Franklin Pierce

By Atlas MeyersThe 14th Presidency (1853–1857)

Biography and Memoir

History

Length1h 9m

About this book

Summary

THE GOVERNANCE OF GRIEF Franklin Pierce entered the White House a shattered man. Having witnessed the tragic death of his only son weeks before his inauguration, he governed with a fatalism that allowed the nation's fragile peace to incinerate. This volume analyzes the era of the broken seal, where a weak executive’s attempt to appease the South triggered the first shots of the Civil War. Inside, you will discover: The psychological paralysis of a president in mourning. The legislative disaster of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The Young America movement and the secret plot to seize Cuba. The bloody guerrilla war of Bleeding Kansas and the rise of John Brown. The political execution of a leader denied renomination by his own party. Pierce sought to save the Union by giving the slave power everything it demanded, only to leave office as a ghost haunting the ruin he helped design.