Franklin Pierce

Served as president from 1853-1857
Era: Westward Expansion Era

American Identity and Culture
During Pierce’s presidency, the country had a large population of immigrants due to an influx of new arrivals. These people were mostly from Ireland and Germany. Many settled in the poorest sections of cities and along the coast because they could not afford to move elsewhere. The immigrants ended up competing with blacks for backbreaking jobs that native-born Americans refused to do. Another issue they faced was resentment. Due to the fact that most Irish immigrants were Roman Catholic, Protestants in America saw them as a threat to their values and way of life.
Economic Transformations and Globalization
On March 31, 1854, Japan and the United States signed their first treaty together called the Treaty of Kanagawa. The United States had planned to end Japan’s isolation from the rest of the world, where its government had made trading with foreign nations forbidden. The object of the treaty was to protect American whalers’ rights, provide coaling ports, and lead to trade eventually. They only achieved two of these goals: improving American access to energy resources by getting two coaling ports and protecting the whalers (oil workers). Unfortunately, they were not able to open Japan up to trade during Pierce’s presidency.
Environment
In 1853, President Pierce added more land to the growing nation. He made the Gadsden Purchase, which added new southwestern land to for the construction of a railroad. For $10 million, Mexico sold thousands of acres of its land. In the present-day, the land forms the southern sections of the area of what is now New Mexico and Arizona. This purchase also resolved the boundary dispute that was caused by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and an inaccurately drawn map. The land proved to be an ideal location for economic growth and became an important stop.
Politics and Citizenship
Due to the growing hostilities among Protestant Americans born in the U.S. and immigrant Germans and Irish Catholics, the American party—also known as the Know-Nothing party, developed. It drew away support from the Whigs who were weakened after their defeat in the election of 1852. The party had one main issue and that was its resistance to immigrants and Catholics. Another political party appeared in 1854: the Republican Party. The party was united in its aversion to slavery among the American territories. They were only fine with slavery if it remained in the old slave states of the south. The Republican Party soon became the second largest party in the U.S.
Slavery and its legacies in North America
Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois developed an idea for constructing a transcontinental railroad that ran across the center of the U.S. with a crucial stop in Chicago. It would start north instead of a southern route. Douglas then introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act because he wanted to gain the South’s approval for his plan. The act suggested that the division of the Nebraska Territory should be made in half, with one being Kansas and the other Nebraska. Then, the settlers in those two territories were free to determine the outcome of the slavery issue (popular sovereignty). With this act in effect, the Compromise of 1820 was repealed. Democrats from the North criticized the law for bowing down to the “slave power.”
War and Diplomacy
Franklin Pierce adopted pro-southern policies once he was elected into the presidency. To buy Cuba from Spain, he sent American diplomats to Ostend, Belgium where they secretly negotiated. The diplomats went even further and warned Spain to sell Cuba or it would be taken by force. They proposed a price of $120 million. This was named the Ostend Manifesto. Once it was leaked to the American public however, Congress members with antislavery attitudes reacted in anger. Pierce was compelled to abandon his plans. Obtaining Cuba was made impossible because it only reflected the views of southern Democrats and alienated antislavery politicians.