Pierce, Franklin
fourteenth president of the United States, was born Nov. 23, 1804, in Hillsborough, N. H. He graduated at Bowdoin college in 1824, and then entered the law school at Northampton, Mass., where he remained two years.
In 1829 he was elected to the New Hampshire legislature, where he served four years, and the last two years was speaker of the house. In 1833 he was elected a representative in congress, and held the office four years. He married Miss Jane M. Appleton in 1834. In 1837 he was elected to the United States senate, and in 1842 resigned his seat. When the Mexican war broke out he accepted the commission of brigadier-general, and distinguished himself at the battles of Cerro-Gordo and Chapultepec. In 1850 he presided over the constitutional convention of New Hampshire. June 1, 1852, the national democratic convention met at Baltimore.
The two-thirds rule was adopted. The balloting began June 3, and on the first ballot Lewis Cass received 114 votes; James Buchanan, 93; William L. Marcy, 27; Stephen Arnold Douglas, 20. The seventeenth ballot that day stood: For Cass, 99; Buchanan, 87; Douglas, 50; Marcy, 26.
The second day's balloting closed with the thirty-third trial, as follows: Cass, 123; Buchanan, 72; Douglas, 60; Marcy, 25.
On the thirty-sixth ballot the Virginia delegation cast their votes for Franklin Pierce, and on the forty-ninth he received the unanimous vote of the convention. William Rufus King was nominated for vice-president. Being duly elected, they were inaugurated March 4, 1853. There was not a change made in his cabinet officers during his administration, a thing that has never before or since happened. He left the presidential chair March 4, 1857, and returned to his home in New Hampshire, where he died Oct. 8, 1869. Pierce held office about seventeen years. He left about fifty thousand dollars.