Considered a failure upon leaving the White House in 1857 and thought to be on his way to a well-deserved obscurity, Franklin Pierce during the Civil War emerged as a major spokesman for that era's Peace Democrats, opposed to President Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and in defense of civil liberties.
A Northerner with many close Southern friends, including Jefferson Davis the president of the Confederacy and his wife, Varina Davis, Pierce was also thought to be a traitor because of such ties and was at one point nearly arrested for suspected seditious behavior.
Considered a failure upon leaving the White House in 1857 and thought to be on his way to a well-deserved obscurity, Franklin Pierce during the Civil ...
Just 24 hours after former President James Buchanan died on June 1, 1868, the Chicago Tribune rejoiced: "This desolate old man has gone to his grave. No son or daughter is doomed to acknowledge an ancestry from him."
Nearly a century and a half later, in 2004, writer Christopher Buckley observed "It is probably just as well that James Buchanan was our only bachelor president. There are no descendants bracing every morning on opening the paper to find another heading announcing: 'Buchanan Once Again Rated Worst President in History.'"
How to explain such remarkably consistent...
Just 24 hours after former President James Buchanan died on June 1, 1868, the Chicago Tribune rejoiced: "This desolate old man has gone to his grav...
