🎩Franklin Pierce

14th President · 1853–1857 · Democratic

Franklin Pierce was the only president from New Hampshire, a handsome 48-year-old former senator and Mexican-American War general when he took office in 1853. His single term was a disaster. He signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act that reopened the slavery question and touched off the violence of Bleeding Kansas. He was so thoroughly repudiated by his own party that he was not renominated — the only elected president so rejected.

The Young Hickory

Pierce was a popular figure in New Hampshire politics — a congressman, senator, and state Democratic Party leader before age 40. He served as a volunteer general in the Mexican-American War, where he was thrown from his horse at the Battle of Contreras, a fall mocked by opponents as cowardice. The Democrats nominated him in 1852 on the 49th ballot as a dark-horse compromise.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

The catastrophic centerpiece of Pierce's presidency was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, pushed through by Senator Stephen Douglas with Pierce's full support. The law repealed the Missouri Compromise's ban on slavery north of 36°30′ and replaced it with "popular sovereignty" — settlers in the territories would vote on slavery. The result was Bleeding Kansas, a five-year period of political violence that foreshadowed the Civil War. The act also destroyed the Whig Party and helped create the Republican Party.

Personal Tragedy

Two months before Pierce's inauguration, he and his wife Jane saw their only surviving son, 11-year-old Benny, killed in a train derailment before their eyes. Jane spent most of the presidency in mourning, rarely leaving her room in the White House, leaving Pierce to cope with the bloodiest political crisis yet faced by an antebellum president.

Not Renominated

Pierce sought renomination in 1856 but was rejected — the only elected president to be denied renomination by his own party. He returned to New Hampshire, increasingly a Confederate sympathizer, and spent the Civil War years bitterly critical of Lincoln. He died in 1869, largely forgotten.

Pierce Trivia

• He is the only elected president not to seek or receive renomination from his party.
• Pierce is one of only two presidents to recite his inaugural address from memory (James A. Garfield was the other).
• Pierce's close friend, the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, wrote his 1852 campaign biography.
• He was the first president to install a heating system and Christmas tree in the White House.

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