Abraham Lincoln was sandwiched between four of America’s worst presidents. Preceded by James Buchanan, considered the Worst, (as of writing) and succeeded by Andrew Johnson, (second worst) there was the 14th President, Franklin Pierce and the 17th, U.S. Grant.

Franklin Pierce took office in 1853. He had a tragic personal life. All three of his children died before he became President. His first child survived only three days. The second  died at the age of four from typhus.  The third was crushed to death in a railway accident at the age of eleven before his eyes, two months before his inauguration.

These tragedies so effected his wife that she took no part in his administration and was called the ’shadow’ in the White House. (She actually considered the loss of her children Divine Punishment for her Husband’s Ambitions)

During the Democratic Convention in 1852 the four front runners were deadlocked, and Pierce was put forward as a compromise. He was a popular person, a party activist, but no one knew what he actually  stood for. Being from New Hampshire there were certain assumptions as to his views on slavery.  These assumptions were wrong.

The opposition party, the Whigs, ran on a platform virtually indistinguishable from the Democrats and it came down to personality, of which Pierce had a great deal.
His campaign had a clever slogan…  “WE Polked you in 1844, we shall Pierce you in 1852.”

The Democrats won by a landslide, the Whigs carrying only Vermont, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Tennessee.

Pierce ‘affirmed’ his oath of office with his hand on a law book, other than swearing on a Bible.  His cabinet was rather interesting; Jefferson Davis was his Secretary of War.
His Vice President, William R. King, died a month after his inauguration.

During his incumbency, Pierce did not have a Vice President.

Pierce was pro slavery and went so far as to recognise the legislature in Kansas even after congressional investigation found it’s election illegitimate and dispatched federal troops to break up a meeting in Topeka.  The Kansas-Nebraska Act created outrage among Northerners, viewing it as a sell out to slave holding interests.

This caused the formation of a new party, the Republican Party. Pierce lost public support, failed to receive the nomination for a second term. So unpopular was he that he became the first president to have a full-time bodyguard.

Pierce’s problem, in reflection, was that he did not think things through, did not provide for eventualities, and once making up his mind, was unable to change it. Seemingly unaware of the passions of pro and anti slavery factions, he did little more than inflame disunity.

Asked what he would do when leaving office, he replied; “Get Drunk”.

He died of cirrhosis, having drunk himself to death. Franklin Pierce is usually ranked behind Harding due to the incredible corruption of the latter’s Administration, although recently he has achieved number 3 status on a C-Span poll in February 2009.