Franklin Pierce

Franklin Pierce was born in New Hampshire in 1804, son of Governor Benjamin Pierce, and served in the House and Senate before resigning in 1842 to practice law. After fighting as a brigadier general in the Mexican-American War, he emerged as a compromise candidate at the 1852 Democratic National Convention - a Northern Democrat palatable to Southern interests - and won the presidency easily alongside William R. King. His term unraveled quickly: the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which he signed in 1854, nullified the Missouri Compromise and ignited violent conflict over slavery's expansion westward, costing him support in the North while the South still backed him. His diplomats' Ostend Manifesto calling for Cuba's annexation drew scorn, his patronage efforts fractured his own party, and his 1856 renomination bid failed. His wife Jane battled depression and illness; all three of their children died young, the last in a train wreck weeks before his inauguration. A heavy drinker, Pierce died of cirrhosis in 1869, his reputation further sunk by his vocal attacks on Lincoln during the Civil War.