mind had made since the period of his it may be said indeed created for-the last meeting him; and this we can very joys of the fireside and of domestic easily account for. This indefinite pro-life; that he is of a good and affectionate gression is precisely the quality which nature is evidenced by an anecdote distinguishes men of his character, who which is related of him by Hawthorne, do everything with slowness, but never who tells us that one day during his cease doing. They appear, too, to the return from the campaign of Mexico, observer, to rise higher than men of he travelled a distance of some miles genius, because we can always follow out of his road, in order to shake hands them with the eye. If we watch them, with a poor ploughman who had been an we see them marching onward patiently old friend of his father's. There are numand doggedly, sometimes forcing them- berless stories of a like nature told of selves to run, but not often, at last him, and the deeds which they record reaching a summit, but not lingering at could not have been with any view to it, but setting themselves to work to the attainment of popularity is proved escalade another without delay. They by the general tenour of his history and are always progressing, but they are character. never lost to view. It is not so with men of genius. They sometimes soar out of the sight of common mortals. Moreover, whenever they make progress it appears but small, in consequence of their having leaped with their earliest effort, to the highest peak.

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Having left college, and being face to face with the necessity of making choice of a profession, in spite of many vague inclinations towards a military life he decided to embrace that of the law, and in 1827, after several years of study, he was received as a member of the bar We do not wish these words to be mis- of Hillsborough. His debut was a comunderstood. In putting down Franklin plete failure, but the remark which he Pierce as a mere man of business, we made upon the occasion, is one worthy do not pretend to disparage him. Few of being recorded, and one which gives American, statesmen, not even exclud- us the key to his whole character. ing their most passionate ones, as Henry of his friends expressed to him sentiClay, Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, ments of condolence and encourageare, or have been, any thing more. But ment, thinking, without doubt, that this the qualities of a man of business are by first unsuccess would tend to abate his no means despicable; even among us courage and self-confidence. "I have they are of the most useful character, and no need of your encouragement," was with the Americans they almost touch on the reply of the future President; "I genius. American statesmen are pre- have failed this time, but I will succeed eminently practical. They have nothing in the end. I will make the attempt of that unpassioned temperament which nine hundred and ninety-nine times, has characterised the greatest of the and if I fail then, I will make it for the statesmen of the old world. They are sage thousandth." Such is the man. He and calculating-very cold, even under knows how to wait, and has confidence a seeming heat of very high tempera- in time. Such knowledge and confi, ture. Their eloquence is often only dence are always excellent virtues, more exterior, and their enthusiasm and exal- especially in a statesman; but in the tation are not of the heart but of the case of Franklin Pierce, the chief of head. No American, from the founda- the democrates, and head of a party tion of the Republic to the present hour, which is naturally most unquiet and has ever possessed any of those bril-impatient, this want of feverish imliant and poetic qualities, or any of that patience and inquietude is an invalureal passion which distinguished a Fox, able possession and a guarantee of a Sheridan, a Bolingbroke, or a Mira- peace and conciliation. It was long bebeau. But is this fortunate or other-fore he was successful at the bar. But wise for the Union? Those who know the dangers of politcal life, will be best able to answer.

Besides the distinguishing qualities of an American statesman, General Pierce possesses others which are perhaps more valuable. He is religious and tolerant, and capable of tasting-nay,

he succeeded at last, and when the popular vote called him to fill the post of supreme magistrate of the Union, it found him the most renowned of all the lawyers of New Hampshire. During his life as a simple lawyer the confidence of his compatriots often drew him into the political arena; and at the time of

opinion he has never since varied. Singularly enough, too, Hawthorne himself has praise for him there, notwithstanding his ex-membership of the Association of Brook Farm.

the candidature for the presidency of General Jackson, he supported his cause with ardour, and was himself elected member of the legislature of New Hampshire, of which he was also for two years the president. At the In 1837, Franklin Pierce was elected expiration of his governorship, the con- a member of the Senate, before which fidence which was placed in him rising assembly he delivered his famous speech daily higher, he was elected one of the respecting revolutionary pensions. In representatives of that state in Congress. 1840, fortune seemed to have abandoned Some of his opinions and votes res- the democratic party. Power passed pecting questions long since solved, into the hands of the Whigs, after the have been recorded by Mr. Hawthorne, presidency of Van Buren; and their only from whose "Life of Pierce," we learn, idea was that of endeavouring to undo that he supported the vote of General everything that had been done by the Jackson relating to the celebrated Democrats during the last ten or twelve "Mayorville Road Bill." During the years. The Whigs did that which they presidency of Quincy Adams, the Whigs repeated, very impolitically, in 1848; had attempted to establish the prin- namely, they deprived of their offices all ciple, that all great works of public the functionaries who had been named utility ought to be constructed at the by the two last Presidents. The subject expense of the general treasury. It was was brought before the Senate, and against this system of centralization Franklin Peirce was inspired to make a that General Jackson protested, and noble speech upon it, in which he proFranklin Pierce, in the Chamber of Re-tested against the deprivations which presentatives, was his constant defender. With regard to public works and commerce, General Pierce has, in general. had little confidence in governmental interference. He doubts the power of legislation in this respect, and the efficacy of any governmental measures, even in instances in which it would seem that good laws and regulations would be of the greatest service. Here we have the secret of the power which the democratic party possesses in America. It cares less than the Whigs for mere political abstractions and legal formulas, and has more confidence than they have in the free movements and spontaneous instincts of mankind. The Democratic system, however, carried to the extreme, produces as many ill effects as does the opposite one, as Mr. Pierce has had opportunities of learning from experience. Thus he opposed, in Congress, a bill for the creation of a military academy; but afterwards, seeing the services which this academy rendered in the course of the Mexican war, he publicly acknowledged that he saw he had been mistaken in the course which he had pursued in this respect. Shortly afterwards, he declared his belief that he had been hitherto mistaken with regard to another far more important and interesting subject, namely, the great question of slavery. He began to see, he said, that the Union must not be put in peril by a question of philanthropy; and from this

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had been made in the name of the public good and the necessities of the country. This hateful practice, which, under the pretence of being only made use for the furtherance of the public prosperity, is, in reality, merely a weapon in the hands of a triumphant party, and the instrument of political vengeance and reprisals, was attacked by him with very extraordinary force and vigour. In the course of his speech he resumed the history of the whole world, and showed by the example of all the nations of the earth, that the doctrine he condemned, the doctrine by which the Whigs justified their actions, had never resulted in anything but oppression and violence, and that it was only the doctrine of hypocrisy and deception. To prove this, he adduced such examples as those which he conceived to be afforded by the Romish Inquisition, the massacre of the Indians by the English, the silent executions of the Venetians, the beheading of Strafford, the reign of terror in France, etc. His speech,though remarkably powerful, was not entirely hors de propos. The │" doctrine" it protested against has produced in all countries incalculable evils; but what have the excesses committed by the Inquisition, or during the French Reign of Terror, in common with the expulsion from office of a few American functionaries? The fault which Franklin Pierce committed in this speech, is one which few Americans are free from.

lunteer, but he soon rose to the rank of colonel, and soon after to that of brigadiergeneral. He set out for the seat of the war, at the head of his brigade, which consisted of regiments from all parts of the union. Nothing could bear less resemblance to a body of regular troops than this brigade, all the soldiers who constituted it being, like their commander, simple citizens, merchants, lawyers, agricuturists, and men of all professions.

This speech constituted almost the last act in the drama of the first period of the political life of Franklin Pierce, for soon after its delivery, in 1842, he resigned his post of senator, and retired into private life. His object in so doing was evident. His life as a politician had made him poor, and he was now a married man, and the father of a family. He took this step, therefore, in order to create for it resources for the future. He renewed his attempts to gain success at the bar, resolutely determined to He embarked with his detachment overcome all difficulties, and he did in May, 1846, at Newport, in the ship overcome them. Then commenced his Kepler, and landed at Vera Cruz, about successful career as an advocate. As a month after setting sail, without such he possessed the quality most essen- knowing to anything like a certainty in tial to success, namely, sound common what part of the country the main body sense. He had also, in a high degree, of the United States army was situated, the sentiment of the ridiculous, and the or in which direction he must proceed art of skilfully interrogating witnesses. to join it. We have the journal which he He carried into the exercise of his func- kept during his march from Vera Cruz to tions as a barrister a strict sense of Peubla, where was stationed the army of equity; and he showed himself always General Scott. This march, through ready, even at the expense of his pecu- a burning desert, with here and there a niary interest, to take the part of the few little villages scattered over it, bears oppressed and spoilated. The conse- a singular resemblance to some of Welquence was that every one regarded himlington's marches in India, and to the with the highest possible respect. "The marches of some of the French troops feelings of respect and affection which the in Africa. At each instant General citizens here entertain toward General Pierce," wrote once one of his colleagues, to a mutual friend, "are exactly such as the poor Scotchman must have been inspired with towards Henry Erskine when he said, 'Not a poor man in all Scotland will want a friend, or have need to fear an enemy, so long as Henry Erskine shall remain alive.""

Pierce was placed upon the qui-vive. He would hear a pistol shot, and, turning the corner of a mountain, find a detachment of the enemy placed to oppose his passage. His progress was rendered wearisome and difficult by all manner of little obstacles, and was in reality a kind of rolling battle; it being very seldom that a couple of miles were gone over, without a body of the enemy having to be encountered and put to flight. The guerilla harassed the men under his command unceasingly, small bodies of them appearing always when the least expected, taking aim at whatever officers where within their reach, and when they could shoot none of them, resting content with a few privates, securing as many prisoners and as much booty as they could, and then gallopping away with the utmost possible fleetness. Add to all this, the inconveniences caused by the climate, the excessive heats or torrential rains which often interrupted the march, and the maladies of the country which put hors de service a large number of both officers and privates, and we shall have some faint idea of the difficulties When that war broke out Franklin which beset the transport of General Pierce enrolled himself as a simple vo- | Pierce and his soldiers from Vere Cruz

Franklin Pierce cannot be reproached with ambition, for he has several times refused the most important and lucrative posts. A democratic convention once nominated him for the governorship of New Hampshire, but he decidedly refused to let the matter proceed. In 1846, Mr. Polk offered him a post in his cabinet, namely, that of attorneygeneral, but he declined the offer in a note in which he said," when I resigned my seat in the senate, in 1842, it was with the determination not again to separate myself for any lengthened period from my family, unless my country should need my military services." His country did need them almost immediately after, for this was just before the period of the breaking out of the Mexi

can war.

to Peubla. More interesting to us than Scott himself endeavoured to persuade all the accidents which are recorded him to retire, but all in vain. Mr. Hawin the General's journal put together, thorne thus relates the conversation are the evidences which are always which passed between the two generals. peeping out of the superiority of the General Scott, having ridden from one race of the Anglo-Americans over that end of the line to the other, on hearing of the Spanish-Americans. This su- the news of Pierce's wound, on purperiority reveals itself in all manner of pose to try to persuade him to leave his ways, and in numberless instances; in post. "Dear fellow," was his exclamabon mots, in acts of energy, and in reso- tion, in coming up to him; and that lutions made and executed without fear epithet of familiar kindness and friendor hesitation. Thus the Mexicans had ship, upon the battle-field, was the destroyed a magnificent bridge, the highest military commendation from work of their more energetic ancestors, such a man; "you are badly injured; and the army of General Pierce is com- you are not fit to be in your saddle." pelled to stop. "These people have 'Yes, general, I am," replied Pierce, destroyed," an officer remarks, "that"in a case like this!"-"You cannot which they will never be able to reconstruct." However, it is necessary for the brigade to pass. A Captain Bodfish demands five hundred men, and promises to construct within four hours a bridge over the river which shall be sufficient for the passage alike of men, stores, guns, and the heavy baggage of the detachment. The promise is fulfilled, and the troops pass over, railing at the Mexicans, who thought they had placed an invincible barrier in their way. "Bodfish's road," writes their general in his journal, "unless the Mexican nation shall be unexpectedly regenerated, will be the road, at this place, for Mexican diligences for half a century."

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touch your foot to the stirrup," said Scott; "One of them I can," answered Pierce. The general looked again at Pierce's almost disabled figure, and seemed on the point of taking his irrevocable resolution. "You are rash, General Pierce," said he ; we shall lose you, and we cannot spare you. It is my duty to order you back to St. Augustine."- "For God's sake, general," exclaimed Pierce," don't say that! This is the last great battle and I must lead my brigade." The commander-in-chief made no further remonstrance, but gave the order for Pierce to advance with his brigade.

Some days after the battle, General Scott gave another proof of the high At last, after more than a month's esteem in which he held the man who march, General Pierce came up with the became soon after his competitor and principal body of the army, on the 7th rival. Santa-Anna, after the defeat of of August. Twelve days afterwards, the Mexicans, at Contreras, proposed namely, on the 19th, took place the bat- an armistice, and Franklin Pierce was tle of Contreras. The American army named by the American commander as was commanded by General Scott, one of the commissioners charged with and that of the Mexicans by General drawing-up of the treaty of peace. The Valentia. The former had taken all treaty was soon broken, however, and possible precautions to prevent the the contest recommenced with renewed junction of the troops of Valentia with vigour, and General Pierce distinguished those of Santa Anna. The result was himself remarkably in all the ensuing equal to his hopes, for the battle was de- actions, particularly in the battles of cidedly gained. General Pierce, during Chepultepec and Molinodel-Rey. Inthe course of it, was wounded by a fall deed, throughout the whole war his from his horse, but, in spite of the en- conduct was unimpeachable, couragetreaties of the officers who surrounded ous, and honourable. He was not a him, he obstinately refused to abandon professed soldier, and did not possess his command. His leg was severely any scientific military knowledge; but he bruised and his thigh-bone broken, and knew how to do his duty, and to execute they told him that it would be impossi- with promptitude and courage the comble for him to hold himself on horse-mands of superiors. Upon the field of back. "Ah! well, then," was the reply, you must tie me in my saddle;" and he did not retire from his post till the completion of the victory. General

battle he exhibited no more presumption than in his own house; he remained there, as everywhere, a modest, simple citizen and a patriot.

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