Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) was the 14th President of the United States of America. He was one of the reactionary Presidents who believed in the lie that the abolitionist movement was a fundamental threat to the unity of America. He alienated anti-slavery groups by supporting and signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He enforced the unjust Fugitive Slave Act. He saw the beginning and end of the American Civil War. He was born in a log cabin at Hillsborough, New Hampshire. He was a sixth generation descendant of Thomas Pierce, who moved into the Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, Norfolk, England in about 1634. His father Benjamin was a lieutenant in the American Revolutionary War who moved from Chelmsford, Massachusetts to Hillsborough after the war, purchasing 50 acres (20 ha) of land. Pierce was the fifth of eight children born to Benjamin and his second wife Anna Kendrick. Benjamin's first wife Elizabeth Andrews died in childbirth, leaving a daughter. Benjamin was a prominent Democratic-Republican, state legislator, farmer, and tavern keeper. Franklin Pierce was involved in politics since his youth. His other brothers fought in the War of 1812. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy. In 1820 at the fall, he came into Bowdoin College at Brunswick, Maine, one of 19 freshman. He studied law briefly. He also was part of state politics. Franklin Pierce opposed the Federalists and supported Andrew Jackson.
He was the Billsborough town moderator. Andrew Jackson won his district as Franklin Pierce campaigned for him, and he elected for town moderator for six consecutive years. He was later part of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. He was in the state militia of New Hampshire as he was between the ages of 18 and 45. Franklin Pierce was appointed aide de camp to Governor Samuel Dinsmoor in 1831. He remained in the militia until 1847, and attained the rank of colonel before becoming a brigadier general in the Army during the Mexican–American War. Interested in revitalizing and reforming the state militias, which had become increasingly dormant during the years of peace following the War of 1812, Pierce worked with Alden Partridge, president of Norwich University, a military college in Vermont, and Truman B. Ransom and Alonzo Jackman, Norwich faculty members and militia officers, to increase recruiting efforts and improve training and readiness. Since New Hampshire was a great Democratic stronghold, so he won in the House election. He married Jane Means Appleton. Jane was shy, religious, and pro-temperance. She inspired Pierce to stop drinking alcohol. They had 3 children. Franklin Pierce opposed the 2nd National Bank and even infrastructure spending. He opposed abolitionism. He hypocritically claimed to be morally opposed to slavery, but he opposed the federal government opposing slavery. He was so extreme that he wrote in December 1835 that, " "One thing must be perfectly apparent to every intelligent man. This abolition movement must be crushed or there is an end to the Union." When Rep. James Henry Hammond of South Carolina looked to prevent anti-slavery petitions from reaching the House floor, however, Pierce sided with the abolitionists' right to petition. Nevertheless, Pierce supported what came to be known as the gag rule, which allowed for petitions to be received, but not read or considered. This passed the House in 1836.
Franklin Pierce was a hypocrite. He left the Senate to be a lawyer. He campaign for James Polk who became President. He fought in the Mexican American war as a brigadier general. He returned to Concord, New Hampshire. There was the Election of 1852 that Franklin Pierce has won. The Democrats were divided by the slavery issue. His son passed away (on January 6, 1853) before he was sworn into office. Pierce never got over his son's passing. He delivered his inaugural address by memory. He tried to form a unity government. The Vice President was William R. King. Abolitionists and anti-abolitionists criticized him on many issues. Pierce wanted an efficient government to promote civil service examinations. He promoted infrastructure, and diplomatic relations with other nations. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act existed. He wanted a transcontinental railroad with a link from Chicago to California, through the vast western territory. Organizing the territory was necessary for settlement as the land would not be surveyed nor put up for sale until a territorial government was authorized. Those from slave states had never been content with western limits on slavery, and felt it should be able to expand into territories procured with blood and treasure that had come, in part, from the South. Douglas and his allies planned to organize the territory and let local settlers decide whether to allow slavery. This would repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820, as most of it was north of the 36°30′ N line the Missouri Compromise deemed "free". The territory would be split into a northern part, Nebraska, and a southern part, Kansas, and the expectation was that Kansas would allow slavery and Nebraska would not. The political turmoil that followed the passage saw the short-term rise of the nativist and anti-Catholic American Party, often called the Know Nothings, and the founding of the Republican Party.
Even as the act was being debated, settlers on both sides of the slavery issue poured into the territories so as to secure the outcome they wanted in the voting. The passage of the act resulted in so much violence between groups that the territory became known as Bleeding Kansas. Thousands of pro-slavery Border Ruffians came across from Missouri to vote in the territorial elections although they were not resident in Kansas, giving that element the victory. Pierce supported the outcome despite the irregularities. When Free-Staters set up a shadow government, and drafted the Topeka Constitution, Pierce called their work an act of rebellion. The president continued to recognize the pro-slavery legislature, which was dominated by Democrats, even after a Congressional investigative committee found its election to have been illegitimate. He dispatched federal troops to break up a meeting of the Topeka government. Passage of the act coincided with the seizure of escaped slave Anthony Burns in Boston. Northerners rallied in support of Burns, but Pierce was determined to follow the Fugitive Slave Act to the letter, and dispatched federal troops to enforce Burns's return to his Virginia owner despite furious crowds. He lost the 1856 election as slavery tensions increased. He attacked Republicans and abolitionists in December 1856.
He also criticized New England Protestant ministers, who largely supported abolition and Republican candidates, for their "heresy and treason." The rise of the Republican Party forced the Democrats to defend Pierce. During his debates with Republican Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln in 1858, Douglas called the former president "a man of integrity and honor." Pierce was cowardly trying to play in the middle when the U.S. Civil War existed. By the time of Reconstruction, Pierce agreed with Andrew Johnson's plans to allow the Confederates to have total immunity. He died in 1869. In his last will, which he signed January 22, 1868, Pierce left a large number of specific bequests such as paintings, swords, horses, and other items to friends, family, and neighbors. Much of his $72,000 estate (equal to $1,400,000 today) went to his brother Henry's family, and to Hawthorne's children and Pierce's landlady. Henry's son Frank Pierce received the largest share.
By the 1600's, massive developments came about. The modern day telescope existed in 1608. There was a patent applied for by Hans Lippershey in the Netherlands. The mechanical calculator was created by Blaise Pascal in 1642. The barometer was created by Evangelista Teorricelli. The first piano was created by Bartolomeo Cristofoi in 1709. The artificial refrigeration machine was created by William Cullen in 1755. 1769 was the year when Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot invents the first steam-powered vehicle capable of carrying passengers, an early car. 1776 was when John Wilkinson invented a mechanical air compressor that would become the prototype for all later mechanical compressors. 1783 was when Joseph-Ralf and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier build the first manned hot air balloon. Samuel Bentham created plywood in 1797. By 1799, the first paper machine was created by Louis-Nicolas Robert.
A drug is any chemical substance that caused a change in any organisms physiology or psychology when consumed. Many drugs can be ingested by inhalation, injection, smoking, ingested, and absorption. During the ancient times, there was the use of natural extracts for medicinal purposes goes back thousands of years. Many people used trial and error in being involved with drugs. Early medicines often had as much religious and spiritual significance as they did healing importance. 50,000 years ago, there was the herbal stimulant ephedra found. Plants were the basis of the ancient medicines, and were complemented with minerals and animal substances. Often the same plants and herbs were used for similar diseases among different civilizations, even though they were discovered separately. From ca. 14,000 to 12,000 B.C, there were remnants of ancient poppy plantations in Spain, Greece, Northeast Africa, Egypt, and Mesopotamia are evidence of the widespread early use of opium. Earliest agriculture. Some evidence that the first crops include psychoactive plants such as mandrake, tobacco, coffee and cannabis (in ca. 10,000 B.C.). There were opium by the Sumerians in ca. 5,000 B.C. and tobacco being cultivated and used by Native Americans in South America by 6,000 B.C. Wine and beer were produced in Egypt and Sumeria in ca. 4,000 B.C. By 1,000 B.C., Central Americans erected temples to mushrooms gods.
Treatment of disease through development of new herbal remedies may have been very difficult in an environment where the false, prevailing attitude (among some spaces) is that disease is God’s punishment for sin. Practitioners of herbal remedies would often be seen as heretics. Medical progress is very weak due to the prevailing unscientific opinion. During the Renaissance, the development of many things existed.
By Timothy
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