Free How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country by Daniel O'Brien Page B

did, because war is very dangerous. His men tried to take him off the field and he
again
refused, because Franklin Pierce invested all of his money in blind confidence and was still hoping it would pay sweeping dividends. Even though he couldn’t move, Pierce stayed on the field of battle, barking out orders and firing wildly from his place on the ground. He survived this way, allthrough the battle, and his soldiers never forgot it. He’s the American, nonfictional version of the Monty Python knight who continued to fight even after his arms and legs got cut off.
    And even though Pierce joined the war without telling Jane, and even though he almost got himself killed, she
still
stood by his side, because all she wanted was for him to keep his promise and stay out of politics.
    And for many years after the war, he did. He kept his promise and lived a quiet, private life with his loving wife. And then he became the president—which, yes, is literally the opposite of not being in politics.
    Perhaps claiming that Pierce “lived a quiet, private life” a couple sentences ago wasn’t entirely honest. Even though he wasn’t publicly campaigning for office, Pierce stayed in touch with his political buddies in Washington the whole time and quietly, privately, made sure that they all knew that, should someone nominate him, he wouldn’t turn down the offer.
    It wasn’t
just
that he was running a whispered shadow-campaign despite his promise to Jane, but that he was doing it all behind her back. Jane was the only person in America in 1852 who didn’t know Pierce had his eyes on the presidency. The day she found out Pierce was considering stepping into politics was the day a fellow Democrat informed Pierce that he’d received the nomination. The couple was on vacation together and Jane was absolutely shocked and blind-sided by the news. Pierce grinned.
    Pierce’s decision to sneakily become president against Jane’s wishes and behind her back did irreparable damage to their marriage. Tragically, not too long before Pierce was about to move into the White House, the train that carried Franklin, Jane, and their young son went off the rails and crashed. Franklin and Jane survived with just a few scratches, but their son died. This, Jane believed, was punishment for Pierce seeking office when he shouldn’t have.
    From then on, Jane wore all black every day and stayed away from the White House as often as possible, abdicating her hosting responsibilities (First Ladies typically hosted lots of parties andentertained guests). Pierce just kept on presidenting, because that was the kind of man he was. He wanted power and glory, and nothing, not a crushing knee injury and not the love of his life or the loss of his son, was going to get in his way.

    Which was weird, because he was a really crappy president. Pierce was more focused on the
job
than he was on the
country
. He spent so much of his time playing the political game and ensuring his spot in the White House that he never looked around to notice that the issue of slavery was very quickly ripping the nation apart, and that the president was going to have to do something about it. We were on the verge of civil war, and Pierce’s inaugural address went on and on about the great period of peace and prosperity taking place in America. He was a solid politician but, as the book
The American President
puts it, was “timid and unable to cope with a changing America.”
    Also, he was arrested as president for running over a woman with his horse—but was discharged due to a lack of sufficient evidence. This doesn’t relate to any grand, meaningful truth about Pierce, and it doesn’t tie into anything about his character or administration oranything, it’s just crazy. A president got arrested. For a horse accident. That’s nuts. Anyway.
    Like Millard Fillmore before him, Pierce was not nominated by his party after his first term. The antislavery members of the Democratic Party