Official Recognition of His Decease -- Order from President Grant.
Washington, Oct. 8. -- The painful duty devolves upon the President of announcing to the people of the United States the death of one of his honored predecessors, Franklin Pierce, which occurred at Concord early this morning. Eminent in the public councils and universally beloved in private life, his death will be mourned with a sorrow befitting the loss which this country sustains by his decease. As a mark of respect to his memory, it is ordered that the Executive Mansion and the several Departments at Washington be draped in mourning, and all business suspended on the day of the funeral. It is further ordered that the War and Navy Departments cause suitable military and naval honors to be paid on this occasion to the memory of the illustrious citizen who has passed from among us.
Sketch of His Career -- His Public and Private Life.
Franklin Pierce was born at Hillsborough, N.H., on Nov. 23, 1804. His
father, General Benjamin Pierce, was an old Revolutionary soldier, who,
removing from Massachusetts to New-Hampshire, was one of the earliest
settlers of the town of Hillsborough. He was a man of influence and power,
and politically a Democrat. In the years 1827 and 1829 he was Governor of
New-Hampshire. His son Franklin was educated at the academies of Hancock
and Francistown, and in 1824, at the age of 20, was graduated from Bowdoin
College, Brunswick, Me. While in College he displayed a great fondness for
military life, and commanded a company of students, of which his friend,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, the future novelist and biographer, was a private.
After his graduation he adopted law as his profession, beginning his studies
with Judge Levi Woodbury, at Portsmouth, then passing two years at the Law
School at North Hampton, Mass., and completing them in the office of Judge
Parker, at Amherst, N.H. He was admitted to the Bar in 1827, and began
practice in his native town of Hillsborough. At first he was not
successful as an advocate, but persevered with a determination to attain
eminence in his profession.
In politics, Mr. Pierce was a strong Democrat, as his father had been
before him, and he strongly advocated the election of General Jackson to
the Presidency. In 1829 he was himself chosen to represent the town of
Hillsborough in the Legislature of New-Hampshire. He was four years in
that body, and during the last two was Speaker of the House. In 1833 he
was elected member of Congress, where he served on important committees,
but did not distinguish himself in debate. He strongly supported the
Administration of General Jackson; was opposed to all internal
improvements, and even made a speech against a bill providing for the
support of the West Point Military Academy. He was, as he continued
through life, thoroughly pro-slavery in his views and sided with the South
in all measures calculated to advance the "institution."
He had been a member of the House of Representatives four years, when he
was elected to the Senate in 1837, and upon taking his seat he was the
youngest member of that august body. At that time the seats of the council
chamber of the nation were occupied by such men as Webster, Clay, Calhoun,
Buchanan, and Silas Wright, and feeling his inability to cope with those
giant intellects, the young Senator took no conspicuous part in debate,
and it was not until 1840 that he made his first speech on the question of
Revolutionary pensions. In 1842 he resigned his position, and resumed the
practice of the law at Concord, to which city he had removed in 1838. It
was then he first began to distinguish himself as an advocate. In 1846 he
was offered a place in the Cabinet of Polk as Attorney-General, but
declined. He also declined the nomination for Governor of his native
State, tendered him by his party. Yet, although refusing to take an active
part in politics, he retained his interest in them, and strongly opposed
the annexation of Texas, in opposition to his political friends and the
Democratic Party of New-England.
In 1847, at the beginning of the Mexican War, and when New-Hampshire was
called upon for troops, Mr. Pierce immediately enlisted as a private in a
Concord volunteer company for a New-England regiment. He did not long
remain in this position, for an act to increase the army having passed
Congress, he was given command of a regiment, and afterward commissioned
Brigadier-General. During the war he was in several engagements, and was
severely injured at Contreras by the falling of his horse. After the
battle of Cherubusco he was appointed by General Scott one of the Armistice
Commissioners. After the fall of Mexico General Pierce returned home and
again resumed the duties of his profession. In 1850 he was a member of the
State Constitutional Convention of New-Hampshire, and was selected as its
presiding officer.
On the 12th of June, 1852, the Democratic National Convention assembled at
Baltimore, Md. The principal candidates for the Presidential nomination
were Buchanan, Cass, Douglas and Marcy. The partisans of each were present
in full force, and the discussions in regard to their claims upon the party
for a nomination were long and earnest. Thirty-five ballots were taken
without reaching any result, when, as the next ballot begun, the name of
Franklin Pierce, of New-Hampshire, was brought forward by the Virginia
delegation. At first it was received with but little favor, but continuing
to gain strength as the balloting advanced, and the members of the
Convention becoming wearied with the long session, which had continued for
nearly a week, on the forty-ninth ballot he was nominated for President,
receiving all the votes of the Convention but eleven. His nomination was
most unexpected to the whole country, but although comparatively unknown in
the canvass which followed, the same unanimity of sentiment which had
pervaded the deliberations of the Convention seemed to take possession of
the minds of the people, and he was elected fourteenth President of the
United States in the following November by an almost unanimous vote, his
old Commander-in-Chief, General Scott, the Whig candidate, receiving only
the electoral votes of Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee. To
this overwhelming defeat of the Whig party, and the subsequent Pro-Slavery
Administration of Pierce and the acts of his political advisors, can be
traced the formation of the present Republican organization.
Soon after this brilliant political success, the newly elected President
was smitten by a family affliction, in which he received the sympathy of
the whole country. In taking a railway journey with his wife and child,
from Andover to Lawrence, Mass., the train was thrown from the track, and
his only son, a bright boy of thirteen years, was instantly killed.
President Pierce was inaugurated March 4, 1853, and in his address on
assuming the duties of his office he clearly foreshadowed the policy of his
Administration, taking strong ground that slavery was recognized by the
Constitution, and that the Fugitive Slave law should be enforced. He
denounced the agitation of the slavery question, regarding it as settled by
the compromise of 1850, and hoped that "no sectional ambitions or fanatical
excitement might again threaten the durability of our institutions." His
Cabinet, as appointed three days afterward, clearly showed him to be
consistent in his policy, for in it were Jefferson Davis, James Guthrie
and Caleb Cushing, and his entire administration was characterized, if by
nothing else, by a steady adherence to his pro-slavery friends and his
pro-slavery views.
The first question of importance which came up during the Administration of
President Pierce, and soon after he had taken his oath of office, was the
dispute in regard to the boundary between the United States and Mexico,
which was finally settled by negotiations, and resulted in the present
Territory of Arizona becoming the property of this Government.
It was also during the early portion of his term of office in 1858 that the
Fishery questions between Great Britain and this country, in which the
rights as to certain fisheries on the coast of Newfoundland were in
dispute, threatened to cause serious disturbance between the two countries.
The matter was, however, amicably adjusted by mutual concession.
While these negotiations were in progress, the case of Martin Koszta came
up, which at the time excited the greatest interest on both sides of the
Atlantic. Koszta was a Hungarian by birth, but having resided nearly two
years in the United States and taken out his first papers, declaring his
intention of becoming a citizen, was entitled to the protection of the
Government. He had been seized and imprisoned on an Austrian ship of war
in the Mediterranean Sea. Captain Ingraham, of the United States Navy, in
command of the sloop-of-war St. Louis, coming into the port of
Smyrna, and being apprized of these facts by the American Consul,
immediately took steps to effect his release, and demanded his instant
surrender from the Austrian Government, which resulted in Koszta's soon
being set at liberty and returned to the United States. The whole affair
was discussed at length in Washington, and notwithstanding it might have
led to grave complications, the conduct of Captain Ingraham was thoroughly
approved by the Government.
The first Congress of President Pierce's Administration assembled in
December, 1853, and early in January, 1854, the famous Kansas and Nebraska
bill was introduced by Mr. Douglas, then Chairman of the Senate Committee
on Territories. This bill introduced slavery into a section of the country
from which it had been formerly excluded by the Missouri Compromise, and
thus repealed that measure. The bill received the warm and earnest support
of the Administration, and was passed, but not without the most violent
opposition from the anti-slavery members of Congress. The act became a
law, and the signature making it such affixed by the hand of the then
Executive, was but another link in the chain which was to pull down the
Democratic Party from the heights of power. The passage of the bill
aroused a strong feeling of indignation throughout the free States, and it
was everywhere denounced. Another measure at this time also conspired to
weaken the Administration, and that was the noted Ostend Conference between
the American Ministers of England, France, and Spain, Buchanan, Mason and
Soule, in which they proposed to pay Spain $120,000,000 for Cuba or take it
by force. The sure prospect of largely-increased taxation in either event,
without any regard to the rights of international law, rendered this
measure most unpopular among the people and created dissatisfaction with
the Government which favored the project.
In 1854 also, which was a memorable year in the term of President Pierce,
the treaty between England and the United States was ratified by the
Senate, in which commercial reciprocity was provided for between the two
countries and the British Provinces. The Commodore Perry treaty,
negotiated with Japan and opening up that land to the trade of the
civilized world, was also ratified at the same session of Congress. It was
in this year that Greytown, Nicaragua, was bombarded by the United States
frigate Cyane for refusing to make reparation or restitution for
property stolen from American citizens, although it was not until 1855 that
Walker made his fillibustering expedition, and subsequently sent a Minister
to Washington, who was recognized by the President, and diplomatic
intercourse opened with Nicaragua.
President Pierce during his administration distinguished himself for the
number of his vetoes. In 1854 the bill making appropriations for the
completion and repair of certain public works, and giving another ten
million acres of the public lands for the relief of the indigent insane,
failed to receive his signature. In 1855 he vetoed the bills passed for
the payment of the French spoliation claims, and also the one providing for
an increase in the annual appropriation for the Collins steamers, which
eventually rendered it necessary to draw off the line. Among some of the
most important measures which became law, he assenting thereto, were the
act to reorganize the diplomatic and consular system of the United States;
to organize the Court of Claims; to provide a retired list for the navy,
and to establish the rank of Lieutenant-General for General Scott.
In 1855 occurred the difficulty between Great Britain and this country in
regard to the enlistment of recruits in the United States for the British
Army in the Crimea. President Pierce having learned that Mr. Crampton, the
English Minister at Washington, was conniving at this violation of the
Neutrality laws, demanded his recall, which was refused, whereupon he
dismissed the Minister, and also the British Consuls at New-York,
Philadelphia and Cincinnati. His firmness in the matter threatened to
embroil the two countries in a serious difficulty, but it was finally
adjusted by negotiation, and a new Legation sent from England to
Washington.
The last two years of the Administration was principally noted for the
disturbances and the scenes of strife and sectional discord which took
place in Kansas, and were intensified in their severity by the weak and
vacillating course of the Executive. The whole power of the Administration
was used to prevent Kansas becoming a free State, and in 1856 he sent a
message to Congress in which he justified the principles of the Kansas and
Nebraska act, and characterized the attempt to establish freedom in Kansas
as an act of rebellion, and in his last message, in 1857, he reviewed the
condition of affairs in that distracted State, taking the strongest grounds
against the Free State Party.
In the Democratic Convention which met at Cincinnati in 1856, on the first
ballot President Pierce received 122 votes for a renomination, but
subsequent ballots proved that his popularity with his party was gone; his
votes became less and less, and on the seventeenth ballot Ja. Buchanan
received the nomination, was elected, and on March 4, 1857, succeeded
Franklin Pierce as the fifteenth President of the United States.
At the termination of his official career Mr. Pierce went to the Island of
Madeira for the benefit of his wife's health, and subsequently traveled in
Europe, returning to his home in Concord, N.H., in 1860, where he has since
resided, taking no prominent part in public affairs. At the breaking out
of the war, in 1861, at a mass meeting held in Concord, he made a speech in
which he declared himself for the Union, opposed to a Southern Confederacy,
and urged a cordial and hearty support of the Administration in the
suppression of the rebellion.
Mr. Pierce, at home, was a popular man, engaging in his manners, agreeable
in all social intercourse, and, generous and kindly in his disposition, he
inspired the personal respect and love of those with whom he came in
contact. He was excessively fond of sporting, particularly fishing, and
would spend days in his favorite amusement. Before his nomination for the
Presidency he was the law partner of Colonel George, of Concord, but since
his retirement from office he has formed no professional connection;
neither has he devoted himself to active practice, although his services
have been engaged as counsel in the management of important cases. For
some months past the failing health of the Ex-President and the repeated
reports which have been telegraphed over the country, have led the public
mind to expect his death at any moment. From his non-connection with
public matters, his place will not be missed by those actively engaged in
political affairs, and although his record as a statesman cannot command
the approbation of the nation, he still should be followed to the grave
with that respect which is due to one who has filled the highest office in
the gift of the people -- a President of the United States.