General Information:
Major "Events" of his Presidency:
- Franklin Pierce had been the fourteenth President of the nation with no Vice President for the majority of his only term.
- Term as President lasted from 1853 to 1857.
- Served as a Brigadier general in the Army and in the U.S. Senate/House of Representatives.
Major "Events" of his Presidency:
- The signing of The Gadsden Purchase: the final boundaries of the United States.
- The signing of The Kansas-Nebraska Act which repeals the Missouri Compromise of 1820 (opening up the possibility of slavery in the West), organizes the Kansas and Nebraska territories on the basis of “popular sovereignty,” and paves the way for the transcontinental railroad from Chicago to California.
- The founding of the Republican Party and their first national meeting.
- The writing of The Ostend Manifesto which suggests that the U.S. would invade Cuba if Spain would not be willing to give it the U.S.. However, his brash attempts at 'diplomacy' ruin Pierce's chances of acquiring Cuba.
- The "guerrilla war" between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers as they attempt to establish “popular sovereignty” in Kansas is labeled, "Bleeding Kansas."
- The establishment of the "Know-Nothing" Party.
- The Sumner-Brooks Affair occurs, in which cane-wielding Representative Preston Brooks (D-SC) attacks abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) on the Senate floor.