Franklin Pierce

One last thought on Franklin Pierce. I don't think history has treated him fairly. He was involved in politics and he was a soldier before being nominated. It was an upset winner and he was the first what they called a dark horse candidate. Apparently dark colored horses are not generally fast. There were two candidates going at it, but going nowhere. Pierce was acceptable to enough that he eventually got the nomination. He got elected, but between his election and inauguration, he was on a train trip with his family. There was a crash and his only child was killed. His wife went into mourning pretty much for the rest of her life. He should get a pass even if he didn't do great as a president. But how bad did he do? He compromised with the southern states, but otherwise they would have left the union. All those presidents before Lincoln were considered failures, but they did what they thought they had to do. If they could have hung on, technology might have lessened the need for slavery and there might have been a politcal solution without thousands of Civil War deaths.

He might have been a bit of an alcoholic before and after his presidency, but not he wasn't during. After he was president, he had some harsh things to say about how Lincoln was handling things. Signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act was a terrible idea, but he didn't create it, Congress did. He just signed it. 

Now that I think about it, he really wasn't a very good president, but again with his family tragedy, he deserves a little more compassion than he normally gets.