Considering the Success of President Franklin Pierce

With the sudden death of his son, President Franklin Pierce, had already been distracted going into the office. Some may say that he didn’t care about being the leader of a free nation; he lost sight of his goals and of what a true president should do, which seems to be true. Although some Presidents were unable to step up to the leadership duties that the presidency entails, Franklin Pierce was the most indecisive president to take office. When looking into the success of President Franklin Pierce, one should remember how he was incapable of making executive decisions, his uncivilized use of military power, by using it to harass citizens, and was easily pressured when it came to shaping his legislation.

As the president is supposed to make all the executive decisions with the help of his cabinet/administration, President Franklin Pierce did almost the opposite of that. Throughout his whole presidency, Pierce was known for his inability to actually take control of a situation and or make an actual executive decision, as he “was an ineffective leader”(“Presidency of Franklin Pierce”). However with the one major decision, “his administration is remembered for civil unrest in the territory of Kansas, where pro- and antislavery forces clashed over whether to extend the so-called 'peculiar institution' of slavery in the United States”, which was one the crucial reasons he didn’t get a ton of support from his political party.

In the beginning of his presidency there were “departmental reforms made by Pierce's cabinet”, this included changes in the “civil services” area of the government. This seemed to have a big impact on citizens with federal jobs ( “The Franklin Pierce Administration”). However some may see this decision as Franklin Pierce's idea and he was able to convey how he wanted the country to his cabinet/administration, is all false. It has been written that Pierce “delegated the most task to his cabinet”, which shows how much he actually did. Yes,of course he made the final decisions, but most of the time he felt pressured and would sometimes make rash choices, whereas once his cabinet had decided everything, he piggybacked off it; he took credit, credit that he didn’t deserve to take. Without the efforts of his supporting administration, who knows what would’ve gotten during Pierce's time.

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One would think since President Franklin Pierce served in the military during the Mexican-American war, that he would of used his military powers successfully, however, he failed to use that power effectively. Pierce was elected in a time of peace in the country, however, once he made certain decisions, that all quickly changed to a time of “war.” The major problem throughout his whole presidency was conflicts with the Topeka Government. After all the back and forth, Pierce was sick of it and “informs congress that he has declared the Topeka government to be in a 'revolution' against the legitimate government of Kansas Territory”. This, of course, leads to more riots, which is the opposite Pierce wanted, leading him to have to send an “army contingent to prevent the Topeka government from the meeting,” this was supposed to keep the government, run by Charles Robinson, from plotting ways to make the state abolish slavery.

However, what this actually did was cause more bloodshed, the men of the Topeka government “finally took their fight directly to the proslavery side in a series of attacks on the proslavery settlements of Franklin, Fort Saunders, and Hickory Point, contributing to the territory’s reputation as “Bleeding Kansas”; feud between the states eventually ended, once a new president came into place ( “Topeka Constitution). However some might see this as kind of a victory because it gave the issue of slavery a voice and got people to talk about it, the use of the military was unnecessary. With the use of the army, that Pierce sent to Kansas, escalated the whole situation tremendously, but this is not the first time Pierce used his military power ineffectively. Another time was when, “ The murder of an employee of an American company led Pierce to order the USS Cyane to Greytown, and Cyane destroyed Greytown”.

Although some could argue that this was Pierces of way of protecting the U.S. from any sort of danger, it seems to put them into a much more dangerous situation. The military isn’t something to be messed around with, especially when it comes to a situation involving another country. The national army is supposed to protect us from the violence of internal and domestic affairs, however Pierce, instead of working it out like a mature adult, used the military as some toy. Which all of this shows his impotence when it came to using his military powers in the right way, effective way. Lastly, the biggest downfall of his presidency, that made people deem him as an unsuccessful president, was his inability to shape a successful legislation. As stated previously, Pierce literally could not make a decision, whatsoever, especially when it came to introducing new laws/acts, including the major one, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

Considering that “ It was Congress that sold Pierce on the only major legislation passed during his presidency”, just shows how easily he was pressured into making choices. This may not seem very impactful due to the fact that sometimes presidents just don’t know how to make their legislation successful, but that doesn’t mean they were easily persuaded into a law or an act that made a fair amount of people mad and basically caused a mini war. The mention of the Kansas- Nebraska act keeps coming up throughout the time of Pierce because that was essentially the only legislation that he passed that made a difference, a negative one, but still he did something. Although in 1854, “President Franklin Pierce vetoed the bill that would provide ten million acres of federal land to be sold for the support asylums for the indigent insane”(Warder, Dr. Graham), his reasoning behind this was the fact this wasn’t a national government problem, it was to charities or even local legislation to fund it. However it does seem that maybe that land went to some other cause, and even though Pierce was sympathetic towards the bill, he just couldn’t support it.

As this may make Pierce seem like a president who cared but was able to make the tough decision, he actually “feared that if the federal government assumed responsibility for the care of the indigent insane, the care of all impoverished Americans would then become its responsibility” which shows he tries to be this stand up president who cares for the people, but if he actually cared wouldn’t he have thought of the Americans who needed help to become mentally stable, to be able to function. (Warder, Dr. Graham). Overall of this lead to “Pierce's failure to attain renomination in 1856, however, reflects the voters' impatience and embarrassment with the bloodshed in Kansas and the president's utter failure to take the lead on a single important piece of legislation”

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