History essay
Franklin Pierce
By Andrew Dowe
10/30/14
Franklin Pierce was a politician that started his career as a young man. He was a son of the governor of New Hampshire. In 1833, he won the election to the U.S. House of Representatives. Before winning the election Pierce served as speaker of the state legislature. Pierce emerged as the democratic presidential election candidate after two terms in the House and one in the Senate. Pierce encouraged settlement in the northwest region of the country. Sectional tensions increased over the issue of slavery and its extension into new territories. Pierce signed the Kansas Nebraska Act, which enraged antislavery northerners brought about the emergence of the new Republican Party.…show more content… Pierce’s parents wanted their children to have a better education than their own. At the age of fifteen he entered Bowdoin College in Maine. During college in Maine is when he met a young writer named Nathanial Hawthorne. In college Pierce dropped to the bottom of his class as he enjoyed the social life at Bowdoin. But by the time he graduated he was fifth in class by applying himself in school. Pierce became natural to his profession because of the public speaking he did at Bowdoin. A couple years after his father won election to the governorship Pierce was elected to the state legislature. Franklin Pierce like his father was a fervent supporter of Andrew Jackson. Pierce was not yet even thirty when Jackson was in his second term. Pierce eventually got bored and homesick then started a habit of partying and drinking. Franklin Pierce got married as a congressman to the daughter of Jesse Appleton. Jane Pierce was committed devotee of the temperance movement. Pierce’s legislature record as a senator was no more distinguished than it had been when he was a U.S. representative. Pierce remained firmly opposed to the abolition of slavery in the states it existed already. He also stood up for people to have the right to own their own property. He continually supported firmly the Compromise of 1850 as he did the Fugitive Slave Act. Pierce also supported the admission of California a free…show more content… He eventually became a leader when he decided to become more active with the Democratic Party. The Gadsden Purchase Treaty was signed in 1853 giving the United States approximately 45,000 square miles of northern Mexico. President Franklin Pierce wanted the land which is now New Mexico and part of Arizona for railroad. Slavery was always being questioned in the west which caused the most violence. Douglas’s proposal caused a lot of trouble for organizing western territories through whatever railroad it runs. Douglas’s bills provided the choice for the newer territories to choose slavery. Immediately after that the south and north started fighting over the new territory of Kansas. When the shooting broke out in Kansas during the Civil War is why the land was known as bleeding Kansas. After peace was finally in Kansas the Democrats were disappointed in Pierce and he was not denominated. Then he returned to New Hampshire and died in 1869. When President Franklin Pierce was first elected in office the United States was in debt by $60 million. One of pierce’s successful actions is within the first year he knocked $13 million out of the debt. By the next few years Pierce had the debt knocked all the way down to $28.7 million. But overall Pierce’s term in office in most people’s views was a failure. Pierce was unhappy and a bitter man we he returned to New Hampshire. But he still strongly