Presidency of Franklin Pierce

The presidency of Franklin Pierce began on March 4, 1861, when Franklin Pierce was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1865. Pierce, a Democratic-Republican from New Hampshire, took office as the 14th United States president after defeating Federal Republican nominee Nathaniel P. Tallmadge in the 1860 Presidential Election. Seen by fellow Democrats as pleasant and accommodating to most of the party's factions, Pierce, then a relatively little-known politician, won the presidential nomination on the 49th ballot of the 1860 Democratic-Republican National Convention. His presidency ended after losing the Democratic nomination at the 1864 Democratic-Republican convention.

Pierce refused attempts to pass Civil service reform, Called for a lower tariff, paid off much of the National Debt, and continued construction on the Transcontinental railroad. In an extremely controversial move, Peirce presided over a watershed moment in American relations toward Native Americans, authorizing the first Native removal since the Monroe Administration and rejecting the "civilizing" policy taken by post-Houston Presidents. Pierce also authorized General William T. Sherman, commander of troops in Cuba, to use any means necessary to quell the independence movement on the island, citing the precedent of Troup v. United States as evidence of secession being illegal.

In the wake of Daniel S. Dickinson's manipulation of Pierce finally reaching the public, corruption in Pierce's cabinet, as well as many of Pierces other deeply unpopular actions and policies, the Democratic-Republican Party was severely weakened, and Pierces reputation as President was greatly hit, and it would never truly recover. Pierce is viewed by presidential historians as an inept chief executive, whos failure to rid corruption from his cabinet and for his ability to be manipulated put the country in danger. He is generally ranked as one of the worst presidents in American history.

Conventions
As the 1860 presidential election approached, the Democratic-Republican party was surprisingly united. The Democrats were rejuvenated after the decently popular Presidency of Henry S. Foote, while the Federalists on the other hand were collapsing. Shortly prior to the 1860 Democratic National Convention, a group of Pro-Bank and Anti-Expansionist Democrats and Federalists merged into the Federal Republican Party. At their own convention, the Federal Republicans nominated Nathaniel P. Tallmadge for the Presidency, with Ossian B. Hart being nominated for the Vice Presidency. The Democratic-Republican soon held its own Convention in Atlanta, Georgia from July 4th - July 7th. The Convention contained a decently long list of candidates, with those being Vice President Francis E. Spinner, former President John Adams Dix, Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, Speaker of the House James L. Orr, Attorney General William Marvin, and little-known, but rising star Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire.

The 56 year old Pierce, a former Senator from New Hampshire, was able to win the nomination by the Democratic-Republican Party on the 13th ballot. Because of the recent Workingman's-Democratic merger, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois was selected as Pierces running-mate, though James L. Orr was chosen by the Democratic-Republican Party as Pierces Democratic running-mate, had Trumbull not gotten enough support.

Campaign
The years before the election, the United States saw the economy boom following the recession during Henry Clay's Presidency. It also saw a rise in the popularity of expansionism and Imperialism. During his eight years in office, President Henry S. Foote pursued controversial policies, like supporting Women's suffrage, vetoing the second National bank, and admitting several low population states, all with

a bias towards the Democratic-Republican Party. But still, President Foote remained popular with the general population. Pierce was able to ride off of Foote's general popularity while campaigning, despite the twos heavy dislike for one another. Pierce campaigned heavily on the extremely good economy, and its quick and steady recovery during Foote's Presidency, which Pierce contributed to the Democratic-Republican party and its policies of low tariffs, and opposing the National bank. Thus, Pierce threw his support behind policies like low tariffs, and opposition to the National bank, while also granting a vague endorsement of Women's rights, yet never spoke on the issue until it was granted by the Supreme Court. Tallmadge on the other hand, being a former Democratic-Republican also supported low tariffs, but was forced to compromise on many issues to satisfy the Federalists in his coalition. Tallmadge's main campaign issue he spoke on was his support for a National Bank, countering Pierce on the issue.

Pierce was heavily criticized by Tallmadge and the Federal Republicans, and by many within his own party, for flip-flopping on many key issues during his campaign. Pierces central campaign talk to keep the Workingman's-Democratic coalition was on the National bank and Tariffs, which he strongly opposed just like the rest of the coalition, but the two were his only two true policies he stuck on. Pierce once spoke for Arizona-New Mexico unification but by the time of the election, came to oppose it in line with the Democratic platform; he defended slavery in the 1830s and 1840s but then claimed to oppose it: He claimed he supported women’s suffrage but never commented on the issue until it was granted by the Supreme Court.

Result
Many Newspapers and organizations initially called the election for Tallmadge and the Federal Republicans. Pierce in a speech initially conceded the race, and said his congratulations to Tallmadge for his victory. Though, his campaign advisors soon rushed to him begging him to stop, as they had found that the results in Missouri were too close to call, and if it were to flip to Pierce, he would just narrowly win the election. A recount was then ordered in Missouri, and by the end of the counting, Pierce had just narrowly won the state. Tallmadge, like Pierce had done before him, had quickly conceded defeat, wishing Pierce good luck in his Presidency.

Thousands of Prohibitionists in support of Prohibition candidate Neal Dow claimed that intimidation has occurred at the polls, as well as fraud to hurt Dow's chances at winning. protests by Dow supporters quickly turned violent, and the riots were quickly suppressed by multiple state governments.

Inauguration
Several weeks prior to the inauguration, the President-elect and his family scheduled a trip by train to rural New Hampshire for a final sojourn prior to four years in the nation's highest office; the next day, defeated candidate Nathaniel P. Tallmadge arrived to confront Pierce, the first time they ever met. Tallmadge claimed he had had a premonition of danger and begged Pierce not to go on the train, saying: "You may have defeated me for the Presidency, sir, but I cannot let ill fall upon you." Dismissing the ghost-obsessed former candidate as crazy, he had him removed by the police.

On February 8th, 1861, less than a month prior to President-elect Pierce's inauguration he boarded a train car with his wife Jane and 19 year old son Benjamin Pierce. The train car derailed and imploded as Pierce's last sight prior to losing consciousness was the corpses of his wife and child. Pierce himself was not spared injury, suffering from several fractures and a concussion, the after effects of which would plague him with chronic pain throughout his presidency. Released from the hospital only 5 days prior to his inauguration to the nation's highest office, the alcoholism Pierce had so proudly bragged of defeating returned with a vengeance, with him found passed out his desk with an empty bottle of whiskey the night before his inauguration.

As a depressed and hungover Pierce rose to deliver his inaugural address, his eyes still red, the crowd remained silent, some even apparently fell to tears. At 133 words, Pierce's inaugural address of vague platitudes was the shortest in American history, even shorter than George Washington's second.

Administration
The sympathy for Pierce began to wash away as his cabinet took office, with both major factions of the New York Democratic-Republicans brushed over in favor of States' Rights aligned Democrat Daniel S. Dickinson for Secretary of the Treasury. Only William Marvin was carried over from the Foote Administration. Former Confederate Congressman Joseph Lane was chosen as Attorney General, with William K. Sebastian of Arkansas at the Department of War being the sole Douglas ally appointed. In a concession to the radically pro-civil rights wing of the party, Benjamin F. Butler, a young pro-slavery yet pro-racial equality Democrat from Massachusetts was given the Secretary of the Interior post whereas Andrew Johnson, a former Workingman, was given the Postmaster Generalship. Pierce locked himself further into the cage of depression throughout his presidency, slowly drowning himself mentally in alcohol. With Vice President Lyman Trumbull being a Workingman, and later Labor Reformer, he was quickly sidelined by Pierce and often barred from cabinet meetings. It quickly became apparent that Pierce's cabinet would be the nation's governing body, and several cliques quickly formed. Daniel Dickinson, Joseph Lane, and Benjamin Butler formed the first-vociferously pro-slavery; the second was that of the Douglas and Foote allies, William K. Sebastian, William Marvin, and later Robert J. Walker; the final were the actual Pierce allies, those who attempted to further empower the presidency, Benjamin Fitzpatrick and later James Guthrie. A final clique went unrepresented in his cabinet but was present in a number of his Ambassadorial appointments, most notably Ambassador to China John P. Hale, this group strongly opposed Dickinson and the expansionist, pro-slavery clique of Dickinson.

Dickinson quickly began to rise to prominence, with Pierce taking his advice on patronage appointees such as Preston King, a Van Buren aligned anti-slavery Democrat whom he fired, and Caleb Cushing, a vocally anti-women's suffrage Federal Republican whom Pierce nonetheless buoyed to the office of Collector of the Port of Boston. This behavior began to further increase the tide of support for civil service reform, with former President John Adams Dix becoming a popular speaker on the matter. In a last ditch attempt to save Pierce from his alcoholism, an aging Sam Houston was brought to the White House to do to Pierce what Burr had done to Houston-for naught, Pierce refused the aid, cementing a schism between Houston and Pierce. Dickinson's influence over Pierce led to Marvin, Fitzpatrick, and Sebastian-allies of Foote and Douglas-formulating a plot to resign, with Marvin eventually convincing Fitzpatrick and Sebastian not to do so yet so as to maintain a spot in the Cabinet.

The resignation led to Dickinson's promotion to Secretary of State, where he would be considered the Administration's primary driver for the rest of the term. The cabinet remained fairly balanced until the prelude to the election of 1864-dominated by Dickinson but with the voices of Sebastian and others in dissent-bar the appointment of Robert J. Walker. One of Henry Foote's closest friends, Walker remained Dickinson's rival throughout the term until a month prior to the 1864 Democratic-Republican National Convention, when Walker, Sebastian, and Fitzpatrick were fired after accusations of attempting to aid the movement to prevent Pierce's renomination-highly credible in Walker's case but much less so in the case of Sebastian and Fitzpatrick. But Pierce surprises many by going even farther and firing almost his entire cabinet, which some take as a sign of anger at what he viewed as Dickinson overreaching his bounds during the depths of Pierce's depression, which Pierce has revealed he has somewhat recovered from with the aid of his close friend Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Pierce appointed those who attempted to empower him over Dickinson yet rejected influence from outside the Administration, even reconciling with Sebastian and appointing anti-slavery Democrats such as local rival John P. Hale and Curtis H. Brogden. Although Pierce has allowed several Dickinson allies such as Ambassador to Brazil John C. Breckinridge to maintain their posts, he has asserted his presidential independence and discarded the influence of Dickinson, leading Horace Greeley to write: "the presidency of Franklin Pierce began the day Daniel Dickinson departed from the White House."

Days after the firing of Daniel Dickinson, Pierce began to make moves reforming the civil service and making more appointments merit based, as well as removing some patronage power from the Secretary of State.

Judicial appointments
Justice John McLean, appointed in 1827, resigned from the Court to become Secretary of State in 1861; McLean was replaced with 69 year old former Secretary of State William O. Butler.

Justice James L. Petigru, appointed in 1840, died in 1862 at age 73; Petigru was replaced with 43 year old Indiana Congressman Joseph E. McDonald.

Justice Hannibal Hamlin, appointed in 1853, resigned from the Court to accept a Senate seat in 1863; Hamlin was replaced with 64 year old Andrew J. Donelson of Tennessee.

Justice Marcus Morton, appointed in 1848, died in 1864 and was replaced with 59 year old former New York Mayor George Opdyke.

In all, Pierce appointed four Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Economics
Although economic growth saw a significant slow since 1859, the economy was able to remain extremely strong in the aftermath of the Panic of 1849, with westward expansion fueling a historic boom unlike ever seen before in American History.

Following the Federalist victory in the 1862 midterms, Congress passed the Seward Tariff raising the average tariff rate from 15% to 34%, but Pierce vetoed the bill despite the efforts of Dickinson to urge Pierce to sign it, this proved a significant moment in the two mens rift. In a form of protest and a means of clogging the legislative pipeline, Federalists repeatedly introduced resolutions to recharter the National bank. Each one was defeated, with the bank being left conclusively dead.

Civil Rights & Native Rights
Pierce's record on Civil Rights was not comparable to that of Foote, Dix, or other Democratic-Republican Presidents. In his 1862 State of the Union Address, Pierce praised the gradual abolition amendment yet declared his commitment to "Southern property rights, so long as they persist." He made no attempts to pass civil rights legislation or a constitutional amendment prohibiting Black Codes, although Vice President Trumbull campaigned for both. The exception to this was the military, which, under the guidance of Dickinson, made further efforts to ensure the equal treatment of black soldiers.

Gaining the ire of Sam Houston, Pierce presided over a watershed moment in American relations toward Native Americans, authorizing the first Native Removal since the Monroe Administration and rejecting the "civilizing" policy taken by post-Houston Presidents. Pierce and the administration sided against the Natives in quite literally every case brought to the federal government.

Hollow Earth
In 1862, the polar expedition that began as a mission to discover whether the Earth was hollow returned from its voyage to the Earth's peak with a definitive conclusion: the Earth was not hollow. This was generally accepted by all and promoted by the Pierce Administration, along with the expedition's reports about the polar regions increasing support for purchasing Alaska.

There was a dissenter from the consensus on the Hollow Earth-a young sailor named Ignatius L. Donnelly, less than 30 when he joined the voyage. Donnelly had begun to claim that he discovered that the Earth truly was hollow but the rest of the crew has covered it up, although he has failed to gain traction so far he is becoming an increasingly public figure and has revealed that he was writing a book revealing his side of the expedition.

Other issues
Upon entering into office, Pierce has a variety of goals. One of which was to significantly reduce the National debt. He immediately worked alongside his Secretary of Treasury Daniel S. Dickinson, and later Robert J. Walker and Andrew Johnson, to reduce the National Debt. The national debt reached the lowest level in American history, but it was predicted to begin to rise soon enough once compensated emancipation began in full in 1869.

Emphasized by the efforts of the President, construction on the transcontinental railroad was able to speed up significantly under the supervision of former President Dix, whom Pierce reluctantly permitted to continue leading the effort, despite the twos horrible relationship following Pierces refusal to endorse Civil service reform.

In 1861 Silver was found in Nevada, one of the states populated by former slaves who served in the First Mexican-American War, this caused a vast tide of migration into the state, including some from slave states. The issue of whether slaves taken to free states become free has risen, with Pierce tacitly arguing they do not. The case of Gordon Peter v. Braxton Bragg was expected to likely to settle this issue, with Bragg having taken his slave, Gordon Peter, into the free state of New Mexico.

Pierce authorized General William T. Sherman, commander of troops in Cuba, to use any means necessary to quell the independence movement on the island, citing the precedent of Troup v. United States as evidence of secession being illegal.

The Mexican Civil War
After years of tension culminating in a disputed election in early 1862, Civil War broke out in Mexico between the Liberals led by Benito Juárez and Conservatives led by Leonardo Márquez. The intervention clause in the Treaty of Peralvillo was added by President Dix exactly for the reason-to intervene on behalf of Mexican Liberals. Former Presidents Foote, Dix, and Houston co-signed a letter calling for intervention in Mexico. Under the direction of Secretary of State Dickinson, Pierce approved a military intervention in Mexico, sending 5,000 troops under the command of General P. G. T. Beauregard and co-led by John C. Frémont and Thomas C. Hindman. The troops were authorized only to act in the Mexican Civil War against Conservative troops, with fears of European intervention leading to an order to only engage Mexicans. French Emperor Napoleon III's new government quickly found the Mexican conflict as a way to test the Adams Doctrine and bolster French credentials abroad. Under the pretense of observing the war in Mexico to ensure Mexico debts to France were paid, the French deployed troops to the nation, ostensibly as observers.

Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, took a chance and collaborated with New York Times editor Henry J. Raymond to send an investigative reporting team consisting of German correspondent and political theorist Karl Marx, writer Edgar Allan Poe, and journalists Whitelaw Reid & Margaret Fuller. The group sent a series of stories detailing the involvement of French troops in the War throughout 1862, with the usually pacifistic Greeley attacking Pierce in his editorials for refusing to authorize anti-French action.

After a diplomatic stalemate with Ambassador to France William C. Rives and French Ambassador to the United States Charles de Lorencez, Pierce reluctantly approved an order to authorize U.S. forces to engage the French in October of 1862. The American troops only served in several battles directly against the French but the tension grew as complete war seemed imminent. Ambassador Rives resigned in protest of the tensions and was replaced with a confidant of Dickinson and former States' Rights Party Senator, Robert Toombs, whose reputation of alcoholism rivaled Pierce's; Toombs was ultimately recalled in January of 1863. War itself did not directly break out, but throughout 1863 American and French troops clashed without an official declaration, with trade between the two nations suspended indefinitely. The war culminated in March of 1864 with the Battle of Loma Alta, with 7,000 American troops and 11,000 French in attendance-though the French outnumbered the Americans, Liberal Mexican forces outnumbered the Conservatives and the Liberal-American Coalition proved successful, with the increasingly unpopular French intervention withdrawing by 1865 as the Americans greatly decreased their troops strength.

Brazil
American abolitionist John Brown led a slave revolt in Brazil, eventually gathering a strength of over 1,000 slaves and captured several towns prior to a harsh reprisal by the Brazilian Monarchy, who hanged several of Brown's associates and resold the slaves to slavery, Brown himself escaped and his whereabouts were unknown. Under the influence of American Ambassador John C. Breckinridge and Secretary of State Dickinson, the Pierce Administration declared their complete support for the Brazilian government. This led to a movement calling for the annexation of Brazil, supported both by abolitionists who intended to abolish slavery in Brazil and pro-slavery Southerners such as Breckinridge who hope to preserve slavery in the nation.

Alaska
Pierce, being an ardent expansionist, strongly supported and endorsed the annexation of Alaska, which was owned by the Empire of Russia. He sent Secretary of State Dickinson to open negotiations on purchasing Alaska from Russia, but the talks stalled for the duration of his entire Presidency.

Scott Letters
Former President Winfield Scott rose once more to the fore of the American political debate with a series of anti-war letters known simply as the "Scott letters," given credence by Scott's role in command of the American forces that ended the Civil War. Scott denounced Pierce and the Democratic-Republicans in general as reckless, accusing them of jumping into conflicts as they, he claimed: "lack knowledge of how terrible war truly is."

Election of 1864
Weeks prior to the Democratic-Republican convention of 1864, President Pierce began to reverse his slide into depression and alcoholism, firing almost every cabinet member for aiding in attempts to prevent his renomination and removing Secretary of State Daniel Dickinson, whom many accused at the time, of ruling the nation while Pierce drank, and his allies from power. Appointing his allies, Pierce tried making an attempt to save his presidency that had to try to withstand challenges from a vengeful Dickinson, two living former Presidents, and the late former President Sam Houston.

On the 31st ballot, Pierce lost the nomination to famous war hero Pierre G.T. Beauregard of Louisiana, with Hannibal Hamlin of Maine being chosen as his running-mate. Pierce then fell back into his alcoholism, and never recovered.

The Democratic-Republican ticket of Beauregard and Hamlin went on to lose the Presidential Election of 1864, and a Democratic-Republican never again won the Presidency.