By the Maui Curmudgeon (14th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

FRANKLIN  PIERCE: 1853-1857 ~ 14th U.S. President

History has not changed an assessment of Franklin Pierce first made during his presidency – he was a “weak and incompetent” president.

The youngest man to be elected to the office so far – he was 48 – Pierce came from New Hampshire, working his way through the state legislature, the House of Representatives, and finally, the Senate, from 1837 to 1942. He resigned to fight in the Mexican War.

He gained the democratic nomination because he was perceived as a man devoted to what by now had become legend – the golden years of “Jacksonian Democracy,” in part because Andrew Jackson was the last person who won re-election in office, and that was 30 years earlier. The strain between warring factions on both sides of the slavery issue not only affected the inter-party rivalries, but the intra-party rivalries as well. Pierce became a victim of that struggle.

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By Maui Curmudgeon

Just in case you missed them:

1. The Arabs now own one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, a symbol of America’s best large city, New York – the Chrysler Building.

2. The Belgians now own America’s largest Brewery, Anheuser-Busch.

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