The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-11-24
PRESIDENT PIERCE.
Resigning a Seat in the United States Sem
ate to Become Preacher-The In
side of Public Life.


1t is doubtful if there has ever been chap
lain of the House in Congress whose minis
trations were so universally popular and eff
feetive as Cookman's. He was always in
dead earnest, and moved and swayed his
auditors at will. So the late President
Piece informed the writer and it was con-
frmed by the testimony of many old resi-
dents OF Washington City who remembered
him and his preaching so late as 1867.
Bat to my story. 1t CHANGED that was in
Concord, n H. the then residence of Mr..
Pierce, during the week of the presidential
election OF 1852, when this dark horse" of
the Democratic party so suddenly burst
upon the political race-course, and stormed
around the track like q whirlwind distanc-
ing all his competitors, handicapped, it was
said by all, by the notorious JEFF. Davis, who,
clinging to the crupper, whispered ever in
his ear: Put in the rowelS, Frank; it's you
and l." And even so it was, Frank Pierce,
President; but it was Jefferson Davs's adj
ministration.
There was a modest sign distinctly recol-
lect, over a door on Main street, on which
was painted in faded letters Franklin Pierce.
Whether grocer, barber or lawyer, it failed
to say to a stranger, but to every citizen of
the old Granite State it was known as the
OllICt VI TTduk IL uQG tu0 most pro-
found and astute lawyer, yet the most elo-
quent pleader in the State,
In the back room of this office sat- with his
private secretary, the anxious and expectant
candidate for the highest position on earth
far above all princpalities and crowns
thrones and dominions. 1t was election day,
and all through the land, from Maine to
Texas, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, those
slips OF paper were dropping into the boxes
silently as
sHow-fiakes fall upon the sod,
But execute the will of man, as lightning does
the will of God.
Slowly the day wears away, the sun is
''hastening to his going down." and the
lightning is flashing in the returns Fast
as they come they are passed through the lits
tie window to the secretary who, in sup
pressed tones reads them to the trembling
man, who is making most desperate efforts
at self-control.
1t comes at last--he is elected One who
has never passed such an ordeal can by no
means realize the mighty tide of emotion
rolling through ones soul at such a time |
wonder if he thought of the past scenes in
his almost wasted 1ife?-of his drunken
orgies in Washington; of that night when he
and his pet companions, crazy drunk wan
dered of, bowling through the streets, TO the
Congregational cemetery, where he was
mounted upon a tombstone, and made an
Grafton to his rowdy fellow-representatives(
eXclaming, Il shall rise. shall be Pres
luGul VI TIC OnlLeu RldlGS4 / NOHUeE Ltle
form of George G. Goodman, to whose faith
full sermons and earnest personal efforts and
prevailing prayers he owed under God his
present elevation, fitted before him?
And let not the reader for a moment
imagine this statement to be one of NV
dreams l had it from Mr. Pierce's own lips
only two or three days after the election.
1t is fact undisputed that Frank Pierce
was for years OF very questionable morality
in fact, drunkard, and rapidly sinking to
drunkard's doom; that his life in Wash
lngton was a disgrace to himself and his
contituency; that under such circumstances
he would never have been thought OF as a
candidate for the presidency; that he sud
denly reformed, and to the surprise of every
one, shortly after resigned his seat in the
Senate, and retired to private life at Con-
cord. But the cause of this sudden change
in his habits of life, and his resignation of
his position as a senator of the United
States, isknown to but few.
Let us return for a moment to the day of
the election. One would most naturally sup
pose that the citizens of Concord proud of
their little lawyer, and surprised at his Sc
lection for the first place in the gift of the
people, would have burnt some guDpowder
and shaken the church steepes by the ring
ing of BELLS and so they would have done,
and an ample sum of money had been raised
for this object, but the President SAID, mo,
give the money to the poor" and, no doubt,
said within himself, "Ihave wasted too much
already on my beastly appetites.'' So per-
feet silence reigned that night in that ex-
cited town.
But that evening Mr. Pierce took train
for the old homestead at Hillsborough and
spent the two following days wandering
over the old paternal acres, and musing, not
on the mysteries of cabinet-making, for of
that he could do nothing till he had seen
Jeff Davis, but, the mysterious ways of
Providence. He afterward said to friend
who said it to me, II can but think that
divine Providence has something special for
me to do" Alas there was another invsi-
BILE being who had something to be done, but
who would employ that other agent above
named.
In the meantime had called on my old
friend Prof. Vail, in the theological school,
and speaking of the election of Mr. Pierce,
he said, handing to me a book of autograph
letters, There is a letter from George Cook
man to your old principal at Kent's Hill,
Merritt Caldwell, which will interest YOU"
read and at.once copied part of IT. Let
me here premise that the anmus of this
epistle to Caldwell was the fact that Frank
Pierce, alter his college graduation, taught
the winter school in the neighborhood of
the Caldwell family, with whom he boarded
and so became intimately acquainted with
the two young men, Zenas and Merritt Cald-
we'll, and the sister, that elect lady, the wild
ow of the late DIR. Eliphalet Clark, of Port
land, Me. And so Chaplain Goodman sends
this letter to CALDWELL to induce him to
write a comforting line to his old tutor
Pierce. Here is the portion of the letter
from Goodman which copied, and which,
after reading DR.. Holdich's articles found
by search among the papers Of the long ago:
WASHINGTON, Feb. %, 1885,
This morning had an interesting and memor-
ably affecting interview with friend OF yours,
Senator Pierce, OF New Hampshire, who is at
present the subject of deep aud pnngent convic-
tione of the spirit of God, He has been attend
ing my ministry regularly ever since have been
in the city, and for the last three or four weeks
his hears has been broken up indeed, and more
sincere. humble and peuitent sinner have sell
dom seen. He opened his mind, he said, for the
first time to any human being on the over
wheluing subject of his souls snlvatinn And