into play upon a higher field; for, during his Congressional service, Pierce was often summoned to preside in Committee of the Whole, when a turbulent debate was expected to demand peculiar energy in the chair." One great source of Franklin Pierce's popularity at this period was his modesty, his utter want of pretension and effort of any kind for mere effect. This good and manly quality, also, mainly he carried through life. To thrust himself forward for such a purpose was repugnant to him in others and disgusting in himself. Without these things he got all or more than he desired. In New Hampshire his father's mantle had been transferred to him, and his own intrinsic qualities placed him beyond the need of fictitious display. As a politician he followed in the footsteps of his father, who was always an oldschool Democrat (for the greater part of his life known as Republican); but his earlier political ideas and efforts at statesmanship on special points have not been preserved, and hence now rest on general or unsatisfactory tradition, or are referable to his subsequent career. At the regular election March 12, 1833, he was elected to represent his district in Congress, and in December took his seat in that body for the first time. He was a member of several committees, and quietly did the work assigned to him, seldom or never avoiding any of the obligations put upon him. His speeches were few, perhaps never undertaking one unless it seemed necessary, or was expected of him. Here he was always found with his party, and was one of the warm defenders of General Jackson and Martin Van Buren, an opponent of John Tyler, and generally strong and one-sided in his denunciations of the Whigs. Although he was never so far a statesman as to avoid entirely these useless partisan weapons, he seldom stooped to personal assaults in his speeches. In 1835 he was re-elected, and in the summer of 1836 the Legislature chose him as one of the United States Senators for six years. In that branch of Congress he took his seat at the first session under Martin Van Buren. CHAPTER III. PIERCE'S CONGRESSIONAL HISTORY-HIS POLITICAL ANT of room forbids the reproduction here of WAN gress; a matter to be regretted, perhaps, as those In his college days, and at times afterwards, Pierce's tendencies were very decidedly toward a military life, but how little he was the friend of the Academy at West Point may be seen from his speech on that subject. There is no evidence that he ever changed his views concerning the Military Academy. Many men of all parties have shared with him similar sentiments as to that institution. During his "service" in Congress, both branches of that body embraced in their membership a large number of able and distinguished men. And although his career there had not been at all marked or in any way especially noticeable, he was generally well esteemed by his fellow-members, and by his own party his course and conduct were looked upon with much favor, and even among the old, experienced, and acknowledged leaders his counsel and opinions were highly valued. Although advanced with unusual rapidity to his present political position, he had kept fully up to the expectations of his friends at home. He quit Congress with an honorable history. He had worked and voted, and made few speeches. During this period the slavery question was greatly agitated throughout the country and in Congress, and on this, as other issues, he took his position; yet not so fully to commit himself to the Southern view of the case, perhaps, as at a later date. He split the hair on the distinction between the right of Congress to receive petitions, and to consider them, and while voting for the bare proposition to receive the petitions from the North on slavery, or to sustain the Constitutional right of petition, he was a member of the committee which framed, and then himself supported, the following resolution: 66 Resolved, That all petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions, or papers, relating in any way or to any extent whatever, to the subject of slavery, or the abolition of slavery, shall, without being printed or referred, be laid upon the table, and no further action shall be had thereon." His action on this resolution, however, preceded his vote to sustain the mere right of petition, which, of course, this resolution effectually invalidated. His course on the slavery issue was now mainly fixed. He strongly supported the compromise measures of 1850, and subsequently favored conciliation and concession to the South on the slavery question, and always earnestly claimed that his action was based upon the earlier practices of the country, the Constitutional sanctions, and the Compromise legislation, which was obligatory law to every citizen, wherever he lived or whatever his private views. In February he sent his resignation to the Governor of his State, and when about to withdraw from the Senate he apprised that body of his design in a brief, formal letter. Two or three things had influenced him in taking this unusual step. In 1834 he had been married, and his wife's inclinations were averse to the excitements of public life. She was a delicate, refined woman, and found little to satisfy the true and genuine purposes of life in the insincerities of fashionable society. To some extent Mr. Pierce had neglected his profession, and his private affairs, as well as his family, demanded his attention. Although Pierce stood well with his associates of the Senate, and was looked upon as having fine prospects in his party, he was not himself at ease. He had no passion for public place, nor did he especially delight in hot partisan conflicts. And, although in some sense a "social" man, there is no mistake that he possessed a nature which could not be satisfied by the mental shallowness and frivolous hollowness of general society, and in the common, selfish aspirations of politicians he did not share. The strength and pertinence of this observation will appear farther on in this work, but there can be no doubt that Franklin Pierce's domestic nature, his refined, intellectual, and more |