Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-04-27
Five Minutes A Day
With Oar Presidents
The Prologue of a Great Tragedy
Dy JAMES MORGAN.

The Prologue of q Great Tragedy
Franklin Pierce was elected in a
more sweeping victory than ony other
president has had since Monroe. He
had the mandate and the opportunity
to be President of the whole Union.
With all his good qualities of head
and heart, he was not broad enough
to be more than the servant Of a sec
ton, "of those who placed me here"
as he expressed 1t.
The new Presidents appointment
| OF jefferson Davis to be Secretary OF
war identified his administration at
the outset with the aggressive faction
in the South. Under its counsels
Pierce not only surrendered to the
ambitions of the slave power for ex-
pansion over the North and West. but
also for its expansion n foreign
lands.
Slavery was In It's last throes every
where. Great Britain had abolished
IL in her West Indian islands. Mexico
had abolished II 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 Britain. France and Spain met
in Belgium and issued the "Ostend
manifesto" That shameful document
proclaimed the threat that If the Span
ish Government should refuse to sell
US Cuba we would take the island by
force.
At the same time Congress at home
was r~epealing the Missouri Compro-
mise and wiping out the dead limo
against slavery, which had been drawn
a quarter of q century before. This
threw open Kansas to a wild scramble
between settlers who wished the new
territory to be free and those who
wished 1t to be slave.
Then and there the Civil War be-
gan. Border r~ufians," as the North
called the settlers, who rushed In from
Missouri and other slave States. and
settlers no less rough in their fight
ing 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 the weight
of the Federal power on the side of
those who were desperately striving
to create another slave state.
The whole country vas drawn into
the struggle, and the Republican party
sprang into life. At the election in
the middle of his term, Pierce saw
the Democratic representation In the
cut down one-half and the OPP
position sweep in with n big majority.
In spite of that warning. the Presl-
dent became n candidate for renomi
ldllOIl, DtCdIlSe lit was very AtltIi ~
of vindication. The selfish power
hat had used him had used him up,
and 1t ungratefully turned to a new
name, less furnished in its service.
The rest is the meager, but pathetic
story of n discarded President. The
charm of a kindly nature continued TO
hold TIL the last the affection Of friends
but public popularity was gone.
The Civil War. breaking out only
fntY,. - ~. r FN1., Ii. x-Af,l~,AVK 1890
to deepen the shadows of Pierce's rec
ord. In January. 1860, he wrote to
Jefferson Davis the encouraging proph-
ecy that If the conflict should come,
the fighting would be not only along
the Mason and Dixon line, but within
our own borders and in our w
States" Tn other words, that the
North would not be united.
A few days after the firing on Sum-
ter he made a speech In which he took
the stand for the Union. Unquestion-
ably he had always been loyal to it In
his heart. He had sacrificed even his
good name in an honest but misguided
effort to saw it from the horror of fra
ternal strife. But to its salvation by
war he could give little faith and only
q perfunctory support.
In the hot passions aroused by Lin
coins assassination an indignant crowd
marched to Pierce's ouse in Concord
with n noisy demand that he hang
out the Stars and Stripes. The self
respecting dignity of his refusal to
admit that his loyalty to the fiat need
ed such proof awed the zealots into
silence, and the eloquence of his sin
ceer expression O fsympathy for
those who mourned the stricken chief
sent them away with softened emo
lions toward the speaker. Though
he lived four years more. that is the
closing entry in the public life of
Franklin Pierce.