Franklin Pierce

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Born: 11/23/1804
Birthplace: Hillsboro, N.H.

Franklin Pierce was born at Hillsboro, N.H., on Nov. 23, 1804. A Bowdoin graduate, lawyer, and Jacksonian Democrat, he won rapid political advancement in the party, in part because of the prestige of his father, Gov. Benjamin Pierce. By 1831 he was Speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives; from 1833 to 1837, he served in the federal House and from 1837 to 1842 in the Senate. His wife, Jane Means Appleton, whom he married in 1834, disliked Washington and the somewhat dissipated life led by Pierce; in 1842 Pierce resigned from the Senate and began a successful law practice in Concord, N.H. During the Mexican War, he was a brigadier general.

Thereafter Pierce continued to oppose antislavery tendencies within the Democratic Party. As a result, he was the Southern choice to break the deadlock at the Democratic convention of 1852 and was nominated on the 49th ballot. In the election, Pierce overwhelmed Gen. Winfield Scott, the Whig candidate.

As president, Pierce followed a course of appeasing the South at home and of playing with schemes of territorial expansion abroad. The failure of his foreign and domestic policies prevented his renomination. He died in Concord on Oct. 8, 1869, in relative obscurity.

See also Encyclopedia: Franklin Pierce.

Died: 10/8/1869

Millard Fillmore

Biographies of the Presidents

James Buchanan

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Campaign: Pierce's obscurity draws attention to 200th anniversary.(Franklin Pierce., New Hampshire Historical Society.) (PR Week (US))

Franklin Pierce College is officially now Franklin Pierce University.(Rindge) (New Hampshire Business Review)

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Come together: Pierce Law, UNH mull a merger.(Franklin Pierce Law Center and University of New Hampshire)(Brief article) (New Hampshire Business Review)

Rare letters from Jane Means Appleton Pierce, wife and First Lady of President Franklin Pierce--pictured above with son Benny in an early daguerreotype (taken about 1850)--are on display at the New Hampshire Historical Society's library in Concord through Nov. 24.(New Hampshire Historical Society)(Brief article) (New Hampshire Business Review)

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