MUSCTINE COUNTY, IOWA
1889 EDITION
| PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL ALBUM MUSCTINE COUNTY, IOWA 1889 EDITION | |
Presidents of the United States
Source: Portrait and Biographical Album, Muscatine County, Iowa, 1889, page 71
FRANKLIN PIERCE FRANKLIN PIERCE, the fourteenth President of the United States, was born in Hillsborough, N. H., Nov. 23, 1804. His father was a Revolutionary soldier, who, with his strong arm, hewed out a home in the wilderness. He was a man of inflexible integrity; of strong, though uncultivated mind, and an uncompromising Democrat. The mother of Franklin Pierce was all that a son could desire,---an intelligent, prudent, affectionate, Christian woman. Franklin was the sixth of eight children.
Franklin was a very bright and handsome boy, generous, warm-hearted and brave. He won alike the love of old and young. The boys on the playground loved him. The neighbors looked upon him with pride and affection. He was by instinct a gentleman; always speaking kind words, doing kind deeds, with a peculiar unstudied tact which taught him what was agreeable. Without developing any precocity of genius, or any unnatural devotion to books, he was a good scholar; in body, in mind, in affections, a finely-developed boy.
When sixteen years of age, in the year 1821, he entered Bowdoin College, at Brunswick, Me. He was one of the most popular young men in the college. The purity of his moral character, the unvarying courtesy of his demeanor, his rank as a scholar, and genial nature, rendered him a universal favorite. There was something very peculiarly winning in his address, and it was evidently not in the slightest degree studied; it was the simple outgushing of his own magnanimous and loving nature.
Upon graduating in the year 1824, Franklin Pierce commenced the study of law in the office of Judge Woodbury, one of the most distinguished lawyers of the State, and a man of great private worth. The eminent social qualities of a young lawyer, his father's prominence as a public man, and the brilliant political career into which Judge Woodbury was entering, all tended to entice Mr. Pierce into the fascinating yet perilous path of political life. With all the ardor of his nature he espoused the cause of Gen. Jackson for the Presidency. He commenced the practice of law in Hillsborough, and was soon elected to represent the town in the State Legislature. Here he served for four years. The last two years he was chosen speaker of the house by a very large vote.
In 1833, at the age of twenty-nine, he was elected a member of Congress. Without taking an active part in debates, he was faithful and laborious in duty, and ever rising in the estimation of those with whom he was associated.
In 1837, being then but thirty-three years of age, he was elected to the Senate of the United States; taking his seat just as Mr. Van Buren commenced his administration. He was the youngest member in the Senate. In the year 1834, he married Miss Jane Means Appleton, a lady of rare beauty and accomplishments, and one admirably fitted to adorn every station with which her husband was honored. Of the three sons that were born to them, all now sleep with their parents in the grave.
In the year 1838, Mr. Pierce, with growing fame and increasing business as a lawyer, took up his residence in Concord, the capital of New Hampshire. President Polk, upon his accession to office, appointed Mr. Pierce attorney-general of the United States; but the offer was declined, in consequence of numerous professional engagements at home, and the precarious state of Mrs. Pierce's health. He also, about the same time declined the nomination for governor by the Democratic party. The war with Mexico called Mr. Pierce in the army. Receiving the appointment of brigadier general, he embarked, with a portion of his troops, at Newport, R.I., on the 27th of May, 1847. He took an important part in this war, proving himself a brave and true soldier.
When Gen. Pierce reached his home in his native State, he was received enthusiastically by the advocates of the Mexican war, and coldly by his opponents. He resumed the practice of his profession, very frequently taking an active part in political questions, giving his cordial support to the Pro-slavery wing of the Democratic party. The compromise measures met cordially with his approval; and he strenuously advocated the enforcment of the infamous fugitive-slave law, which so shocked the religious sensibilities of the North. He thus became distinguished as a " Northern man with Southern principles." The strong partisans of slavery in the South consequently regarded him as a man whom they could safely trust in office to carry out their plans.
On the 12th of June, 1852, the Democratic convention met in Baltimore to nominate a candidate for the Presidency. For four days they continued in session, and in thirty-five ballotings no one had obtained a two-thirds vote. Not a vote thus far had been thrown for Gen. Pierce. Then a Virginia delegation brought forward his name. There were fourteen more ballotings, during which Gen. Pierce constantly gained strength, until, at the forty-ninth ballot, he received two hundred and eighty-two votes, and all other candidates eleven. Gen. Winfield Scott was the Whig candidate. Gen. Pierce was chosen with great unanimity. Only four States---Vermont, Massachusetts, Kentucky and Tennessee--- cast their electoral votes against him. Gen. Franklin Pierce was therefore inaugurated President of the United States on the 4th of March, 1853.
His administration proved one of the most stormy our country had ever experienced. The controversy between slavery and freedom was then approaching its culminating point. It became evident that there was an " irrepressible conflict" between them, and that this Nation could not long exist " half slave and half free." President Pierce, during the whole of his administration, did everything he could to conciliate the South; but it was all in vain. The conflict every year grew more violent, and threats on the dissolution of the Union were borne to the North on every Southern breeze.
Such was the condition of affairs when President Pierce approached the close of his four years' term of office. The North had become thoroughly alienated from him. The anti-slavery sentiment, goaded by great outrages, had been rapidly increasing; all the intellectual ability and social worth of President Pierce were forgotten in deep reprehension of his administrative acts. The slaveholders of the South, also, unmindful of the fidelity with which he had advocated those measures of Government, which they approved, and perhaps, also feeling that he had rendered himself so unpopular as no longer to be able acceptably to serve them, ungratefully dropped him, and nominated James Buchanan to succeed him.
On the 4th of March, 1857, President Pierce retired to his home in Concord. Of three children, two had died, and his only surviving child had been killed before his eyes by a railroad accident; and his wife, one of the most estimable and accomplished of ladies, was rapidly sinking in consumption. The hour of dreadful gloom soon came, and he was left alone in the world, without wife or child.
When the terrible Rebellion burst forth, which divided our country into two parties, and two only, Mr. Pierce remained steadfast in the principles which he has always cherished, and gave his sympathies to that Pro-slavery party which he had ever been allied. He declined to do anything, either by voice or pen, to strengthen the hand of the National Government. He continued to reside in Concord until the time of his death, which occurred in October, 1869. He was one of the most genial and social of men, an honored communicant of the Episcopal Church, and one of the kindest of neighbors. Generous to a fault, he contributed liberally for the alleviation of suffering and want, and many of his townspeople were often gladdened by his material bounty.
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