14) Franklin Pierce - Poor Pierce

With nearly two feet of snow covering the ground out my window, it seemed like an appropriate time to sit down and write about our only president from the Granite State.

Roy Nichol’s biography of Franklin Pierce was one of the more enjoyable during this project so far. I’ve said before that the presidents leading up to Lincoln were the ones I dreaded. I thought I may get bored of the project and give up. However, this well written and researched book is a fascinating way to both learn about an obscure president and provide context to some events leading to the Civil War whose names you remember from history class.

While not a prerequisite for the presidency, Pierce was also born in a log cabin. He grew up in New Hampshire as one of Benjamin and Anna Pierce’s eight children. Benjamin was a veteran of the Revolutionary War where he fought at Bunker Hill. He also served as Governor of New Hampshire. Legend has it that while Franklin was a schoolboy in New Hampshire a speaker came and told his class that if the children aim high in their studies the future President may be sitting in that very room.

Benjamin sent his son north to Bowdoin College in Maine where Franklin did not sufficiently focus on his studies. When his junior year began class rankings were released and Franklin learned he was last in the class. With prodding from classmates Franklin dedicated himself to his studies, rising to fifth in the class by graduation. Franklin made a lifelong friend while at Bowdoin who went on to gain more lasting fame. The author Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, was a lifelong defender of Pierce even dedicating one of his final works, Our Old Home, to Pierce against the advice of his publisher.

After college Pierce moved to Hillsborough, New Hampshire and began learning law. He involved himself in local politics and was elected to the state legislature, eventually being voted speaker. His constituents then elevated him to the United States Congress where he served in the House during Jackson’s administration. He was a “devout hero-worshiper” of Old Hickory and did a great deal of fighting Jackson’s Bank Wars in the House. In the House Pierce would help to draw up the “gag-rule” which John Quincy Adams famously fought against. Pierce’s work on the gag-rule, which effectively barred debate of slavery in the House, and his disdain for abolitionism, which he saw as a grave threat to the Union, were early signs of Pierce’s states’ rights leanings which tarnished his image in posterity.

Like true Jacksonians, New Hampshire Democrats believed in office rotation and their senators typically served only one term. Pierce’s turn came in 1837. In an otherwise unremarkable Senate career, Pierce had to confront slavery again when he voted against a proposal to table a bill to abolish slavery in Washington DC. This vote came despite his dislike of abolitionists as his association with the gag-rule was giving material to abolitionist at home who claimed that Pierce was suppressing their First Amendment right to petition.

While a member of the House, Pierce married Jane Appleton. This was an odd choice as Jane was “shy, retiring, frail… with strict ideas of propriety.” She was also extremely devout. If you took the opposite of each of the preceding attributes you would have a fair description of Franklin. Jane did not like Hillsborough, so the family relocated to Concord. Their first child died in infancy and their second died as a toddler, their third, Benjamin, became an obsession for Jane and Franklin. Jane did not like Washington and was often ill, she spent much of his Senate term back in Concord. When his term ended, Pierce returned and established his law practice. This was a rare happy period for the Pierces. From 1842 through the first half of 1847 Pierce was the most prolific trial lawyer in Concord. Pierce, who battled alcoholism, was not drinking during this period. Jane also seems to have been happy and relatively healthy during these years. Pierce remained active in politics and became a local “party boss”. The surprise election of James Polk in 1844 was a fortuitous turn for Franklin who benefited from patronage as Polk named him district attorney for New Hampshire.

The Battle of Chapultepec, not as magestic when you're laid up with
Montezuma's revenge.

Then came war with Mexico. Growing up with a military hero father, Pierce longed for battle glory and volunteered immediately. He was promoted to Brigadier General, this was likely political given his limited military background, and given a command. Pierce labored to pull together recruits given the unpopularity of the war in New England, but by May 1847 he was ready to set sail. Pierce did not find glory in Mexico. He would find himself in three battles. At the Battle of Contreras, he was injured. The story that stuck with him from the war was when his horse threw him at Contreras a regular yelled to Pierce’s friend, Major Truman Ransom, “take command of the brigade, General Pierce is a damned coward.” This story was repeated by political enemies throughout his career. Again he was injured at the Battle of Churubusco and then finally at Chapultepec, where Ransom lost his life, Pierce was laid up with diarrhea and unable to participate. He held out hope that he would fight at the ultimate battle in Mexico City, however he arrived just in time to see the Mexicans surrender.

Back in New Hampshire Pierce resumed law and politics, the election of Zachary Taylor was a disappointment, however New Hampshire voted Democrat in no small part thanks to Pierce’s efforts. By the time the election of 1852 rolled around there was some talk that Pierce was a potential candidate, he demurred publicly. While he was by no means a major player on the national stage, the Democratic Party was fraying over slavery and Pierce’s Northern routes and Southern sympathies made him an attractive compromise candidate. Pierce was nominated on the 35^th ballot of the Democratic convention. Pierce defeated fellow Mexican War general Winfield Scott and won the presidency.

Shortly after his election, tragedy struck when a train that Pierce, Jane, and Benjamin were on derailed. Everyone on the train walked away except for Benjamin, who was decapitated in front of his parents. The Pierces went into a state of deep morning, a state that Jane would never exit. Soon thereafter Jane learned that Pierce had sought the presidency more than he let on to her. This was something difficult to forgive given how opposed she was to returning to Washington.  It is likely that Pierce entered the White House to assume his duties in a state of depression.

Shortly into his presidency, Pierce traveled to New York for the World’s Fair. He wanted to preach states’ rights and the importance of securing the Union. Pierce was sick much of the trip and a letter from a congressman to James Buchanan reveals how Pierce was coping:

“I deeply, deeply, deplore his habits. He drinks deep. My hearts bleeds for him for he is a gallant and generous spirit. The place overshadows him. He is crushed by its great duties and he seeks refuge in…”

The most memorable chapter of American history from the Pierce presidency was the signing of the Kansas/Nebraska Act which created the two states. The act called for popular sovereignty in the two states. Opponents of the act called this a repudiation of the Missouri Compromise, supporters said the Compromise of 1850 already nullified the Missouri Compromise. Proponents of slavery and abolitionists alike began piling into Kansas in hopes of swinging the vote. The ensuing clashes, dubbed Bleeding Kansas by John Fremont’s failed Republican bid for president in 1856, stained Pierce’s legacy and hurled the country closer to Civil War.

Pierce was not nominated by the Democrats in 1856. He had become so unpopular throughout the North that during the mid-term elections the Democrats lost every free state except California and New Hampshire – this after carrying every Northern state but Vermont during his election.

Pierce loathed the Civil War. He had focused his presidency on trying to keep the Union together and he believed the war to be senseless. He blamed abolitionists for the death and destruction. However, when Confederate plans to attack Washington were revealed, Pierce spoke on the need to defend the country “at all hazards” and he never justified the secession of the South. This did little to change public perception of Pierce. He inability to hide his disdain for Lincoln didn’t help public perception. He called Lincoln a tool of the abolitionists: “to the extent of his limited ability and narrow intelligence their willing instrument for all the woe which had thus far been brought upon the country…”

In late-1863 Jane died, the next spring Hawthorne died, in the summer political enemies circulated an old letter Pierce had written to his then Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, purporting to show that Pierce supported secession. The next spring came Lincoln’s assassination and Pierce’s depression and alcoholism began to take hold. His liver held out for four more years while he remained somewhat involved in political issues of the day and became involved in the church.

Pierce's life was tragic and his presidency was unsuccessful. However, it is important to understand his times as the prelude to the Civil War and it is important for one studying the presidents to understand the man, as it is a painful lesson in the burden of the office.

13) Millard Fillmore - The Compromiser

Millard Fillmore marks the halfway point of the stretch of this project I was least excited about. I had pegged the four presidents leading up to Lincoln, of which I knew little about, as a dull period leading up to the Civil War. Taylor served as a nice surprise, filling in gaps about the goings on during the Mexican American War. Fillmore’s story has some color on the development of the Whig Party but, like Martin Van Buren’s story, it is largely focused on nineteenth century New York state politics which can get dry.

A statue of Fillmore that stands outside
Buffalo's imposing City Hall.

Like Andrew Jackson and Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore was born in a log cabin. Fillmore grew up on an unproductive farm in New York’s Finger Lakes region, his family then moved west to the Buffalo region in Fillmore’s late teens. It was there, in East Aurora, NY, that Fillmore made his mark as a lawyer. He went on to form a law practice with Nathan Hall and Solomon Haven. These men were instrumental in Buffalo’s development, particularly in education. Hall, who would serve as Fillmore’s Postmaster General, helped institute Buffalo’s fist free public school system and Fillmore was instrumental in the founding of the University of Buffalo. Hall would begin his own law office when Fillmore’s duties no longer allowed him to focus on the practice. The new firm went on to train future president Grover Cleveland. That two U.S. presidents came from essentially the same law practice in western New York is an interesting bit of presidential trivia.

Fillmore came of age at a time when Thurlow Weed was building the Whig Party’s base in New York. Fillmore rose through its ranks serving three terms in the House of Representatives and then running unsuccessfully for governor. Weed and Fillmore often battled due to what the author portrayed as Weed’s repeated backing of the other major New York Whig of the time, William Seward, often at Fillmore’s expense. After losing the bid for Governor, Fillmore was elected as the state’s Comptroller.

It is ironic that Fillmore ended up on the Whig ticket with Zachary Taylor in the election of 1848. Taylor was a slaveholding Southerner so to deliver the North in this tenuous period of American history the Whigs needed an anti-slavery Northerner. Fillmore fit the bill. The irony is that Taylor’s anti-slavery views and opposition to slavery in the newly acquired southwestern territories would soon be apparent. Further, when Taylor died and Fillmore assumed the reigns of the presidency he backed Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas’s efforts to broker a compromise between North and South. The compromise was viewed by many as strengthening the protection of slavery. What became known as the Compromise of 1850 was structured as a series of bills whereby:

• Texas surrendered its claim on New Mexico.
• California was admitted as a non-slave state.
• Utah and New Mexico were allowed to choose whether or not they wanted slavery to be  permitted (it was known both were unlikely to permit the practice).
• The slave trade, but not slavery itself, was outlawed in Washington DC.
• The Fugitive Slave Act was strengthened.

Given the political climate in which everyone was focused on the newly acquired Western territories, the likely abolition of slavery in these lands gave Southerners a sour feeling about the Compromise. Northerners were not happy with the strengthening of the Fugitive Slave Act which required law enforcement, even in jurisdictions where slavery was outlawed, to assist in the capture and return of runaway slaves. This had not been the practice in many Northern municipalities where a blind eye was turned to the efforts of abolitionists to aid escaped slaves. Northern abolitionists flouted the new law. A particular incident in Boston where the arrival of escaped slaves William and Ellen Crofts was loudly celebrated forced Fillmore to take a stand. Fillmore announced that he was prepared to use Federal troops to intervene and the Crofts were quickly and quietly moved to London.

It is important to keep in mind that Fillmore’s actions, both supporting the Compromise and his willingness to use force to protect it, were taken at a time when segments of the South were preparing for disunion. While history may remember Fillmore as a feckless doughface, he was attempting to save the Union. Fillmore’s anti-slavery credentials had been sufficient enough to get him on the ticket with Taylor as a sop to the abolitionist wing of the Whig party so branding him a lackey to slaveholders is lazy analysis.

Fillmore’s domestic failings are surely his presidential legacy. However, he did have a notable achievement in foreign policy when he sent Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan. Japan had been a closed society up to this point and America wanted to trade with them, particularly for their large supply of coal which could fuel new coal-powered ocean liners. Perry was successful in opening Japanese ports giving Fillmore a key diplomatic victory.

Fillmore may not have intended to run for a full term. Friends who had tried to convince him to run later said that he did not want to. The endorsement of party leader Henry Clay, on his death bed, finally convinced him to run. Fillmore did not receive the nomination, on the 53^rd ballot General Winfield Scott was nominated and he would go on to lose to another Mexican American War General, Franklin Pierce. But that is a story for the next post.

The Whig Party began to fracture following the defeat of General Scott. Perhaps the correct way to phrase it is that existing fractures could no longer be ignored after Scott’s defeat. The Whig party split largely over the issue of slavery into the Know-Nothings and the modern-day Republican Party. The Know-Nothings were a short-lived anti-Catholic / anti-immigrant party of which, unfortunately, Millard Fillmore joined and represented in the Presidential election of 1856. The Republican party would find presidential success in 1860 when Lincoln’s election raised the drumbeat of secession to fruition.