# Franklin Pierce *14th president of the United States (1853–1857)* Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804 – October 8, 1869) was a New Hampshire lawyer and officeholder of the [[Democratic Party (United States)]] who held the presidency from 1853 to 1857, the fourteenth person to do so. During his term he signed the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforced the Fugitive Slave Act. Anti-slavery groups turned against him as a result.[^1] Pierce's place in the [[Minnesota]] record is one judicial appointment. According to the project's at-issue record, in 1853 he appointed [[Moses Sherburne]], a Maine Democrat, to the [[Minnesota Territorial Supreme Court]]. Sherburne County is named for Sherburne. The record documents the appointment and the sequence of Sherburne's later public and private activity. It does not establish any reason for that sequence.[^2] ## Who Pierce was born on November 23, 1804, in a log cabin in Hillsborough, New Hampshire. He was the fifth of eight children of Benjamin Pierce and his second wife, Anna Kendrick. His father had served as a lieutenant in the Revolutionary War. He later became a Democratic-Republican state legislator, a farmer and a tavern-keeper. Pierce attended the town school in Hancock and then Phillips Exeter Academy. In fall 1820 he entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, as one of 19 freshmen. There he joined the Athenian Society along with Jonathan Cilley and Nathaniel Hawthorne.[^3] His father later became the state's [[governor]].[^1] Pierce arrived in Washington in November 1833 to take a House seat in the Twenty-third Congress. The Democratic majority in that Congress worked to block a new charter for the Second Bank of the United States. Pierce held both the bank and federally funded internal improvements to be unconstitutional. On that ground he sometimes voted against Democratic spending bills. Voters returned him to the House in March 1835.[^4] He moved to the Senate in 1837 and resigned his seat in 1842.[^1] Pierce was critical of the abolitionist petition campaigns of the mid-1830s. He said, "I consider slavery a social and political evil." In December 1835 he also wrote, "This abolition movement must be crushed".[^4] After leaving the Senate, Pierce went back to Concord in early 1842 and practiced law, partly in partnership with Asa Fowler. In June 1842 he became chairman of the State Democratic Committee.[^5] In 1845 he was appointed U.S. attorney for New Hampshire. He later served as a brigadier general in the Mexican–American War.[^1] Before the 1852 nominating contest, New Hampshire Democrats had backed [[Levi Woodbury]]. Woodbury died in September 1851, and Pierce's allies then advanced Pierce as a dark-horse alternative. Pierce publicly called a nomination "utterly repugnant to my tastes and wishes". Even so, he allowed his supporters to work for him. He also wrote letters affirming his support for the Compromise of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave Act.[^6] The 1852 Democratic National Convention nominated him. With running mate William R. King, he defeated the Whig candidates Winfield Scott and William Alexander Graham.[^1] On January 6, 1853, weeks after the election, the Pierces' train car derailed near Andover, Massachusetts. Their eleven-year-old son, Benjamin, was killed. Pierce was the first president to give his inaugural address from memory. In that address he said his administration "will not be deterred by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion".[^7] In office, Pierce tried to hold the civil service to neutral standards while also dividing patronage among the party's factions. That effort largely failed. He signed the Gadsden Purchase of land from Mexico, along with trade treaties with Britain and Japan. He also pursued an unsuccessful effort to buy Cuba from Spain. Several of his diplomats issued the Ostend Manifesto, which urged annexing Cuba. He backed the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which voided the Missouri Compromise, and violent conflict over slavery's expansion in the West followed its passage. The Democrats did not renominate him in 1856.[^1] After his term, his successor, James Buchanan, replaced every Pierce appointee. Pierce settled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he had begun speculating in property. He then spent three years abroad, in Madeira, Europe and the Bahamas. While abroad he criticized New England Protestant ministers who backed abolition and [[Republican Party (United States)]] candidates, accusing them of "heresy and treason". In his 1858 debates with [[Abraham Lincoln]], Stephen Douglas defended Pierce as "a man of integrity and honor". Pierce refused requests to run as a compromise candidate in 1860.[^8] He died at his house in Concord. That house burned in 1981 but remains listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[^9] Pierce ranked third from the bottom of the presidents in C-SPAN surveys taken in 2000 and 2009. Historian Eric Foner wrote that "His administration turned out to be one of the most disastrous in American history." The Wikipedia account also traces the end of Democratic dominance to Pierce's failure to reconcile the sections. It describes more than seventy years in which Republicans mostly controlled national politics after that.[^10] ## In the at-issue record The project's at-issue record carries one item on Pierce. Item AI-Sherburne-081 belongs to the Sherburne package and is ranked 81 in section *III. The Tax Base Being Retired (61–85)*. The item states the following about Moses Sherburne: - Pierce appointed him to the Minnesota Territorial Supreme Court in 1853. - He served three years on that court and wrote seventeen majority opinions. - He sat in the 1857 Constitutional Convention. - He served on the 1858 [[Commission]] revising Minnesota's General Laws. - He then went into real estate. The item names en.wikipedia.org and mncourts.libguides.com as its sources. Neither of those pages is among this article's citable sources. The item is anchored to a May 2026 White House presidential action. The pack does not carry that document's text, and nothing in the pack shows that the document mentions Pierce or Sherburne.[^2] ## In the Minnesota record ### Who - Franklin Pierce, a Democrat, was the appointing president. Moses Sherburne, a Maine Democrat, was the appointee to the Minnesota Territorial Supreme Court.[^2] ### When - The appointment was made in 1853. Sherburne served three years on the court, sat in the 1857 Constitutional Convention, and served on the 1858 commission on Minnesota's General Laws.[^2] ### What - The at-issue item records a sequence: a seat on the territorial court, a role in the constitutional convention, service on the commission revising the General Laws, and then work in real estate. The record shows the sequence. It does not establish the reason for it.[^2] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia, *Franklin Pierce*, lead section (revision 1381737076, retrieved 2026-10-27) — dates of life and presidency; Kansas–Nebraska Act and Fugitive Slave Act; father's governorship; House and Senate service; U.S. attorney appointment; Mexican–American War service; 1852 nomination and election; patronage, Gadsden Purchase, treaties, Cuba, Ostend Manifesto; 1856 renomination failure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce [^2]: Project at-issue record AI-Sherburne-081 (Sherburne package, rank 81), anchored to White House, *Restoring Integrity to America's Financial System* (May 2026) — the at-issue item carries Pierce's 1853 appointment of Moses Sherburne and Sherburne's later service and real-estate activity; the item's listed sources (en.wikipedia.org; mncourts.libguides.com) are not in the pack's allowed URLs, and the anchor URL is cited as the item's anchor, not as proof of the Sherburne facts. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/05/restoring-integrity-to-americas-financial-system/ [^3]: Wikipedia, *Franklin Pierce*, "Early life and family" (retrieved 2026-10-27) — birth date and place, parents, schooling, Bowdoin entry, Athenian Society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce [^4]: Wikipedia, *Franklin Pierce*, "Congressional career" (retrieved 2026-10-27) — House arrival in November 1833, bank and internal-improvements positions, March 1835 reelection, statements on slavery and abolitionism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce [^5]: Wikipedia, *Franklin Pierce*, "Party leader" (retrieved 2026-10-27) — return to Concord in 1842, Fowler partnership, State Democratic Committee chairmanship in June 1842. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce [^6]: Wikipedia, *Franklin Pierce*, "Election of 1852" (retrieved 2026-10-27) — Woodbury's death in September 1851, dark-horse candidacy, Compromise of 1850 letters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce [^7]: Wikipedia, *Franklin Pierce*, "Presidency (1853–1857)" (retrieved 2026-10-27) — January 6, 1853 derailment, son's death, inaugural address. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce [^8]: Wikipedia, *Franklin Pierce*, "Post-presidency (1857–1869)" (retrieved 2026-10-27) — Buchanan's replacement of appointees, Portsmouth property speculation, travels, statements on ministers, Douglas's 1858 remark, 1860 refusal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce [^9]: Wikipedia, *Franklin Pierce*, "Sites, memorials, and honors" (retrieved 2026-10-27) — Franklin Pierce House in Concord, where Pierce died, destroyed by fire in 1981 and listed on the National Register. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce [^10]: Wikipedia, *Franklin Pierce*, "Legacy" (retrieved 2026-10-27) — C-SPAN surveys of 2000 and 2009, Foner quotation, subsequent Republican dominance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Pierce