Franklin Pierce
U.S. Pres. Franklin Pierce, oil on canvas by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1853; in the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Franklin Pierce
14th president of the United States
Also known as: Young Hickory
Franklin Pierce (born November 23, 1804, Hillsboro, New Hampshire, U.S.—died October 8, 1869, Concord, New Hampshire) was the 14th president of the United States (1853–57). He failed to deal effectively with the corroding sectional controversy over slavery in the decade preceding the American Civil War (1861–65). The son of a governor of New Hampshire, Benjamin Pierce, and the former Anna Kendrick, Franklin Pierce attended Bowdoin College in Maine, studied law in Northampton, Massachusetts, and was...