a message from the presidents of the United States. I know Maryland has been loving this and it takes about eight or 10 hours for each president for me to do all the research that I don't know. I've studied history a lot in my life and I had all the presidents memorized at one time when I lived here in Fish Lake Valley. Our teacher was a very, very tremendous history buff. And he told us a lot about the presidents. We went all down through the president's lives. And I learned more here in Fish Lake Valley in the few years that I was here than I did all the rest of the way through school, as far as history and politics goes. He just whetted my appetite for all of this. Mr. Orville Taylor was my teacher's name. And it's thanks to him that I have a desire to learn this. When I was young, I read every biography in the library. I got little rewards for reading all the books that I did in the library. I just was so excited about every book that was written about a president, I read the book. Every book that was written about everybody, even Chopin, that was, and I got desperate when I read that one. I wasn't really interested in him, but I had to read something. And so, I even read about him and Beethoven and all the rest because it was nothing else until I just finished the library. It was all over with. And then I began to read encyclopedias. Romans the 13th chapter and I hope that I'm whetting your appetite for history and I hope you're learning something I have many ham operators out there that listen to me when I get on the radio, which isn't a whole lot lately, seems like. But they listen to these classes here from all over the world. And they're enjoying these classes because it's telling us how we got where we are. And did we have the same problems before in history? Yes. There's nothing new under the sun. Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God. And those which exist are established by God. Now we are, especially in this country, we have a burden to make sure elections are only up and up. There has been a lot that have not been. I can name them all, the present one right now, George Bush Jr., even John Kennedy. And then we have takeovers. And we've had that, and we see the media bashing presidents and trying to impose upon us their ideas. Now, we have a responsibility to try to elect the best leaders we can. and elect leaders that are honorable to God. Therefore, he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God. And they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. And it seems like today in America, right is wrong and wrong is right. We got real problems here, people. I know you know that. When you turn the television on or the news on, we hear all of this horrible things happening in our country. And yet, the mass media is saying it's okay. You never know what's happening. Number three, for rulers are not a cause for fear for good behavior. And there is another problem we have today. There should be people in fear of doing wrong. but it seems like the criminals are right and the police officers are always wrong. There's something wrong with that, too. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do you want to live in anarchy? We don't want to do that. Back here under the, after the flood, we have human governance established under NOAA. Hubert McGovern is supposed to protect the good from the bad people, not the bad from the good people. And it's supposed to protect the people from the government. Or governments are a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for nothing. In other words, capital punishment. what is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil. Boy, I wish it was that way today, don't you? Now let's go back in history to 1853 to 1857. We have a man that is an American hero. that has been blamed for the Civil War and all kinds of things. Terrible, terrible person as far as some people rank Franklin Pierce at the bottom or zero or minus. But let's look at the person of Franklin Pierce and what he was and what he did for America. Now the very most important thing for us to know about Franklin Pierce, he was a nationalist. What does that mean, a nationalist? A naturalist. A person that loves nature. No, no. Nationalist. A nationalist. Nation-list. Nationalist. A person that loves his country. A person that loves his country. He loved America beyond his own life. Franklin Pierce was a person of hard knocks. A lot of hard knocks. He had bad luck consistently. He was the 14th President of the United States. He was a United States Senator from New Hampshire from 1837 to 1842. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Hampshire's at-large district. from 1833 to 1837. He was a speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, 1831 to 1833. He was a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives from Hillsborough in August 1829 to 1833, a lifetime of service. The man was a lawyer, okay? That's what he did, and he kept wanting to go back to his law practice. He was a town meeting moderator for Hillsborough, New Hampshire in office 1829 to 1836. His spouse was Jane Appleton, which was absolutely opposite of him. Jane Appleton hated Washington. She hated public life. She was a very ill person most of her life. He had children, but all of his children died. His last child, who had three children, his last child died in a train wreck just before he became president. His father was Benjamin Pierce. And let's go back and read a little bit about his family. This family, or a history, or what we might call a hall of fame, an American hall of fame. He was in military service in the United States Army from 1831 to 1847, 1847 and 1848. He was a colonel in the militia. He was a Brigadier General in the Army. He fought in the Mexican-American War, in the Battle of Contreras, in the Battle of Churrusco, in the battle of Molino del Rey, in the battle of Chapultepec, and the battle for the city of Mexico. His horse fell with him and nearly broke his leg in a charge. The others behind him, by the way, they called him a coward. His horse fell on him. and nearly broke his leg, and he could not charge with his men, and he was trapped underneath his horse, so he didn't go in there. He was a very honorable man. He was a very honest man. He faced nearly all of his life with bad publicity. His wife did not want him to become president. She didn't want him to do anything but become a lawyer. His own son said he would pray that his father would lose the election. And yet the son was killed not long after he was elected before he even took office. Franklin Pierce was born in November the 23rd in 1804 in a log cabin in Hillsbury, New Hampshire. He was a sixth generation descendant of Thomas Pierce, who had moved the Massachusetts Bay Colony from Norwich, Norfolk, England in about 1634. His father, Benjamin, was a lieutenant in the American Revolution. And he moved from Chelmsford, Massachusetts to Hillbury after the war, purchasing 50 acres of land And Pierce was a fifth of eight children born to Benjamin and his wife, Anna Kendrick. His first wife, Elizabeth Andrews, died in childbirth, leaving a daughter. And Benjamin was a prominent Democratic Republican, and a Democratic Republican is not like a Democrat today. Okay? He was a state legislator, a farmer, a tavern keeper, When Franklin Pierce was growing up, his father was deeply involved in state politics. While his two older brothers fought in the War of 1812, they were always involved in public affairs, and they always fought for the honor of the country of the United States of America. Franklin's father made sure that his children had education. He said education is his key to success. Now, when Franklin was sent off to a boarding school, he did not want to be away from home. So he ran off one Saturday and came home one Sunday. His father fed him dinner. drove him part of the way distance back to school before kicking him out of the buggy and tell him, stay there and get with it, boy. It changed his life. He had built a reputation in school as a very charming, outgoing student. In the fall of 1820, Pierce entered Baldwin College in Brunswick, Maine. He was one of 19 freshmen. He joined the Athenian Society, which was a progressive literary society. He was the last in his class for the first two years. And then he really boned up, he really tried hard, and he ended up being number five in his class, as graduating number five instead of the last. He started a military cadets in the school there, in the college. He was basically a lieutenant or a captain of this military readyman, minuteman, so to speak. He read law, then he spent a semester at Northampton Law School in Northampton, Massachusetts, followed by a year of study in 1826 and 1827 under Edmund Parker in Amherst, New Hampshire. He was admitted to the New Hampshire Bar in 1827, and he began to practice law there. He lost his first case that he ever had, but it didn't discourage him. He soon proved to be very capable in public speaking and convincing people of what truth was. He never was a legal scholar, but he had a memory for names and places and people that is uncanny. Details in law bored him, but people he loved. He went into law with a partner, Albert Baker, who had studied law under Pierce. Now, Albert Baker was a brother of Mary Baker Eddy. Mary Baker Eddy, the woman that started the Christian Science Church of Christ. Now he was a, Franklin Pierce was a student and admirer of Andrew Jackson. But Franklin Pierce believed there were some things that America needed to do for an infrastructure. Very important things. The rest of it, let the states take care of it. One thing Franklin Pierce did was he befriended people and he was a loyal friend. If you've ever heard the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, he was a supporter and sometimes even supported Nathaniel Hawthorne. They were lifelong friends. He campaigned for different people. in politics. He really was reluctant to go into politics in many ways because of his wife hated politics. He became Speaker of the House and he opposed the expansion of banking. He believed in building a military. He believed in a balanced budget. He believed in states' rights and the sovereignty of states. And he believed most of all, absolutely, in the expansion of the United States so that the United States could be an entity strong enough to where other nations would not try to conquer us. He believed and all that it was paramount that the Union be preserved. He fought as hard as he could. He did not believe in slavery. He hated slavery. But he defended the rights of the southern states. He was a northerner now. And this northerner is trying to defend the rights of the southern states to finally, basically, that slavery would peter out someday, but that the North, the abolitionists, were causing the nation to divide, like the Democrats are doing today. They're dividing the nation. The abolitionists then, even though they had a strong moral constitution, but they were cramming abolition down the throats of the Southerners, and the Southerners, their lives depended upon it. Now, I want you to understand this, that George Washington had slaves. But in his will, when his slaves, when he died, his slaves were supposed to be set free and so was Thomas Jefferson. These people were slave owners. He met Jane Appleton. a daughter of a congressional minister, Jesse Appleton and Elizabeth Means. They were prominent Whigs, and here he is a Democratic Republican. They're opposites. It's like Republicans and Democrats today. His wife's family were totally against what he believed. But he fell in love with this woman. Jane Pierce was shy. She was backward. She was devoutly religious. She was pro-temperance. In other words, to stop the sale of alcohol in America. It was coming up, you know. She encouraged her husband to abstain from alcohol even though he drank. She was thin, constantly ill, especially from tuberculosis and psychological ailments. She hated politics. She just couldn't stand Washington, D.C. And it created a tension in their marital life that was hard, but Franklin Pierce just let her own, put one foot in front of the other, and just kept on struggling through it. She would not go to Washington, D.C. with him. She did not want to be in Washington, D.C. Jane Pierce didn't like Hillsboro either, where they had lived. They relocated in Concord, New Hampshire, and they had three sons. of all who died. Franklin, Jr., February 2-5, 1836, died in infancy. Frank Robert, August 27, 1839-November 14, 1843, died at the age of four from an epidemic of typhus. Benjamin, named after his father, was born April 13, 1841 and died January 6, 1853 at the age of 11 in the train accident just before he was inaugurated into presidency. Franklin Pierce had a tendency to alcohol. That's sure. He died of cirrhosis of the liver when he was in his 60s. He was a nationalist, like I said. He believed in the preservation of the Union in spite of all. He believed that the abolitionists were dividing America, and the American press was dividing America. He said, I consider slavery a social and political evil, and most sincerely wish it had no existence upon the face of the earth. One thing must be perfectly apparent to every intelligent man. This abolition movement must be crushed or there is an end to the Union. The abolitionists must be squelched or the Union will die." Was he right? Yes. They had a gag rule. Representative James Henry Hammond of South Carolina looked to prevent even the debate of slavery in the Senate or in the House of Representatives. And Pierce sided with him because he said that the abolitionists were trying to divide America. He supported what is known as the gag rule. which allowed for petitions to be received but not read or considered in Congress. And that was passed in 1836. He was attacked by the people that he was actually, you know, he's a northerner. Northerners don't believe in slavery. He didn't believe in slavery. But he believed in the Union. Pierce loved America. He was honest to a fault and he made mistakes, but most of the problem with Franklin Pierce was the media and the abolitionists. The election from the Senate He was elected to a full term to commence in March 1837. He was 32 years old. He was one of the youngest members of the Senate in Senate history. The election was a difficult time for his family. His father, his sister, and his brother were seriously ill, while his wife continued to suffer from chronic poor health. He was able to come to help his old friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, who struggled financially. You know, artists and writers are, that's really a rough occupation, you know that? He procured for him a certain amount of income and protection. Pierce seemed to vote along his party lines, except when it went against his conscience. And if something went against his conscience, I don't care what's going on around him, he's gonna vote for his conscience, what he thought was right. The man was honest to a fault. While he was there in service, he was overshadowed by John Cowell, Sue Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster. They dominated the Senate. There was a Great Depression going on in the country, and the country was being divided by slavery, by the abolitionists. And, uh, Great Depression. He believed that America was in trouble because of extravagance and overtrading and speculation, dishonest speculation. The debate of slavery just continued to be in everybody's face all the time. Military and military power to Pierce was extremely important in the Navy. He built the Navy. He built the military. By the way, he reformed the military. Where you have human beings, you always have a great account of dishonesty and corruption and greed and malfeasance, don't we? Well, he fought. patriotism. He fought graft in the military. And one thing about Franklin Pierce throughout his life, throughout his political life, he tried to make every decision this country made a decision that he believed was correct to do. He tried to cut out the hucksters and the what I call dishonest politician. He tried his best to straighten out all the corruption that was going on in America. He was never, ever accused of being crooked or taking money or giving patronism to somebody that did not deserve it. He believed and he set the standards for civil service as not as a political position to give to somebody, but that only those in public service as civil servants would qualify for the job. They called him loco many times because of this. He was named, in 1842, he was named as the chairman of the State Democratic Committee. The Democratic Committee was divided because of slavery, again. He tried to compromise in every way And you know, when you compromise, you make these guys mad over here, and you make these guys mad over there. But his compromise was for the unity of the country. He wanted to... He was a politician of moderation, compromise, and party unity. He put the real importance of this ahead of his own personal opinions. In 1844, James K. Polk was the dark horse and the victor as President of the United States. Pierce had campaigned heavily for Polk during the election. He did his best to support the military. Now, his act of service was a long-held dream. He wanted to be a hero, if it cost him his life. He wanted to be a hero. He wanted to lead men in battle for the right cause. The Mexican-American War. He drilled his troops as a military officer. He knew how to muster, he knew how to drill people, he knew how to, he believed that the military ought to be trained. Not to just grab people off the street and throw them in there and go fight a war, but they ought to be in shape, they ought to be physically able, they ought to be able to shoot, they ought to be able to slip in and do whatever they needed to do. He believed in a professional army. Like I said, he fought in the Mexican-American War. He did his best. On March 3, 1847, Pierce was promoted to Brigadier General and took command of a brigade of reinforcements for General Scott's Army, Zachary Winfield Scott. With ransom succeeding command of the regiment, needing time to assemble his brigade, Pierce reached the already seized port of Veracruz in late June, where he prepared to march 2,500 men, accompanying supplies for Scotland. On the three-week journey, the inland journey was perilous. His men had to fight off many attacks, before joining Scott's army in early August, but in time for the Battle of Contreras. The Battle of Contreras was disastrous for Pierce. His horse was suddenly startled during a charge, knocking him, growing first against his saddle. The horse then tripped into a crevasse and fell, pinning Pierce underneath and debilitating his knee. The incident made it look like he had fainted. One soldier said to call for someone else to take command. General Pierce is a damned coward. He wasn't. He was injured. Bad luck again, you know. Pierce returned the following day's action, but re-injured his knee, forcing him to hobble after his men by the time he caught up The battle was mostly won. In the Battle of Cherubusco, Scott ordered Pierce to the rear to convalesce. He responded, for God's sake, General, this is the last great battle and I must lead my men. Scott yielded. Pierce entered the fight tied to his saddle. tied to his saddle. But the pain of his leg became so great that he passed out in the field. The Americans won the battle and Pierce helped to negotiate the armistice. He helped to negotiate the armistice because he was a lawyer. He knew political and legal terms. He returned to his command and led his brigadier or brigade throughout the rest of the campaign, eventually taking part in the capture of Mexico City in that battle. Later, he was sick at his tent, plagued with acute diarrhea, what they called Montezuma's revenge. He remained in command of his brigade during a three-month occupation of the city. He was frustrated. with the stalling peace negotiations. There was generals fighting each other at this time, remember? Pierce was finally allowed to return to Concord in late December 1847, and he was given a hero's welcome in his own home state. He was followed by accusations of cowardice that shadowed him all the rest of his life, and the man was not a coward. The man had himself tied to the horse so he could lead into battle. Ulysses S. Grant, which was a commander down there, had the opportunity to observe Pierce firsthand. during the war. He said the allegations of cowardice in his memoirs, written several years after Pierce's death, whatever General Pierce's qualifications may have been for the presidency, he was a gentleman, a man of courage, and was not a supporter of him politically, he said, but I knew him more intimately than I did any other volunteer generals. And the man was a hero of great honor. Pierce went back to Concord and resumed his law practice where his wife wanted him to. And then the Shaker religion started up and they tried to put the Shaker religion down and he defended them over religious liberty. If he was here today, he would stand for freedom of speech and freedom of religion. He continually fought against the advancement of slavery into the new states that had been acquired in the Mexican-American War. He wanted slavery barred from other places and he supported the Missouri Compromise. The proposals that he made to protect the state's sovereignty made him an enemy of the North. And when he tried to stand behind the abolitionists, he got the state of District of Tumley to District of Columbia to outlaw slavery. He fought hard to get the Missouri Compromise put through. And it was put through in five parts, five different pieces of legislature. His most important thing was the union, the eternal union must be preserved if America will ever stand. The eternal union, the union must be preserved. Again, in the election of 1852, the Democrats were divided on the slavery issue. They finally supported Pierce as another dark horse. And New Hampshire thought that they should supply the presidential candidate. fierce placed, almost insurmountable obstacles in his nomination. He had been out of public service and office for 10 years, a whole decade. He did not want to run for president. He wanted somebody else to do this job. His wife hated it, and she was wanting a divorce if he became president. She wasn't going to support him at all. She wasn't going to stand behind him. Finally, he allowed his supporters to lobby for him. They said, you're the only man that can win. You're the only man that can win. Pierce, when he found out that he had won the party's election for him to run as president, couldn't believe it. His wife fainted. His son Benjamin wrote a letter to his mother hoping that Franklin's candidacy was not successful and that he would not have to live in Washington. The Whig candidate was Winfield Scott, Pierce's commander in Mexico. It is said that this campaign was one of the most least exciting campaigns in the history of American presidents. He didn't want it. His wife was fighting him all the time. His child, the only child left, wanted him to lose. He didn't try to campaign at all. Period. Just before he takes the oath of office, his son is killed. And he turns to the bottle again. And he's drinking, which is not good for his health. But he's trying to do the best in his life he can for his country. He would like to go home and just be a lawyer. Now he's going to fight a whole nation that is divided in every way. He was the only president at this time to deliver his inaugural address from memory. He's the only president that didn't have to read notes when he was delivering his inaugural address. He did it by memory. He said, the policy of my administration will not be deterred by any timid forebodings of evil He said, the expansion, he avoided the word slavery altogether. He said, my job is to, my desire is to put the most important subject in my mind, and that is to maintain a peaceful union. I want to preserve the union. You summoned me in my weakness, and you must sustain me in your strength." He told him that he was weak. His son had just killed. He was in deep mourning. His wife would not come with him. His marriage was on the rocks. And yet, he would be the most honest representation of American leader of his day. All of Pearson's cabinet members were unanimously and immediately confirmed by the Senate. He tried to even them out. He did not take advantage of putting people in there of his own opinion only. He wanted everybody to be represented. He believed in equal representation. He sought to represent all the factions of the party. but he could not satisfy any one of them. There was a hard shell Democrats and the soft shell Democrats. And he was doing his best to make everybody get along, children get along, children get along, children get along, love each other. I remember when my boys were growing up, they fought a lot, as brothers and sisters and brothers and brothers do. One thing that they hated, they would be fighting, and I'd tell them after they got through fighting and after I got through correcting them, I said, now hug and kiss each other. Boy, did that go over. That's what Franklin Pierce was trying to do. He said, you people, we have one nation. Love each other. Hug each other, kiss each other whether you want to or not. The union must be preserved. Pearson's vice president, King, died in office. He was looking forward to King helping him make decisions, and Pierce had to make them all on his own. But he tried to do it equally, to represent every faction, and yet it seemed to divide the country more because the country wanted to be divided. The Southerners were going to protect their state's rights, and the Northerners wanted to demand that they free their slaves, and demand that they send them up there. Well, we had the act that you had to return an escaped slave back to his owner. And he supported it. He didn't want to, but he had to support it for the South. And the North got mad at him, madder and madder and madder. You're one of us and you're a traitor. They called him a traitor. No, he was trying to preserve the Union the best he could. Pierce sought to run an efficient, honest government. An efficient, honest government. That's real hard to do, you know that? Because people are just naturally thieves and robbers. Like I said before, his cabinet members implemented an early system of civil service examinations. Now that we take for granted, supposedly. His committee was a forerunner of the Pendleton Act. That was put into force three decades later. No job would be awarded on the basis of friendship, patronism, but on merit. He wanted to reform the Interior Department, and he brought Robert McClellan, who was supposed to absolutely look through every bit of it with a fine-tooth comb, and they were going to expand the use of paper records and pursued fraud. Another one of Pierce's reforms, his presidency was a presidency of reform from corruption to reality, what really needs to be done. He started the development of the Justice Department. This is a man that nobody got along with. because he was trying to make both sides happy. What happened after his presidency, we have a division, we have a civil war where 600,000 men died. His economic policy was to reform the treasury, make it accountable and above board. Paper trails, proofs. The Treasury had many unsettled accounts and many hidden, dark, shadowy deals. He appointed a man, Guthrie, who increased oversight of Treasury employees and tariff collectors. many of whom were withholding money from the government, lining their pockets. Despite laws requiring funds to be held in the treasury, large deposits remained in private banks under the Whig administration. Guthrie, his appointee, reclaimed those funds and sought to prosecute corrupt officials Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. There's so much corruption involved at this time. He was trying to clean house. His Secretary of War was Jefferson Davis. He was supposed to lead in the Corps of Topographical Engineers for a possible transcontinental railroad route. This began with Pierce, people. Their transcontinental railroad began with Pierce. The Democratic Party had long rejected federal appropriation for internal improvements, but Davis felt that such a project could be justified as constitutional and national security objective. Davis also, now this is Jefferson Davis, the one that would become President of the Confederate States of America. He deployed the Army Corps of Engineers to supervise the construction projects in the District of Columbia. including the expansion of the United States Capitol and the building of the Washington Monument. Pierce's administration aligned with the expansionist Young America movement, with Marcy leading the charge as Secretary of State. He made many elaborate diplomatic reforms that were in the Europe and Pacific theater. He said, only hire Americans to do our work. America first. You ever heard of that before? It started with Franklin Pierce. America first. If you're going to go out and do jobs, then hire Americans. If you go in a foreign land, then hire Americans to do a job. Davis was an advocate of southern transcontinental route, and he persuaded Pierce to send the rail magnate James Gadsden to Mexico to buy land for a potential railroad. Now, Pierce went down into Mexico to buy land for a right-of-way. Because he did that, our borders between Mexico and America were extended even more. We bought the land. Gadsden was charged with renegotiating the provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hildago, which required the U.S. to prevent Native American raids into Mexico from New Mexico territory. That's the Apaches and Camachos. Gadsden negotiated the treaty with the Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna. That's Santa Anna. in 1853, purchasing a large swath of land to American Southwest, and negotiations were nearly derailed by William Walker's unauthorized expedition into Mexico. And so a clause was included charging the United States with combating future such attempts of excursions into Mexico. Pierce wanted to pay $15 million, and the Congress brought it down to $10 million. Congress also included a protection clause for a private citizen, Albert G. Sloan, whose interests were threatened by the purchase. Pierce supposed the use of federal government to prop up private industry. He did not endorse the final version of the treaty, which finally was ratified. This treaty brought into reality the contagious United States to its present day boundaries, except some minor adjustments. The relationships with the United Kingdom were on an edge. And by compromise and somewhat threats, he took care of that between the Canadian, Washington, and American borders. Buchanan was sent as a minister to London to pressure the British government, which was so slow to support the new treaty. A favorable reciprocation treaty was ratified on August 1854. Franklin Pierce saw this was the first step towards American annexation of Canada. He wanted Canada. And he wanted Cuba. And Central America. He tried to keep Great Britain, the United Kingdom, out of Central America with the Monroe Doctrine. British consuls in the United States sought to enlist Americans for the Crimean War in 1854. In violation of neutrality laws, Pierce eventually expelled the minister Crampton and three other consuls. The British did not expel Buchanan in retaliation because of this, because they respected the honesty of Franklin Pierce. Britain had violated the Clayton-Bouloir Treaty. The British, according to Gannon, were impressed by the message and were rethinking their policies because of this great man. You won't hear these sayings in most books or read these sayings. The British were to abandon their Central America possessions. The Canadian Treaty was ratified by Congress and the British Parliament and by the colonial legislations in Canada. Pierce's administration tried to draft a proposal to purchase Cuba from Spain for $120 million. and justify the rassling of it from Spain if the offer was refused. The Ostend Manifesto, which had been drawn up by the insensitivity, by the insensitiveness of the Secretary of State Marcy, provoked the scorn of Northerners, who viewed it as an attempt to enact a slave-holding possession to bolster Southern interest. He wanted a border. of protection in America. He wasn't for slavery, even though Cuba was founded on slavery. Pierce favored expansion, substantial reorganization of the military. The Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, and the Navy Secretary, James C. Dobbin, found the Army and Navy in poor with insufficient forces to protect the interests of America. Commodore Matthew Perry was sent to visit Japan Now this venture was originally planned under Fillmore. Now I'm going to tell you something, Franklin Pierce did a lot for America. They blamed the Civil War on him. The Civil War was Lincoln's fault, not Pierce's fault. Pierce did everything that he could do to preserve the Union. In an effort to expand trade to the East, Perry wanted to encroach on Asia by force. But Pierce and Dubbin pushed him to remain diplomatic, not military. Perry signed a modest trade treaty with the Japanese Shogun, which was successfully ratified. In 1856, they launched the USS Merrimack. one of six newly commissioned steam frigates. And that was one of Pierce's most precious personal satisfying days in office when that was done. The Kansas-Nebraska Act that allowed slavery in some states and not in others was passed in May of 1854. and ultimately defined Pierce's presidency as a total failure from the North and from the South. Because of compromise, he wanted to preserve the Union. Then we had Bleeding Kansas. Bleeding Kansas. People went into Kansas, the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery, and they began to kill each other. And that's why they called it Bleeding Kansas. The Kansas-Nebraska Act basically cost his presidency. He absolutely reduced the national debt and built up the military, ensured the borders between America and Mexico and expanded us, After Pierce lost the election, he remained in Washington, D.C. for more than two months, staying with his former Secretary of State, Marcy. The Pierces eventually moved to Portsmouth, where Pierce began to speculate in real estate property. Seeking a warmer climate for his wife, they spent the next three years traveling, beginning with a stay in Madeira, followed by tours of Europe and Bahamas. In Rome, he visited Nathaniel Hathorne, and the two spent much time together. Pierce never lost sight of politics during his travels, commenting regularly to the news media and alarmed by the growing national sectional conflict in America. He said, the Northern abolitionists stand down to avoid a Southern succession, writing that the bloodshed of the Civil War would not be along the Mason-Dixon line merely, but within our own borders, in our own streets. He criticized the New England Protestant ministers who largely supported the abolition and Republican candidates for their heresy and treason, he said. calling for the division of the earth, of America. He called down Abraham Lincoln. Douglas, who debated with Abraham Lincoln, called President Franklin Pierce a man of integrity and honor. And he began to call Lincoln to account for dividing America. He said we should avoid civil war at all costs. He fought Lincoln when people began to speak against him, he put him in jail. He believed in freedom of speech. Lincoln squelched freedom of speech. On July 1863, he wrote a speech and spoke that speech. He said, best president of the United States that's been cloaked with power to dictate to any one of us when we must or when we must speak or be silent upon any subject and especially in relation to the conduct of any public servant. He demanded that Lincoln pay attention to the First Amendment freedom of speech. Pierce's comments were ill-received in the North, of course. And then Jefferson Davis became the Confederate President of the United States of America. Franklin Pierce did everything he could do after the Civil War to keep Jefferson Davis from being hung. Later in life, he became very religious, very spiritual, and he was baptized into the Episcopal faith of St. Paul Church in Concord. He found this church to be less political than his former congregational denomination, which had alienated the Democrats with anti-slavery rhetoric. He said, I'll take up the life as an old farmer. He supported Andrew Johnson's reconstruction to try to put the South and North back together again, and to rebuild the South. He died of cirrhosis of the liver at 4.30 a.m. on Friday, October the 8th, 1869, at the age of 64. President Grant, who later defended Pierce's service in the Mexican-American War, declared a day of national mourning. Newspapers across the country carried lengthy front-page stories examining Pierce's colorful and controversial life. Pierce was buried next to his wife and his two sons in a Minot enclosure in Concord Old North Cemetery. His last will that he signed in January the 22nd, 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 $1.308 million today, went to his brother Henry's family and to Hawthorne's, Nathaniel Hawthorne's children. He never forgot his friends, ever. He gave his landlady money. His brother Henry's son, Frank Pierce, received the largest share. A man that was downgraded in American history, yet gave most of his life defending and trying to make America great throughout the world. We have Franklin Pierce. A good man with bad luck. A good man that by compromise tried to preserve the Union. He did it in spite of what his personal beliefs were. He put America first before himself. A great man, a great hero from a great family of heroes. Father, thank you for history that we have it. If we don't study history, we get to repeat it over and over again. Father, give us wisdom. Help us to remember Romans the 13th chapter and help us to do the best we can for our country as this man did. Please forgive me where I fail you. In Jesus name I pray, amen.