Franklin Pierce: The 14th President Of The United States
Franklin Pierce
14th President of the United States | In office
March 4, 1853 – March 4, 1857 | Vice President | William R. King (1853)
None (1853–1857) | Preceded by | Millard Fillmore | Succeeded by | James Buchanan |
The 14th President of the Unites States
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804 – October 8, 1869) was the 14th President of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857, an American politician and lawyer. To date, he is the only President from New Hampshire.
Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" (a Northerner with Southern sympathies) who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. Later, Pierce took part in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general. His private law …show more content…
practice in his home state, New Hampshire, was so successful that he was offered several important positions, which he turned down. Later, he was nominated for president as a dark horse candidate on the 49th ballot at the 1852 Democratic National Convention. In the presidential election, Pierce and his running mate William R. King won by a landslide in the Electoral College, defeating the Whig Party ticket of Winfield Scott and William A. Graham by a 50% to 44% margin in the popular vote and 254 to 42 in the electoral vote. According to historian David Potter, Pierce was sometimes referred to as "Baby" Pierce, apparently referring to both his youthful appearance and his being the youngest president to take office to that point (although he was, in reality, only a year younger than James K. Polk when he took office).
Pierce attended school at Hillsborough Center and moved to the Hancock Academy in Hancock at the age of 11; he was transferred to Francestown Academy in the spring of 1820. In fall 1820, he entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he participated in literary, political, and debating clubs.
There he met writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, with whom he formed a lasting friendship, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He also met Calvin E. Stowe, Seargent S. Prentiss, and his future political rival, John P. Hale, when he joined the Athenian Society, a group of students with progressive political leanings.
In his second year of college his grades were the lowest of his class, but he worked to improve them and upon graduation in 1824 ranked third among his classmates.
In 1826 he entered a law school in Northampton, Massachusetts, studying under Governor Levi Woodbury, and later Judges Samuel Howe and Edmund Parker, in Amherst, New Hampshire. He was admitted to the bar and began a law practice in Concord, New Hampshire in 1827.
Pierce served as President from March 4, 1853, to March 4, 1857. He began his presidency in a state of grief and nervous exhaustion. Two months before, on January 6, 1853, the President-elect's family had boarded a train in Boston and shortly thereafter were trapped in their derailed car when it rolled down an embankment near Andover, Massachusetts. Pierce and his wife survived, merely shaken up, but saw their 11-year-old son Benjamin crushed to death. Jane Pierce viewed the train accident as a divine punishment for her husband's pursuit and acceptance of high office.
Pierce chose to "affirm" his oath of office rather than swear it, becoming the first president to do so; he placed his hand on a law book rather than on a Bible while doing so. He was also the first president to recite his inaugural address from memory. In it Pierce hailed an era of peace and prosperity at home and urged a vigorous assertion of US interests in its foreign relations. "The policy of my Administration," said the new …show more content…
president,
"will not be deterred by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion.
Indeed, it is not to be disguised that our attitude as a nation and our position on the globe render the acquisition of certain possessions not within our jurisdiction eminently important for our protection".
The nation was enjoying a period of economic growth and relative tranquility. The Compromise of 1850 seemed to have calmed the storm about the issue of slavery. When the issue flamed up early in his administration, though, Pierce did little to cool the passions it aroused, and sectional fissures reopened. The greatest challenge to the country's equilibrium during the Pierce administration, though, was the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. It repealed the Missouri Compromise and reopened the question of slavery in the West. This measure, sponsored by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, had its origins in the drive to facilitate the completion of a transcontinental railroad with a link from Chicago, Illinois to California through Nebraska.
Major legislation
signed * Signed Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Supreme Court appointments
Pierce appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States: The Pierce Cabinet | Office | Name | Term | | President | Franklin Pierce | 1853–1857 | Vice President | William R. King | 1853 | | None | 1853–1857 | | Secretary of State | William L. Marcy | 1853–1857 | | Secretary of Treasury | James Guthrie | 1853–1857 | | Secretary of War | Jefferson Davis | 1853–1857 | | Attorney General | Caleb Cushing | 1853–1857 | | Postmaster General | James Campbell | 1853–1857 | | Secretary of the Navy | James C. Dobbin | 1853–1857 | | Secretary of the Interior | Robert McClelland | 1853–1857 |
Places named after President Pierce: * Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire. * Franklin Pierce School District, and namesake high school in Parkland, Washington * Pierce Elementary School in Flint, Michigan. * Pierce Street in San Francisco, California. * Pierce County in Washington, Nebraska, Georgia, and Wisconsin (But not in North Dakota) * Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire * Mt. Pierce in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, New Hampshire * Pierce Street in downtown Amarillo, Texas * Pierce Road in the presidential roads in Weymouth, Massachusetts * Franklin Pierce Caverns (located in southern Illinois) * Franklin Pierce Lake (a reservoir in New Hampshire which covers the site of the log cabin in which he was born) * Pierce Bar in Middle River, Minnesota * Pierceton, Indiana * Franklin Pierce Highway (an intercity thoroughfare in southern New Hampshire)
14th President of the United States | In office
March 4, 1853 – March 4, 1857 | Vice President | William R. King (1853)
None (1853–1857) | Preceded by | Millard Fillmore | Succeeded by | James Buchanan |
The 14th President of the Unites States
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804 – October 8, 1869) was the 14th President of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857, an American politician and lawyer. To date, he is the only President from New Hampshire.
Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" (a Northerner with Southern sympathies) who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. Later, Pierce took part in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general. His private law …show more content…
practice in his home state, New Hampshire, was so successful that he was offered several important positions, which he turned down. Later, he was nominated for president as a dark horse candidate on the 49th ballot at the 1852 Democratic National Convention. In the presidential election, Pierce and his running mate William R. King won by a landslide in the Electoral College, defeating the Whig Party ticket of Winfield Scott and William A. Graham by a 50% to 44% margin in the popular vote and 254 to 42 in the electoral vote. According to historian David Potter, Pierce was sometimes referred to as "Baby" Pierce, apparently referring to both his youthful appearance and his being the youngest president to take office to that point (although he was, in reality, only a year younger than James K. Polk when he took office).
Pierce attended school at Hillsborough Center and moved to the Hancock Academy in Hancock at the age of 11; he was transferred to Francestown Academy in the spring of 1820. In fall 1820, he entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he participated in literary, political, and debating clubs.
There he met writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, with whom he formed a lasting friendship, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He also met Calvin E. Stowe, Seargent S. Prentiss, and his future political rival, John P. Hale, when he joined the Athenian Society, a group of students with progressive political leanings.
In his second year of college his grades were the lowest of his class, but he worked to improve them and upon graduation in 1824 ranked third among his classmates.
In 1826 he entered a law school in Northampton, Massachusetts, studying under Governor Levi Woodbury, and later Judges Samuel Howe and Edmund Parker, in Amherst, New Hampshire. He was admitted to the bar and began a law practice in Concord, New Hampshire in 1827.
Pierce served as President from March 4, 1853, to March 4, 1857. He began his presidency in a state of grief and nervous exhaustion. Two months before, on January 6, 1853, the President-elect's family had boarded a train in Boston and shortly thereafter were trapped in their derailed car when it rolled down an embankment near Andover, Massachusetts. Pierce and his wife survived, merely shaken up, but saw their 11-year-old son Benjamin crushed to death. Jane Pierce viewed the train accident as a divine punishment for her husband's pursuit and acceptance of high office.
Pierce chose to "affirm" his oath of office rather than swear it, becoming the first president to do so; he placed his hand on a law book rather than on a Bible while doing so. He was also the first president to recite his inaugural address from memory. In it Pierce hailed an era of peace and prosperity at home and urged a vigorous assertion of US interests in its foreign relations. "The policy of my Administration," said the new …show more content…
president,
"will not be deterred by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion.
Indeed, it is not to be disguised that our attitude as a nation and our position on the globe render the acquisition of certain possessions not within our jurisdiction eminently important for our protection".
The nation was enjoying a period of economic growth and relative tranquility. The Compromise of 1850 seemed to have calmed the storm about the issue of slavery. When the issue flamed up early in his administration, though, Pierce did little to cool the passions it aroused, and sectional fissures reopened. The greatest challenge to the country's equilibrium during the Pierce administration, though, was the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. It repealed the Missouri Compromise and reopened the question of slavery in the West. This measure, sponsored by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, had its origins in the drive to facilitate the completion of a transcontinental railroad with a link from Chicago, Illinois to California through Nebraska.
Major legislation
signed * Signed Kansas-Nebraska Act.
Supreme Court appointments
Pierce appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States: The Pierce Cabinet | Office | Name | Term | | President | Franklin Pierce | 1853–1857 | Vice President | William R. King | 1853 | | None | 1853–1857 | | Secretary of State | William L. Marcy | 1853–1857 | | Secretary of Treasury | James Guthrie | 1853–1857 | | Secretary of War | Jefferson Davis | 1853–1857 | | Attorney General | Caleb Cushing | 1853–1857 | | Postmaster General | James Campbell | 1853–1857 | | Secretary of the Navy | James C. Dobbin | 1853–1857 | | Secretary of the Interior | Robert McClelland | 1853–1857 |
Places named after President Pierce: * Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire. * Franklin Pierce School District, and namesake high school in Parkland, Washington * Pierce Elementary School in Flint, Michigan. * Pierce Street in San Francisco, California. * Pierce County in Washington, Nebraska, Georgia, and Wisconsin (But not in North Dakota) * Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire * Mt. Pierce in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, New Hampshire * Pierce Street in downtown Amarillo, Texas * Pierce Road in the presidential roads in Weymouth, Massachusetts * Franklin Pierce Caverns (located in southern Illinois) * Franklin Pierce Lake (a reservoir in New Hampshire which covers the site of the log cabin in which he was born) * Pierce Bar in Middle River, Minnesota * Pierceton, Indiana * Franklin Pierce Highway (an intercity thoroughfare in southern New Hampshire)