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Presidents Patriotism Daddy's
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United States Presidents
Early Years: Pierce was born in a log cabin. When he ran away from Hancock Academy because of the stern discipline, his father made him return, walking part way through a rainstorm. Later he graduated fifth in his class and went on to become a lawyer. His Presidency: In 1853, through the Gadsden Purchase, Pierce acquired parts of present-day Arizona and New Mexico from Mexico. In 1854 he signed a treaty giving trade privileges to Canada in return for fishing rights. He endorsed the Kansas-Nebraska Act which touched off a violent slavery debate and led to his failure to be re-nominated. Franklin Pierce became President at a time of apparent tranquility. The United States, by virtue of the Compromise of 1850, seemed to have weathered its sectional storm. By pursuing the recommendations of southern advisers, Pierce--a New Englander--hoped to prevent still another outbreak of that storm. But his policies, far from preserving calm, hastened the disruption of the Union. Born in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, in 1804, Pierce attended Bowdoin College. After graduation he studied law, then entered politics. At 24 he was elected to the New Hampshire legislature; two years later he became its Speaker. During the 1830's he went to Washington, first as a Representative, then as a Senator. Pierce, after serving in the Mexican War, was proposed by New Hampshire friends for the Presidential nomination in 1852. At the Democratic Convention, the delegates agreed easily enough upon a platform pledging undeviating support of the Compromise of 1850 and hostility to any efforts to agitate the slavery question. But they balloted 48 times and eliminated all the well-known candidates before nominating Pierce, a true "dark horse." Probably because the Democrats stood more firmly for the Compromise than the Whigs, and because Whig candidate Gen. Winfield Scott was suspect in the South, Pierce won with a narrow margin of popular votes. Two months before he took office, he and his wife saw their eleven-year-old son killed when their train was wrecked. Grief-stricken, Pierce entered the Presidency nervously exhausted. In his Inaugural he proclaimed an era of peace and prosperity at home, and vigor in relations with other nations. The United States might have to acquire additional possessions for the sake of its own security, he pointed out, and would not be deterred by "any timid forebodings of evil." Pierce had only to make gestures toward expansion to excite the wrath of northerners, who accused him of acting as a cat's-paw of Southerners eager to extend slavery into other areas. Therefore he aroused apprehension when he pressured Great Britain to relinquish its special interests along part of the Central American coast, and even more when he tried to persuade Spain to sell Cuba. But the most violent renewal of the storm stemmed from the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and reopened the question of slavery in the West. This measure, the handiwork of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, grew in part out of his desire to promote a railroad from Chicago to California through Nebraska. Already Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, advocate of a southern transcontinental route, had persuaded Pierce to send James Gadsden to Mexico to buy land for a southern railroad. He purchased the area now comprising southern Arizona and part of southern New Mexico for $10,000,000. Douglas's proposal, to organize western territories through which a railroad might run, caused extreme trouble. Douglas provided in his bills that the residents of the new territories could decide the slavery question for themselves. The result was a rush into Kansas, as southerners and northerners vied for control of the territory. Shooting broke out, and "bleeding Kansas" became a prelude to the Civil War. By
the end of his administration, Pierce could claim "a
peaceful condition of things in Kansas." But, to his
disappointment, the Democrats refused to re-nominate him,
turning to the less controversial Buchanan. Pierce
returned to New Hampshire, leaving his successor to face
the rising fury of the sectional whirlwind. He died in
1869. Quotations "The storm of frenzy and faction must inevitably dash itself in vain against the unshaken rock of the Constitution." -Franklin Pierce "A Republic without parties is a complete anomaly. The history of all popular governments show how absurd is the idea of their attempting to exist without parties." -Franklin Pierce (1825) "The stars upon your banner have become nearly threefold their original number; your densely populated possessions skirt the shores of the two great oceans." -Franklin Pierce "In a body [Congress] where there are more than one hundred talking lawyers . . .you can make no calculation upon the termination of any debate and frequently the more trifling the subject the more animated and protracted the discussion." -Franklin Pierce "I believe that involuntary servitude, as it exists in different States of this Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right, and that the States where it exists are entitled to efficient remedies to enforce the constitutional provisions . . . . I fervently hope that the question is at rest, and that no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the durability of our institutions or obscure the light of our prosperity . . . " -Franklin
Pierce "The revenue of the country, levied almost insensibly to the taxpayer, goes on from year to year, increasing beyond either the interests or the prospective wants of the Government." -Franklin Pierce "You have summoned me in my weakness. You must sustain me by your strength." -Franklin
Pierce "We have to maintain inviolate the great doctrine of the inherent right of popular self-government, . . . to render cheerful obedience to the laws of the land, to unite in enforcing their execution, and to frown indignantly on all combinations to resist them; . . . to preserve sacred from all touch of usurpation, as the very palladium of our political salvation, the reserved rights and powers of the several States and of the people." -Franklin Pierce (1854)
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