HOW HE SEES IT 'Fainting Frankie' wasn't such a lousy prez

By KEVIN HORRIGAN
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
If you hurry, there's still time to plan a spring vacation to New Hampshire before the Franklin Pierce Bicentennial exhibit closes at the Tuck Library in Concord on May 8. Plenty of tickets are still available.
Attendance has been a bit underwhelming since the exhibit opened last fall to mark the 200th anniversary of Pierce's birth, Nov. 23, 1804. "I mean we're not Lincoln," said Jayme H. Simoes, a Concord public relations man who took on the thankless job of chairing the celebration for the unfortunate soul who was the 14th -- and arguably the worst -- president of the United States.
Oops. I didn't mean "celebration." Not even Pierce's fellow New Hampshiremen will argue that the man called "Fainting Frankie" deserves a celebration.
"It's not a celebration," said Simoes. "It's more like a commemoration. It's the first comprehensive exhibit ever devoted to Pierce. We did it without a budget, without a mandate. It's just a drive to get out the truth about the man and his times."
For a PR man without a budget, Simoes did a pretty good job getting the word out. I bit when I read that a new biography of Pierce had been published in conjunction with the bicentennial; I collect presidential biographies and knew I had to have it.
Sales haven't been brisk for "Franklin Pierce, New Hampshire's Favorite Son," by Peter A. Wallner, which rocketed to No. 103,363 on Amazon.com's Best-Seller list. It deserves better, since Wallner writes well and knows his subject cold -- so cold he's planning a second volume in a couple of years -- but, alas, when the subject is Franklin Pierce, there's a limit to the market.
Drinking problem
Wallner's thesis, one embraced wholeheartedly by the Pierce Bicentennial Commission, is that Pierce wasn't really as lousy a president as he's cracked up to be. Sure, he fainted in battle during the Mexican War and picked up the nickname "Fainting Frankie." Sure, he had a bit of a drinking problem; his political opponents called him "the veteran of many a well-fought bottle." And, sure, the major legislative achievement of his presidency was the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which upset the tenuous peace of the Missouri Compromise and led directly to the Civil War.
The bicentennial exhibit is titled "Franklin Pierce: Defining Democracy in America." It could as easily been titled, "Fainting Frankie: Not all that Bad."
Pierce was an affable, charming man, Wallner says, one whose life was touched with more than its share of tragedy. He fainted during battle because he never should have been on a horse anyway; he had a severely injured leg, and when it was reinjured, he fainted from the pain.
He and his wife, Jane Appleton Pierce, lost two sons in infancy. Their surviving son, Benjamin, 11, was killed in a train wreck two months before Pierce's inauguration. Mrs. Pierce, who alone could keep her husband sober, retired to melancholy, as they said in those days, and Handsome Frank (he was reputedly the best-looking American president) became reacquainted with the bottle. Thus do personal tragedies sometimes lead to national tragedies, which is a good reason to read history.
Slave-state support
Pierce was chosen as the Democratic nominee in 1852 on the 49th ballot, mostly because the delegates were getting tired. He defeated Gen. Winfield Scott, the Whig candidate, because Pierce had slave-state support. He personally abhorred slavery but, like many weak men, found it politically expedient to rationalize evil. Thus slavery, the issue that got him elected president, became the one that condemned him. Which is another good reason to read history.
Pierce is remembered -- if at all -- for being the president who installed central heating at the White House. For the Gadsden Purchase that settled the dispute with Mexico. For ushering in the age of the perforated postage stamp. And let's not forget the Ostend Manifesto, which said the United States had the right to unilaterally seize Cuba from Spain. It was sort of the Bush Doctrine of its time.
Pierce also is remembered for being the only president ever denied nomination to a second term by his own party. He died in 1869 of cirrhosis of the liver after having spent the Civil War years berating Abraham Lincoln for not solving things peacefully.
It's a good thing the Pierce Bicentennial is being called a commemoration and not a celebration. Pierce may well have been a charming man touched by tragedy, but charm and tragedy have nothing to do with moral courage. In the end, that's what we are all judged on. And knowing that is the best reason to read history.
X Kevin Horrigan is a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.