{"id":1958663,"date":"2023-06-27T20:02:02","date_gmt":"2023-06-28T00:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/franklin-pierce-a-torn-president-in-a-torn-country\/"},"modified":"2023-06-27T20:05:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-28T00:05:04","slug":"franklin-pierce-a-torn-president-in-a-torn-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/franklin-pierce-a-torn-president-in-a-torn-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Franklin Pierce: A President Divided in a Divided Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffranklin-pierce-a-torn-president-in-a-torn-country%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1958663&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Franklin Pierce: A President Who Deepened the Divide<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While Franklin Pierce was widely regarded as a kind and friendly person, his presidency would destabilize the fragile peace between the North and the South, according to Joseph Forneri, professor of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-democrat-introduces-bill-to-ban-trump-from-capitol-for-life\/\" title=\"House Democrat Introduces Bill to Ban Trump from Capitol for Life\">political science<\/a> at the Rochester Institute of Technology.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>A Promising Start<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Franklin Pierce was born in New Hampshire near the turn of the 19th century, and was the son of Benjamin Pierce, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Benjamin distinguished himself at the Battle of Saratoga and was renowned as a war hero \u2013 he would later serve as governor of New Hampshire, and Franklin spent much of his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/obama-criticizes-former-wh-doctor-for-questioning-joe-bidens-cognitive-health\/\" title=\"Obama Criticizes Former WH Doctor for Questioning Joe Biden\u2019s Cognitive Health\">early <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/breaking-arizona-state-rep-issues-call-to-withhold-states-electoral-college-votes-to-joe-biden-due-to-significant-evidence-of-fraud\/\" title=\"BREAKING: Arizona State Rep Issues Call to Withhold State's Electoral College Votes to Joe Biden Due to Significant Evidence of Fraud\">political career<\/a><\/a> in his father\u2019s shadow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pierce began his political career shortly after graduating from college in 1824 \u2013 by 1829 he was elected to the New Hampshire state legislature and by 1832 he had been elected to Congress. By 1837 he was the youngest member of the Senate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe overriding political issue of the day was slavery,\u201d Forneri said. \u201cWhile not a slave owner himself, Pierce believed that the constitution committed the federal government to protecting slavery. Not surprisingly, Pierce\u2019s position endeared him to his Southern Colleagues. This support was key to his political career.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>A Turning Point<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">By 1842, financial concerns and his wife\u2019s chronic illness compelled him to resign from the Senate and take a step back from any electoral ambitions, although in political terms he arguably became more powerful during this period as he emerged as an influential apparatchik and Democratic party boss in New Hampshire.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">However, the seizure of large swaths of the Southwestern United States after the Mexican-American War destabilized the delicate balance of power between slave and free states and created an opportunity for a man like Pierce to achieve national prominence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A tentative compromise was reached in 1850 which admitted California to the Union as a free state and left the status of the New Mexico and Utah territories indeterminate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThat\u2019s where things stood when Franklin Pierce, through an improbable series of circumstances, became America\u2019s 14th president,\u201d Forneri said.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>A Surprising Rise to Power<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWhen the Democratic convention opened in June 1852 in Baltimore Pierce was not even a dark horse candidate \u2013 he wasn\u2019t a horse at all,\u201d Forneri explained. However, a continual deadlock between candidates representing different regional interests created an opening for Pierce, a Northerner who would protect Southern slavery.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pierce was selected as the Democratic nominee on the 49th ballot and coasted to a victory in the general election, as the rival Whig party was even more sharply divided on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/watch-making-america-thomas-jefferson-and-equality\/\" title=\"WATCH: Making America: Thomas Jefferson and Equality\">slavery issue<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Deepening the Divide<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While in office, however, Pierce would fracture the country even further by shepherding the Kansas-Nebraska Act advocated for by Illinois Democrat Stephen Douglass, which undid all previous legislative compromises and let the various territories decide for themselves whether or not they would permit slavery within their borders.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While Douglass\u2019s concept of popular sovereignty was meant to end the controversy surrounding slavery, it only escalated it. Kansas and Nebraska saw widespread violence between settlers as pro- and anti-slavery factions flooded the new territories, determined to swing the state\u2019s formative elections in their favor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cBleeding Kansas\u201d presaged the violence that would engulf the country as abolitionist and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/franklin-pierce-a-torn-president-in-a-torn-country\/\" title=\"Franklin Pierce: A President Divided in a Divided Nation\">anti-abolitionist forces split<\/a> the young nation in two.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>WATCH:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>a well-liked individual. However, Joseph Forneri, a political science professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, claims that Pierce&#8217;s presidency caused tension between the North and South. Born in New Hampshire around the 1800s, Pierce&#8217;s actions disrupted the delicate peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1597,"featured_media":1958664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1958663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1597"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1958663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1958663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1958664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1958663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1958663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1958663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}