Franklin Pierce and the Fight for the Old Unionrnby H. Arthur Scott TraskrnI f Franklin Pierce is remembered at all today it is as an inept,rndo-nothing President whose only accomplishment was tornsign the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Historians generally citernthis bill, along with the 1857 Supreme Court decision in thernDred Scott case, as evidence of the aggressive designs of thernSoutli to extend slavery throughout the Union. These historiansrncharacterize Pierce, as well as his successor James Buchananrnof Pennsylvania, as ambitious and unprincipled Northernersrnwho were willing to violate the Constitution and advancernSouthern interests in return for Southern political support forrntheir presidential ambitions. The historians thus ascribe muchrnof the blame for the sectional conflict to them. The realrnFranklin Pierce, however, is a figure far richer and more complicatedrnthan the historical caricature.rnPierce was one of the most consistent Jeffersonian republicansrnto occupy the White House m the early republic. He firmlyrnbelieved that the federal government should be kept withinrnthe limits established by the Founders. Accordingly, he vetoedrnnumerous internal improvement bills (what we would todayrndescribe as pork-barrel projects) on the grounds of their unconstitutionalifv’rnand fiscal excess. He also believed strongly in thernrepublican policy initiated h Jefferson and continued h hisrnsuccessors of “extending the area of freedom” by acquiring territorrnout of which new states could cventualh’ be formed.rnPierce tried to acquire Cuba, believing that it would enhancernAmerica’s security by depriving an- potentially hostile power ofrna stronghold close to her shores and by augmenting her agriculturalrnand commercial prosperity by gaining land highly suitablernfor sugar, tobacco, and coffee plantations.rnPierce’s designs on Cuba are cited as still more evidence thatrnhe was a pawn of the Southern slae interest, yet it needs to bernremembered that scores of prominent Northerners advocatedrnthe annexation of Cuba on the grounds that it would benefitrnthe whole LInioii. Pierce’s administration was supported by thernU. Arthur Scott Irask of Chester field, Missouri, is writing hisrndoctoral dissertation on the Northern jeffersoniam.rnimportant but now almost forgotten “Young America” movement.rnThis group was made up of young nationalists and libertariansrnwho favored republicanism, free trade, hard money, andrncontinental expansionism. Like Pierce, the’ had no s’mpathyrnfor the Abolitionist and Free-Soil movements which they regardedrnas manifestations of a puritanical and selfish Nortliernrnspirit that both envied the prosperity of the Southern agriculturalrneconomy and resented the commanding influence ofrnSouthern statesmen in the Union, an influence that was classicallyrnliberal and opposed to the mercantilism and statismrnfavored b- Northern industrialists and intellectuals.rnPierce’s decision to sign the Kansas-Nebraska Act can be defendedrnon a number of grounds. First, a consensus had developedrnamong honest constitutional scholars both North andrnSouth that the famous Missouri line established by Congress inrn1820 prohibiting slavery in the Louisiana territory north andrnwest of Missouri was unconstitutional, for it had deprived therncitizens of half the states the right to migrate to the territoriesrnwith their property, a clear iolation of the constitutional rcciuirementrnthat all citizens be equal under the laws of thernUnion. In addition, by in effect dictating to the territories andrnfuture states of the Louisiana Purchase the kind of social institutionsrnthe)’ could form. Congress had made those future statesrnless equal, free, and sovereign than the states east of the Mississippi.rnBy repealing the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-NebraskarnAct act overturned a precedent of 34 years standing, butrnto fa’or the original and proper understanding of the Constitutionrnwas pure Jeffersonianism. As a strict constructionist.rnPierce had little choice but to sign the bill.rnSecond, Pierce believed that a failure to sign the bill wouldrnhae been a sectional action in itself. The bill had created andrnopened for settlement two distinct territories—Kansas, madernup of present day Kansas and eastern Colorado; and Nebraska,rnmade up of present day Nebraska and the two Dakotas. It vasrnthe clearly understood, although unstated, intent of the act tornsatisfy both sections of the Union Iw creating for each a territoryrnto which their citizens could migrate. Kansas, being directlyrnOCTOBER 1997/33rnrnrn