An Unpublished Letter of Jefferson Davis, Warning of Secession, and Threatening That Leaving the Union Will Be the South’s Recourse If the Democratic Party Loses the 1860 Presidential Election

He also relates that he avoided a meeting with Pierce to spare Pierce embarrassment in the North over any implication that Pierce supported a Davis candidacy

When it came to slavery, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire was a Northern man with Southern principles. Back in the 1830s, as a Congressman, he was a consistent vote on the House committee on petitions to refuse to receive any anti-slavery petitions. He stated that anti-slavery agitation was something “which every patriot must deprecate,” and decried the “new phase of abolitionism, in which it had changed from religious fanaticism to political organization.” At this time he met and became friends with Jefferson Davis, and the men often dined together. Davis went on record as praising Pierce for his “candor” in denouncing the “movements of Northern fanatics.” Davis always stood up for Pierce when the latter was criticized, especially over his fondness for alcohol.

The two men served together in the Mexico War, and were both members of the Aztec Club in Mexico City, formed by U.S. officers to while away the time after the fighting had stopped. Interestingly, other members of the club included Robert E. Lee, U.S. Grant, and George B. McClellan.

After serving in the Mexico, Pierce continued to be active in New Hampshire politics, opposing the abolition movement, which he thought was dividing the country, and supporting the Compromise of 1850. He was proposed by New Hampshire as a favorite son candidate for the Presidential nomination in 1852. At the Democratic Convention, the delegates agreed easily enough upon a platform pledging undeviating support of the Compromise of 1850 and hostility to any efforts to agitate the slavery question. But they balloted 48 times and eliminated all the well-known candidates before nominating Pierce, a true “dark horse.” He ran against General Winfield Scott, whom he disliked and with whom Davis had a feud, and Pierce’s victory by a wide margin was a triumph for both. President Pierce named Davis his Secretary of War, and the two worked well together in their respective capacities.

Northerners heavily criticized President Pierce for what they saw as pro-southern policies. They also denounced his expansionism in foreign affairs as an attempt to extend slavery by means of territorial acquisition. His attempts to purchase Cuba from Spain failed. On the domestic front, Pierce promoted and signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, which repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and allowed the new territory of Kansas to decide its own stance on the legality of slavery. This led to a virtual war in Kansas between pro- and anti-slavery factions, and was deeply unpopular in the North, even thought a betrayal. So it ended the temporary truce of the Compromise of 1850 and raised sectional passions to a new pitch. This opposition to extending slavery into new territories led to the formation of the Republican Party. It also brought Abraham Lincoln back into politics.

By the start of 1860, through the force of his personality and strength of his intellect, Davis had emerged as the South’s most prominent spokesman. He envisioned the South acting as if it were a separate country without becoming one – having its own economic and to a lesser degree political independence, but in the Union. He was considered a potential Democratic nominee for President in 1860.

In October 1859 John Brown launched his raid on Harper’s Ferry hoping to spark a slave uprising, and on December 2 he was executed for treason. This brought the slavery question to a fever pitch, with many Southerns worried about their safety, and many Northerners sympathizing with Brown. On December 22, 1859, Pierce took a stand against anti-slavery sentiment in the North, sending a message to a Union meeting at Bangor, Maine, saying that though there had been talk of secession in the South, “It will be well not to forget that bitter language, hard epithets, criminations and recriminations between us at the North satisfy no man’s judgment, reach no man’s conscience, and can be productive only of evil.” The effect of Pierce’s sudden reemergence on the scene was telling. Old friends, and those newly devoted to him, immediately saw him as the logical Democratic presidential nominee for 1860. Davis reiterated to Pierce that his support in the South for a return bid to the White House would be solid. As Davis had told Pierce in September 1859, “I am sure you are preferred above any others.”

But Pierce was not interested and running again. As you told one supporter, he regarded his political career is over, “and have not a single lingering desire that it should be otherwise… it would annoy me if I believed that my name could come before the Charleston [Democratic] Convention under any possible combination of circumstances.”

Autograph letter signed, Washington, January 9, 1860, to Pierce’s private secretary Sidney Webster, hoping Pierce would be the nominee (and perhaps that Webster could influence Pierce to run), saying he had avoided meeting with Pierce to spare Pierce embarrassment and any implication that Pierce supported a Davis candidacy, but more importantly stating that secession would be the South’s recourse if the Democratic Party lost the 1860 election. “My dear sir, Accept my thanks for your friendly attention and kind appreciation, as manifested in the “article” enclosed. You do me more than justice and my modesty or if you please sense of right must be reconciled by setting off a part against the unjust criticism of foes.

“Mr. Mayor Lincoln called at my house before I had returned to Washington. Your note induced me after my arrival to look for him, but not finding him I concluded he had left town. If my services can avail him, he can command them by pointing out the way in which they may promote his wish. Remembering gratefully his polite attention to me when in Boston, it would give me pleasure to reciprocate his kindness.

“I hesitated and lost the opportunity to see President Pierce in New York. A visit from me at this time would have subjected him to annoying remarks and might have led some to doubt his sincerity in disavowing a wish to be regarded as a candidate for the Presidency, and others drawing their opinion from their own trading propensities to have inferred that he was combining to place power in the hands of a favorite.

“I think, and do not believe that the wish is the father to the thought, that he will be the nominee at Charleston. He will in my judgment be found to be the only man whose nomination will save us from a controversy as to the ‘platform.’ The United Democracy can elect their candidate and a division of the Democracy must be the forerunner of a division of the states.”

This important letter is unpublished, and its content previously unknown.

Of course, Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election, and in December 1860, fulfilling Davis’s prediction here, South Carolina led a parade of Southern states to secede from the Union. On January 9, 1861, Davis’s state of Mississippi became one of those. Davis gave his farewell speech to the U.S. Senate on January 21. Before leaving Washington by train, Davis penned a heartfelt note to Pierce in which he began, “I have often and sadly turned my thoughts to you during the troublous times through which we have been passing.” He also wrote, “Civil war has only horror for me, but whatever circumstances demand shall be met as a duty, and I trust be so discharged that you will not be ashamed of our former connection or cease to be my friend.” There was little chance of that. Pierce’s devotion to Davis was complete. Bound by their joint service in war, political philosophy, personal tragedy, and years in the White House, which both agreed seemed more like a brotherhood, Pierce and Davis shared a friendship that is exceedingly rare in politics. After the war when Davis was in prison, Pierce visited him there. And as Garry Boulard wrote in his book “The Expatriation of Franklin Pierce: The Story of a President and the Civil War”, “Jefferson Davis was truly Franklin Pierce’s last great friend.”