adequate biography that covered the major issues, but I wished to get more of pierce's thoughts & reactions. They may just be unavailble ( )

Franklin Pierce was the man elected to follow Millard Fillmore as President of the United States. The two men were completely different and not just in their political outlooks but in their approach in life.

"The Democratic Party was to become for Pierce his family, his fraternity, his church, and his country." Pierce was the son of a Revolutionary Officer and his hero worship of all things military (especially Andrew Jackson) in his early years pushed him toward a career dedicated to his nation. He served in the US Congress as both a representative and Senator before the Mexican War where he was commissioned to lead a brigade. However, his military service was undistinguished. After the war was probably the most satisfactory time of life having been honored for his service, being successful in his legal career, being the party leader for the New Hampshire Democrats while his family life was growing.

When he was basically drafted for the Presidential election in 1852, his life began to unravel. His son was killed in a train accident and his wife, being hysterical, blamed his election saying he needed to concentrate on the problems of the nation so God had taken her son so to get him out of the way. Suffering from his loss, Pierce, nevertheless tried to balance the factions of the Democratic party but was not up to the task. His cabinet members had no experience in foreign affairs (except for Buchanan). He also couldn't bring the states together because he could not understand the incompatibilities of the sections.

That said, he did have a certain administrative ability and was able to identify areas of improvement in mail services, staffing shortages, and military requirements.

"His offices (throughout his life) had come to him because he was useful as a compromise choice to settle differences between contending parties." He wasn't always the best qualified and because of that, many issues escalated during his administration. Pierce authorized the opening of the Kansas/ Nebraska territories in 1853 before the surveys were completed in 1856. This resulted in conflicting property claims.

Franklin Pierce's Presidency lacked diplomacy both foreign and domestic so that he was not able to garner the nomination of his party again in 1856. After he failed to win nomination for a second term by his own party , the following resolution was adopted at the convention.

"Resolved: that the administration of Franklin Pierce has been true to the great interests of the country. In the face of the most determined opposition it has maintained the laws, enforced economy, fostered progress and infused integrity and vigor into every department of the government at home. It has signally improved our treaty relations, extending the field of commercial enterprise and vindicated the rights of American citizens abroad. It has asserted with eminent impartiality the just claims of every section and has at all times been faithful to the constitution. We therefore proclaim our unqualified approbation of its measures and policies."

Pierce was strongly opposed to the Civil War feeling that a peacefully solution should have been found.
He condemned the Emancipation Proclamation saying "he couldn't understand how the people of the United States would tolerate this attempt to 'butcher' their own race for the sake of 'inflicting' emancipation upon the 4 million Negros who were in no sense capable of profiting by freedom."

His death in 1869 was not heralded as had been his other predecessors.

Editorial: I guess at this point I have to say that IMHO, this man probably didn't deserve to be elected to the office of President of the United States. However, due to the issues of the time and the inability of the factions to reach any agreement as to what needed to be done, no one would have been able to resolve the issues any better. ( )

3162. Franklin Pierce:Young Hickory of the Granite Hills, by Roy Franklin Nichols (read 20 Feb 1999) This is an excellent and intensely interesting biography, the years during which Pierce was president being a part of the period of U.S. history in which I have a great interest. The book is fairly favorable to Pierce, and tends to excuse his failings. Basically Pierce's trouble is that his view of slavery is so abhorrent now, that a present day thinker cannot forgive such a benighted view. The book points out that at 48 Pierce was the youngest president up to that time, and that the fact that during his term there was no change in the Cabinet is unique in presidential annals. This book is just such a felicitous telling of so much--e.g., the chapter on Pierce's college years at Bowdoin (with Hawthorne a year behind him) is a classic. ( )