Bainbridge Wadleigh

“ No political or personal influence could induce him to shield those whom he believed to have defrauded the government. Pierce had ambition, but greed for public office was foreign to his nature. Few, if any, instances can be found in our history where a man of thirty-eight, in the full vigor of health, voluntarily gave up a seat in the U. S. senate, which he was apparently sure to retain as long as he wished. His refusal at the age of forty-one to leave his law-practice for the place of attorney-general in Polk's cabinet is almost without a parallel. ”

“ Political leaders believed that, unless it was paid, civil war and disunion would result, and their patriotism re-enforced their party spirit and personal ambition. Among them all there were probably few whose conduct would have been essentially different from that of Pierce had they been in the same situation. He gave his support to the repeal of the Missouri compromise with great reluctance, and in the belief that the measure would satisfy the south and thus avert from the country the doom of civil war and disunion. ”

“ The masses of the Democratic party in the free states so strongly favored the exclusion of slavery from the territory ceded by Mexico that their leaders were compelled to yield, and from 1847 till 1850 their resolutions and platforms advocated free-soil principles. This was especially the case in New Hampshire, and even Gen. Pierce's great popularity could not stem the tide. But in 1850 the passage of the so-called “compromise measures” by congress, the chief of which were the fugitive-slave law and the admission of California as a free state, raised a new issue. ”

“ He had an intuitive knowledge of human nature, and the numerous illustrations that he drew from the daily lives of his strong-minded auditors made his speeches doubly effective. He was not a diligent student, nor a reader of many books, yet the keenness of his intellect and his natural capacity for reasoning often enabled him, with but little preparation, to argue successfully intricate questions of law. ”

“ On March 30, 1855, a territorial legislature was elected in Kansas by armed bands from Missouri, who crossed the border to vote and then returned to their homes. That initiative gave to the pro-slavery men a technical advantage, which the Democratic leaders were swift to recognize. The pro-slavery legislature thus elected met at Pawnee on July 2, 1855, and enacted an intolerant and oppressive slave code, which was mainly a transcript of the laws of Missouri. ”

“ Robert E. Lee wrote in a private letter: “I have known many of the ladies of the White House, none more truly excellent than the afflicted wife of President Pierce. Her health was a bar to any great effort on her part to meet the expectations of the public in her high position, but she was a refined, extremely religious, and well-educated lady.” She was buried by the side of her three children, in the cemetery at Concord, New Hampshire. ”

“ He contended that that institution was aristocratic in its tendencies, that a professional soldiery and standing armies are always dangerous to the liberties of the people, and that in war the republic must rely upon her citizen militia. His experience in the Mexican war afterward convinced him that such an institution is necessary, and he frankly acknowledged his error. It is hardly necessary to add that while in congress Mr. Pierce sustained President Jackson in opposing the so-called internal improvement policy. ”

“ On June 2, 1856, the National Democratic convention met at Cincinnati to nominate a candidate for president. On the first ballot James Buchanan had 135 votes, Pierce 122, Douglas 33, Cass 6. Pierce's vote gradually diminished, and on the 17th ballot Buchanan was nominated unanimously. In August the house of representatives attached to the army appropriation bill a proviso that no part of the army should be employed to enforce the laws of the Kansas territorial legislature until congress should have declared its validity. ”

“ Some years after Pierce's death the legislature of New Hampshire, in behalf of the state, placed his portrait beside the speaker's desk in the hall of the house of representatives at Concord. Time has softened the harsh judgment that his political foes passed upon him in the heat of party strife and civil war. ”

“ On August 19 the battle of Contreras was fought. The Mexican General Valencia, with 7,000 troops, occupied a strongly intrenched camp. Gen. Scott's plan was to divert the attention of the enemy by a feigned attack on his front, while his flank could be turned and his retreat cut off. But the flanking movement being much delayed, the attack in front (in which Gen. Pierce led his brigade) became a desperate struggle, in which 4,000 raw recruits, who could not use their artillery, fought 7,000 disciplined soldiers, strongly intrenched and raining round shot and shells upon their assailants. ”

“ It will be within our own borders, in our own streets, between the two classes of citizens to whom I have referred. Those who defy law and scout constitutional obligations will, if we ever reach the arbitrament of arms, find occupation enough at home. ”

“ That could not be expected of so young a man in a body containing so many veteran politicians and statesmen who had already acquired a national reputation. But in February, 1834, he made a vigorous and sensible speech against the Revolutionary claims bill, condemning it as opening the door to fraud. In December, 1835, he spoke and voted against receiving petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In June, 1836, he spoke against a bill making appropriations for the military academy at West Point. ”

“ Gen. Winfield Scott, the Whig candidate, was unsatisfactory both to the north and to the south. Webster and his friends leaned toward Pierce, and, in the election in November, Scott carried only Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee, with 42 votes, while Pierce carried all the other states with 254 votes. The Whig party had received its death-stroke, and dissolved. ”