Franklin Pierce: New Hampshire's Favorite Son (ISBN 0975521616)

The Making of President Pierce:
It has been nigh on to 100 years since there was a complete biography of Franklin Pierce published and in that time there have been many changes in the way historians look at things. Revisionism and Counter-Revisionism and all sorts of isms have swept through the historical community but until now no one has thought to take another look at Franklin Pierce. Back in my college days I sat through classes during which the professors only mentioned Pierce in a negative light and in one class I had as a textbook a book that was very hard on Pierce and the notion that he was a horrible president and person just never seemed to be challenged. Finally in this book those notions are beginning to be challenged and in a forceful and thought provoking way. The basis for most of the Pierce bashing comes from the idea that he was not only pro Southern but also pro-slavery and neither could be farther from the truth. Of course this book doesn't deal with his presidency or the Civil War but just with his life up until his first night in the White House but the author proves quite satisfactorily that Pierce only supported the South in matters where he believed that the Constitution was on their side and that he deplored slavery but felt that it was protected by the Constitution and to Pierce nothing was more sacred than the Constitution. The Constitution in Pierce's mind was the only thing that stood between the common man and absolute domination of the country by the rich and powerful and he wasn't willing to sacrifice that for any cause no matter how noble. The author also does an excellent job of explaining Pierce's dislike for abolitionists above and beyond the fact that he felt that they were a threat to the Union. Pierce spent most of his life fighting for the common man and especially for religious liberty including a court case where he put his popularity on the line to defend the Shaker sect from persecution. Many of the people who sought to persecute the Shakers were abolitionists and also many abolitionists were violently anti-Catholic and Pierce began to see most abolitionists as religious bigots, which in fact many of them were. In Pierce's mind racial bigotry and religious bigotry were equally noxious and he came to detest all abolitionists because of their association with this intolerant attitude. To Pierce those who chose to lie down with dogs most certainly got up with fleas. Mr. Wallner has done an excellent job with this book and although he has to some extent fallen into the biographer's trap of becoming too enamored by his subject he has at least backed up all of his ascertains with good research. This is a well-written and very enjoyable book that gives the reader a good look at Franklin Pierce's pre-presidential life both private and public. A lot of President Pierce's policies may look bad in hindsight but thanks to Mr. Wallner one can easily see where his core beliefs came from. Any student of the presidency will want to pick up this book as will any Civil War buff but just keep in mind that while history has not been kind to Pierce Mr. Wallner may have been a bit too kind to him. I very much look forward to volume two.

Pierce No Martyr:
This book is a much needed contribution to the study of the presidency in the ante-bellum era generally, and of Franklin Pierce, the nation's 14th chief executive, in particular. As reviewers of the author's first volume have noted, Wallner is the first author to provide a significant work on behalf of Pierce since the 1930's. Wallner's task is made all the more difficult by the fact that Pierce apparently did not save many of his letters. On the postive side, there is a lot of very good material here relating to the minutia of administrative governance and the challenges facing Pierce in the turbulent 1850's. Internationally, Pierce faced a Great Britain illegally recruiting Americans in America to serve as soldiers in the Crimean War and encroaching upon American interests in Latin America, all of which Pierce ably and honorably resolved by the end of his term. Domestically, Pierce faced a splintering Democratic Party whose leading factions were not favorable to Pierce's equitable patronage policies or to the president's determination to squash the actions of American speculators and adventurers filibustering throughout Latin America. Nor did Pierce's support for Senator Stephen Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act--which at the demand of the southern states, overturned the Missouri Compromise of 1820 with its prohibition of slavery in the northern districts of the Lousiana Purchase--increase the president's popularity. While the bill passed by large margins in Congress, northerners fervently opposed it, a response that soon lead to the creation of the Republican Party and the election in 1854 of a Republican-controlled House of Representatives. The southern states, meanwhile, faulted Pierce for not successfully insuring that Kansas would enter the nation as a slave state. As with his patronage policies, Pierce's policy of accommodation in the territories ultimately pleased no one, helping to ensure that one of Pierce's own diplomats, James Buchanan, would succeed him in 1856. As Wallner notes, Pierce was the first president to seek, but fail to receive, the renomination of his party for president while occupying the office. On the negative side, much in the narrative smacks of Manichaeism--Pierce's intra-party opponents are "corrupt" "turncoats" while his inter-party opponents (mostly abolitionists, along with Whig-Republicans) are derided as "radical" "agitators" acting only from a spirit of "partisanship" and malice. Only Pierce exists above it all, he alone acting in the interests of the nation and in keeping with the Constitution. Similarly, the author doesn't do Pierce much justice in attempting to account for the former president's tunnel-blindness regarding the south's complicity for the Civil War. Again, in keeping with the book's Manichaeism world view noted above, Pierce--and apparently the author as well--can only see Lincoln's "abuse of executive power" and "unconstitutional" "coercion" and infringement of civil liberties in the aftermath of southern secession, the seizure by the south of Government installations, and finally the attack on Fort Sumter. Finally, to the extent Pierce, on account of his views of the union, fell into disrepute during the Civil War, the former president had only himself to blame. After Lincoln's quite lawful election, Pierce wrote that only "immediate" capitulation by the north to additional southern demands for a repeal of all (unnamed) acts that "have nullified the Constitution" would prevent war or secession, or both. Otherwise, he penned to secessionists in Alabama in December 1860, "If we cannot live together in peace, then in peace and on just terms, let us separate." (page 334). One wonders what, besides the Kansas-Nebraska Act's overturning of the Missouri Compromise's 34-year precedent, and the Taney court's declaring any attempts by congress to regulate slavery in the territories un-Constitutional (as in the Dred Scott decision), just what more the union could have done for the South. In short, while Pierce was a more capable and ethical chief executive than most superficial historical accounts have given him credit for, neither should it be said that Pierce was any kind of martyr, much less a martyr for the union, except his being perhaps a martyr in his own mind or in the service of the Lost Cause.

Phenominal Follow Up Volume:
Peter Wallner has followed up a tremendous first volume work on this "forgotten" President with yet another meticulously researched book on Pierce's Presidency and sad final years. This second volume completes a dynamic re-assessment of Pierce's life and Presidency with new insights that heretofore had not been brought to light. Wallner, as in the first volume, has left no stone unturned with a highly readable text.

President Pierce - an honest man enduring personal and political tragedy:
For those who have interest in studying tough, stong, capable men who achieve our highest office but yet fail to achieve anticipated heights of power and glory, this brief, taut biography gives insights into a northeastern political power who harbors quiet sentiments for the South's "peculiar institution" and who fails due to the dichotomy of constituent demands. An interesting human drama played against a transitioning political background.

Ante-bellum Presidency:
Franklin Pierce is one of the most obscure presidents in our history. Few history classes deal with his politics, and the average history student would not know even a single policy he brought to light. In fact, his reputation is widely thought to be as a man with a terrible temper, made worse by his drinking. The author, Peter Wallner, looks to debunk many of these myths in the first serious biography of Pierce in almost 75 years. I would have to say that I learned much about the man and the times in reading this biography, although it was told in a dry narrative. Ante-bellum politics were a far different world than exists today, as the Republican party was in its infancy, and the Whigs were still a major force. Pierce was a die-hard Democrat, with the feeling being that he really believed what he was, and his principles were squarely with the people. He was a man of rock hard principle, with the rare combination of really being able to connect in a human way with the common man. But life in the mid-1800's was forbidding, and Pierce suffered through immense personal tragedy, even shortly before he moved into the White House. My complaint is that this book takes us only from his birth to inauguration night. There is a second volume. Pierce did not have the dramatic presidency of an FDR, the incredible political career of an LBJ, or the precipitous fall of a Richard Nixon. There is no reason to cut his life into two volumes, and make a reader shell out $30- for each. Pierce belongs in a historical context, with the other Presidents, but this book was "only" 258 pages of reading, and his White House career and the rest of his life could have easily fit in one book. That said, there are few outlets to learn of his life and presidential career, and this would seem to be a pretty worthwhile venue.