USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume III > Part 21
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It was under these conditions and with such prospects that the National Democratic Convention met in Baltimore on the Ist of June. There had been much discussion and more or less of intrigue on the part of the leaders for months preceding the convention. Naturally the leading candidate for the presidential nomination was Gen. Lewis Cass of Michigan who had been defeated by the Van Buren or Barnburner defection of 1848. The candidacy of James Buchanan of Pennsylvania was being urged by his friends, as was also that of Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and William L. Marcy of New York, but if the two-thirds rule was to continue in force, the nomination of either of these candi- dates was hardly expected either by their friends or by the public. The "dark horse" experience of 1844 loomed up threaten- ingly. As was expected the two-thirds rule was adopted by an overwhelming majority. The struggle over the nomination was a protracted one, no less than forty-nine ballots being had before
Franklin Perce
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a choice was made. On the first ballot General Cass had 116; James Buchanan 95; William L. Marcy 27; Stephen A. Douglas 20; Joseph Lane 13; Samuel Houston 8, and there were 4 scatter- ing. The number necessary to a choice was 188. In the succeed- ing ballots up to the twenty-ninth, the vote for Gen. Cass fell off while that for Mr. Douglas steadily increased, the 29th trial re- sulting : Cass 27; Buchanan 93; Douglas 91 ; no other candidate receiving more than 26. Cass then began to gain, until on the 35th ballot he received his largest number of votes, 131. It was on this the 35th trial that Virginia gave her 15 votes for Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, whose name then appeared for the first time in the list of candidates. On the 36th ballot he received 30 votes, and the subsequent increase in his vote was small, his vote on the 48th ballot being 55; Cass 73; Buchanan 28; Douglas 33; Marcy 90; all others 8. The break or stampede came on the next, the 49th ballot, when 282 votes were cast for Pierce to six for all others.
Franklin Pierce was born in Hillsborough, Nov. 23, 1804, the fourth son of Benjamin and Anna (Kendrick) Pierce. Benjamin Pierce was a native of Massachusetts, a soldier in the War of the Revolution, holding the rank of captain and brevet major. After the declaration of peace he removed to New Hampshire, locating near what is now Hillsborough. He was twice married. His second wife, mother of his son Franklin, was Anna Kendrick of Amherst. Benjamin Pierce was an active public spirited citizen of his adopted state. He became sheriff of Hillsborough County, a member of the state legislature, of the Governor's Council, and was twice elected governor, as a Democrat, first in 1827, and again in 1829. He was a Democrat of the Jeffersonian school, a strict constructionist in the interpretation of the Constitution, a partisan of the rights of the states as against a tendency to centralization of power in the Federal Government. Governor Pierce was for years recognized as one of the most influential, if not indeed the most influential citizen of his state. He died in 1839. His son Franklin received his academic education in the Hancock, Francestown and Exeter institutions, and in 1820 be- fore he had completed his sixteenth year entered Bowdoin Col- lege, from which he graduated in 1824, the third in his class. Among the students at Bowdoin during his course were Nathaniel Hawthorne, his classmate, biographer and life-long friend, Henry
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W. Longfellow, Sergeant S. Prentiss, orator and legislator, Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, and John P. Hale, his future political rival. After graduation he began the study of law in the office of Levi Woodbury of Portsmouth, remaining there about a year. He then spent two years in a law school in Northampton, Mass., and in the office of Judge Edmund Parker at Amherst, was ad- mitted to the bar in 1827, at the age of twenty-three, and began practice in Hillsborough. He became interested in politics and ardently espoused the cause of Andrew Jackson, and in 1829 was elected to represent Hillsborough in the legislature, was re- elected in 1830, 1831 and 1832, the last two years serving as Speaker of the House. In 1833 he was elected to the National House of Representatives, was re-elected in 1835, and in his four year's service was a member of the judiciary and other im- portant committees. In 1834 he married Miss Jane Means Apple- ton, daughter of President Appleton of Bowdoin. In 1837 he was elected to the United States Senate, and took his seat at the beginning of the Van Buren administration, the youngest mem- ber of that body. On account of the ill health of his wife he resigned his seat in June, 1842, and returned to New Hampshire to resume the practice of his profession. Four years previously he had changed his residence from Hillsborough to Concord. In 1845 he declined the offer of an appointment by Governor Steele to fill a vacancy in the Senate. He had previously declined a nomination by the Democratic State Convention for governor. He was offered by President Polk the position of Attorney- General, a position which undoubtedly was greatly in harmony with his professional aspirations. His letter of declination was characteristic of the man. In it he wrote :
Although the early years of my manhood were devoted to public life, I was never really suited to my task. I longed, as I am sure you must often have done, for the quiet and independence that belong only to the private citizen; and now at forty, I feel that desire stronger than ever. When I resigned my seat in the Senate in 1842, I did it with the fixed pur- pose never again to be voluntarily separated from my family for any con- siderable length of time, except at the call of my country in time of war. You will, I am sure, appreciate my motives. You will not believe that I have weighed my personal convenience and ease against the public interest, especially as the office is one which, if not sought, would be readily accepted by gentlemen who could bring to your aid attainments and quali- fications vastly superior to mine."
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There is no doubt that at this time it was his purpose to spend his life in private and professional toil, except as he had written "at the call of my country in time of war." That time was nearer at hand than he then anticipated. In 1846, when war was declared with Mexico, he enlisted as a private in a volunteer company organized at Concord; was soon after com- missioned colonel of the Ninth Infantry, on March 3, 1847 was commissioned brigadier-general in the Volunteer Army, and on March 27 embarked for Mexico, arriving at Vera Cruz June 28. He joined General Scott with his brigade, Aug. 6, 1847, and soon after set out for the capture of the city of Mexico. He took part in the battle of Contreras, Sept. 19, 1847, in which engagement he was severely injured by being thrown from his horse. In spite of injuries of a most serious character, he per- sisted in remaining on duty in the subsequent operations of the army. His conduct and services were spoken of in the highest terms by his superior officers, Generals Scott, Worth and Pillow. Previous to the battle of Molino del Rey he was appointed one of the American Commissioners in an effort for peace, a truce having been declared for that purpose. This failing, fighting was renewed. He participated in the decisive battle of Molino del Rey, and continued on duty until the declaration of peace. He resigned his commission in March, 1848, and returned to Con- cord. In that same month the legislature of his state voted him a sword-of-honor in appreciation of his military service. He resumed his practice, a highly successful one. In 1850 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention which met at Con- cord to amend the Constitution of the State and was chosen its presiding officer. He favored the removal of the religious test clause by which Roman Catholics were disqualified from holding office, and also the abolition of any "property qualification" what- ever. It was largely by his personal influence that these two amendments were carried in the convention, but were later de- feated by the people at the polls.
At the Democratic State Convention in January, 1852, a declaration in favor of his nomination for President was made, but in a letter dated January 12, he positively refused to permit the state delegation to present his name. He wrote to his friend Charles G. Atherton, a member of the New Hampshire delega- tion to the convention :
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I am far from being insensible to the generous confidence, so often manifested towards me by the people of this state; and although the object indicated in the resolution, having particular reference to myself, be not one of desire on my part, the expression is not on that account less grati- fying.
Doubtless, the spontaneous and just appreciation of an intelligent peo- ple is the best earthly reward for earnest and cheerful service to ones state and country; and while it is a matter of unfeigned regret that my life has been so barren of usefulness, I shall ever hold this and similar tributes among my cherished recollections.
To these, my sincere and grateful acknowledgments, I desire to add, that the same motives which induced me several years ago, to retire from pub- lic life, and which since that time, controlled my judgment in this respect, now impel me to say that the use of my name, in any event, before the Democratic national convention at Baltimore, to which you are a delegate would be utterly repugnant to my tastes and wishes.
With this letter, so far as the personal attitude of Gen. Pierce was concerned, the incident was closed. New Hampshire in deference to his wish did not present his name. Virginia contrary to his wish did present it, after it became evident that no one of the candidates before the convention could win, and he was nominated. The nomination was made deliberately. There was no stampede. Franklin Pierce was no dark horse. His position on the vital issues of the day was well known. He was a Demo- crat, an unswerving adherent of the doctrines of the party enun- ciated by Jefferson and Madison. While a member of the House he had enthusiastically supported President Jackson's veto of the Maysville Road bill, a measure which was part of a system of vast public works, chiefly railroads and canals, which it was proposed to undertake at the expense of the national treasury, a policy which had been fostered by President John Quincy Adams, and which had gained large favor at the close of his administration. The cost of works undertaken or projected at the beginning of the Jackson administration amounted to more than a hundred millions of dollars, an enormous sum for that time. The ground of the support of the veto by the young Congressman was that the expenditure of this sum, and of other incalculable amounts, in progressive increase, by agents and officers of the government, and for purposes of unascertained utility, would be not only a means of political corruption, but from its tendency to consolidate the powers of government towards a common centre, a peril to the individuality of states.
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When Jackson declared war against this system in his famous Maysville veto, one of his staunchest supporters was the youthful Congressman from New Hampshire. He doubted the constitu- tional power of Congress to undertake by building roads through the wilderness, or opening up unfrequented rivers, to create commerce where it did not yet exist. At the same time he never questioned both the right and duty of the general government to remove obstructions in the way of inland trade and to afford it every facility when the nature and necessity of things had brought such trade into existence. In 1836 he spoke against a bill making appropriations for the military academy at West Point, contending that the institution was aristocratic in its ten- dencies, that a professional soldiery and standing armies are always dangerous to the liberties of the people, and that in war the best reliance of a republic is upon her citizen militia. When, however, years afterwards, he was baptized into the soldier life in the battle smoke of Mexico, he frankly acknowledged himself to have been in the wrong, and West Point, as an institution, found no warmer defender than himself. In December, 1835, he spoke and voted against receiving petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. This was not because he loved or defended slavery for slavery's sake. He loved the Union, the Union of the States as guaranteed by the Constitution, and from the stand he took on the slavery question at that time he never subsequently swerved. The situation has been ad- mirably and tersely described by the late Oliver E. Branch, a constitutional lawyer of acknowledged ability, in his oration at the dedication of the Pierce statue in Concord in November, 1914:
"When the Federal Constitution was framed and adopted, slavery was of necessity recognized as an ineluctable part of the social and political system, which must be so regarded, and consequently allowed and pro- tected. The Federal Union could not be created without the concurrence of the southern states, nor the Federal Constitution adopted without their votes, and to have proposed and insisted at that critical time, even had there been any great sentiment in favor of it, that slavery could be abolished, would have been equivalent to saying that there should be no Federal Union and Constitution.
"And so upon the quicksands of slavery was built the majestic temple of liberty. Such a condition of things was of course an anomaly. Here was a people that proposed a new era in government. They announced as the foundation principle of that government, the largest freedom to
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all consistent with the rights of all, and that 'all men are endowed by their Creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' And yet that people actuated by the purest motives and the highest patriotism, and proclaiming a code of political principles, as luminous as a star, were by an overmastering necessity, compelled at the very outset of their career to violate and affront those principles when put into practical operation, by preserving and fostering under their organic law an institution as dark as 'Erebus and old Night.' There was one capital defect in the Federal Constitution. It left the question in dispute whether the states constituted a nation, an indissoluble union of indestructible states, or a mere confederation of absolutely independent states, which had re- served to themselves the same choice and power to withdraw from the Union, when in their judgment they saw fit, as they had to join it in the beginning. The former is the true theory, said the North; the latter is the true theory, said the South. Nor was the South alone in her inter- pretation of the nature of Union. It prevailed to a large extent in the North among Democrats, Whigs, Republicans and Abolitionists. It was a question of constitutional law, which neither Webster nor Calhoun could decide, but so long as an honest difference of opinion was possible, so long the stability of the government and the permanence of the Union were imperiled. Naturally Mr. Pierce's point of view in re- gard to these great questions was that of the trained constitutional lawyer, who believed that the safety and perpetuity of the Union absolutely de- pended upon a strict adherence to the Federal Constitution, and the decisions of the supreme court in cases where those laws were involved, and that if the restraints of the Constitution and of the courts upon the powers of Congress were destroyed, the destruction of the Union would be the unescapable consequence and result."
Franklin Pierce never defended the institution of slavery for slavery's sake. He was confronted by slavery firmly intrenched in half the states of the Union, protected and buttressed by the Federal Constitution, the Federal Statutes, the decisions of the Supreme Court, representing millions of money invested in slaves, and threatened secession and disruption of the Union if the right to hold slaves was assailed. With him the Union, its integrity, its perpetuity was first. After his retirement from official public life on his resignation from the Senate, there was nothing equivocal in his position on political questions. He advocated the annexation of Texas, declaring that while he pre- ferred it free he would take it with slavery rather than not have it at all. When John P. Hale accepted a Democratic nomination to Congress in a letter denouncing annexation, Pierce was prime mover in calling another convention which repudiated Hale and nominated another candidate. In October, 1850, after the enact-
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ment by Congress of the famous Compromise measures of that year, the Democratic State Convention of New Hampshire nom- inated for governor Rev. John Atwood on a platform fully and unreservedly endorsing the Compromise measures. Mr. Atwood accepted the nomination, but it was subsequently learned that he had been cajoled into writing a letter in which he denounced the Fugitive Slave Act-one of the Compromise measures-as unjust, oppressive and unconstitutional. The publication of this letter was being held back by the opponents of the Democratic party till the eve of the election. This letter he repudiated, and then repudiated his repudiation. Gen. Pierce, the acknowledged leader of his party in his state, secured the call of another con- vention and at the risk of party success, the repudiation of Mr. Atwood and the nomination of another candidate, who though failing of an election by the people was elected by the legislature. Gen. Pierce championed the Compromise measures of 1850, and zealously defended Webster from the attacks made on him for his famous Seventh of March speech. By degrees the excite- ment over the Compromise measures had subsided and at the beginning of 1852 there had come to be a general acquiescence in them, sullen and half hearted in some quarters-as a final settle- ment of the slavery question.
The platform adopted by the convention was made up of the previous platforms of the party with some additions. The first, second, fourth, fifth and seventh planks of the platform of 1840 covered the questions of internal improvements, tariff, revenue and slavery, and were as follows :
"I. Resolved, that the federal government is one of limited powers derived solely from the Constitution, and the grants of power shown therein ought to be strictly construed by all the departments and agents . of the government, and that it is inexpedient and dangerous to exercise doubtful constitutional powers.
"2. Resolved, that the Constitution does not confer upon the general government the power to commence or carry on a general system of in- ternal improvement.
"4. Resolved, that justice and sound policy forbid the federal govern- ment to foster one branch of industry to the detriment of another, or to cherish the interest of one portion to the injury of another portion of our country ; that every citizen and every section of the country has a right to demand and insist upon an cquality of rights and privileges, and to complete an ample protection of person and property from domestic violence or foreign aggression.
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"5. Resolved, that it is the duty of every branch of the government to enforce and practice the most rigid economy in conducting our public affairs, and that no more revenue ought to be raised than is required to defray the necessary expenses of the government.
"7. Resolved, that Congress has no power, under the Constitution, to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything per- taining to their own affairs not prohibited by the Constitution; that all efforts of the Abolitionists, or others, made to induce Congress to inter- fere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous results, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people, and endanger the permanence and stability of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend to our political institutions."
The Democratic platform of 1844 and 1848 contained these same planks as did the platform of 1852 upon which Gen. Pierce was nominated, but the seventh resolution of 1840 above quoted was in 1852 supplemented by two others on the same subject, viz. :
"Resolved, that the foregoing proposition covers, and is intended to embrace, the whole subject of slavery agitated in Congress; and therefore the Democratic party of the Union, standing on this national platform, will abide by, and adhere to, a faithful execution of the acts known as the 'compromise' measures settled by the last Congress,-the act for re- claiming fugitives from service or labor included; which act being designed to carry out an express provision of the Constitution, cannot with fidelity thereto be repealed, nor so changed as to destroy or impair its efficiency.
"Resolved, that the Democratic party will resist all attempts at re- newing in Congress, or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempt be made."
All this was certainly explicit, but not more so than were the resolutions intended to state the attitude of the party on the much discussed question of state sovereignty or state rights. These were:
"Resolved, that the Democratic party will faithfully abide by and uphold the principles laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1792 and '1798, and in the report of Mr. Madison to the Virginia. legislature in 1799; that it adopted those principles as constituting one of the main foundations of its political creed, and is resolved to carry them out in their obvious meaning and import.
"Resolved, that in view of the condition of popular institutions in the Old World, a high and sacred duty is devolved, with increased responsi- bility upon the Democracy of this Country, as the party of the people, to uphold and maintain the rights of every State, and thereby the union of
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States, and to sustain and advance among them constitutional liberty, by continuing to resist all monopolies and exclusive legislation for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many, and by a vigilant and constant adherence of those principles and compromises of the Constitution, which are sacred enough and strong enough to embrace and uphold the Union as it is, and the Union as it should be, in the full expansion of the energies and capacity of this great and progressive people."
This was the attitude of the party in 1852 toward the ques- tions of vital interest, and it had been the attitude of Franklin Pierce for years. It is undoubtedly true that in prominence before the country because of length or amount of public service he did not rank with several of the leading candidates for the nomination, but in the letter of notification of his nomination which the committee appointed by the convention subsequently presented him, the situation was frankly stated :
"You come before the people without the impulse of personal wishes, and free from selfish expectations. You are identified with none of the distractions which have recently disturbed our country, whilst you are known to be faithful to the Constitution-to all its guarantees and com- promises. You will be free to exercise your tried abilities, within the path of duty in protecting that repose we happily enjoy, and in giving efficiency and control to those cardinal principles that have already illus- trated the party which has selected you as its leader-principles that regard the security and prosperity of the whole country, and the paramount power of its laws, as indissolubly. associated with the perpetuity of our civil and religious liberties. It is firmly believed that to your talents and patriotism the security of our holy Union, with its expanded and expanding interests, may be wisely trusted, and that, amid all the perils which may assail the constitution, you will have the heart to love, and the arm to defend it."
To this letter Gen. Pierce made the following reply, a reply that in the light of subsequent events should be borne in mind in passing judgment on those events:
"I have the honor to acknowledge your personal kindness in presenting me, this day, your letter officially informing me of my nomination by the Democratic National Convention, as a candidate for the presidency of the United States. The surprise with which I received the intelligence of my nomination was not unmingled with painful solicitude; and yet it is proper for me to say that the manner in which it was conferred was peculiarly gratifying.
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