Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804 – October 8, 1869) was the 14th president of the United States (1853–1857), a northern Democrat who saw the abolitionist movement as a fundamental threat to the unity of the nation. The unit performed drill on campus near the president's house, until the noise caused him to demand that it halt. Pierce's candidacy for the Senate was championed by state Representative John P. Hale, a fellow Athenian at Bowdoin. His Cabinet members implemented an early system of civil service examinations which was a forerunner to the Pendleton Act passed three decades later, which mandated that most positions in the U.S. government should be awarded on the basis of merit, not patronage.