Franklin Pierce, who served as the 14th 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