Really Cool Stuff about Franklin Pierce
1. Franklin Pierce went to Bowdoin College in Maine where he would become life-long friends of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nathaniel wrote Pierce’s campaign biography in 1852 and then dedicated his last book Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches to Franklin Pierce. In fact, Hawhorne died while vacationing with Pierce in New Hampshire.
2. Franklin Pierce was considered a heavy drinker pretty much his entire life. “Heavy drinking and Pierce’s name go together like a horse and carriage, and years later his political opponents would label him a drunkard” (p. 7). Pierce would eventually die of liver damage.
3. Pierce was exceedingly prosouthern in his political viewpoint, causing him to espouse southern causes even over the voices of his own northern constituency. In fact, Pierce was the author of the infamous Gag Rule that kept all talk of slavery out of Congress during the 1830s and 1840s. “The proper course, Pierce told the House in a speech on December 18, was to receive but then automatically table such [abolitionist] petitions without any further consideration, the solution that the House would ultimately adopt in May 1836 in what became known as the Gag Rule” (p. 18).
4. Accusations of cowardice would follow him his entire life. In the North he was known as a “doughface.” “Significantly this article also labeled Pierce a doughface, a term that subsequently connoted a northern with southern sympathies, but in the North at the time it was an allegation of personal cowardice” (p. 19). And of course, there was his Mexican War record. “That Pierce had seemingly fainted in response to enemy fire inspired someone to shout, ‘Take command of the brigade. General Pierce is a damned coward’” (p. 29).
5. Pierce really did have a remarkable memory. Not only did he remember just about every name and face he met, but he would use them in his legal and political career. When he was arguing a case, he would call the jurors by name. Even as president, he stunned people with his method of recall. “At his inauguration on March 4, 1853, he astonished the crowd by delivering his carefully prepared address without once glancing at the notes that he held next to his thigh” (p. 52).
6. It was during Pierce’s administration that the continental United States filled out its present day size through the Gadsden Purchase. “When Pierce announced that he had no fear of territorial acquisition, one of the targets he had in mind was the area of northern Mexico south of New Mexico Territory, an area that seemed necessary for the completion of any transcontinental railroad to the Pacific coast along a southern route” (p.55).
7. It is a dubious distinction for Pierce that his presidential policies were credited for the rise of the nascent Republican Party. “One of the new parties that emerged in reaction to the organization of Nebraska, which Pierce endorsed, was the Republican Party, and it was the victory of that party in the presidential election of 1860 that provoked secession and the Civil War” (p. 73).
8. Franklin Pierce was good friends with Jefferson Davis and even tried to become his lawyer in 1867 when his trial for treason was scheduled. “In a long conversation that lasted well into the evening, Davis made it clear that he did not need Pierce’s legal help at the trial...Still Davis was deeply touched by Pierce’s effort. Before Pierce left, Davis jotted a brief note of thanks: ‘Given this day made bright by a visit of my beloved friend and ever honored chief’” (p. 130).
I felt that Michael Holt did a good job of bringing Franklin Pierce to life and to bring us newbies into the heated, suffocatingly-sectional world of mid-nineteenth century America. Just reading about this time period has me on the edge of my seat with all the anticipation and foreshadowing of the Civil War. Holt also gives us some good information about balloting and elections at this time and reasons why political parties came and went like water. “In the nineteenth century, however, governments did not print and distribute ballots. That was the job of the political parties themselves. In effect, this system meant that all that was needed to launch a new party was access to printing presses and enough volunteer manpower to distribute the ballot at the polls” (p. 84).
I was not a fan of the author’s redundant use of the word “precocious.” To Holt, it appeared that everything Frank did was precocious. It just got on my nerves. A fully grown man can no longer be labeled precocious, Mr. Holt.
With all the deliciously bad things I had heard about Franklin Pierce, I have to admit that I’m a little disappointed. Now he wasn’t a great president, mind you, but he wasn’t the evil, Union-destroying sadist that I was led to expect. In fact, I believe that he is more of a lovable doofus rather than an outright evil mastermind. Let’s put it this way, Franklin Pierce made some Very Bad Decisions, probably without knowing the full ramifications, and history has judged him very harshly thereby. “Historians almost uniformly rank Pierce among the nation’s worst presidents, indeed, because of his role in securing organization of Nebraska and thus bringing on the Civil War” (p. 73). But, goodness, how was he to know?
Holt gives us his reasons for Pierce’s continuously low rating as president. “Historians, indeed, usually rank Pierce among the six or eight worst presidents the country has ever had. Two things primarily account for that negative judgment. A passionately committed Democratic Party loyalist, Pierce during his presidency managed to divide his party into fiercely warring factional camps. More important, he helped propel the nation down the road to the Civil War…Also as a result, Pierce was the only president in the nineteenth century who sought, but was denied, renomination by his beloved party” (p. 2).
Yes, Franklin Pierce could have used sounder judgment and a more farsighted approach to his political decisions. Also he allowed the love of party and a general insecurity to overwhelm his political wisdom in certain vital matters. But I still maintain that he is painted blacker than he should be. After all, weren’t the sectional issues already very pronounced by Pierce’s presidency? And couldn’t we indict many people, presidents and otherwise, who helped propel the country toward war, possibly including Lincoln himself? Franklin Pierce probably would have been a decent president if nothing untoward had gone down during his administration. He was a perfect peacetime candidate. Unfortunately, this looks like a scenario of “wrong place, wrong time” and I heartily feel sorry for him.
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