Franklin Pierce lusted for foreign territory — and squandered his presidency

Boston Globe

16-02-2025

Upon taking the oath of office in 1949, for example,
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'My administration will not be controlled by any timid forebodings of evil from expansion,' said Pierce, a handsome 48-year-old New Hampshire Democrat whose political climb had been so rapid that he was, at the time, the youngest man ever elected president. 'Our attitude as a nation and our position on the globe,' he declared, 'render the acquisition of certain possessions not within our jurisdiction eminently important for our protection.' In fact, Pierce claimed, it was 'essential' that the United States acquire new territory for the sake of its commercial rights and world peace.
More than 180 years later, Trump would use similar arguments to bolster his demands for the Panama Canal and Greenland.
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As Pierce took office, the wind was at his back. In the election, he had easily beaten his Whig opponent, the Mexican-American War hero Winfield Scott. Though he had experienced deep personal pain — his three sons all died young, and the accumulation of grief had plunged his wife into depression — Pierce's political rise seemed charmed. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, and Pierce intended to enforce party loyalty, especially with regard to slavery, the most controversial issue of the day. He supported the Compromise of 1850, which included the Fugitive Slave Act that was widely reviled in the North. Despite his New England roots, Pierce sympathized with Southern interests in preserving chattel slavery. He had been effective in suppressing antislavery sentiment among New Hampshire Democrats and was determined, now that he was president, to implement the same policy in the party as a whole.
Speaking at his inauguration, Pierce staunchly defended the legality of 'involuntary servitude' and called on Americans to 'cheerfully' uphold the legal rights of Southern enslavers. Henceforth, he said, debate on the matter should be considered settled.
To divert attention from the roiling issue of slavery — which was, of course, anything but settled — Pierce embarked on an aggressive program of attempted expansion. He launched discussions on acquiring Formosa (present-day Taiwan), Santo Domingo in the Caribbean, and even the so-called 'guano islands' of the Pacific. His administration schemed without success to annex Hawaii, which was then an independent kingdom. For many Northerners, all this fueled a suspicion that Pierce's real goal was to secure new territories into which slavery could be expanded. That suspicion exploded into scandal in 1854, with the publication of a confidential document in which three US diplomats laid out a plan to acquire Cuba from Spain — with or without Spain's assent.
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Southerners had long coveted Cuba, where slavery was already entrenched. Transferring the great island from Spain to the United States would effectively add another slave state to the union, and Pierce's secretary of state, William Marcy, directed the US ministers to Spain, France, and England to consult together and formulate a plan. Meeting at Ostend, Belgium, the trio drafted
When the Ostend Manifesto, as it came to be known, was published, it triggered a furious backlash, deepening the growing rift between North and South. The newborn Republican Party began gaining strength as Northern voters recoiled from the Pierce administration's willingness to accommodate Southern pressure for more slave territory.
The White House was compelled to repudiate the manifesto, but Pierce's interest in territorial expansion persisted. In 1855, the American soldier of fortune William Walker led a private force of marauders into Nicaragua where, with the financial backing of Southern planters, he fomented a revolution, set himself up as ruler, and declared the country open to slavery. 'Walker hoped to gain Nicaragua's entry into the Union as a slave state,'
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In the end, Pierce's expansionist schemes met with success only once. For $10 million, the United States bought a strip of land from Mexico, adding about 30,000 square miles to southern New Mexico and Arizona. Known as the
Far from uniting the nation under a banner of vigor and outward growth, Pierce's expansionism only added fuel to the flames of domestic animosity and sectional bitterness. At a time when the Union was fraying, he channeled executive energy into trying to acquire foreign lands — a classic case of misdirected priorities that backfired badly.
America under Trump is vastly different from the nation over which Pierce presided. But the legacy of the 14th president is a cautionary tale from which the headstrong 47th might benefit. Expansionist ambitions abroad can lead to negative consequences at home. Franklin Pierce could have tried to unify a nation that was polarized over domestic policy. Instead, he dismissed the legitimacy of principled opposition, demanded total fealty from his party, and sacrificed goodwill on the altar of territorial ambition. Trump may imagine that his aggressive territorial claims will have no ill effects. Pierce probably imagined the same thing.
Jeff Jacoby can be reached at