Born
on November 23, 1804, in Hillsboro, New Hampshire, Franklin Pierce was
elected to the United States Senate in 1837. After resigning in 1842,
Pierce joined the temperance movement and worked as an attorney, before
going off to fight under General Winfield Scott in the Mexican-American
War. In 1852, Pierce was elected president for one term. As president,
he signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, prompting a bloody conflict over
Kansas' slavery status. He died on October 8, 1869, in Concord,
Massachusetts.
Franklin
Pierce, the 14th U.S. President, was born on November 23, 1804, in
Hillsboro, New Hampshire. His father, Benjamin, was an American
Revolutionary War hero who held some political prowess in the family's
rural town. His mother, Anna Kendrick Pierce, had eight children, whose
education she made her top priority.
At the age of 12, Pierce
left the public schools system to attend private academies. When he
turned 15, he enrolled at Bowdoin College in Maine, where he excelled at
public speaking. In 1824, Pierce graduated fifth in his class.In
1829, when Pierce was 24 years old, he was elected to the New
Hampshire State Legislature. Within two years, he was selected as its
Speaker of the House, with the aid of his father, who had by then been
elected governor.
In the 1830s, Pierce was sent to Washington as a
state representative. Despite his rapid ascent in the world of
politics, Pierce soon found his life in Washington both tedious and
lonesome. After developing a dependency on alcohol, he decided it was
time to settle down. In 1834, he married a shy religious woman named
Jane Means Appleton, who supported the temperance movement. Jane
disliked the Washington lifestyle even more than her husband did.
Nevertheless, a year after the couple's first of three sons were born,
Pierce accepted his election to the U.S. Senate.
In 1841, under
his wife's persistent urging, Pierce finally agreed to resign from the
Senate. Afterward, he joined the temperance movement and started
working as an attorney.When
the Mexican-American War began, Pierce became a private, helping to
recruit men for the New Hampshire Volunteers. In 1847, Pierce, by then a
brigadier general, led an expedition to invade the Mexican shores of
Veracruz under General Winfield Scott.
When the Mexican
government was still unwilling to give into America's demands, Pierce
and Scott headed to Mexico City. Although they scored two victories
there, Pierce injured his leg when he was thrown from his horse. While
still recovering, he missed the Army's final victory at the Battle of
Chapultepec, in 1847. After the war, Pierce went home to his family in
New Hampshire.Back
in New Hampshire, Pierce became the leader of the state's Democratic
Party. As the presidential election of 1852 approached, the Democratic
Party sought a candidate who was a pro-slavery Northerner—to attract
voters on both sides of the slavery issue. Based on that agenda, Pierce
made the ideal candidate, even if it meant that he had to run against
his former commander, General Winfield Scott of the Whig Party. After a
deadlock, Pierce was elected president, but the joy of his victory was
soon eclipsed by the death of one of his sons, caused by a train
accident.
Once in office, Pierce faced the question of Kansas'
and Nebraska's slavery status. When he agreed to sign the
Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, it turned Kansas into a battleground for
the country's conflict over slavery. Pierce's handling of the affair
caused his democratic supporters to abandon him during the 1856
presidential election, in favor of his successor, James Buchanan.Following
his term as president, Pierce retired to Concord, New Hampshire.
During the Civil War, he was once again vocal about his point-of-view
as a Northerner, with a more typically Southern view of slavery. He was
also outspoken in his opposition to the nation's new president,
Abraham Lincoln. Pierce's unpopular view garnered him several enemies
among his fellow Northerners.
Nearing the end of his life and
fading quickly into obscurity, Pierce took up drinking again. He died
on October 8, 1869, in Concord, New Hampshire. He was buried there, in
the Old North Cemetery.
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