The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914/Franklin Pierce
, fourteenth president of the
United States, born in Hillsborough, N. H.,
November 23, 1804; died in Concord, N. H., October
8, 1869. His father, Benjamin Pierce (born in
Chelmsford, Mass., December 25, 1757; died in
Hillsborough, N. H., April 1, 1839), on the day
of the battle of Lexington enlisted in the patriot
army and served until its disbandment in 1784,
attaining the rank of captain and brevet major. He
had intense political convictions, was a Republican
of the school of Jefferson, an ardent admirer of
Jackson, and the leader of his party in New
Hampshire, of which he was elected governor in 1827
and 1829. He was a farmer, and trained his children
in his own simple and laborious habits.
Discerning signs of future distinction in his son Franklin,
he gave him an academical education in
well-known institutions at Hancock, Francestown, and
Exeter, and in 1820 sent him to Bowdoin college,
Brunswick, Me. His college-mates there were
John P. Hale, his future political rival, Prof.
Calvin E. Stowe, Sargent S. Prentiss, the
distinguished orator, Henry W. Longfellow, and
Nathaniel Hawthorne, his future biographer and life-long
personal friend. His ambition was then of a

martial cast, and as an officer in a company of
college students he enthusiastically devoted himself to
the study of military tactics. This is one reason
why he found himself at the foot of his class at the
end of two years in college. Stung by a sense of
disgrace, he devoted the two remaining years to
hard study, and when he was graduated in 1824
he was third in his class. While in college, like
many other eminent Americans, he taught in winter.
After taking his degree he began the study of
law at Portsmouth, in the office of Levi Woodbury,
where he remained about a year. He afterward
spent two years in the law-school at
Northampton, Mass., and in the office of Judge Edmund
Parker at Amherst, N. H. In 1827 he was
admitted to the bar and began practice in his native
town. Soon afterward he argued his first jury
cause in the court-house at Amherst. This effort
(as is often the case with eminent orators) was a
failure. But he was not despondent. He replied
to the sympathetic expressions of a friend: “I will
try nine hundred and ninety-nine cases, if clients
continue to trust me, and if I fail just as I have
to-day, I will try the thousandth. I shall live to
argue cases in this court-house in a manner that
will mortify neither myself nor my friends.”

With his popular qualities it was inevitable that
he should take a prominent part in the sharp political
contests of his native state. He espoused the

cause of Gen. Jackson with ardor, and in 1829 was
elected to represent his native town in the legislature,
where, by three subsequent elections, he served
four years, the last two as speaker, for which office
he received three fourths of all the votes of the
house. In 1833 he was elected to represent his
native district in the lower house of congress, where
he remained four years. He served on the judiciary
and other important committees, but did not
participate largely in the debates. That could not
be expected of so young a man in a body containing
so many veteran politicians and statesmen who
had already acquired a national reputation. But
in February, 1834, he made a vigorous and sensible
speech against the Revolutionary claims bill,
condemning it as opening the door to fraud. In
December, 1835, he spoke and voted against receiving
petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia. In June, 1836, he spoke against a
bill making appropriations for the military academy
at West Point. He contended that that institution
was aristocratic in its tendencies, that a
professional soldiery and standing armies are always
dangerous to the liberties of the people, and that in
war the republic must rely upon her citizen militia.
His experience in the Mexican war afterward
convinced him that such an institution is
necessary, and he frankly acknowledged his error.
It is hardly necessary to add that while in congress

Mr. Pierce sustained President Jackson in opposing
the so-called internal improvement policy. In
1837 he was elected to the U. S. senate. He was
the youngest member of that body, and had barely
arrived at the legal age for that office when he took
his seat. In January, 1840, he spoke upon the
Indian war in Florida, defending the secretary of
war from the attacks of his political opponents.
In December of the same year he advocated and
carried through the senate a bill granting a pension
to an aged woman whose husband, Isaac Davis,
had been among the first to fall at Concord bridge
on April 19, 1775. In July, 1841, he spoke against
the fiscal bank bill, and in favor of an amendment
prohibiting members of congress from borrowing
money of the bank. At the same session he made a
strong speech against the removal of government
officials for their political opinions, in violation of
the pledges to the contrary which the Whig leaders
had given to the country in the canvass of 1840.
During the five years that he remained in the senate
it numbered among its members Benton,
Buchanan, Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Woodbury, and
Silas Wright, an array of veteran statesmen and
intellectual giants who had long been party leaders,
and who occupied the whole field of debate.
Among such men the young, modest, and comparatively
obscure member from New Hampshire could
not, with what his biographer calls “his exquisite

sense of propriety,” force himself into a conspicuous
position. There is abundant proof, however,
that he won the friendship of his eminent
associates.

In 1842 he resigned his seat in the senate, with
the intention of permanently withdrawing from
public life. He again returned to the practice of
law, settling in Concord, N. H., whither he had
removed his family in 1838, and where he ever
afterward resided. In 1845 he was tendered by
the governor of New Hampshire, but declined, an
appointment to the U. S. senate to fill the vacancy
occasioned by the appointment of Levi Woodbury
to the U. S. supreme bench. He also declined the
nomination for governor tendered to him by the
Democratic state convention. He declined, too,
an appointment to the office of U. S. attorney-general,
offered to him in 1845 by President Polk,
by a letter in which he said that when he left the
senate he did so “with the fixed purpose never
again to be voluntarily separated from his family
for any considerable time, except at the call of his
country in time of war.” But, while thus evincing
his determination to remain in private life, he did
not lose his interest in political affairs. In the councils
of his party in New Hampshire he exercised a
very great influence. He zealously advocated the
annexation of Texas, declaring that, while he
preferred it free, he would take it with slavery rather

than not have it at all. When John P. Hale, in
1845, accepted a Democratic renomination to
congress, in a letter denouncing annexation, the
Democratic leaders called another convention, which
repudiated him and nominated another candidate.
Through the long struggle that followed, Pierce
led the Democrats of his state with great skill and
unfaltering courage, though not always to success.
He found in Hale a rival worthy of his steel. A
debate between the two champions, in the old
North church at Concord, aroused the keenest
interest throughout the state. Each party was
satisfied with its own advocate; but to contend
against the rising anti-slavery sentiment of the
north was a hopeless struggle. The stars in their
courses fought against slavery. Hale was elected
to the U. S. senate in 1846 by a coalition of Whigs
and Freesoilers, and several advocates of free-soil
principles were elected to congress from New
Hampshire before 1850.

BIRTHPLACE OF FRANKLIN PIERCE, HILLSBOROUGH, N. H.

In 1846 the war with Mexico began, and New
Hampshire was called on for a battalion of troops.
Pierce's military ardor was rekindled. He
immediately enrolled himself as a private in a volunteer
company that was organized at Concord,
enthusiastically began studying tactics and drilling
in the ranks, and was soon appointed colonel of the
9th regiment of infantry. On March 3, 1847, he
received from President Polk the commission of

brigadier-general in the volunteer army. On May
27, 1847, he embarked at Newport, R. I., in the
bark “Kepler,” with Col. Ransom, three companies
of the 9th regiment of infantry, and the officers
of that detachment, arriving at Vera Cruz on June
28. Much difficulty was experienced in procuring
mules for transportation, and the brigade was
detained in that unhealthful locality, exposed to the
ravages of yellow fever, until July 14, when it
began its march to join the main army under Gen.
Winfield Scott at Puebla. The junction was
effected (after a toilsome march and several
encounters with guerillas) on August 6, and the next
day Gen. Scott began his advance on the city of
Mexico. On August 19 the battle of Contreras
was fought. The Mexican General Valencia, with
7,000 troops, occupied a strongly intrenched camp.
Gen. Scott's plan was to divert the attention of
the enemy by a feigned attack on his front, while
his flank could be turned and his retreat cut off.
But the flanking movement being much delayed,
the attack in front (in which Gen. Pierce led his
brigade) became a desperate struggle, in which
4,000 raw recruits, who could not use their artillery,
fought 7,000 disciplined soldiers, strongly
intrenched and raining round shot and shells upon
their assailants. To reach the enemy, the Americans
who attacked in front were obliged to cross
the pedregal, or lava-bed, the crater of an extinct

volcano, bristling with sharp, jagged, splintered
rocks, which afforded shelter to the Mexican
skirmishers. Gen. Pierce's horse stepped into a cleft
between two rocks and fell, breaking his own leg
and throwing his rider, whose knee was seriously
injured. Though suffering severely, and urged by
the surgeon to withdraw, Gen. Pierce refused to
leave his troops. Mounting the horse of an officer
who had just been mortally wounded, he rode for
ward and remained in the saddle until eleven
o'clock at night.

The next morning Gen. Pierce was in the saddle
at daylight, but the enemy's camp was stormed in
the rear by the flanking party, and those of its
defenders who escaped death or capture fled in
confusion toward Churubusco, where Santa Anna had
concentrated his forces. Though Gen. Pierce's
injuries were intensely painful, and though Gen.
Scott advised him to leave the field, he insisted on
remaining. His brigade and that of Gen. James
Shields, in obeying an order to make a detour and
attack the enemy in the rear, struck the Mexican
reserves, by whom they were largely outnumbered,
and a bloody and obstinate struggle followed. By
this diversion Gens. Worth and Pillow were enabled
to carry the head of the brigade at the front, and
relieve Pierce and Shields from the pressure of
overwhelming numbers. In the advance of Pierce's
brigade his horse was unable to cross a ditch or

ravine, and he was compelled to dismount and
proceed on foot. Overcome by the pain of his injured
knee, he sank to the ground, unable to proceed, but
refused to be taken from the field, and remained
under fire until the enemy were routed. After
these defeats, Santa-Anna, to gain time, opened
negotiations for peace, and Gen. Scott appointed
Gen. Pierce one of the commissioners to agree upon
terms of armistice. The truce lasted a fortnight,
when Gen. Scott, discovering Santa-Anna's
insincerity, again began hostilities. The sanguinary
battles of Molino del Rey and Chapultepec soon
followed, on September 14, 1847, the city of
Mexico capitulated, and the war was virtually over.
Though Gen. Pierce had little opportunity to
distinguish himself as a general in this brief war, he
displayed a personal bravery and a regard for the
welfare of his men that won him the highest credit.
He also gained the ardent friendship of those with
whom he came in contact, and that friendship did
much for his future elevation. On the return of
peace in December, 1847, Gen. Pierce returned to
his home and to the practice of his profession.
Soon after this the New Hampshire legislature
presented him, in behalf of the state, with a fine
sword.

In 1850 Gen. Pierce was elected to represent the
city of Concord in a constitutional convention, and
when that body met he was chosen its president by

a nearly unanimous vote. During its session he
made strenuous and successful efforts to procure
the adoption of an amendment abolishing the
religious test that made none but Protestants eligible
to office. But that amendment failed of adoption
by the people, though practically and by common
consent the restriction was disregarded. From
1847 till 1852 Gen. Pierce was arduously engaged
in his profession. As an advocate he was never
surpassed, if ever equalled, at the New Hampshire
bar. He had the external advantages of an orator,
a handsome, expressive face, an elegant figure,
graceful and impressive gesticulation, and a clear,
musical voice, which kindled the blood of his hearers
like the notes of a trumpet, or melted them to
tears by its pathos. His manner had a courtesy
that sprang from the kindness of his heart and
contributed much to his political and professional
success. His perceptions were keen, and his mind
seized at once the vital points of a case, while his
ready command of language enabled him to present
them to an audience so clearly that they could not
be misunderstood. He had an intuitive knowledge
of human nature, and the numerous illustrations
that he drew from the daily lives of his strong-minded
auditors made his speeches doubly effective.
He was not a diligent student, nor a reader of
many books, yet the keenness of his intellect and
his natural capacity for reasoning often enabled

him, with but little preparation, to argue successfully
intricate questions of law.

The masses of the Democratic party in the free
states so strongly favored the exclusion of slavery
from the territory ceded by Mexico that their
leaders were compelled to yield, and from 1847
till 1850 their resolutions and platforms advocated
free-soil principles. This was especially the case
in New Hampshire, and even Gen. Pierce's great
popularity could not stem the tide. But in 1850
the passage of the so-called “compromise measures”
by congress, the chief of which were the fugitive-slave
law and the admission of California as a free
state, raised a new issue. Adherence to those
measures became to a great extent a test of party
fidelity in both the Whig and Democratic parties.
Gen. Pierce zealously championed them in New
Hampshire, and at a dinner given to him and other
personal friends by Daniel Webster at his
farm-house in Franklin, N. H., Pierce, in an eloquent
speech, assured the great Whig statesman that if
his own party rejected him for his 7th of March
speech, the Democracy would “lift him so high that
his feet would not touch the stars.” Finally the
masses of both the great parties gave to the
compromise measures a sullen acquiescence, on the
ground that they were a final settlement of the
slavery question. The Democratic national
convention met at Baltimore, June 12, 1852. After

thirty-five ballotings for a candidate for president,
in which Gen. Pierce's name did not appear, the
Virginia delegation brought it forward, and on the
49th ballot he was nominated by 282 votes to 11
for all others. James Buchanan, Stephen A.
Douglas, Lewis Cass, and William L. Marcy were
his chief rivals. Gen. Winfield Scott, the Whig
candidate, was unsatisfactory both to the north and
to the south. Webster and his friends leaned
toward Pierce, and, in the election in November,
Scott carried only Massachusetts, Vermont,
Kentucky, and Tennessee, with 42 votes, while Pierce
carried all the other states with 254 votes. The
Whig party had received its death-stroke, and
dissolved.

[  ]

In his inaugural address, March 4, 1853, President
Pierce maintained the constitutionality of
slavery and the fugitive-slave law, denounced
slavery agitation, and hoped that “no sectional or
ambitious or fanatical excitement might again
threaten the durability of our institutions, or
obscure the light of our prosperity.” On March 7
he announced as his cabinet William L. Marcy, of
New York, secretary of state; James Guthrie, of
Kentucky, secretary of the treasury; Jefferson
Davis, of Mississippi, secretary of war; James C.
Dobbin, of North Carolina, secretary of the navy;
Robert McClelland, of Michigan, secretary of the
interior; James Campbell, of Pennsylvania,
postmaster-general;
and Caleb Cushing, of
Massachusetts, attorney-general. This cabinet was one
of eminent ability, and is the only one in our history
that remained unchanged for four years. In 1853
a boundary dispute arose between the United
States and Mexico, which was settled by negotiation
and resulted in the acquisition of a part of the
territory, which was organized under the name of
Arizona in 1863. Proposed routes for a railroad
to the Pacific were explored and voluminous
reports thereon published under the direction of the
war department. A controversy with Great
Britain respecting the fisheries was adjusted by
mutual concessions. The affair of Martin Koszta,
a Hungarian refugee, who was seized at Smyrna
by an Austrian vessel and given up on the demand
of the captain of an American ship-of-war, excited
great interest in Europe and redounded to the
credit of our government.

In 1854 a treaty was negotiated at Washington
between the United States and Great Britain
providing for commercial reciprocity for ten years
between the former country and the Canadian
provinces. That treaty and one negotiated by
Com. Matthew C. Perry with Japan, which opened
the ports of that hitherto unknown country to
commerce, were ratified at the same session of
the senate. In the spring of 1854, Greytown in
Nicaragua was bombarded and mostly burned by

the U. S. frigate “Cyane,” in retaliation for the
refusal of the authorities to make reparation for
the property of American citizens residing there,
which had been stolen. In the following year
William Walker, with a party of filibusters,
invaded Nicaragua, and in the autumn of 1856
won an ephemeral success, which induced President
Pierce to recognize the minister sent by him to
Washington. In the winter of 1854-'5, and in the
spring of the latter year, by the sanction of Mr.
Crampton, the British minister at Washington,
recruits for the British army in the Crimea were
secretly enlisted in this country. President Pierce
demanded Mr. Crampton's recall, which being
refused, the president dismissed not only the minister,
but also the British consuls at New York,
Philadelphia, and Cincinnati, for their complicity in such
enlistments. The difficulty was finally adjusted
by negotiation, and a new British legation was sent
to Washington. In 1855 President Pierce signed
bills to reorganize the diplomatic and consular
system of the United States, to organize the court
of claims, to provide a retired list for the navy,
and to confer the title of lieutenant-general on
Winfield Scott. President Pierce adhered to that
strict construction of the constitution which Jefferson
and Jackson had insisted on. In 1854 he
vetoed a bill making appropriations for public
works, and another granting 10,000,000 acres of

public lands to the state for relief of indigent
insane. In February, 1855, he vetoed a bill for
payment of the French spoliation claims, and in
the following month another increasing the
appropriation for the Edward K. Collins line of Atlantic
steamers.

The policy of Pierce's administration upon the
question of slavery evoked an extraordinary
amount of popular excitement, and led to tremendous
and lasting results. That policy was based on
the theory that the institution of slavery was
imbedded in and guaranteed by the constitution of
the United States, and that therefore it was the
duty of the National government to protect it.
The two chief measures in support of such a policy,
which originated with and were supported by
Pierce's administration, were the conference of
American diplomatists that promulgated the “Ostend
manifesto,” and opening of the territories of
Kansas and Nebraska to slavery. Filibustering
expeditions from the United States to Cuba under
Lopez, in 1850 and 1851, aroused anxiety in
Europe as to the attitude of our government toward
such enterprises. In 1852 Great Britain and
France proposed to the United States a tripartite
treaty by which the three powers should disclaim
all intention of acquiring Cuba, and discountenance
such an attempt by any power. On December 1,
1852, Edward Everett, who was then secretary of

state, declined to act, declaring, however, that our
government would never question Spain's title to
the island. On August 16, 1854, President Pierce
directed James Buchanan, John Y. Mason, and
Pierre Soule, the American ministers to Great
Britain, France, and Spain, to meet and discuss the
Cuban question. They met at Ostend, October 9,
and afterward at Aix la Chapelle, and sent to their
government that famous despatch known as the
“Ostend manifesto.” It declared that, if Spain
should obstinately refuse to sell Cuba,
self-preservation would make it incumbent on the
United States to wrest it from her and prevent it
from being Africanized into a second Santo
Domingo. But the hostile attitude of the great European
powers, and the Kansas and Nebraska excitement,
shelved the Cuban question till 1858, when a
feeble and abortive attempt was made in congress
to authorize its purchase for $30,000,000.

President Pierce, in his first message to congress,
December, 1853, spoke of the repose that had
followed the compromises of 1850, and said: “That
this repose is to suffer no shock during my official
term if I have power to prevent it, those who placed
me here may be assured.” Doubtless such was then
his hope and belief. In the following January,
Mr. Douglas, chairman of the senate committee
on the territories, introduced a bill to organize the
territories of Kansas and Nebraska, which
permitted
slavery north of the parallel of 36° 30' in
a region from which it had been forever excluded
by the Missouri compromise of 1820. That bill
was Mr. Douglas's bid for the presidency. Southern
politicians could not reject it and retain their
influence at home. Northern politicians who
opposed it gave up all hope of national preferment,
which then seemed to depend on southern support.
The defeat of the bill seemed likely to sever and
destroy the Democratic organization, a result which
many believed would lead to civil war and the
dissolution of the Union. Borne onward by the
aggressive spirit of slavery, by political ambition,
by the force of party discipline, and the dread of
sectional discord, the bill was passed by congress,
and on May 31 received the signature of the president.
Slavery had won, but there never was a
more costly victory. The remainder of Pierce's
term was embittered by civil war in Kansas and
the disasters of his party in the free states. In
1854, with a Democratic majority in both houses
of the New Hampshire legislature, the influence
of the national administration could not secure the
election of a Democratic U. S. senator, and at the
next election in 1855 the Democracy lost control
of the state.

The repeal of the Missouri compromise was
soon followed by organized efforts in the free
states to fill Kansas with anti-slavery settlers. To

such movements the south responded by armed
invasions. On March 30, 1855, a territorial
legislature was elected in Kansas by armed bands from
Missouri, who crossed the border to vote and then
returned to their homes. That initiative gave to
the pro-slavery men a technical advantage, which
the Democratic leaders were swift to recognize.
The pro-slavery legislature thus elected met at
Pawnee on July 2, 1855, and enacted an intolerant
and oppressive slave code, which was mainly a
transcript of the laws of Missouri. The free-state
settlers thereupon called a constitutional convention,
which met on October 23, 1855, and framed
a state constitution, which was adopted by the
people by a vote of 1,731 to 46. A general
assembly was then elected under such constitution,
which, after passing some preliminary acts,
appointed a committee to frame a code of laws, and
took measures to apply to congress for the admission
of Kansas into the Union as a state. Andrew
H. Reeder was elected by the free-state men their
delegate to congress. A majority of the actual
settlers of Kansas were in favor of her admission
into the Union as a free state; but all their efforts
to that end were treated by their opponents in the
territory, and by the Democratic national
administration, as rebellion against lawful authority. This
conflict kept the territory in a state of confusion
and bloodshed, and excited party feeling
throughout
the country to fever heat. It remained
unsettled, to vex Buchanan's administration and
further develop the germs of disunion and
sanguinary civil war.

On June 2, 1856, the National Democratic
convention met at Cincinnati to nominate a candidate
for president. On the first ballot James Buchanan
had 135 votes, Pierce 122, Douglas 33, Cass 6.
Pierce's vote gradually diminished, and on the 17th
ballot Buchanan was nominated unanimously. In
August the house of representatives attached to
the army appropriation bill a proviso that no part
of the army should be employed to enforce the laws
of the Kansas territorial legislature until congress
should have declared its validity. The senate
refused to concur, and congress adjourned without
passing the bill. It was immediately convened by
proclamation, and passed the bill without the
proviso. The president's message in December
following was mainly devoted to Kansas affairs, and
was intensely hostile to the free-state party. His
term ended on March 4, 1857, and he returned to
his home in Concord. Soon afterward he visited
Madeira, and extended his travels to Great Britain
and the continent of Europe. He remained abroad
nearly three years, returning to Concord early in
1860. In the presidential election of that year he
took no active part, but his influence was cast

against Stephen A. Douglas and in favor of John
C. Breckinridge.

In a letter addressed to Jefferson Davis, under
date of January 6, 1860, he wrote: “Without
discussing the question of right, of abstract power to
secede, I have never believed that actual disruption
of the Union can occur without bloodshed; and if,
through the madness of northern Abolitionists, that
dire calamity must come, the fighting will not be
along Mason and Dixon's line merely. It will be
within our own borders, in our own streets, between
the two classes of citizens to whom I have referred.
Those who defy law and scout constitutional
obligations will, if we ever reach the arbitrament of
arms, find occupation enough at home. . . . I have
tried to impress upon our own people, especially
in New Hampshire and Connecticut, where the
only elections are to take place during the coming
spring, that, while our Union meetings are all in
the right direction and well enough for the present,
they will not be worth the paper upon which their
resolutions are written unless we can overthrow
abolitionism at the polls and repeal the unconstitutional
and obnoxious laws which in the cause of
‘personal liberty’ have been placed upon our
statute-books.” On April 21, 1861, nine days after
the disunionists had begun civil war by firing on
Fort Sumter, he addressed a Union mass-meeting
at Concord, and urged the people to sustain the

government against the southern Confederacy.
From that time until his death he lived in retirement
at Concord. To the last he retained his hold
upon the hearts of his personal friends, and the
exquisite urbanity of his earlier days. His wife
and his three children had preceded him to the
tomb.

Some years after Pierce's death the legislature
of New Hampshire, in behalf of the state, placed
his portrait beside the speaker's desk in the hall
of the house of representatives at Concord. Time
has softened the harsh judgment that his political
foes passed upon him in the heat of party strife
and civil war. His generosity and kindness of
heart are gratefully remembered by those who
knew him, and particularly by the younger
members of his profession, whom he was always ready
to aid and advise. It is remembered that in his
professional career he was ever willing, at what
ever risk to his fortune or popularity, to shield the
poor and obscure from oppression and injustice.
It is remembered, too, that he sought in public life
no opportunities for personal gain. His integrity
was above suspicion. After nine years service in
congress and in the senate of the United States,
after a brilliant and successful professional career
and four years in the presidency, his estate hardly
amounted to $72,000. In his whole political career
he always stood for a strict construction of the
constitution,
for economy and frugality in public
affairs, and for a strict accountability of public
officials to their constituents. No political or
personal influence could induce him to shield those
whom he believed to have defrauded the government.
Pierce had ambition, but greed for public
office was foreign to his nature. Few, if any,
instances can be found in our history where a man
of thirty-eight, in the full vigor of health,
voluntarily gave up a seat in the U. S. senate, which he
was apparently sure to retain as long as he wished.
His refusal at the age of forty-one to leave his
law-practice for the place of attorney-general in Polk's
cabinet is almost without a parallel.

Franklin Pierce, too, was a true patriot and a
sincere lover of his country. The Revolutionary
services of a father whom he revered were
constantly in his thoughts. Two of his brothers, with
that father's consent, took an honorable part in
the war of 1812. His only sister was the wife of
Gen. John H. McNeil, as gallant an officer as ever
fought for his country. To decline a cabinet
appointment and enlist as a private soldier in the
army of his country were acts which one who knew
his early training and his chivalrous character
might reasonably expect of him. But for slavery
and the questions growing out of it, his administration
would have passed into history as one of the
most successful in our national life. To judge him

justly, his political training and the circumstances
that environed him must be taken into account.
Like his honored father, he believed that the states
men of the Revolution had agreed to maintain the
legal rights of the slave-holders, and that without
such agreement we should have had no Federal
constitution or Union. He believed that good faith
required that agreement to be performed. In that
belief all or nearly all the leaders of both the great
parties concurred. However divided on other questions,
on that the south was a unit. The price of
its political support was compliance with its
demands, and both the old parties (however reluctantly)
paid the price. Political leaders believed
that, unless it was paid, civil war and disunion
would result, and their patriotism re-enforced their
party spirit and personal ambition. Among them
all there were probably few whose conduct would
have been essentially different from that of Pierce
had they been in the same situation. He gave his
support to the repeal of the Missouri compromise
with great reluctance, and in the belief that the
measure would satisfy the south and thus avert
from the country the doom of civil war and
disunion. See the lives by Nathaniel Hawthorne
(Boston, 1852) and David W. Bartlett (Auburn,
1852), and “Review of Pierce's Administration,”
by Arthur E. Carroll (Boston, 1856).

His wife, , born in
Hampton, N. H., March 12, 1806; died in
Andover, Mass., December 2, 1863, was a daughter
of the Rev. Jesse Appleton, D.D., president of
Bowdoin college. She was brought up in an
atmosphere of cultivated and refined Christian
influences, was thoroughly educated, and grew to
womanhood surrounded by most congenial
circumstances. She was married in 1834. Public
observation was extremely painful to her, and she
always preferred the quiet of her New England
home to the glare and glitter of fashionable life in
Washington. A friend said of her: “How well
she filled her station as wife, mother, daughter,
sister, and friend, those only can tell who knew
her in these private relations. In this quiet sphere
she found her joy, and here her gentle but powerful
influence was deeply and constantly felt, through
wise counsels and delicate suggestions, the purest,
finest tastes, and a devoted life.” She was the
mother of three children, all boys, but none
survived her. Two died in early youth, and the
youngest, Benjamin, was killed in an accident on
the Boston and Maine railroad while travelling
from Andover to Lawrence, Mass., on January 6,
1853, only two months before his father's inauguration
as president. Mr. and Mrs. Pierce were with
him at the time, and the boy, a bright lad of thirteen
years, had been amusing them with his
conversation
just before the accident. The car was
thrown from the track and dashed against the
rocks, and the lad met his death instantly. Both
parents were long deeply affected by the shock
of the accident, and Mrs. Pierce never recovered
from it. The sudden bereavement shattered the
small remnant of her remaining health, yet she
performed her task at the White House nobly, and
sustained the dignity of her husband's office. Mrs.
Robert E. Lee wrote in a private letter: “I have
known many of the ladies of the White House,
none more truly excellent than the afflicted wife
of President Pierce. Her health was a bar to any
great effort on her part to meet the expectations
of the public in her high position, but she was a
refined, extremely religious, and well-educated
lady.” She was buried by the side of her three
children, in the cemetery at Concord, New
Hampshire.