Presidency of Franklin Pierce
Presidency of Franklin Pierce March 4, 1853 – March 4, 1857 | |
Cabinet | See list |
---|---|
Party | Democratic |
Election | 1852 |
Seat | White House |
|
The presidency of Franklin Pierce began on March 4, 1853, when Franklin Pierce was inaugurated, and ended on March 4, 1857. Pierce, a Democrat from New Hampshire, took office as the 14th United States president after routing Whig Party nominee Winfield Scott in the 1852 presidential election. Seen by fellow Democrats as pleasant and accommodating to all the party's factions, Pierce, then a little-known politician, won the presidential nomination on the 49th ballot of the 1852 Democratic National Convention. His hopes for reelection ended after losing the Democratic nomination at the 1856 Democratic National Convention.
Pierce vetoed funding for
In the wake of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, the Whig Party fell apart, and the Democratic Party was severely weakened. With the Whig Party's break-up, two new major parties emerged in the nativist American Party and the anti-slavery Republican Party. Pierce actively sought renomination at the 1856 Democratic National Convention, but he was defeated by James Buchanan, who had served as Pierce's ambassador to Great Britain. Buchanan went on to win the 1856 presidential election. Pierce is viewed by presidential historians as an inept chief executive, whose failure to stem the nation's inter–sectional conflict accelerated the course towards civil war. He is ranked as one of the worst presidents in American history.
Election of 1852
As the
The 1852 Democratic National Convention assembled on June 1 in Baltimore, Maryland, and, as had been widely expected, a deadlock occurred. On the first ballot, 288 delegates, Cass claimed 116 of the 288 delegates, while Buchanan won 93 delegates and the remaining votes were scattered among various candidates. The next 34 ballots passed with no one near victory; Pierce did not receive a single vote on any of the ballots. Eventually, the Buchanan team decided to have their delegates vote for minor candidates, including Pierce, to demonstrate that no one but Buchanan could win. This novel tactic backfired after several ballots when Virginia, New Hampshire, and Maine switched to Pierce. After the 48th ballot, North Carolina Congressman James C. Dobbin delivered an unexpected and passionate endorsement of Pierce, sparking a wave of support for the dark horse candidate. On the 49th ballot, Pierce received all but six of the votes, and thus gained the Democratic nomination for president. Delegates selected Alabama Senator William R. King, a Buchanan supporter, as Pierce's running mate, and adopted a party platform that rejected further "agitation" over the slavery issue and supported the Compromise of 1850.[5]
Rejecting incumbent President
Ultimately, Scott won only Kentucky, Tennessee, Massachusetts and Vermont, finishing with 42 electoral votes to Pierce's 254. With 3.2 million votes cast, Pierce won the popular vote with 50.9 to 44.1 percent. A sizable block of Free Soilers broke for Pierce's in-state rival, Hale, who won 4.9 percent of the popular vote.[11] In the concurrent congressional elections, the Democrats increased their majorities in both houses of Congress.[12]
Post-election family tragedy
Pierce began his presidency in mourning. Weeks after his election, on January 6, 1853, the president-elect's family had been traveling from Boston by train when their car derailed and rolled down an
Jane remained in New Hampshire as Pierce departed for his inauguration, which she did not attend.[15]
Inauguration
Pierce, the youngest man to be elected president to that point, chose to
Administration
The Pierce cabinet | ||
---|---|---|
Office | Name | Term |
President | Franklin Pierce | 1853–1857 |
Vice President | William R. King | 1853 |
none | 1853–1857 | |
Secretary of State | William L. Marcy | 1853–1857 |
Secretary of the Treasury | James Guthrie | 1853–1857 |
Secretary of War | Jefferson Davis | 1853–1857 |
Attorney General | Caleb Cushing | 1853–1857 |
Postmaster General | James Campbell | 1853–1857 |
Secretary of the Navy | James C. Dobbin | 1853–1857 |
Secretary of the Interior | Robert McClelland | 1853–1857 |
In his Cabinet appointments, Pierce sought to unite the party by appointing Democrats from all factions, including those that had not supported the Compromise of 1850. He anchored his Cabinet around Attorney General
Pierce spent the first few weeks of his term sorting through hundreds of lower-level federal positions to be filled. This was a chore, as he sought to represent all factions of the party, and could fully satisfy none of them. Partisans found themselves unable to secure positions for their friends, which put the Democratic Party on edge and fueled bitterness between factions. Before long, northern newspapers accused Pierce of filling his government with pro-slavery secessionists, while Southern newspapers accused him of abolitionism.[19] Factionalism between the pro- and anti-administration Democrats ramped up quickly, especially within the New York Democratic Party. The more conservative Hardshell Democrats or "Hards" of New York were deeply skeptical of the Pierce administration, which was associated with Secretary of State Marcy and the more moderate New York faction, the Softshell Democrats or "Softs".[20]
Pierce's running mate William R. King became severely ill with tuberculosis, and after the election he went to Cuba to recuperate. His condition deteriorated, and Congress passed a special law, allowing him to be sworn in before the American consul in Havana on March 24. Wanting to die at home, he returned to his plantation in Alabama on April 17 and died the next day. The office of vice president remained vacant for the remainder of Pierce's term, as the Constitution had no provision for filling an intra-term vice presidential vacancy prior to 1967. As such, the President pro tempore of the Senate, initially David Rice Atchison of Missouri, was next in line to the presidency for the remaining duration of Pierce's presidency.[21]
Judicial appointments
There was a vacancy on the Supreme Court when Pierce took office, due to the death of
Domestic affairs
The expansion of slavery into the western territories was the central issue of the day.[23]
The slavery debate
Kansas–Nebraska Act
In his inaugural address, Pierce expressed hope that the Compromise of 1850 would settle the debate over the issue of slavery in the territories. The compromise had allowed slavery in
Pierce wanted to organize the territories without explicitly addressing the matter of slavery, but Senator Stephen Douglas could not get enough southern support to accomplish this.[26] Slave state leaders had never been content with western limits on slavery, and felt that slavery should be able to expand into territories, while many Northern leaders were strongly opposed to any such expansion.[25] Douglas and his allies instead proposed a bill to organize the territory and let local settlers decide whether to allow slavery, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820, as most of land in question was north of the 36°30′ parallel. Under Douglas's bill, two new territories would be created: Kansas Territory would be located directly west of Missouri, while Nebraska Territory would be located north of Kansas Territory. The common expectation was that the people of the Nebraska Territory would not allow slavery, while the people of the Kansas Territory would allow slavery.[25]
Pierce was initially skeptical of Douglas's bill, knowing it would arouse bitter opposition from the North, but Douglas, Secretary of War Davis, and a group of powerful Southern senators known as the "F Street Mess" convinced Pierce to support the bill.[28] It was tenaciously opposed by Northerners such as Ohio Senator Salmon P. Chase and Massachusetts' Charles Sumner, who rallied public sentiment in the North against the bill. Many Northerners had been suspicious of the Pierce's expansionist foreign policy and the influence of slaveholding Cabinet members such as Davis, and they saw the Nebraska bill as part of a pattern of southern aggression.[25] Pierce and his administration used threats and promises to keep most Democrats on board in favor of the bill. The Whigs split along sectional lines, and the conflict finally destroyed the ailing party. The Kansas–Nebraska Act passed the Senate with relative ease, but was nearly derailed in the House. Pressure by Douglas and Pierce, combined with the support of many Southern Whigs, ensured the bill's passage in May 1854.[25] In both the House and the Senate, every Northern Whig voted against the Kansas–Nebraska Act, while just under half of the Northern Democrats and the vast majority of Southern congressmen of both parties voted for the act.[29]
Bleeding Kansas
Even as the Kansas-Nebraska Act was being debated, settlers on both sides of the slavery issue poured into Kansas so as to influence the status of slavery in Kansas. The passage of the act resulted in so much violence between groups that the territory became known as
The president continued to recognize the pro-slavery legislature, which was dominated by Democrats, even after a congressional investigative committee found its election to have been illegitimate. In response to Pierce's actions, several Northern state legislatures passed resolutions in support of anti-slavery groups in Kansas. Robert Toombs arranged a compromise Kansas statehood bill that won passage in the Senate, but Pierce's opponents in the House defeated the bill. The violence in Kansas escalated in 1856, and pro-slavery forces ransacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas. That same year, in the Pottawatomie massacre, an anti-slavery group led by John Brown killed pro-slavery settlers.[30] The situation calmed somewhat after Pierce appointed the even-handed John W. Geary as governor of the territory, but tensions remained high by the time Pierce left office.[31]
Other issues
Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act coincided with the seizure of escaped slave
In response to an anti-slavery speech by Senator Charles Sumner, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Sumner with a cane, leaving Sumner unable to return to the Senate until 1859. The House of Representatives voted to censure Brooks, and Brooks resigned from the House only to win re-election shortly thereafter. Many in the South supported Brooks's actions; the Richmond Enquirer wrote that the "Vulgar Abolitionists are getting above themselves...They must be lashed into submission." Many northerners, meanwhile, were horrified by the political violence.[36]
Partisan re-alignment
The Compromise of 1850 had split both major parties along geographic lines. In several Northern states, Democrats opposed to the compromise had joined with the Free Soil Party to take control of state governments. In the South, many state parties had also been split by the compromise.[37] The vast majority of northerners did not favor abolition, but northerners were hostile to the extension of slavery into the western territories, since they feared that such extension would lead to the exclusion of settlers from free states. Supporters of the "Free Soil" movement (which was not exclusive to members of the Free Soil Party) wanted to limit slavery to the states in which it currently existed. Southerners, meanwhile, resented any interference with their institutions and believed that slavery's continued existence required the expansion of the practice into the territories.[38]
Hoping to keep his own party unified, Pierce appointed both supporters and opponents of the Compromise of 1850 from both the North and South. This policy infuriated both supporters and opponents of the compromise, particularly in the South.
Congressional Democrats suffered huge losses in the mid-term elections of 1854, as voters provided support to a wide array of new parties opposed to the Democrats and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
By 1855, Republicans had replaced the Whigs as the main opposition to the Democrats in about half of the states, with the Know Nothings displacing the Whigs in the remaining states. Some Democrats joined the American Party in states like Maryland, but in many Southern states the American Party consisted almost entirely of former Whigs.[48] The Know Nothings soon split along sectional lines over a proposal to restore the Missouri Compromise, and as the controversy over Kansas continued, Know Nothings, Whigs, and even Democrats became increasingly attracted to the Republican Party. Pierce declared his full opposition the Republican Party, decrying what he saw as its anti-southern stance, but his perceived pro-Southern actions in Kansas continued to inflame Northern anger.[49]
Economic policy and internal improvements
Pierce frequently vetoed federally-funded internal improvements such as roads and canals. The first bill he vetoed would have provided funding for mental asylums, a cause championed by reformer Dorothea Dix. In vetoing the bill, Pierce stated, "I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States."[50] Though he vetoed several other internal improvement projects, Pierce did sign some bills providing for federal funding for infrastructure projects; Northern critics charged that Pierce tended to favor projects that benefited the South.[51] Pierce also called for a lowering of the Walker tariff, which had itself lowered the tariff rates to an historically low level.[50] In the final days of his presidency, Pierce signed the Tariff of 1857, which further reduced tariff rates.[52]
Despite his opposition to federal funding for most infrastructure projects, Pierce favored federal aid for the construction of a transcontinental railroad.
Administrative reforms
Pierce sought to run a more efficient and accountable government than his predecessors.
Foreign and military affairs
The Pierce administration fell in line with the expansionist
Gadsden Purchase
Secretary of War Davis, an advocate of a southern transcontinental railroad route, persuaded Pierce to send rail magnate
The treaty received a hostile reception from northern congressmen, many of whom saw it as another move designed to benefit the Slave Power. Congress reduced the Gadsden Purchase to the region now comprising southern Arizona and part of southern New Mexico; the original treaty had ceded a port on the Gulf of California to the United States. Congress also reduced the amount of money being paid to Mexico from $15 million to $10 million, and included a protection clause for a private citizen, Albert G. Sloo, whose interests were threatened by the purchase. Pierce opposed the use of the federal government to prop up private industry and did not endorse the final version of the treaty, which was ratified nonetheless.[64] The acquisition brought the contiguous United States to its present-day boundaries, excepting later minor adjustments.[65]
Relations with Britain
During Pierce's presidency, relations with the United Kingdom were tense due to disputes over American fishing rights in Canada and U.S. and British ambitions in Central America.[66] Marcy completed a trade reciprocity agreement with British minister to Washington, John Crampton, which would reduce the need for British naval patrols in Canadian waters. The treaty, which Pierce saw as a first step towards the American annexation of Canada, was ratified in August 1854.[67] While the administration negotiated with Britain over the Canada–U.S. border, U.S. interests were also threatened in Central America, where the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty of 1850 had failed to keep Britain from expanding its influence. Secretary of State Buchanan sought to persuade Britain to relinquish their territories in Central America.[68]
Seeking to ensure friendly relations with the United States during the Crimean War, the British were prepared to renounce most of their claims in Central America, but an incident in the British-protected port of Greytown soured Anglo-American relations. The murder of an employee of an American company led Pierce to order the USS Cyane to Greytown, and Cyane destroyed Greytown. Despite the destruction of Greytown and American filibusters in Central America, British merchants strongly opposed any war with the United States, ensuring that no war broke out between the two countries. Buchanan's successor as ambassador to Britain, George M. Dallas, concluded a treaty with Britain in which the British agreed to withdrawal from Greytown and most other Central American territories in return for U.S. recognition of British interests in Belize, but the Senate did not ratify the agreement.[69]
Cuba policy and the Ostend Manifesto
Like many of his predecessors, Pierce hoped to annex the Spanish island of Cuba, which possessed wealthy sugar plantations, held a strategic position in the Caribbean Sea, and represented the possibility of a new slave state. Pierce appointed Young America adherent Pierre Soulé as his minister to Spain, and Soulé quickly alienated the Spanish government.[70] After the Black Warrior Affair, in which the Spanish seized a U.S. merchant ship in Havana, the Pierce administration contemplated invading Cuba or aiding a filibuster expedition with the same intent, but the administration ultimately decided on focusing its efforts on the purchase of Cuba from Spain.[71]
Ambassadors Soulé, Buchanan, and
Other issues
Secretary of War Davis and Navy Secretary James C. Dobbin found the Army and Navy in poor condition, with insufficient forces, a reluctance to adopt new technology, and inefficient management.[74] During the Pierce administration, Congress increased the proportion of the federal budget spent on the War Department from 20 percent to 28 percent. Davis directed this money to fund a larger army, improvements to the United States Military Academy, and other measures.[75] Dobbin favored several reforms, including a transition of the Navy to steam power, and he won congressional authorization for the construction of several new ships.[76]
During the Pierce administration, Commodore Matthew C. Perry visited Japan (a venture originally planned under Fillmore) in an effort to expand trade to the East. Perry signed a modest trade treaty with the Japanese shogunate which was successfully ratified. Marcy selected the first American consul to Japan, Townsend Harris, who helped further expand trade between Japan and the United States. Perry also advocated the American colonization of Taiwan, Okinawa, and the Bonin Islands, but the Pierce administration did not endorse Perry's proposals.[77]
Pierce attempted to purchase
In 1856, Congress passed the Guano Islands Act, which allowed U.S. citizens to take possession of unclaimed islands containing guano deposits. Guano, the accumulated excrement of seabirds, was valuable as a fertilizer. Long after Pierce left office, the act would be used to make claims on several territories, including the Midway Atoll.[80]
William Walker, an American Freebooter, had conquered and established a dictatorship in Nicaragua. Among other actions, he had begun to introduce slavery. In 1856, Pierce formally recognized Walker's dictatorship. Though Walker hoped for Nicaragua to enter the US as a slave state, his plan never materialized.[81]
Election of 1856 and transition
As the 1856 election approached, many Democrats spoke of replacing Pierce with Buchanan or Douglas, but Pierce retained the support of his cabinet and many others within the party, especially in the South. Buchanan, who had been outside of the country since 1853 and thus could not be associated with the unpopular Kansas-Nebraska Act, became the candidate of many Northern Democrats.
Pierce endorsed Buchanan, though the two remained distant, and the president attempted to resolve the Kansas situation by November to improve the Democrats' chances in the general election.[85] Though Governor Geary was able to restore order in Kansas, the electoral damage had already been done—Republicans used "Bleeding Kansas" and "Bleeding Sumner" (the brutal caning of Charles Sumner) as election slogans.[86] The Democratic Party's platform, along with Buchanan's endorsement of Pierce's policies, caused many northern Democrats to abandon the party.[87] The Know Nothing National Convention alienated many Northern Know Nothings by nominating former President Fillmore for another term and failing to oppose the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Fillmore also received the presidential nomination at sparsely attended 1856 Whig convention.[49] Fillmore minimized the issue of nativism, instead attempting to use the party as a platform for unionism and a revival of the Whig Party.[88] The 1856 Republican National Convention chose John C. Frémont as the party's presidential candidate. Though Frémont's public views were not widely known, Republicans hoped to use Frémont's military reputation to lead the party to victory in 1856.[89]
The Democratic ticket was elected, but Buchanan won only five of sixteen free states (Pierce had won fourteen). Frémont, the Republican nominee, swept the eleven remaining free states, while Fillmore won Maryland and likely helped keep Pennsylvania out of the Republican column. In the North, the Democratic share of the popular vote fell from Pierce's 49.8% in 1852 to just 41.4%. The strong Republican showing confirmed that they, and not the Know Nothings, would replace the Whigs as the main opposition to the Democrats.[90]
Pierce did not temper his rhetoric after losing the nomination. In his final message to Congress, delivered in December 1856, he blamed anti-slavery activists for Bleeding Kansas and vigorously attacked the Republican Party as a threat to the unity of the nation.[91] He also took the opportunity to defend his record on fiscal policy, and on achieving peaceful relations with other nations.[92] In the final days of the Pierce administration, Congress passed bills to increase the pay of army officers and to build new naval vessels, also expanding the number of seamen enlisted. It also passed a tariff reduction bill he had long sought, establishing the Tariff of 1857.[52] During the transition period, Pierce avoided criticizing Buchanan, who he had long disliked, but was angered by Buchanan's decision to assemble an entirely new cabinet.[91] Pierce and his cabinet left office on March 4, 1857, the only time in U.S. history that the original cabinet members all remained for a full four-year term.[93]
Historical reputation
After Pierce died in 1869, he mostly passed from the American consciousness, except as one of a series of presidents whose disastrous tenures led to civil war.[94] Historians generally view him as an inept president who was overwhelmed by the problems he faced, and they tend to rank Pierce as one of the worst presidents.[95] Historian Eric Foner says, "His administration turned out to be one of the most disastrous in American history. It witnessed the collapse of the party system inherited from the Age of Jackson."[96] A 2018 poll of the American Political Science Association’s Presidents and Executive Politics section ranked Pierce as the fifth-worst president.[97] A 2017 C-SPAN poll of historians ranked Pierce as the third-worst president.[98] The public placed him third-to-last among his peers in C-SPAN surveys (2000 and 2009).[99]
The failure of Pierce, as president, to secure sectional conciliation helped bring an end to the dominance of the Democratic Party that had started with Jackson, and led to a period of over seventy years when the Republicans mostly controlled national politics.[100] David Potter concludes that the Ostend Manifesto and the Kansas–Nebraska Act were "the two great calamities of the Franklin Pierce administration ... Both brought down an avalanche of public criticism."[101] More important, says Potter, they permanently discredited Manifest Destiny and "popular sovereignty" as political doctrines.[101] Historian Kenneth Nivison, writing in 2010, takes a more favorable view of Pierce's foreign policy, stating that his expansionism prefaced those of later presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, who served at a time when America had the military might to make her desires stick. "American foreign and commercial policy beginning in the 1890s, which eventually supplanted European colonialism by the middle of the twentieth century, owed much to the paternalism of Jacksonian Democracy cultivated in the international arena by the Presidency of Franklin Pierce."[102]
Historian Larry Gara writes:
[Pierce] was president at a time that called for almost superhuman skills, yet he lacked such skills and never grew into the job to which he had been elected. His view of the Constitution and the Union was from the Jacksonian past. He never fully understood the nature or depth of Free Soil sentiment in the North. He was able to negotiate a reciprocal trade treaty with Canada, to begin the opening of Japan to western trade, to add land to the Southwest, and to sign legislation for the creation of an overseas empire [the Guano Islands Act]. His Cuba and Kansas policies led only to deeper sectional strife. His support for the Kansas–Nebraska Act and his determination to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act helped polarize the sections. Pierce was hard-working and his administration largely untainted by graft, yet the legacy from those four turbulent years contributed to the tragedy of secession and civil war.[103]
Biographer Roy Nichols argues:
As a national political leader Pierce was an accident. He was honest and tenacious of his views but, as he made up his mind with difficulty and often reversed himself before making a final decision, he gave a general impression of instability. Kind, courteous, generous, he attracted many individuals, but his attempts to satisfy all factions failed and made him many enemies. In carrying out his principles of strict construction he was most in accord with Southerners, who generally had the letter of the law on their side. He failed utterly to realize the depth and the sincerity of Northern feeling against the South and was bewildered at the general flouting of the law and the Constitution, as he described it, by the people of his own New England. At no time did he catch the popular imagination. His inability to cope with the difficult problems that arose early in his administration caused him to lose the respect of great numbers, especially in the North, and his few successes failed to restore public confidence. He was an inexperienced man, suddenly called to assume a tremendous responsibility, who honestly tried to do his best without adequate training or temperamental fitness.[104][105]
References
Footnotes
- ^ Wallner (2004), pp. 181–84; Gara (1991), pp, 23–29.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 28–29.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 29–32.
- ^ Wallner (2004), pp. 184–97; Gara (1991), pp. 32–33.
- ^ Wallner (2004), pp. 197–202; Gara (1991), pp. 33–34.
- ^ Wallner (2004), pp. 210–13; Gara (1991), pp. 36–38. Quote from Gara, 38.
- ^ Holt (2010), loc. 724.
- ^ Gara (1991), p. 37.
- ^ Wallner (2004), p. 231; Gara (1991), p. 38, Holt (2010), loc. 725.
- ^ Wallner (2004), p. 206; Gara (1991), p. 38.
- ^ Wallner (2004), pp. 229–30; Gara (1991), p. 39.
- ^ Holt (2010), loc. 740.
- ^ Wallner (2004), pp. 241–49; Gara (1991), pp. 43–44.
- ^ Boulard (2006), p. 55.
- ^ a b Hurja, Emil (1933). History of Presidential Inaugurations. New York Democrat. p. 49.
- ^ Wallner (2004), pp. 249–55.
- ^ Holt, pp. 48–52
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 44–47.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 5–24.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 15–18, and throughout.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 21–22.
- ^ Wallner (2007), p. 10.
- ^ David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 (1976) pp. 121–144.
- ^ Holt, pp. 53–54, 72–73
- ^ a b c d e Wallner (2007), pp. 90–102, 119–22; Gara (1991), pp. 88–100, Holt (2010), loc. 1097–1240.
- ^ Etchison, p. 14.
- ^ a b Wallner (2007), pp. 158–67; Gara (1991), pp. 99–100.
- ^ McPherson (1988), pp. 122–123.
- ^ McPherson (1988), pp. 125–126.
- ^ a b Wallner (2007), pp. 195–209; Gara (1991), pp. 111–23.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 123–126.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 122–25; Gara (1991), pp. 107–09.
- ^ a b Gara (1991), pp. 105–106.
- ^ McPherson (1988), p. 120.
- ^ McPherson (1988), pp. 120–121.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 120–122.
- ^ a b Holt (2010), pp. 47–48, 66–70
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 158–159.
- ^ a b Holt (2010), pp. 78–89
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 96–98.
- ^ McPherson (1988), pp. 131–132.
- ^ McPherson (1988), pp. 126.
- ^ McPherson (1988), p. 129.
- ^ McPherson (1988), pp. 129–130.
- ^ McPherson (1988), pp. 136–138.
- ^ McPherson (1988), pp. 143–144.
- ^ Holt (2010), pp. 92–93
- ^ McPherson (1988), pp. 140–141.
- ^ a b Holt (2010), pp. 91–94, 99, 106–109
- ^ a b Holt, pp. 53–54, 71.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 87–88.
- ^ a b Wallner (2007), pp. 303–04.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 78–79.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 40–41, 52.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 66–67.
- ^ a b Wallner (2007), p. 20.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 35–36.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 36–39.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 32–36.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 25–32; Gara (1991), p. 128.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 61–63; Gara (1991), pp. 128–29.
- ^ Holt, pp. 54–55.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 75–81; Gara (1991), pp. 129–33.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 106–08; Gara (1991), pp. 129–33.
- ^ Holt, loc. 872.
- ^ Holt, pp. 55–56.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 27–30, 63–66, 125–26; Gara (1991), p. 133.
- ^ Holt, pp. 58–59.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 140–145.
- ^ Holt, pp. 59–60.
- ^ Holt, pp. 60–62.
- ^ a b Wallner (2007), pp. 131–57; Gara (1991), pp. 149–55.
- ^ Holt, pp. 63–65.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 40–43.
- ^ Gara (1991), p. 68.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 68–69.
- ^ Wallner (2007), p. 172; Gara (1991), pp. 134–35.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 146–147.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 147–148.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 148–149.
- ^ Baker, Jean H. (4 October 2016). "FRANKLIN PIERCE: FOREIGN AFFAIRS". Miller Center. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
- ^ Holt (2010), pp. 94–96
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 266–70; Gara (1991), pp. 157–67, Holt (2010), loc. 1515–58.
- ^ Rudin, Ken (July 22, 2009). "When Has A President Been Denied His Party's Nomination?". NPR. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 272–80.
- ^ Holt (2010), loc. 1610.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 167–168.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 175–176.
- ^ Gara (1991), pp. 168–174.
- ^ Holt (2010), pp. 109–110
- ^ a b Holt (2010), pp. 110–114
- ^ Wallner (2007), pp. 292–96; Gara (1991), pp. 177–79.
- ^ Wallner (2007), p. 305.
- ^ Gara (1981), p. 180.
- ^ Baker, Jean H. (4 October 2016). "FRANKLIN PIERCE: IMPACT AND LEGACY". Miller Center. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
- ^ Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History (2006) vol 1 p 413
- ^ Rottinghaus, Brandon; Vaughn, Justin S. (19 February 2018). "How Does Trump Stack Up Against the Best – and Worst – Presidents?". New York Times. Retrieved 14 May 2018.
- ^ "Presidential Historians Survey 2017". C-SPAN. Retrieved 14 May 2018.
- ^ "C-SPAN Survey". C-SPAN. 2009. Archived from the original on July 22, 2014. Retrieved June 30, 2014.
- .
- ^ a b Potter (1976), p. 192.
- S2CID 154406060.
- ^ Gara, Larry (February 2000). "Pierce, Franklin". American National Biography Online.(subscription required)
- ISBN 978-0-403-09601-5.
- ISBN 978-1-4022-7142-7.
Works cited
- Boulard, Garry (2006). The Expatriation of Franklin Pierce: The Story of a President and the Civil War. iUniverse, Inc. ISBN 0-595-40367-0.
- OCLC 664335.
- Etchison, Nicole (2004). Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-1287-4.
- Gara, Larry (1991). The Presidency of Franklin Pierce. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-0494-4.
- Holt, Michael F. (2010). Franklin Pierce. The American Presidents (Kindle ed.). Henry Holt and Company, LLC. ISBN 978-0-8050-8719-2.; also see online book review
- McPherson, James M. (1988). Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199743902.
- Potter, David M. (1976). The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-013403-8. online
- Wallner, Peter A. (2004). Franklin Pierce: New Hampshire's Favorite Son. Plaidswede. ISBN 0-9755216-1-6.; also see online book review
- Wallner, Peter A. (2007). Franklin Pierce: Martyr for the Union. Plaidswede. ISBN 978-0-9790784-2-2.
Further reading
- Allen, Felicity (1999). Jefferson Davis, Unconquerable Heart. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 0-8262-1219-0.
- Barlett, D.W. (1852). The life of Gen. Frank. Pierce, of New Hampshire, the Democratic candidate for president of the United States. Derby & Miller. OCLC 1742614.
- Bergen, Anthony (May 30, 2015). "In Concord: The Friendship of Pierce and Hawthorne". Medium.
- Brinkley, A; Dyer, D (2004). The American Presidency. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-618-38273-9.
- Graff, Henry F., ed. The Presidents: A Reference History (3rd ed. 2002) online
- OCLC 60713500.
- OCLC 2512393.
- Nichols, Roy Franklin (1931). Franklin Pierce, Young Hickory of the Granite Hills. University of Pennsylvania Press. OCLC 426247.
- ISBN 9781118609293. pp 345–96
- Taylor, Michael J.C. (2001). "Governing the Devil in Hell: 'Bleeding Kansas' and the Destruction of the Franklin Pierce Presidency (1854–1856)". White House Studies. 1: 185–205.
External links
- Works by Franklin Pierce at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Franklin Pierce at Internet Archive
- Essays on Franklin Pierce and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady, from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
- Franklin Pierce: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
- Biography from the White House
- Franklin Pierce Bicentennial
- "Life Portrait of Franklin Pierce", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, June 14, 1999
- "Franklin Pierce: New Hampshire's Favorite Son"—Booknotes interview with Peter Wallner, November 28, 2004
- Franklin Pierce Personal Manuscripts