaster General
James C. Dobbin was Secretary of the Navy
Robert McClelland was Secretary of the Interior