Norwich bulletin., 1920-04-28
Five Minutes a Day With Our Presidents
 copyright 1sao-By James Morgan

NXXIX-THE PROLOGUE OF Al
 GREAT TRAGEDY
 lS5S-Mareh 4, Franklin Pierce in-
 augurated 14th President.
 aged 4S.
 1S54--The Ostend Manifesto issued.
 The Missouri Compromise re-
 pealed.
 1S56-Pierce defeated for renomina-
 ton.
 1s6e-oct. 8, died, aged 64.
 Franklin Pierce was elected in a more sweeping victory than any other presi- dent has had since Monroe. He had the mandate and the opportunity to be pres ident of the whole Union. With all his good qualities Of head And heart. he was not broad enough to De more than the servant of a section, "of those who placed me here" as he explained it. The new president appointment of Jefferson Davis to be Secretary of war, identified his administration at the out set with the aggressive faction in the i south. Under it's counsels Pierce not only surrendered to the ambitions of the l slave power for expansion into foreign slands
 l Slavery was in it's last throes every where. Great Britain had abolished it I in her West Indian islands, Mexico had | abolished it next door to our own slave states. Even Spain was tending toward the freeing of the slaves in Cuba when the American Ministers to Great Bri- tain France and Spain met in Belgium l and issued the "Ostend manifesto" That shameful document proclaimed the threat that if the Spanish government should refuse to sell us Cuba we would take the 1 island by force
 1 At the same time congress at home was repeating the Missouri Compromise and wiping out the dead line against ] slavery which. had been drawn a quarter of century before This threw open Kansas to wild scramble between set ] tleds who wished the new territory to be free and those who wished it to be slave.
 Then and there the Civil War began ] Border ruffians,' as the north called the settlers who rushed in from Missouri and other slave states, and settlers nc less rough in their fighting who poured in from the free states, quickly turned that primeval into Bleeding Kansas Rival territorial governments were set up by the two factions and Pierce threw l the weight of the federal power on Nle side of those who were desperately striv- ing to create another slave state. 1 The whole country was drawn into the struggle and the republican party sprang into life. At the election in the
 middle of his term, Pierce say the dem jocratic representation in the house cut
 down one-half and the opposition sweeI
 in with big majority. In spite of that warning, the presiden became a candidate for renomination
 because he was vety much in need io, vindication. The selfish power that hat
 used him had used him up, and it un gratefully turned in a new name, les , tarnished in it's service
 The rest is the meager, but patheti , story of a discarded president. Tn charm of a kindly nature continued t hold till the last affection of friends, bu
 public popularity was gone.
 7 The Civil War breaking out only fou . years after his retirement, served t , deepen the shadows of Pierces record s In January, 1860, he wrote to Jefferso v Davis the encouraging prophecy that the conflict should come, "the fightin l would not be only along the Mason an g Dixon line, but within our own border ) and in our own states" In other word: t that the north would not be united. l A few days after the firing on Sunte n he made a speech in which he took tn t stand for the UnioR. Unquestionably f r had always been loyal to it in his hear h He had sacrificed even his good name i g an honest but misguided effort to save g from the horror of fraternal strike Bl r. to it's salvation by war he could giy e little faith and only, a perfuctory SUI is port
 e In the hot passions aroused by Lii q coln's assassination an indignant crow Il marched to Pierces house in Concol o with noisy demand that he hang ol 'e the Stars and Stripes. The self-r specting dignity of his refusal to adm E. that his loyalty to the flag needed sut