Franklin Pierce (1804 to 1869) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the fourteenth president of the United States. An unremarkable politician prior to his election, his presidency was marred by the sectional crisis over the issue of slavery. His support of the Kansas-Nebraska Act led to Bleeding Kansas, a proto-civil war that worsened the sectional divide. Pierce left office after only one term in 1857, leaving the nation barreling headfirst toward the American Civil War (1861 to 1865).

Franklin Pierce was born on 23 November 1804 in his family's log cabin in Hillsborough, New Hampshire. He was the fifth of eight children born to Benjamin Pierce, a farmer, tavernkeeper, and local politician. A veteran of the American Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783), Benjamin had settled in New Hampshire after the conflict, where he purchased 50 acres of land, won election as the county sheriff, and became involved in politics, aligning himself with the Democratic-Republican Party. He also married Anna Kendrick, his second wife and Franklin's mother. Franklin would fondly recall that she "was a most affectionate and tender mother, strong in many points and weak in some but always weak on the side of…deep affection" (Hamilton, 114).

Shortly after Franklin's birth, Benjamin Pierce moved the family into a bigger house along the highway, where he opened a tavern. It was here, along the rural backcountry of New Hampshire, that Franklin spent most of his childhood; as historian Neil A. Hamilton writes, "in this countryside of hills, hollows, and deep forests, with short summers and long winters, Franklin took to hunting, fishing, and swimming in the local ponds" (ibid). When Franklin was 12, his father enrolled him in boarding school in a nearby town. Yet Franklin, unaccustomed to long periods away from his family, grew homesick; one Sunday, he left school and made the 12-mile trek back home. His father was not pleased to find his son back on his doorstep. Benjamin fed the boy dinner, packed him in a carriage, and drove him part of the way back to school, before ordering him out and making him walk the rest of the way in a thunderstorm. It was, as Franklin would later recall, "the turning point in my life" (Wallner, 15).

In late 1820, Franklin Pierce enrolled in Bowdoin College in Maine; among his fellow classmates was future novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, who would become a close lifelong friend. Pierce was not a naturally gifted student and, indeed, was ranked dead last in his class (of only 14 students) during the first half of his college career. He was also prone to mischief; when Bowdoin students rebelled against the administration and went on strike, Pierce was suspected of instigating them. Yet despite all this trouble, he managed to pull himself together during the last two years of his education, and he graduated fifth in his class in 1824. He decided to become a lawyer and, after periodically studying law on and off, was admitted to the New Hampshire bar in 1827. He opened a law practice in his hometown of Hillsborough and, although he lost his first case, he soon earned a reputation as a competent lawyer.

Just as he was beginning his legal career, two events transpired that shifted his attention toward politics, changing the trajectory of his life. The first was the election of his father as governor of New Hampshire in 1827. The second was the hotly contested US presidential election of 1828, which pitted incumbent President John Quincy Adams against the populist General Andrew Jackson. Pierce actively campaigned for Jackson, who carried Pierce's home district by a wide margin and won the national election. Buoyed by this success, Pierce campaigned for a seat in the state legislature himself, as a candidate of Jackson's new Democratic Party in 1829. He won the election and would serve in the legislature for the next four years. In 1831, the Democrats gained a majority in the legislature, and Pierce was elected Speaker of the House. He used the speakership to campaign against national banks and support the state militia.

According to Hamilton, Pierce found a new home within the Democratic Party, which became "central to his life, a fraternity from which there could be no deviation, and he compiled one of the strongest voting records in support of Jacksonian programs" (114). In 1832, this steadfast loyalty was rewarded when the Democrats chose Pierce to run for a seat in the US House of Representatives. Aided by his influential father – who had since retired from politics himself – Pierce handily won the election. In 1833, prior to making the trip to Washington, D.C., to take his seat in Congress, Pierce made a victory lap when he and his father personally welcomed their hero President Jackson to New Hampshire. That same year, Pierce began courting Jane Means Appleton, the daughter of the former president of Bowdoin College. The couple was married on 19 November 1834. Jane was a shy and pious woman, constantly ill from recurring bouts with tuberculosis. She never approved of her husband's political ambitions, nor his hard drinking, both of which she tried to stymie.

Pierce took his seat in Congress in December 1833. He was "handsome, affable, charming, and possessed of a certain superficial brilliance" (Britannica). He made friends easily and continued to be a staunch supporter of Democratic policies, joining Jackson's 'Bank War' against the Second Bank of the United States; believing that the elitist bank had accumulated too much power, he opposed its attempts to secure a new charter.

While in Congress, Pierce also had to reckon with the issue of slavery, which was already dividing the nation along sectional lines. In 1835, a petition came before Congress requesting that the 'peculiar institution' be abolished within the confines of the District of Columbia. Though Pierce claimed to personally believe that slavery was a "social and political evil", he nevertheless believed that any attempt by the federal government to act against it infringed on the rights of the Southern states. He was also irritated by abolitionists, whom he viewed as 'fanatics' and 'agitators'; "the abolition movement," he wrote, "must be crushed, or there is an end to the Union" (Wallner, 67). Pierce's support of slavery, however lukewarm it may have been, would have profound consequences for the remainder of his career.

In 1836, Pierce won election to the US Senate, making him the youngest man serving in that chamber. Since he had done little to distinguish himself up to this point, many were perplexed by his rapid rise, with one friend writing, "With no very remarkable talents, he at the age of 34 fills one of the highest stations in the nation" (Hamilton, 115). Much like his time in the House, Pierce did not make much of a mark in the Senate, towing the Democratic Party line on issues like banking and slavery. He voted for resolutions introduced by Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, which said that any decision about slavery should be left to the states, and that any attempts by the federal government to abolish slavery in the national capital would be viewed as an attack against the South. This so-called Gag Resolution proved controversial and was hotly contested by the opposing Whig Party.

Pierce did not handle the stress of the Senate very well and turned to the solace of alcohol. He was a hard drinker, and word of his alcoholism soon spread throughout the halls of Congress. "Rumors claimed his drinking muddled his mind," Hamilton writes, "Whatever the case, it certainly proved a hardship on his family" (ibid). Indeed, Pierce's drinking would not be the only hardship his family would have to endure. By the early 1840s, two of his three sons had died; his eldest, Franklin Jr., had died in infancy, and his second oldest, Frank Robert, died of epidemic typhus at the age of four. Only his youngest son, Benjamin (born 1841), was left to him. As these stresses piled up one after another, Pierce decided to leave Congress in 1842. He moved to the New Hampshire state capital of Concord, where he spent the next few years focusing on his law practice.

In 1844, Pierce re-entered public life, campaigning for the election of his friend and fellow Democrat James K. Polk to the presidency. Polk was elected on an expansionist platform of 'manifest destiny', which included the acquisition of Texas and California from Mexico. When these issues led to the Mexican-American War in 1846, Pierce enthusiastically offered his services to the US Army and was appointed colonel of the 9th Infantry Regiment; several months later, on 3 March 1847, he was promoted to brigadier general and given command of a brigade in General Winfield Scott's army. Pierce got his first taste of combat at the Battle of Contreras (19 to 20 August 1847) when he was knocked groin-first from his horse. His brigade took part in the capture of Mexico City a month later, although Pierce himself was confined to his tent, dealing with a bout of diarrhea.

Pierce returned to Concord in December 1847. Although he received a hero's welcome, he was privately disappointed that he had not gotten a chance to distinguish himself in battle. By this point, the issue of slavery once again gripped the nation, as Congress debated whether to let the institution expand into the 525,000 square miles (1,360,000 km²) of western territory that had just been conquered from Mexico. Pierce publicly supported the Compromise of 1850, viewing it as a victory for the preservation of the Union. His support for the compromise returned him to the national spotlight at just the right time. As the US presidential election of 1852 loomed, the Democrats were deadlocked between three potential candidates – Stephen A. Douglas, James Buchanan, and Lewis Cass were all frontrunners at the national convention, but none were able to secure the necessary two-thirds majority.

To break the deadlock, Pierce's name was put forth as a compromise candidate. Though he had still achieved little of note and had been out of office for a decade, his staunch party loyalty was well remembered. Since the Democrats had adopted a party platform rejecting further abolitionist 'agitation' and supporting the Compromise of 1850, Pierce's stances on those two issues also made him a strong choice for the nomination. He was nominated on the 49th ballot, with Senator William R. King of Alabama chosen as his running mate. When word reached Pierce in Concord that he had been nominated, he was shocked, and Jane even fainted upon hearing the news.

The general election pitted Pierce against his old army commander, General Scott, who was the Whig Party's candidate. But while the Democrats were unified behind their pro-compromise platform, the Whigs were a divided party and could not whip up the necessary enthusiasm for Scott among voters. As a result, Pierce easily won what biographer Peter A. Wallner calls "one of the least exciting campaigns in presidential history" (213). Pierce won 50.9% of the popular vote as well as 254 electoral votes, with the Democrats also winning majorities in Congress.

Pierce barely had time to celebrate his victory when tragedy struck once again. On 6 January 1853, only weeks before he was set to take office, he and his family were involved in a train crash near Andover, Massachusetts. Though Franklin and Jane survived, their 11-year-old son Benjamin was crushed to death. Having lost their last child in such a traumatic fashion, both parents suffered severe depression. Franklin returned to the bottle, while the pious Jane was left wondering if Benny's death was divine punishment for her husband's hubristic pursuit of higher office.

Pierce was inaugurated in Washington on 4 March 1853; at 47, he was the youngest man to have been elected president up to that point. Jane, still recovering from the shock of Benny's death, was not present at the inauguration. At a time of deep sectional divide, Pierce sought to promote national unity by filling his cabinet with voices from both sides of the slavery debate, from free-soilers to Southern "states' rights" advocates. Though his cabinet – which included Jefferson Davis as Secretary of War – functioned competently, his attempts to please everyone ended up pleasing no one. Pierce's administration suffered an early shake-up when Vice President King died of tuberculosis a little over a month into his term. The vice presidency remained vacant for the remainder of Pierce's administration.

As president, Pierce opposed federal funding of internal improvements – which referred to highways, canals, and railroads – believing that such matters should be left to the states. "Is it not the better rule," he wrote, "to leave all these works to private enterprise, regulated and, when expedient, aided by the cooperation of the State?" (Hamilton, 116). Nevertheless, he endorsed an initiative by Secretary of War Davis to look into the construction of possible railroads West, which Davis argued was necessary for national security purposes. Pierce also took up the old Democratic banner of expansionism and 'manifest destiny.' Under his administration, the US made the Gadsden Purchase, buying 29,640 square miles (76,767 km²) of land from Mexico, comprising the present-day regions of southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.

Other attempts at 'manifest destiny' did not go so well, and often became embroiled in the slavery issue. In 1854, he proposed to buy Cuba from Spain for $120 million; should Spain refuse, the Pierce administration was ready to 'wrest' control of Cuba away. This proposal, published as the Ostend Manifesto, provoked outrage throughout the free-soil North, where it was viewed as an attempt to add another slave-territory to the Union to bolster the interests of the Southern slaveocracies. Due to the controversy, Pierce was forced to give up the plan to take over Cuba. The next year, an American adventurer named William Walker led a filibustering expedition to Central America. Walker seized control of Nicaragua, named himself military dictator, and established a proslavery government. Pierce once again drew controversy when he recognized Walker's government as legitimate.

In 1854, Pierce made the most controversial move of his presidency when he signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The bill was penned by Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, Pierce's one-time rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, who wanted to benefit his state by building a railroad from Chicago to the Pacific coast. Douglas could not do this, however, until the largely unsettled Nebraska Territory had been organized, an issue that would undoubtedly reignite the question of whether slavery would be allowed to extend there. Douglas and his supporters hoped to settle the issue with a compromise known as 'popular sovereignty,' which meant that local settlers should be allowed to decide for themselves whether they wanted to join the Union as a 'free state' or 'slave state'. This provision of 'popular sovereignty' was included in the Kansas-Nebraska Act; when Pierce signed it into law, it invalidated the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which up until then had prohibited the creation of new 'slave states' north of the 36°30′ parallel.

As a result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, thousands of both proslavery and antislavery settlers streamed into the territory, hoping to tip the scales in their favor. In 1855, Pierce appointed proslavery politician William Shannon as governor of Kansas, provoking outrage from the 'Free Soil' settlers. When the Free Soilers set up their own shadow government and drafted the Topeka Constitution, Pierce denounced their actions as a form of rebellion. The debate soon turned violent, with proslavery 'border ruffians' and antislavery 'jayhawkers' committing election fraud, engaging in kidnappings, and even killing one another. This violent episode, known as Bleeding Kansas, left a dark stain on Pierce's presidency and helped herald the coming of civil war.

Pierce's abilities as president may have been limited by his depression over his son's death. One visitor to the White House commented on the grim demeanor of the First Couple, writing that "Everything in that mansion seems cold and cheerless. I have seen hundreds of log cabins which seemed to contain more happiness" (Hamilton, 116).

Although Pierce had expected to be nominated for a second term, Democrats understood that the Kansas controversy had rendered him unelectable in large swathes of the country. Instead, they nominated James Buchanan, who won the general election in 1856. After leaving office in March 1857, Pierce would spend the next three years traveling through Europe with Jane. He would return home on the eve of the US presidential election of 1860, in time to witness the victory of Abraham Lincoln and the Secession Crisis that followed. Predictably, Pierce sympathized with the secessionists, writing, "If I were in the Southerners' places, after so many years of aggression, I should probably be doing what they are doing" (Hamilton, 119).

After the outbreak of the American Civil War, Pierce continued to speak out against the Lincoln administration. On 4 July 1863, the day after the great Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, he gave a speech denouncing the war, leading him to be hated throughout the North. In the following months, Pierce would be plagued with more personal tragedy; his beloved wife Jane died in December 1863, while his close friend Nathaniel Hawthorne died in May 1864. Pierce returned to heavy alcoholism in his final years and died on 8 October 1869 of cirrhosis of the liver, at the age of 64. Today, Pierce is barely remembered by most Americans, but when he is thought of at all, it is as one of the country's worst presidents, whose tenure did nothing to heal the sectional crisis that resulted in the Civil War.