The Presidents #14: Franklin Pierce

[Ardent15]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce

Discuss him and his Presidency.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Related to Barbara Pierce Bush. Pronounced 'purse'. His VP was in Cuba when sworn in. nt

[The_Commonist]

3. Funny how people from that family...

...are generally considered to be among the worst presidents in history.
Northerners with southern sympathies, alcoholic charmers.
Of course, Pierce was a smart guy, and he wasn't a chickenhawk.
He actually served, in the Mexican-American war.
He was one of those guys, like too many, who should never have been president.

[Arkana]

2. Probably the saddest President we've ever had.

Pierce arrived in Washington beloved by everyone and left it almost universally reviled. His son Bennie was killed on the train to DC, but he and his wife were left uninjured.

His insane, fervently religious wife Jane decided it was a sign from God that Pierce needed no distractions to his Presidency, and ordered the White House draped in black the entire time the Pierces occupied it.

Pierce died a drunk and a forgotten man in New Hampshire not long after his Presidency.

[Alexander]

4. The second dark horse president. The Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed his presidency.

He was the last Democratic president to be succeeded by another Democrat due to an election.

His VP William Rufus De Vane King had tuberculosis before his inauguration (he was in Cuba recuperating and was sworn in on foreign soil) and died about a month into his term. For almost his entire presidency, Pierce had no VP.

[Renew Deal]

5. The earliest "Bush" president

:banghead:

[FarLeftRage]

6. He will be on the next dollar coin...

First to affirm the oath of office, rather than swear it and the first to have a full-time bodyguard.

[Zynx]

7. Arguably the worst president. He actually did more to help bring on the Civil War than Buchanan did.

Helping push the Kansas-Nebraska Act comes to mind.

[Captain Hilts]

9. YES!!!!

[asdjrocky]

8. Died a shut in alcoholic.

I'm hoping the same for Georgie boy.

[Jack Rabbit]

11. Well, I'm hoping Gee Dubya ends up a shut in . . .

. . . preferably in a federal pen.

[craigmatic]

10. He was weak and emotionally unstable after his son died on the way to D.C. n/t

[saltpoint]

12. Franklin Pierce is one of the most compelling presidents we've had because

his administration was politically disastrous.

He died an obscure alcoholic.

But what counts with Pierce is his interpersonal skills. This having nothing to do with politics, he was evidently a very genuine human being.

Julian Hawthorne (son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was the president's friend and 'biographer'), wrote this about Franklin Pierce:

- - -

“There was a winning, irresistible magnetism in the presence of this man. Except my father, there was no man in whose company I liked to be so much as in his. I had little to say to him, and demanded nothing more than a silent recognition from him, but his voice, his looks, his gestures, his gait, the spiritual sphere of him, were delightful to me; and I suspect that his rise to the highest office in our nation was due quite as much to this power or quality in him as to any intellectual or even executive ability that he may have possessed. He was a good, conscientious, patriotic, strong, man and gentle and tender as a woman. He had the old-fashioned ways, the courtesy, and the personal dignity which are not often seen nowadays. His physical frame was immensely powerful and athletic, but life used him hard and he was far from considerate of himself, and he died at 65, when he might under more favorable conditions have rounded out his century.”

- - -

Julian Hawthorne, who clearly was addressing Pierce the person and not Pierce the president, was 15 years old when he wrote that.

[BlueIris]

13. I've always been fascinated by Pierce's presidency. It was sabotaged before it even began

by that bizarre train accident. He got the wrong cabinet, he got screwed.

I'm not saying his approach would have worked to stop the Civil War, or even that the approach was valid, but he's one of those I often wonder about. What would he have been, how different would our country be, if not for that one horrific tragedy?

[saltpoint]

14. Yes. Jane blamed her husband for not being entirely honest about

seeking the presidency and logically (for her, I mean) believed God was punishing them for his political pursuits by killing their son in the train accident. She would make a terrific subject of a film. It would have to be an indie, as Hollywood likely wouldn't think it was a sexy enough story.

The biographers say she largely refused to live in the White House during his presidency and spent a good deal of her days writing letters to Bennie.

And when your Secretary of War is Jefferson Davis, the political front is bound to be contentious and prickly.

[WeDidIt]

15. Doughface. n/t

[saltpoint]

16. I'd like to have a pair of Franklin Pierce mudflaps.

Life's short. Flair matters.