14th President: Franklin Pierce (1853-1857) Political Party: Democratic Franklin Pierce was born in Hillsborough, New Hampshire in 1804. After a series of Presidents hailing from America’s hinterland, Pierce was the first New Englander since the days of the old Federalists. Like many of his predecessors, he studied law and soon entered politics at age 24, becoming a member of New Hampshire’s state legislature. In the 1830’s he was off to Washington, D.C., first as a Representative, then as a Senator. After serving in the Mexican War, Pierce was nominated at the 1852 Democratic convention as the “dark horse candidate” after they pledged to support candidates who stayed true to the Compromise of 1850 and avoided agitating the slavery question. Sadly, Pierce’s 11 year old son died in a train accident two months before he took office. He entered his presidency a grief stricken, nervously exhausted man. Nevertheless he pledged a period of peace and prosperity at home, and robust, friendly relations abroad. Soon he was to discover that his policies served to hasten the disruption of the union. The worst of them was the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which supplanted the Missouri Compromise. The floodgates of sectionalism were opened with the specter of the opening of new slave states in the West, as it gave the residents of new territories the ability to decide for themselves the question of slavery’s expansion. Northerners were highly agitated at Pierce, who accused him of complicity in the South’s desire to expand slavery. Both northern and southern settlers rushed into Kansas and vied for control of the territory. Hostilities soon erupted, and “bleeding Kansas” became the literal battleground for the issue of slavery. The first blood of the Civil War had been spilled. As his predecessor Millard Fillmore, his party refused to nominate Pierce for a second term, who turned to the less controversial James Buchanan instead, who was about to inherit the prelude to the coming maelstrom. Franklin Pierce died in 1869.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 06:55:36 +0000
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