Franklin Pierce: 14th President of the United States

Franklin Pierce, who served as the 14^th President of the United States from 1853 to 1857, is generally regarded as one of the worst Presidents in United States history, his activities playing a part in the build-up to the Civil War. 

Pierce, born in 1804, was a lawyer from New Hampshire who had served in Army during the Mexican-American War, reaching the rank of Brigadier General. He had also been a Representative and Senator, resigning from the Senate in 1842. 

He was encouraged to stand as the Democratic nominee for the Presidency as a compromise between Northern and Southern interests. This was because he was a pro-slavery northerner who supported the 1850 Missouri Compromise that maintained the balance between slave and free states. Party unity was preserved by his nomination but he kept very quiet during the Presidential campaign, which meant that very few voters really knew that he stood for.

Pierce’s Presidency got off to bad start when his only surviving son was killed in a railway accident after Pierce had been elected but had not yet taken office. He consequently suffered from periods of depression during his Presidential term and tended to be a do-nothing President who did little to change the course of events.

The actions he did take were not all that wise or sensible. One was to allow the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act according to which new territories were able to decide the slave question for themselves, which was seen by abolitionists as forcing slavery onto new states.

In Kansas, pro- and anti-slavery factions flooded in from other states and resorted to violence in their efforts to influence the vote. The violence took the form of towns being raided and buildings set on fire, which led to the territory gaining the nickname of “Bleeding Kansas”.

There was also violence on the floor of the Senate, where one senator hit another with a cane and nearly killed him.

Franklin Pierce was seen as weak in his response to these events, and his pro-slavery attitude seemed to be confirmed when he proposed the incorporation of Cuba into the United States as a slave state.

Pierce lost the support of his party and was unable to contest the 1856 election. 

In later life, Franklin Pierce continued to comment on political matters and was horrified by the prospect of Civil War. He became an alcoholic and died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1869 at the age of 64.

© John Welford

Woodrow and Edith Wilson

On 18^th December 1915 the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, married Edith Bolling Galt. It was a second marriage for both of them – President Wilson had been widowed in August 1914, suffering severe depression as a result, and Edith had lost her first husband in 1908. She was 43 years old when she married the President, who was a few days short of his 59^th birthday.

This marriage proved to be significant in ways that could not have been predicted at the time. One positive (and fairly predictable) outcome was that Woodrow Wilson’s mood was lifted sufficiently for him to campaign successfully for re-election in 1916, although his win was by a slender margin.

However, the following year the United States entered World War I and Wilson gave earnest thought not only to winning the war but also to what the world should look like after victory was achieved. The peace treaty that was signed at Versailles in 1919 owed much to Wilson’s blueprint as outlined in his “Fourteen Points”, the last of which was a proposal for a post-war international council that would work for global peace.

Unfortunately, Wilson’s strenuous efforts had a disastrous effect on his health, and he suffered a massive stroke in September 1919 that nearly killed him. Edith Wilson then became part of a cover-up to pretend to the American people that their President was not as ill as he really was.

She acted as a go-between and a buffer, so that the President would be seen by as few people as possible during his recovery. The business of government had to continue, but it did do, as far as possible, without the participation of the President. He took very little part in public affairs for the rest of his term of office and was not strong enough to attend the inauguration of his successor, Warren Harding, 17 months after he had had his stroke.

The ideal solution would have been for Woodrow Wilson to have resigned his office in favour of his Vice-President, Thomas Marshall, but the small coterie of White House insiders, led by the First Lady, would not allow this to happen.

The biggest casualty of this situation was Woodrow Wilson’s pet project, the League of Nations, for which he had been campaigning strenuously when he suffered his stroke. Wilson clearly wanted the United States to be a leading member of the League but there was stiff opposition from Republicans in the Senate, who regarded any participation in a world body as being a constraint on unilateral action by the United States.

A compromise position could probably have been reached, but Wilson, his mind befuddled by his physical condition, refused to budge and would not allow anyone else to negotiate on his behalf. As a result, the League of Nations that emerged after World War I did not have the United States as a member.

There thus emerges one of the great “what ifs” of history. If the League of Nations had had American membership, would it have been better placed to preserve world peace, and could World War II have been avoided as a result? As things turned out, the League’s lack of authority made it very easy for countries such as Germany, Italy and Japan to ignore it and walk away.

If Edith Wilson had had less concern for preserving the status of her husband (and herself), might the United States have had proper leadership at this highly volatile time in world history? It is often the case that wider concerns need to take precedence over personal loyalty, and this would appear to be a clear example.

© John Welford

Huey Pierce Long, an assassinated senator

On 8^th September 1935 one of the most colourful characters in 20^th century US politics was hit by an assassin’s bullet – he died two days later. This was Huey Pierce Long, a senator from Louisiana who was running for President against F D Roosevelt.

Huey Long was a remarkable politician who divided opinion very strongly between staunch supporters and implacable enemies. As Governor of Louisiana his policy had been to raise taxes from the wealthy and from big corporations and to spend the proceeds on public works and on such measures as providing free schoolbooks and free medical care at the state hospital.

Such projects do not seem at all out of place in many parts of the world – they are what citizens of the United Kingdom, for example, take for granted – but in 1920s Louisiana they were seen by many as the mad policies of a dangerous socialist.

Huey Long ran against Roosevelt as a third party candidate, with a view to extending the Louisiana reforms to the whole country. This was a time of severe economic depression, and Long’s solution was, in the words of his campaign slogan, to “Share Our Wealth” in order to produce a more just and equal society.

Huey Long’s killer was an ear, nose and throat medical specialist named Dr Carl Austin Weiss. His precise motives for drawing a gun on Huey Long in the capitol building in Baton Rouge were never made clear, but Long’s death would have been welcomed by many people with vested interests and mourned by millions of poor Americans who saw this man as a potential saviour.

© John Welford