PRESIDENT FRANKLIN PIERCE - AUTOGRAPH FRAGMENT UNSIGNED - HFSID 17241

FRANKLIN PIERCE
An autograph fragment unsigned by Franklin Pierce.
Autograph Fragment, unsigned, 6¼x1½. In full: "Honr Nathaniel Hawthorne". FRANKLIN PIERCE (1804-1869), who served as 14th U.S. President (1853-1857), had attended Bowdoin College in Maine with author NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864) and fellow classmate Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 1852, Hawthorne published a biography, The Life of Franklin Pierce, and after Pierce was elected President, Hawthorne was rewarded with the position of U.S. Consul at Liverpool. Pierce, who raised the ire of northerners by appointing southerner Jefferson Davis as his Secretary of War and passing the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and reopened the question of slavery in the West, was not re-nominated for another term by his party, and Hawthorne resigned his post at the end of Pierce's presidency. During the Civil War, when Pierce expressed admiration for Davis, the President of the Confederacy, he was threatened by an angry mob - and only his raising of the U.S. colors to show his loyalty to the Union appeased them. Hawthorne, who was one of the few people to stand by Pierce amid the criticism both during and after his presidency, died while accompanying Pierce on a tour of New Hampshire's White Mountains. Irregularly cut. Lightly soiled and stained, touching writing (all legible). Pencil note (unknown hand) and tape remnants on verso (no show through). Encapsulated for protection and strength.