At the Democratic convention of 1852, Pierce was not a candidate for the nomination, and did not know that any one intended to mention his name, or even thought of him in that connection.  But the convention was unable to agree on a candidate, and on the fourth day and thirty-third ballot, some delegate cast his vote for General Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire.  The name attracted attention, Pierce’s career had been distinguished and above reproach, other delegates voted for him, until, on the forty-ninth ballot, he was declared the unanimous choice of the convention.  His election was overwhelming, as he carried twenty-seven states out of thirty-one.

Once in the presidential chair, however, this popularity gradually slipped away from him.  He found himself in an impossible position, between two fires, for the slavery question was dividing the country more and more and there seemed no possible way to reconcile the warring sections.  Pierce, perhaps, made the mistake of trying to placate both, instead of taking his stand firmly with one or the other; and the consequence was that at the convention of 1856, he received a few votes from courtesy, but was never seriously in the running, which resulted in the nomination of James Buchanan.  Pierce returned to his home in New Hampshire, to find his friends and neighbors estranged from him by his supposed pro-slavery views, which had yet not been radical enough to win him the friendship of the South; but time changed all that, and his last years were spent in honored and opulent retirement.

James Buchanan was, like Andrew Jackson, of Scotch-Irish descent, but there the resemblance between the two ended, for Buchanan had little of Jackson’s tremendous positiveness and strength of character.  His disposition was always to compromise, while Jackson’s was to fight.  Now compromise is often a very admirable thing, but where it shows itself to be impossible and leaves fighting the only resource, the wise man puts all thought of it behind him and prepares for battle.  Which is precisely what Buchanan did not do.  He had been a lawyer and congressman, minister to Russia, senator, secretary of state and minister to England, and so had the widest possible political acquaintanceship; he was a man of somewhat unusual culture; but, alas! he found that something more than culture was needed to guide him in the troublous times amid which he fell.  I have often thought that Buchanan’s greatest handicap was his wide friendship, which often made it almost impossible to say no, however much he may have wished to do so.  An unknown backwoodsman, like Andrew Jackson, with no favors to return and no friendships to be remembered, could have acted far more effectively.