Manipulated by History
Franklin Pierce had three children who died before the age of 12. The oldest, died in a train accident just before he was sworn in as president. Pierce spent his life in political service, but his wife abhorred politics. He repeatedly told her he wouldn’t return to service but kept returning. When his son died he believed God was punishing him for his political ambitions. He was in a very dark place during a dark moment in our history. As a result, he drank heavily, which concerned those around him. Pierce battled alcoholism most of his adult life. His wife Jane was never the same after witnessing the gruesome death of their 11-year-old son.
Franklin Pierce was the 14th President of the United States; he rose to political prominence through strong relationships. His friend Jefferson Davis helped secure the democratic nomination as a compromise candidate when other candidates, including James Buchanan, Sam Houston, Lewis Cass, and Stephen Douglas, failed to secure enough votes. When Pierce heard who won the nomination, he replied, “Impossible, Col. Barnes. It cannot be!” American Novelist Nathanial Hawthorn wrote “The Life of Franklin Pierce," which helped promote Peirce’s candidacy. Pierce and the democrats capitalized on his military record, dashing good looks and celebrity to defeat Winfield Scott, a bubbling gaffe machine, to win the presidency in 1852.
After winning the presidency, Pierce arrived at a New York event looking “Very pale and occasionally placed his hand to his temple as if suffering from a headache.” John Forney, a publisher and democrat said of Pierce’s behavior. “I deeply, deeply, deplore his habits” and “He drinks deep.”
The Union and the democrats themselves were divided on the issue of slavery. Pierce, a northerner, was seen as pro-slavery, although he never proclaimed he was. This was because of his actions and the relationships he kept. Jefferson Davis had a large, almost “magical influence” over Pierce. Pierce wrote to his friend turned political rival John P. Hale “This abolition movement must be crushed, or there is an end to the union.”
As President, Pierce supported the Kansas-Nebraska act, a law passed by the United States Congress in 1854 that allowed the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to determine whether to allow or prohibit slavery through a process known as popular sovereignty. It allowed the people to decide. The people were divided and the territory had a state-level civil war. They had two capitols, two constitutions, and two legislatures. The result was a period known as Bleeding Kansas. This conflict escalated into violence in 1856 when a group of pro-slavery raiders attacked the town of Lawrence, which was known for its anti-slavery sentiments. The attack led to a series of retaliatory attacks and clashes between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces, with both sides engaging in brutal acts of violence. During this period, the federal government, including Franklin Pierce and his successor James Buchanan helped the pro-slavery forces.
Pierce was an avid reader and was influenced by John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke argues that the human mind is a "blank slate" or "tabula rasa" at birth and that all knowledge is acquired through experience and observation of the world around us. In other words, our ideas and understanding are not innate or pre-programmed but rather result from our interactions with the world. Franklin walked away with the idea humans are born without a sense of innate morality. But from Locke’s understanding, Pierce had to know the African people enslaved were not inferior to the white man but a result of their experiences.
The Kansas-Nebraska act wasn’t really allowing the people to decide for themselves; it was allowing a small group of people to fight to protect their false “right” that man could hold dominion over man. This was facilitated through the Democratic Party and then through the federal government. This was the antithesis to the self-governing principles of our founding, that man should have a voice and power in their own life and government. That power is supposed to be in the form of virtuous elected representatives, who carry out the people's will.
His decision to support the Kansas-Nebraska act was an example of failed leadership under the principles of “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” Written by Madison in Federalist No. 51. And “We the people.” written in the Constitution.
Why would a virtuous leader allow people to fight and kill in the name of oppression? Why let them fight with weapons unless you’ve lost the moral and constitutional arguments?
As an individual citizen, I would have wanted the leaders discussing what to do about the Kansas-Nebraska Act to say things like, “If you let the people decide, they will fight and kill each other.” And I don’t want the reply to be, “Let them.” Their passive leadership led some to fight for and expand a false “right,” even though past leadership and our founding principles had limited that false “right.”
The Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise reached during the drafting of the United States Constitution in 1787 that determined how enslaved people would be counted for purposes of taxation and representation in the House of Representatives. Those against slavery wanted only free citizens counted for apportionment. The pro-slavery forces understood that would leave them outnumbered in the legislature and unable to defend their “peculiar institution.” The pro-slavery force refused to ratify without “equal representation.” The compromise acknowledged that slaves were persons and not just property as far as the federal government was concerned. This allowed the union to hold while the abolitionist movement grew. It was never an approval of slavery, nor did it guarantee the right of man to own man. It was simply a group of leaders progressing society forward slowly as to avert bloodshed, pain, and suffering of its people.
That representation relates more immediately to persons, and taxation more immediately to property, and we join in the application of this distinction to the case of our slaves. But we must deny the fact, that slaves are considered merely as property, and in no respect whatever as persons. The true state of the case is, that they partake of both these qualities: being considered by our laws, in some respects, as persons, and in other respects as property...Let the case of the slaves be considered, as it is in truth, a peculiar one. — Federalist No. 54
The leaders against slavery were patient in the face of constant restrictions on their rights, like the “gag rule,” a series of rules adopted by the United States House of Representatives in the 1830s and 1840s that prohibited the discussion of anti-slavery petitions. This was a blatant abuse of free speech. A small faction in our government stripped away the people’s ability to assert their first amendment rights in protest of a barbaric act.
The slaveholders couldn’t win the argument that slavery was moral, so it coerced the Democratic Party into trying to make the argument it was constitutional. Slaveholders saw the north and the world lining up against them, so they tried to protect it with force.
After Stephen Douglas and the Democrats lost the election of 1860, the South succeeded and Pierce sided with his friend Jefferson Davis and the Democrats of the south. Douglas sided with the north. A virtuous leadership would have stood against it. Pierce’s failure allowed the south and the Democrats to play themselves as the victim even though they were the oppressors in every aspect. The South’s population was around 12 million, and 4 million were enslaved. The north’s population was around 19.5 million. The will of the people wanted slavery stopped. The south and the slaveholders were a small minority, even in full voting force, in the union. They used the Democratic Party and lined the powers of the Senate, House, Executive, and Supreme Court in their favor over a few generations in the name of slavery.
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” — James Madison Federalist No. 47
The idea that states had the right to oppress is a misunderstanding of our Constitution and division of powers. The constitution was not a compact of states but a compact of the people, ratified by the states. When the people decide, the states are beholden to their will in the name of freedom. Madison had two major fears: oppressive state governments that would overpower the federal and a small group of elites that manipulated and ruled the masses. He became a state’s rights advocate when Hamilton began to abuse the general welfare clause for his political purpose, but it was really designed to protect against oppressive State governments.
By the 1850s the elite ruling class of the slaveholders had lost the moral and constitutional debate over slavery. Their arguments were sometimes thoughtful and could appear reasoned, but only when one fails to take in the full context of actions, behavior, and reason. They manipulated the debate into a political one, perpetuated by weak ambitious men and the party they served. Looking back to the years leading up to the Civil War, we find many leaders like Pierce, who lacked fundamental principles. Focused mainly on the ambition of power than any greater good. The idea our leaders would let “the people decide” is an abdication of the responsibility already given to them by the people, and a last-ditch effort to preserve a moral and constitutional wrong.
The new Republican Party was born to counter these weak leaders. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” People started to put their factional differences aside and look at the greater good. Leaders like Lincoln and Frederick Douglass espoused the principles of republicanism and self-governance because they understood it was the most civil way to solve disputes and free man. Fair representation in one’s government is the freest a man can get in this world. And representative democracy is the best way to preserve virtuous leadership. By succeeding, Jefferson Davis and the States of the Confederacy were betraying the principles they were sworn to uphold by the constitution. They refused the Will of The People. Madison’s fears had come to fruition. The state was the oppressor, controlled by a small group of elites, and would not be stopped.
It’s sometimes hard for people to understand the complexities of the slavery debate because it stirs so much emotion and stretches across several generations. When looking at the debate, we should think of the individuals involved as people. Not white people that enslaved black people, but people that enslaved people. People who were flawed and failing. Some people trying to protect slavery were good people who believed something very wrong. Some wanted to end it but didn’t know how. Some were just weak ambitious men listening to the people who helped place them in power. Some were oppressors who were never going to give up their power. It’s not that the states don’t have rights; it’s that they don’t have the right to oppress people. For this reason, the federal government's supreme authority rests in the people's hands. As Lincoln said we are a “Government of the People, by the People, for the People.” It’s the people’s government, not the states. The people’s government was founded on liberty, and as George Washington said, “Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.” When the Democrats started cutting off branches from the tree of liberty, it was our Republican Virtue that eventually won the slavery debate, saved our union, and fulfilled the principles of our declaration that “All men are created equal.”