Franklin Pierce

According to most historians, Franklin Pierce is a member of the bottom 3 presidents in American history. However, the general consensus among these historians is that of those 3 presidents - Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Andrew Johnson - Pierce is the greatest. Obviously, that's less of a legitimate complement to Pierce's governing ability and more of a condemnation of Johnson and Buchanan. But regardless, I disagree. Pierce, in my opinion, is actually the worst president in American history.

Pierce replaced Millard Fillmore as president on March 4, 1853. Soon after entering office, Pierce began pursuing the construction of a transcontinental railroad. In almost any other era of the US' history, this would have been the subject of bipartisan celebration. However, this idea actually sparked a vicious debate.

James Monroe was president was, on December 18, 1818, Missouri applied for statehood. Prior to this, there were 11 free states and 11 slave states. This meant that each type of state received equal representation in the Senate. Missouri's entry into the Union would upset this balance. As a result, people from both sides of the slavery debate worked tirelessly to try and ensure Missouri's entry into the Union on their side. The resulting tensions nearly led to a civil war, but on March 6, 1820, Monroe diffused the situation by signing the Missouri Compromise.

The Missouri Compromise, proposed by a Congressman named Henry Clay, admitted Missouri into the Union as a slave state. And to maintain the Senatorial balance, it admitted Maine into the Union as a free state. Finally, the bill instituted a ban on slavery in all areas both obtained in the Louisiana Purchase and located north of the southern border of Missouri, with the obvious exception of Missouri itself. That last provision would ultimately prove to be an existential threat to Pierce's railroad project.

In order for the railroad to be fully and truly transcontinental, it would have to extend through the Nebraska Territory, a region of the Louisiana Purchase that, under the Missouri Compromise, was required to prohibit slavery. It's difficult to build a railroad - or any major infrastructural project - through an unorganized territory, so Pierce wanted to organize the Nebraska Territory into states, which would strengthen the area's local government and allow for the construction of this railroad. However, a stronger government in the Nebraska Territory meant an agency better equipped to enforce anti-slavery legislation, as well as the addition of extra free states to the Senate. Consequently, most supporters of slavery opposed the organization of Nebraska.

So, Stephen Douglas, a Democratic Senator who supported the transcontinental railroad, proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Under this law, the Nebraska Territory was split into two new territories: The Nebraska Territory and the Kansas Territory. Furthermore, the bill allowed residents of the two territories to vote to decide if slavery would be allowed or prohibited in their respective territories. Despite being a northerner from New Hampshire and personally appalled by slavery, Pierce, on May 30, 1854, signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act into law.

Not only was the Kansas-Nebraska Act morally reprehensible - as it threatened the expansion of slavery into an area where it was previously outlawed - but it heavily contributed to the growing division over slavery. It simultaneously gave into the demands of the slaveholder and pushed the country closer to the abyss of civil war. In my eyes, it was the worst law ever passed in American history. And Pierce was the man who signed it. But Pierce's flaws don't end here.

Following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, people from across the country with all different opinions on slavery flocked to the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, hoping to sway the elections in favor of their views on slavery. In late 1855, violence between these two factions broke out in Kansas, beginning a period known as Bleeding Kansas.

Bleeding Kansas, like the Kansas-Nebraska Act before it, drastically worsened the tensions over slavery. And Pierce failed to quell the issue, allowing the conflict to drag out, further twisting and digging the dagger of disunion into the heart of the American nation.

Pierce did have a few redeeming characteristics. For example, the Crimean War took place during his presidency; during the conflict, Pierce expelled the British ambassador to the US from Washington DC in protest of the British government attempting to get British immigrants to America to enlist in the conflict. He also signed a bill that granted US citizenship to all people born to American parents on vacation in the outside world. Some also cite Pierce's reduction of tariffs as a rare accomplishment of his. However, as a moderate protectionist, this actually subtracts points for Pierce in my view.

On the topic of Pierce's redeeming traits, another activity of Pierce's that many cite as one of his accomplishments is his dedication to territorial expansion. Pierce oversaw the Gadsden Purchase, in which the American government bought some land in what is now southern New Mexico and southern Arizona from Mexico. Pierce also signed the Guano Islands Act, which permitted Americans to, in pursuit of obtaining additional fertilizer for the country's farmers, go to unclaimed islands with large amounts of bird feces and claim it as US territory. Personally, I oppose territorial expansion, as this also makes Pierce worse in my opinion. However, Pierce's territorial expansion also had some flaws that can be criticized regardless of political orientation.

In the first year-and-a-half of his presidency, Pierce often consulted the Spanish government asking if he could purchase Cuba, a Spanish colony at the time, for $130,000,000. Each time, the Spanish government declined these offers, creating tensions between Spain and the US. On February 28, 1854, an American ship called the Black Warrior was sunk off the coast of Cuba, worsening these tensions. To his credit, Pierce, in order to quell these tensions, asked his ambassadors to Spain, France, and Britain to gather in the town of Ostend, Belgium, and draft a diplomatic solution to the rising tensions.

What the ambassadors came up with was the Ostend Manifesto. In this document, the authors stated that the US needed control of Cuba because, if they didn't have control of the island, American slaves could escape to it and launch a rebellion. The authors elaborated, saying that if the Spanish government refused to sell Cuba to the US, then the American government would declare war on Spain. Yet again, to Pierce's credit, he did reject the document. However, he refused to fire the ambassadors for their reckless behavior. As a result, when the text was leaked by the press, the US and Spain nearly went to war. Moreover, because of its pro-slavery elements, the Ostend Manifesto also inflated the tensions over slavery. With his lax response to the Ostend Manifesto, signing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and inability to quell Bleeding Kansas, I consider Pierce the president most responsible for the civil war.

Franklin Pierce heavily contributed to the tensions over slavery, failed to quell domestic violence in Kansas, and nearly brought the US to war. His redeeming characteristics, while certainly present within his administration, are either minor or misconstrued. He was, without a doubt, the worst president in American history.