Fourteenth President of the United States, he was born at Hillsborough, NH, a descendant of Brig. General Benjamin Pierce. Pierce was sent to Hancock Academy after which he prepared for college at Francestown. At the age of sixteen he entered Bowdoin College from which he graduated in 1824. He studied law in the office of Judge Woodbury, Portsmouth, NH, and afterwards for two years at the law school in Northampton, MA. Following additional study under Judge Parker at Amherst he was admitted to the bar and began practicing in Hillsborough in 1827, the same year his father was elected Governor of New Hampshire.

Pierce was for a long time unsuccessful, although he eventually reached a position of eminence at the Bar. He was elected to the State Legislature in 1829 and held office for four years, the latter two as Speaker of the House. In 1833 he was elected to Congress during which time a friendship developed with President Jackson. In 1837 he was elected to the Senate. He retired from the Senate in 1842 and settled in Concord where he resumed his legal practice.

In 1844 he was offered an appointment as a U. S. Senator, but declined. He also declined the nomination of the Democratic Convention for Governor, and in 1846 the post of Attorney General of the United States, offered by President Polk. In view of this, it is remarkable that at the outbreak of the Mexican War Pierce entered the army, enlisting as a private in the company being raised in Concord. He received the appointment of Colonel, 9th Regiment, and soon thereafter, in March, 1847, was commissioned a Brigadier-General by President Polk.

Pierce arrived in Vera Cruz on June 27,1847 and began his march to join General Scott. At the Battle of Contreras, Pierce was seriously injured by the fall of his horse. He led his brigade, however, on the following day, he became incapacitated and fell on the battlefield of Churubusco. He remained in Mexico until the War's end when he returned home. In 1850 Pierce was elected President of the Constitutional Convention of New Hampshire. On June 12, 1852, the Democratic National Convention assembled at Baltimore. Prominent contenders for the party's nomination were Lewis Cass, James Buchanan, William L. Marcy, William O. Butler, San Houston and the brilliant young Stephen Douglas. The nominating came to a deadlock after 35 ballots failed to result in a candidate's nomination. At the next ballot the delegation from Virginia named Franklin Pierce.

Pierce was not completely unknown, yet he was not prominent enough to have alienated influential politicos. He was young enough to please delegates who were tired of the "Old Fogies" such as Cass and Marcy. He was acceptable to the South as a Northerner who had never condemned slavery, and who was perfectly willing to accept William King of Alabama as his Vice President. Pierce's support grew on successive ballots until the 49th, when with 282 vote he was selected as the party's nominee. He was elected as fourteenth President of the United States and inaugurated on March 4, 1853.

Franklin Pierce
Taken During the Mexican War
Courtesy of the Schultz Collection

Pierce's family life had been full of tragedy. One son died three days after his birth. A second had succumbed to typhus at the age of four. Now, just two months before his inauguration, his remaining son, Rennie, then thirteen, was killed when, traveling with his parents, an accident threw their train down a steep embankment. Pierce's wife, a sickly woman, "introspective and nervously dependent upon the consolations of religion", was too stunned to attend the inauguration. Throughout his administration she wore mourning clothes and remained in seclusion. An aunt, Mrs. Abby Kent Means, served as official hostess.

Pierce strove to distract attention from the nation's internal divisions. He appointed a cabinet balanced between North and South, and retained it intact the first President to have done so. His Presidency was remarkable for its conflicts about slavery, while there were numerous other accomplishments. During his first year in office, the Army Corps of Engineers was dispatched to explore a route for a Pacific railroad. The Mexican boundary dispute was settled under the Gadsden Treaty and Perry arrived in Japan. The second World's Fair took place in New York City. In 1854 the Kansas and Nebraska bill was debated in Congress and finally carried by the minority uniting with the southern members. This practically repealed the Missouri compromise and reopened the whole slavery question. There was significant factional fighting in Kansas where two rival governments had been established and a civil war erupted lasting nearly a year. Pierce appointed John W. Geary, of Pennsylvania, as military governor of Kansas and order was restored. However, in the meantime agitation over the issue of slavery had spread to other states.

The new Republican Party brought forward John C. Fremont, of California, as an anti-slavery candidate for the Presidency but he was defeated by Pierce's minister to England, James C. Buchanan. The slavery question continued to disturb politics, culminating in the election of Lincoln in 1860 and the outbreak of the Civil War.

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