American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 14.2 Franklin Pierce

Episode Date: April 13, 2019

The country is divided, his party is divided, and he has just lost his last son. Pierce has a mammoth task ahead of him - unfortunately for the country, his party, and himself, he is no mammoth hunter. In this episode we cover how Pierce managed to make a couple of moves that does nothing but put the country in more peril.

Welcome to Totalus Rankium, this week's President Spears Part 2. Hello and welcome to American Presidents. So tell us, rank him. I am Jamie. And next to me is Rob. And I'm Rob. Cheers. Cheers.

Jamie is making fun of me because I'm a bit tired today. I'm not making fun. It's a gentle tease. I do genuinely sympathise with you. Yeah. I've been busy. Yeah. I've been busy. Lots. I've been busy.

Lots of work. But it's fine, because this episode is ready to go, and we're doing Pierce Part 2. Yes, we are. I'm quite excited about this. I want to see what he looks like as well. Of course, yeah. You get to see what he looks like.

He's really sexy. Yes. Yes, he is. Just going to point out, though, that we've had a couple of people get in contact saying that they're surprised how much we breezed past Nathaniel Hawthorne. Who? Yeah, exactly. Apparently, really famous author.

All right. If you're in America, you kind of study his works as just a standard at school. You don't in this country. Nope, never heard of him. No. Hawthorne to me is like a bush. Yeah, exactly. Pierce's childhood friend, famous author.

Okay. Yeah, he wrote books. Studying Scarlet? That's Sherlock Holmes. Yeah. Well, I can certainly tell you the books he wrote. Scarlet Pimpernel. Scarlet Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Wow, look at that tash. Yeah. Well, I can tell you what he did. He was classed as a dark romantic and a short story writer. Okay, and what's he most famous for, please, Jamie, if you will? Writing mainly is what he did. I can name a few books if you'd like. Name the most famous.

Oh, I don't know. Well, when he said there's – he wrote a book called The Scarlet Letter. There we go. I knew it was something to do with Scarlet. There you go. And he wrote um of course the most um famous one i think the scarlet letter is the most famous one dr grimshaw secret a romance oh nice although it's unfinished and it's not in blue so i can't click on it so

it's not that famous probably not house of the seven gables there we go there we go everyone's heard of that in the UK. Yeah. The Scarlet Letter, to be fair, I had heard of that. Really? Yeah. And my partner knew it straight away. She looked it up at university. It's considered his masterwork, apparently.

Well, there you go. Oh, frankly. There you go. Anyway, so yeah, he's in this episode a little bit as well, briefly. Good. Good. I was hopeful that would happen. But should we start this episode? Yeah. Let's do this, shall we But should we start this episode? Yeah.

Let's do this, shall we? Fade in on a whiskey glass. Oh, I like this episode already. Oh, yeah, it's good. Ten points. Like, really tight shot here. Yeah. This is filling the screen.

It's just a whiskey glass. It's a big crystal cut. Can you see the entire glass or just, like, part of the glass? We can obviously tell it's a whiskey glass. The whole glass. I mean, it is a tight shot on that glass. It is a very large measure of whiskey.

Good, good. Oh, yes. That's what you want. There is some chatter that you can hear in the background, but it's really muffled, so you can't make out the words. You can kind of tell that it sounds like an old man, though. A frail old man, perhaps. Can't really make out the words as I say and

the talking goes on. The whiskey glass at one point is picked up out of shot. Stay in place. Tight shot. Just see a bit of a ring on the table. Yeah. The speaking pauses and then the whiskey glass is replaced. So whoever's talking is clearly drinking the whiskey. Yeah. A small amount has gone. A little bit less whiskey. The. A small amount has gone. A little bit less whiskey. The talking gradually becomes clearer, and you start hearing some words.

You hear the old man ask, Sorry, would you like some? There's a bit of a nervous laugh. Someone replies something along the lines of, Oh, a bit early for me, I'm afraid, but please go on. Oh, dear. And the old man says, Sorry, what was the question? I asked,

Do you blame yourself for all the countless lives lost during the war? Pause. He's still tight on this whiskey glass. Yeah, yeah. The whiskey glass is lifted again. Big pause. It's placed down a bit firmer completely empty wow more of a pause bit of a cough sound of footsteps in the distance then eventually a quiet but firm not at all smashed to white yes white this time franklin pierce part two nice but you're not

going to read it if the text is white i've made sure the text is black don't ah wonderful yeah i thought this thing yeah nice introduction a bit different yeah so a retrospective intro oh yes yeah nice yeah okay so who's the guy drinking the whiskey who knows who knows maybe A retrospective intro. Oh, yes. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Okay. So who's the guy drinking the whiskey? Who knows? Who knows? Maybe it will become clear. I should probably be clear.

In some of these introductions, I'm doing actual quotes, and some of them I'm making up the speech. That's all made up. Yeah. If I remember correctly, the one where they're by the riverbank discovering gold in California, that was direct quotes. That was really what they said. Oh, nice. Just to be clear. What the hell quotes. That was really what they said. Oh, nice. Just to be clear.

What the hell is this? It's shiny and yellow. It's gold, Franklin. Yeah. So, we left Pierce just after his wife and he had witnessed their last remaining son's head being sheared off. Do you know what? I told my class that story.

Oh, wow. And how did they find that they found it fascinating um the bit it grew us a bit but they like they were enraptured in it yeah and then i put the this podcast in there excellent so he's not going to be in a fit state is he well it's going to be a very distracted franklin isn't it who goes to washington to deliver his inaugural address just starts halfway through banging the pedestal saying, it should have been me!

Why wasn't it me? Before saying a slug of whiskey. You're not far off. Really? You're really not. Jane stayed at home. She couldn't bring herself to go to Washington. I mean, she didn't want this to be happening anyway, if you remember. Yeah, of course. So, I mean, she didn't want this to be happening anyway, if you remember.

So, I mean, there's just no way she's going to come along to the hurly-burly capital when she's just in bits. Franklin, equally, was not really in the mood, shall we say, to be president, but it's one of those jobs you've kind of got to go along with. There's certainly no precedent for someone saying, actually,

I don't really want to anymore. Unless he could intentionally do such a bad job, he loses the next election in four years. Maybe that's it. We'll see. Apparently, Franklin did impress the crowd on March the 4th of 1853 when he delivered his speech because he did not look at his notes. He spoke from the heart. Oh, that's nice. Yes, although he did deliver a at his notes. He spoke from the heart.

Oh, that's nice. Yes, although he did deliver a planned speech. It wasn't freestyling. That's nice. But yeah. A bit of improv in there. How did the Mimax go down halfway through? It's by the improv.

Not good. No. No. Actually, to be honest, considering no one would have been able to hear what he was saying anyway back then, a Mimax possibly would have worked quite well. Why is he walking towards the wind? Is he trapped?

Send help! So yeah, let me quote someone. You can see what kind of tone he's setting here. Death stalks us through the valley of shadows. Well, let's see. My countrymen, it is a relief to feel that no heart but my own can know

the personal regret and bitter sorrow over which I have been born to a position so suitable for others rather than desirable for myself. Positive stuff. What did he say? something about being really miserable i'll continue the circumstances under which i have been called for a limited period to preside

over the destinies of the republic fill me with a profound sense of responsibility. But with nothing like shrinking apprehension, I ought to be and am truly grateful for the rare manifestation of the nation's confidence. But this, so far from lightening my obligations, only adds to their weight. You have summoned me in my weakness. You must sustain me by your strength see although that sounds very miserable and a bit gloomy actually oratory wise that's fantastic because he's

rallying people around him he's almost rallying sympathy oh yeah yeah definitely and this speech went down really well he didn't pretend he's having a great time because it would have the worst wouldn't it yeah exactly he was up front and honest you know what guys I'm having a bit of a tough time. Because that would have been worse, wouldn't it? Yeah, exactly. He was upfront and honest. You know what, guys? I'm having a bit of a tough time at the moment.

A bit delicate. Yeah. At least he didn't come on all manic. Like, hi, it's great, guys. Everything's wonderful. But crying all the way through it, you know, super happy. Yes, yeah. That would have been an interesting speech.

It would have been. Yeah, I mean, like you say, it's slightly gloomy, but generally it was well received. Other parts of the speech called for unity in the country and in his party. Good. The idea was, come on, we can bandy together. I know things have been looking a bit bad recently, what with the whole North and South starting to split and the Fugitive Slave Act annoying everyone. But it's fine. We will band together. However, the presidency did not begin with the most auspicious of starts. The vice president, a man named King, died within a couple of weeks. Oh, vice presidency. What do they even do?

Even now, what do they do? Well, exactly. This didn't actually make any difference to Franklin Pierce. He had barely even talked to King. King was a huge supporter of Franklin's political rival, Buchanan. So, I mean, they just, King wasn't a factor

in Pierce's administration. That's really weird for us now, isn't it? Like, because what we always see is like, during the presidential elections and the run-up to that, it's always a double team. Yeah, and we've not got quite to that point yet. Yeah, but it's really interesting. This was a rival faction getting their man in as vice president.

In fact, I mean, King wasn't just a supporter of Buchanan. If the rumours are true, there's a very good chance that King and Buchanan were fully in love with each other. Yeah, so... Really? Yeah, but more on that next time. Ooh! Yeah.

Spoiler. Spoiler for next time. But just know he's died and next time. Ooh. Yeah. Spoiler. Spoiler for next time. But just know he's died and Buchanan's sad. Yeah. Still, politics continues. Warnings were given in the inaugural speech. Britain was causing a few problems again. Us?

Yeah. Moi? Well, Pierce and like-minded politicians were worried that Spain were about to lose Cuba. Yeah. Yeah. As we've seen recently, there's been a few illegal attempts to get Cuba. Yeah. Yeah.

And Spain's hold on the island wasn't the strongest. And America were worried that if Britain or another maritime empire controlled Cuba, then it's very close to the U.S. mainland, isn't it? It would be like if the U.S. was a fully-fledged democracy, having like a, I don't know, a communist state nearby. It would be terrifying, wouldn't it? Yeah. So they were just thinking that perhaps the U.S. should do something about that. Oh. Yeah. Oh, oh.

Yeah. Oh. Now, this theoretical future of perhaps, say, Britain or France or someone owning Cuba and that being a problem, that was a consideration. Yeah. But let's be honest. It was mainly the temptation of creating another slave state that encouraged many to support the invasion of Cuba. Yeah. Or, if not invading, at least buying it off Spain. Yeah, but we'll solve your problems. You don't have to worry about it anymore.

So this is the first thing that Pierce comes across as president. Polk had in fact offered $100 million for Cuba during his presidency. Something I didn't bother mentioning because Spain just flatly refused. That's more money than I've got. That's something I didn't bother mentioning because Spain just flatly refused. That's more money than I've got.

That's for sure. Still, Franklin Pierce and his Secretary of State, a man named Marcy, wanted Cuba. So they sent a minister to Spain to go and talk to the Spanish about perhaps maybe buying it. This was a man named Pierre Soleil. As American as they come. American through and through he was. perhaps maybe buying it. This was a man named Pierre Soleil. As American as they come.

American through and through he was. Yeah, born in the south of France, he was. Ah, bonjour, monsieur! Yeah, he got chucked out because of his revolutionary activities. Ah, non! He moved to Britain, but then quickly moved on to Louisiana. Because in the British, they hate the French. Yeah, exactly. So many wars.

But so many cheeses. So, yeah. So, they sent Soleil off to Madrid to go and see what he could see. Is there an opening? Could they perhaps maybe buy Cuba off the Spanish? What do you say about this deal? Well, it did not go well. Ah, no. No, because Soleil

very quickly got into a duel with a French minister. En garde! A French minister for Spain. So there he is in Spain just arguing with other Frenchmen. Not good. Yeah, not great.

He then sent a rude note to the Queen of Spain. You are a petit felu. He's small. It's a brand of yoga i hope you choke on your camembert uh he then um threatened war i will throw my weapons at you and then he got into another duel oh god yeah he was by this time known as a dangerous Republican from America and generally ostracised from the Spanish society. I'm not surprised.

That was mental. Yeah. I mean, he's already been chucked out of France. And they were having a revolution. Yeah. Or just finished one. I mean, come on, you had to do something seriously bad. Ooh.

Yeah. Well, they said that the streets are painted red. Maybe he was the cause of that. Maybe. He's just a whirlwind, basically, in Spain. And he's not helping. Then Cuba seized a US merchant ship called the Black Warrior.

Mass excuse they needed. Well, not quite. This was a dispute over custom regulations. Tensions grew, definitely. The South started to call for war. We should go to war with Cuba. How dare they? Let's take it off the Spanish, liberate it, and then put some slaves in there. The North, however, were not happy with this idea because they saw through what the South wanted. The North saw it as a way of getting another slave state. Yes, I believe the fact that you said you wanted more slaves, you're implying you want a slave state. Pretty much, yeah.

Anyway, Franklin Pierce demanded $300,000 from Spain just to make up for the mistreatment of one of their ships. Wow. Yeah, so Soleil passed on that message, probably very offensively. Give us some money, you Spanish dorks. And Spain refused to pay. Ah, non. Yeah, so that went nowhere.

Pierce then asked Congress for some money to be put aside just in case something needed to be done. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. With this war footing created, Pierce then sent word back to Soleil in Spain again. Now we've really got our fingers on our pistols as it were. Offer 130 million for the island. Carrot and stick approach. We're this close to going to war with you, how about some money instead? We have our fingers on the peace tools. We are offering you 350 million dollars. 130. But that wouldn't surprise

me. Just making stuff up. However, Soleil's... What do you mean you don't accept American dollars? Well, Soleil's reputation was so poor in Europe by this point that the whole thing fell apart.

By this point, he had publicly encouraged Spanish rebels to overthrow the government. Wonderful. I have a wonderful idea. And he had been forced to flee to France. Now, run away! Yeah. So, with that and the fact that there was no more provocation, the do-something option fell apart. So it all kind of fizzles out, really.

It looks like it was going somewhere, either buying it or war, but nothing really comes of it. Pierce was forced to give up on his idea of gaming Cuba. That's the crazy French person. Oh, I didn't think to look. I'm sorry. Hang on, give me a second.

So as Rob looked through his phone, don't forget to follow us on facebook and twitter and you can also download from poppy and she's a stitcher we also another podcast roman emperor to test ranking where we rank the emperors and we're currently through the byzantine period it's going quite well i can't quite remember the last one was mike oh no two friends that was it and they're two friends and one's called michael i think It's going quite well. I can't quite remember who the last one was. Michael. Oh, no. Two friends, that was it. And one's called Michael, I think. Or was Michael the last one? No, it's Leo coming up.

Leo V or IV, I can't remember. Anyway, that's wrong. You'll be shocked to learn that he was arrested for treason in America. Because he sided with the Confederacy. I will overthrow you, monsters! Yeah. He then escaped from prison.

He returned to the Confederacy. And then after the war, he went into exile in Havana. I gnawed my way through those bars. Eventually, he returned to the US and died in New Orleans. What an active life he led I died in a jazz bar

With a prawn in my mouth He sounds fun Yeah, he was Most of this dealings with Spain and Cuba Obviously wasn't known to the general public at the time This was backroom deals and diplomatic whispers going on However, later in Pearce's presidency, a report called the Ostend Report was leaked to the press.

Ostend in Belgium? Yes, that's where it was written. I've been there, it's very nice. Oh, is it? I've got beer there. Yeah, this was Soleil and Buchanan and a couple of other people putting a report together for Pearce of options of what to do in regards to Cuba. The suggestions didn't go quite as far to say, if they don't offer you money, we should invade. But it was really close

to saying that. It was fairly obvious that the report was saying we should get Cuba and it should become a slave state. So when this report was leaked, Northerners were not happy, and used it to say that Pearce was clearly just looking out for the southern interests. To hell with this. Yeah, so yeah, that wasn't great politically. Anyway, foreign relations are not the only thing troubling Pearce. In fact, things on the home front were far worse. Not only were the anti-slavery and pro-slavery extremists of the party accusing Pearce of favouring the other in terms of federal positions, the centralists in the party were by this point frustrated

that the president was even listening to the extremes. So in the Democrats, you've got your group that hates slavery, you've got your group that loves slavery, and then you've got everyone in the middle. The ones in the middle want the extremes to just be shut out. Yeah. The two extremes hate each other. Yeah.

Franklin is listening to everyone. Ah. So he's annoying everyone. Yeah. Yeah. Now, nowhere is it more highlighted than in the state of New York at this time. The Democrat Party starts to really fracture.

Yeah, the anti-slavery faction had become known as the barn burners because they were seen as a group of people who wanted to burn down the entire party just to get rid of the problem of slavery. So yeah, they hated the Compromise of 1850 because it was obviously terrible and promoted slavery. Yeah. Yeah, they hated the Compromise of 1850 because it was obviously terrible and promoted slavery.

Yeah. The extreme pro-slavery and pro-disunist Southern States rights Democrats hated the Compromise because it gave anything to the abolitionists. Yeah. Yeah. The bulk of the party, the centralists, were pro-Compromise. Yeah. And despite many reservations, had seen it through. They'd pushed it through. And now those that worked against it, so the two extremes, were being rewarded by the president.

Ah. They were being given jobs. The centralists in the party hated that fact. Yeah. So, Pearce, when he was giving out his federal positions, was just giving everyone a job. Ah. The anti-slavery barn burners, the pro-slavery disunionists. Yeah.

One politician at the time wrote, Piers is for uniting and cementing the extreme wings of the party, the free soilers of the North and the fire eaters of the South. This is a great error. It's almost like he's fracturing, fractualising, putting fractures in the union. Well, Piss is seeing it as the opposite. He is trying desperately

to pull his party together because he can see the fracturing lines in his party. He's trying to compromise. He's trying to understand. He's trying to talk to everyone and get everyone into the same tent. If you can do it, well done. No civil war. Yeah, huge round of applause. You've done a brilliant job. If you try do it, well done. No civil war. Yeah, huge round of applause.

You've done a brilliant job. If you try and fail, you're a miserable failure. Do you want to hazard a guess at how well Franklin does at this? I don't know. Let's see. Hang on, what's the year

at this point, roughly? 1860? We're in the mid-50s. Oh. Yeah. It's not long before Pierce is disliked by a majority

of his own party. Yeah. And a majority of the party dislikliked by a majority of his own party. Yeah. And a majority of the party disliked a majority of the rest of the party. Excellent. Yeah. Really starting to look like the Democrats are going to split, just as the Whigs have started to do. And new fringe parties start to pop up all over the place. If you remember, the Know-Nothings were appearing stronger than ever.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. With their nativist and nationalistic rhetoric. Yeah. They were getting a large crowd. Yes. As using general hatred and fear tends to do. Fear mongering. Yeah. In the south, there were those calling for the southern states to

secede from the US. Let's break away. Let's form our own country. These northerners want no slavery. Well, fine. We'll take our slaves and we're going to form a new country. They'd be there for a while. I mean, going back to Washington, Jefferson, you've had factions saying that we're anti-union.

As we saw, not everyone embraced the union at the start. But they'd always been on the fringes. We're starting to really see that they're getting more and more power and more say within the Democratic Party, but also splitting from the Democratic Party. Yes.

Pierce isn't blind to all this, and his cabinet sought ways to stop the turmoil. The problem was, they reasoned, it's actually the Whigs, because the Whigs have just fallen apart, as we've seen. Yeah. With no unified opposition, the Democrats had no one to fight against. Yeah. Therefore, they were infighting. Ooh. So

they reasoned, what we need is something that the Whigs would unifiably oppose. We need to help the Whigs. Yeah. Yeah. We need to help the Whigs get back together, so then we will oppose the Whigs. We'll get our two-party system back. That's interesting because

i can relate to modern life um in 2001 um the world championship wrestling company folded right okay and since that time the world wrestling federation or world wrestling entertainment they got worse because they had nothing to fight against you know when you've got a competitive you've got something to fight against you can get better you can outmaneuver, when you've got a competitive you've got someone to fight against, you can get better. You can outmanoeuvre somebody, but you've got nobody to outmanoeuvre, you just crumble and get worse. Yeah, exactly. Which is what happens to WWE. Yeah, I'm impressed. That is a perfect analogy there.

Thank you. Yeah, that's alright. My grasp of history is amazing. So, they just need a nice big national problem. That's all they need. And then they can debate it, and then the Whigs can unify against them, and it'll be fine. It'll be perfect. War, fight Canada. No, not quite.

The big problem that came along was perfect for debating was the small matter of Nebraska. Right. Arguably one of Bruce Springsteen's best albums. I bought a copy of that because my caretaker loves Bruce Springsteen as well. He said it's quite hard to get into tonight, which I saw as a challenge.

I was like, right, okay, I'm buying that. Have you listened to it? No, it's on CD. I've never played CD on. Well, listen to it. It's really good. So anyway, that's what Pierce and the rest of the Democrats did. They sat down, they listened to Nebraska for a while. Debated on its merits. Haunting it was, they said. Haunting.

Haunting? Oh, yeah,. Haunting. Haunting. Oh, yeah, very much so. Okay. That's good. Anyway, apart from the Bruce album, the Nebraska territory at this time was the area of the Louisiana Purchase west of Missouri.

Right. Because the Louisiana Purchase partly had been turned into states, but there's quite a bit left over. Yeah. So what do we do with that, basically? Now, what with the movement of People West, the colonisation of California, and the desire for transcontinental railways,

they figure it's time to start organising this area. Yeah. It's time to turn this into a state or two. But obviously, that means there's a problem. Slaves. Slaves. Human beings. Yes.

Yeah. Now, this should not be a problem. Theaves. Slaves. Human beings. Yes. Yeah. Now, this should not be a problem. The issue has already been solved years before. If you remember, the Missouri Compromise stated that everything above the Missouri Compromise line would be free and everything below would be slave. Simple as that. Simple. However, the Compromise of 1850 has thrown this all into question. After all, if you look on the map right there, look, there's California sitting on both sides of that line, and that's a free state.

It's a long state. Yeah, it's a long free state. Southern Democrats, particularly in Missouri, were opposed to the idea of the Missouri Compromise being upheld. Now, again, if you remember, imagine a map of America. Yeah. Imagine where Missouri is. It's in the middle. Right, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. What's important, though, if you're not sure exactly where it is, it is north of the compromise line. Part of the compromise was, okay, we'll draw a line, everything above is freed, but Missouri itself, yes, it's above, but it can be slave. But that goes against the compromise. Yeah, but it was part of the compromise. Ah, right.

So you've got a slave state north of the line. Right. Now, that's been ticking along for a while now, so you've got a lot of slave owners in Missouri. Yeah. What they don't want is a new state opening up just to the west of them that's a free state, because all their slaves will run away to the free state. Of course they will. Yeah. So Missouri really do not want

a free state next to them. So a man named Douglas, who was in charge of organising the territory at this time, decided on a way forward, and that is the Nebraska-Kansas Act. Exciting stuff. Yeah. To simplify this slightly, the area would be split in two. The southern part would be called Kansas and the northern part Nebraska. Now, the Kansas section is essentially modern day Kansas with a couple of minor tweaks. The Nebraska section

was modern Nebraska but also North and South Dakota. So, up a bit, going all the way up to Canada. Now, according to this new Nebraska-Kansas Act, when these regions could become states, they could choose whether to be slave or free. Right. Now, the problem is, even though the Kansas section was the southern section,

all of it is north of the Missouri Compromise Line. Ah. So, really, it should all be free. Yeah. But this is clearly southern slave owners trying to push more slave states into the north Pushing it in a bit Yeah Now the fact that the Kansas section is going to be just western Missouri

It's very likely that it would choose to be a slave state Oh yeah So there you go You've got a new slave state potentially north of the line That's awful Yeah I mean this is essentially tearing up the Missouri Compromise Which some claimed had already happened In favour of the North with California. You could make that argument.

But this just outraged many in the North. Yeah. Because that was new land gained from the war with Mexico. It's not the Louisiana Purchase. So the Missouri Compromise should still be in place. Oh, yeah? Yeah. The Nebraska-Kansas Act angered many in the

North, but did not go far enough for many in the South. They pointed out that until the land was a state, the territory would ban slavery, so it would not have a chance to grow. Yeah, you've got people in the South saying, well, it should be free for slaves immediately, right now, not choose when they become a state. So pressure was put on Douglas to change the bill, and he did so. He added some language that explicitly stated that the Compromise of 1850 rendered the Missouri Compromise unworkable. Yeah, it's starting to completely tear it apart. Realising that this would cause tensions, however,

a meeting of leading Democrats was set up to discuss the way forward. Pierce, obviously as president, was in this meeting, one of only a couple of Northerners. Everyone else was Southerners. Oh dear. Yeah, and Pierce was persuaded that the bill should definitely be pushed for. Pierce himself wrote the wording, and I'll quote, The Missouri Compromise has been superseded by the principles of the legislation of 1850, been superseded by the principles of the legislation of 1850, commonly called the compromise measure, and is hereby declared null and void. Oh, there you go. Pierce has just

torn off the compromise line. You can kind of see why the civil war happened to us. Things like this. Yeah, things like this. Little tiny things. We've agreed not to spread slavery. All right, guys? Oh, you're still doing it Oh, and you're trying to get Cuba Oh, can we start with the slavery? No, you're still doing the slavery Yeah Historians have pointed to this

And generally said This was a mistake Have they? Yes Perhaps Pierce shouldn't have done this That's very astute of him. Yeah, well, if it was an attempt to unify the Democrats by unifying the Whigs, it completely failed. To begin with, it looked okay.

Whigs, North and South, decried the move. This is awful. The North, for obvious reasons, slavery was spreading once more. The Southern Whigs, because they just realised this is opening a powder keg. Yeah, they argued that this could open up sectorial conflict over slavery even more. It's already bad enough, are you really going to do this? And it seemed like the Whigs would indeed band together to oppose the bill. And if the Whigs band together, then the Democrats would band together

and perhaps there would be more unity. It just didn't work though the few remaining free soilers in congress they're the full-on abolitionists remember yeah they published the appeal of independent democrats in congress to the people of the united states that's very formal it was very formal and what it did is it framed the whole argument over the Kansas and Nebraska Act as a force of southern slave owners taking over the country by going back on a legal compromise. Oh, yeah. Yeah, obviously so, because that's exactly what was happening.

They've done, yeah. Yeah, and soon enough, the battle lines were drawn. If you were against the act, it meant that you agreed with the abolitionists. Because everything's black and white, isn't it? Yeah. And therefore the Southern Whigs, who weren't happy to begin with, found that they couldn't argue against the act. Because if they did that, they

were agreeing with abolitionists. Yes. Sure enough, the Whigs split on the issue. Oh, shock. Yeah. The North were against it, the South were for it, as did the Democrats. Oh, wonderful. All this does is split North and South further. Oh, wonderful.

And tear the parties apart further. Excellent. Yeah. However, the bill passed and was signed into law only due to Southern Whig support, which really did not please the Northerners. No. And this is what kills off the Whig Party for good. Say goodbye to the Whigs.

Bye, Whigs. Yeah, they were on their way out anyway, but this kills them off. Pierce signs the bill into law, and there you go. His attention was momentarily distracted when news came from Boston. A fugitive slave had just been captured there once again. We've already covered this a couple of times. But yeah, there's another one. This time, a group of abolitionists had attempted to break the man

free, had failed, but had unfortunately killed a marshal. Oh. Yeah. Pierce was asked for permission to bring forth federal troops to ensure that the man was returned to the South without further incident. Pierce was more than happy to approve.

His reputation in Massachusetts plummets even further. Oh, I'm not surprised. Yeah. By this time, it's becoming very clear that the Nebraska Act was not only destroying the Whigs, but it was doing nothing to help the Democrats. Talk of Northern support for the Democrats' collapsing stats to filter through.

And sure enough, come the midterms, the Democrats were utterly destroyed in the North. Really? Losing 66 of 91 seats they held they even lost seats in pierce's home state of new hampshire which was a democrat stronghold in the north oh no but where were the votes going because the point yeah the wigs have been destroyed yeah yeah so they won't go into the wigs. Well, many Northern Whigs, utterly disgusted with the southern arm of their party, were starting to align with Free Soilers and anti-Nebraska Act Democrats.

People were starting to feel that Northerners from across parties perhaps had more in common with each other than those in the South. This new group were fully against the Fugitive Slave Act and they denounced slavery as, and I quote here, a relic of barbarism, and stated that the purpose of the Nebraska-Kansas Act was to, and I quote, give the slave states such a decided and practical preponderance in all measures of government,

as shall reduce the North to the mere province of a few slave-owning oligarchs of the self. Ooh, good bit of Russian there. That in the view of the necessity of battling for the first principles of the Republican government, and against the schemes of aristocracy, the most revolting and oppressive of

which the earth was ever cursed or manned abased, we will cooperate and be known as Republicans until the contest is terminated is this the start of the gop this is the birth of the republican party wow do you know what i never thought i'd agree with the republican party but here we go what what heroic starts what what peaceful starting for yes what one of the most fascinating things of American politics is just how the parties shift over time.

The Republican Party was very much an anti-slavery party. But also, that's not very conservative, because a conservative party this time would want... Oh, no, no, the Republicans were not socially conservative to begin with. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's so different to what some of they're like now. Yeah, yeah. It's a very different party, in the same way that the Democrats are a very different party. Yeah, wow.

But we'll see as we go along how the parties start shifting. Anyway, this new Republican Party was not the only new opposition party. Another party who called themselves the Opposition sprang up. Classy name. They didn't do very well because they were awful at naming things. Plus ideologically different, but the Know-Nothings were gaining strength still. I mean, obviously, they weren't an anti-slavery party. They were an anti-Catholic party. Oh, oh.

Yeah. Now, the Know-Nothings wanted both the Democrats and the Whigs to fall apart. Yeah. The two major parties were far too accepting of what they saw as foreign influence in America. Yeah, so, yeah, irony gong smashing away. Yeah, the know-nothings' message of fear and hate against immigrants was a powerful one that ran up and down the country. immigrants was a powerful one that ran up and down the country. This gave them an edge as the Democrats and the Whigs start collapsing and start dividing North and South. I mean, you get racists up and down the country who are going to support the know-nothings. So yeah, they started to do

rather quite well. So this led many to believe that the know-nothings were about to come out on top as the next political party of importance. Many predicted that the next president would be selected from the American Party as they'd started to style themselves. That's a good name, actually. You can't be, because if you're against the American Party, you're against America. Yeah, yeah. What a great name. Yeah, it's better than Know-Nothing.

So, meanwhile, things in the New Kansas Territory were not going well. Most settlers were from the North, and they wanted little to do with slavery. However, they travelled through the slave state of Missouri to get to their new land, and this caused a lot of tension, because most people in Missouri really wanted slavery in the new state. So when the first election of the territorial government came, tensions were running very high. Things were a bit rough and ready, shall we say, in the Wild West. Yeah.

And many pro-slavery residents of neighbouring Missouri were able to nip across the border on election day and vote for pro-slavery candidates. Ooh, that's cheeky. That's cheeky, isn't it? More than just cheeky, because they didn't nip over and have a vote each. Apparently, they made up literally hundreds of votes. Enough to change?

Oh, yeah, very much so. Oh, OK. Yeah. The governor of the territory who was overseeing this, a man named Reeder, was far more interested in the prospect of making money through land speculation than acting on upholding fair elections. Yeah. So he wasn't too bothered.

Voter fraud? No way. Yeah, I mean, despite the numerous complaints and plenty of evidence of voter fraud, he just let the election stand. It's like, oh, whatever. People literally dragging people in who were right there writing out new votes. Look, he's doing it right now

in front of you. They go up to the guy and say, can I have 12 voting slips please? I've got 12 left, I've got 100. People walking around with brooms across their shoulders with, like, scarecrows on the broom so they could pretend they were more than one person. Yeah, like two on each side.

Yeah. So there's like five people walking in. Yeah, so me and my family up the boat. What are the names of your family? John, Joan, I'm John, John and Joan. Yeah, so. But you've only got two arms. Sticking out your chest.

Yeah. All that was going on. Excellent that's fine come on and vote lots of voter fraud yeah yeah uh the new territory legislature therefore was very pro-slavery you'll be amazed although wow all those scarecrows gosh they loved a bit of slavery they did yeah so yeah they immediately passed pro-slavery laws quite severe ones in fact All those scarecrows. Gosh. They loved a bit of slavery, they did. Of course they did. Yeah. So yeah, they immediately passed pro-slavery laws. Quite severe ones, in fact. Yeah, to hold a place in office in the territory,

you had to swear an oath that slavery would forever be legal in Kansas. Forever. Which is a bit weird. Harbouring a runaway slave gave you an instant 10 years in prison. Gosh. And circulating pro-abolitionist literature would give you the death penalty. Oh my goodness. Yeah, you handed over a piece of napkin, perhaps,

with a free the slaves rent on it. That's it. You're a goner. I think slavery should be questioned. Yeah. Kill him. Sorry to disturb you, but perhaps maybe we shouldn't own other people? Oh, no.

Send him to their gallows. Yeah. So, as you can imagine... That's brutal. That really is brutal. It is brutal. That's a sign of fear, though. That's a sign of losing control.

Well, as you can imagine, as most residents in this new land that was applying to be a state were anti-slavery, they weren't best pleased. No. No. But you wouldn't know if they couldn't say it. Well, so angry they were at this obvious subversion of democracy, those few Northerners who were elected quit rather than swear the oath. Then they went to a nearby town and they set up an opposing government.

Nice. Yes, you now have two territorial governments in Kansas. A pro-slavery one and an anti-slavery one. See, when you think of Kansas, you think of red shoes, red slippers and tornadoes. Yeah. And Oz. This is amazing.

Yeah, we're about 50 years from the book being written. Oh, really? Yeah, so as you can imagine, things are a bit tense in this new region. Yeah. Yeah. Pierce, obviously, denounced this new outlaw regime, the anti-slavery one. Yeah. Yeah, of course.

I mean, you can see why it was... Well, to be fair, yes. It wasn't a legal government. They had morality on their side. Yeah, but legally, it's not a thing. Yeah, but then they could and did argue that the official government in Kansas wasn't legally a thing because the elections were so obviously fraudulent. Yes.

Yeah. Just like if we held a referendum in this country that broke laws. That was then bound to be illegal. Yeah. We would instantly stop, take stock, and think sensibly about whether we should be following that referendum. Exactly. Things have changed, though. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank goodness. Yeah. Anyway, the general bad dealings with Kansas was having a knock-on effect to national politics by this point. It turned out that the know-nothings were not quite as immune to the North-South split as they first thought. I mean, they were all united in their racism, obviously. They could all get together and talk about how racist they were. Yeah. Yeah, the Northern Know-Nothings, it turned out, did not like the spread of slavery over the Missouri line because that was taking away jobs.

the Missouri line because that was taking away jobs. However, to the dismay of the northern know-nothings, the southern know-nothings had a very different view. They thought slavery was brilliant. Best thing since sliced toast. Yes. So this caused some know-nothing supporters to leave and head for the growing anti-Nebraska-Kansas Act party, the Republicans. Much to some of the Republicans' dismay. Because many in the Republican Party were not too happy with the idea of all these nativist fearmongers who used fear of immigration to gain votes, coming along and supporting their party. Yeah.

Yeah, so there's a bit of friction there. Pierce, in his annual message to Congress that year... Oh dear. What's he do this time? Well, he denounced the rise of these anti-democratic parties in the North. He stated that repealing the Missouri Compromise was both, and I quote here, manly and ingenious. I think more politicians should try and claim that their moves were manly. This does not translate through the ages very well.

It really does. What's the problem with me spreading slavery throughout the country? I think it was manly. Imagine David Cameron using it. That's why he called the referendum in the first place. It's a manly thing to do. So it's into this political landscape that Pierce's first term started to draw to

a close, and Pierce started to wonder whether he should run again. I've got some advice for you. Those around him urged him to do so, and eventually he was persuaded. However, he was, quite frankly, deluding himself. Because there was no way he was going to win this.

No. Now, admittedly, although the Democrat support had collapsed in the north of the country, the Whigs had collapsed entirely, and the Know-Nothings and the Republicans were still minor parties, despite the inroads into politics. So the Democrats could still definitely win the next election. Now, that's not a problem. But he did not have support of the party by into politics. So the Democrats could still definitely win the next election. That's not a problem. But he did not have support of the party by this point.

The Deep South loved him, and he retained spatterings of support elsewhere, but he just burnt too many bridges with, at the beginning, giving jobs across the political spectrum of the party and just annoying everyone. And then his support of the Nebraska-Kansas Act had just annoyed too many people. Northern Democrats thought that it would be suicide

to put forth a candidate that was responsible for the Nebraska Act when it was obviously so hated in the North. It did not help that when pressed on the issue of opposing the illegal government that had sprung up in Kansas, Pearce admitted that there had indeed been irregularities in the original election. Just one or two. But that it was justifiable

because the Northerners were attempting to colonise the area. What? Yeah. No. That doesn't go down too well. That's not going to go down well at all. Yeah, there's been massive voter fraud, but the Northerners could have won otherwise. No, that's terrible. Yeah, there's been massive voter fraud, but the Northerners could have won otherwise.

No, that's terrible. Yeah, not great. He's not a good politician. And I'll quote here, whatever irregularities may have occurred in that election, it seems too late now to raise that question. And he called the opposing government not just illegal, but revolutionary.

I'll quote again, it will become a treasonable insurrection if it reach the length'll quote again. It will become a treasonable insurrection if it reach the length of organised resistance. It will be my imperative duty to exert the whole power of the federal executive to support public order in the territory. So he's starting to use words like treason. That's never good.

Now, they're dangerous words to use. Yeah. For any president. Yeah. He ordered that... For any president. Yeah. He ordered that members of this so-called Free State Government disperse, otherwise he would send in the troops, kill them, or capture them,

and then kill them. Just how openly unjust this was to Northerners who lived in the area is definitely the last nail in Pierce's coffin for Northern support. I mean, that's it. They just hate him now. Yeah. If they didn't before. Then two weeks before the Democratic Convention, things come to a head between the Kansas territorial government and the free state government. The pro-slavery government sent a posse to arrest the free government, which sounds

nice, doesn't it? A posse. But no, think more cowboys in the Wild West. We are full on cowboys Wild West now. Sticks with spikes on them. And guns. Guns. Definitely guns. Cowboy hats. Cowboy hats being not how you picture cowboy hats. Because you think of them being really wide brimmed.

That makes sense in the hot weather. They weren't though. Actual cowboy hats were really wide brimmed. That makes sense in the hot weather. They weren't though. Actual cowboy hats were quite small brimmed. Like a pork pie hat. Yeah, they were more similar to them. Really? Yeah. They were ridiculous.

Yeah, exactly. It's very disappointing. That's why Hollywood went, nah, let's put the cool hats on the cowboys, shall we? But also, logical hats. Yeah, yeah. But still, let's put the wide brimmed hats on them because it's cool yeah yeah okay top hats yeah i have some top hats as well tally hair anyway actually let's have the pro-slavery government in one style of hat and the and the anti-slavery government in a different

style of hair pro-style slavery top hats and the anti-slavery full-on cowboy they're awesome they're so cool looking okay right okay so the pro-slavery government-on cowboy that are awesome, that are so cool looking. Okay, right, okay. So the pro-slavery government send in their posse of top hat wearing cowboys. In suits. In suits, yeah. Dinner suits. The town of the free government was terrorised for a while and the printing press was burnt down and the hotel was fired upon with cannons.

Yeah, cowboys with cannons. Nice. No one died in this but in retaliation a posse of anti-slavery men set out ones yeah they sent out for revenge revenge there's only seven of them yeah it was all very cool yeah one has a scar on his cheek yeah long coat massive hat yeah shotgun you can reload it in one hand and fire it like the Terminator in the second Terminator film. You're going to be sad. Oh, no.

Yeah, this story does not end well. They end up killing a group of five settlers who didn't own any slaves. Oh. Yeah, they had just acknowledged the pro-slavery government because that was technically the official government. Oh, yeah. Yeah, not great.

No mistakes happened. There are no good guys here no no yeah so the violence again springs up this unifies the north against the current government and the south against the north so again just more and more stuff that's just splitting the country apart meanwhile a republican ex-free soiler senator named sumner was on the Senate floor in the middle of a two-day speech listing the crimes of the South against the Union. Yeah, full-on anti-slavery rhetoric going on. He in particular went after a Southern Democrat politician named Butler for embracing slavery as if it were his mistress. He went a bit figurative,

he did. Oh yeah. And I'll quote here, of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him. Though polluted in the sight of the world, it's chased in his sight. I mean the harlot that is slavery. Oh, dirty. Yeah, well Butler wasn't there at the time, but Butler's cousin was, and his cousin, who was a man named Brooks, was not happy with this. Them's fighting words, he whispered to himself. Them's fighting words. Yeah. Two days after this speech, Brooks, the cousin, entered the Senate chamber and saw Sumner sitting at his desk writing something. Brooks walked calmly up to Sumner and

I'll quote, Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is libel on South Carolina and Mr. Butler who is a relative of mine. Sumner starts to stand up to reply, but Brooks hits the man over the head several times with his cane. Oh, brutal.

Just wait. Oh. That's mildly damaging. Sumner slumps onto the floor and kind of goes under the desk slightly to try and avoid any more onslaught. Fair enough. Brooks keeps whacking him over and over again. Sumner, in desperation, is able to wrench the bolted-down desk free of the floor

and starts to crawl away. Brooks stands over him, hitting him again and again until Sumner is lying in a bloodied heap. By this time, obviously, some men had come to try and separate the fight. You took long enough! However, a fellow Southern Democrat brandished a pistol and told everyone to step back and let the fight continue. It's not a fight, it's a beating.

Yeah. Eventually, Brooks stopped beating the man when the cane snapped in two. He and his fellow Southern Democrats had then left together, possibly whistling a tune. Sumner took three years to recover and was in pain for the rest of his life. Bloody hell. Yeah, this

was almost beating a man to death on the Senate floor. Wow. Yeah. Same Senate building that's there now? Imagine that happening now. Whoa! As you can imagine, in the North, this solidified even further Same centre building that's there now. Mm-hmm. Imagine that happening now. Mm-hmm. Whoa! As you can imagine, in the North, this solidified even further the hatred towards the South. A bunch of brutes who go around beating people up.

In the South, this act was justified as an upkeep of family honour, because those Northerners just say whatever they want. It's about time someone teaches them a lesson. At least those divides are healing in the country. It's good to see. So yeah, everything is tense in the political landscape. And it's this time the National Democratic Convention is held. Oh no.

Where Pierce is going to attempt to be nominated once more. How's that go? Well, Buchanan was ahead in the first round. Pierce did better than expected coming second and not too far away from Buchanan. But that first poll was actually Pearce's best, and after 15 rounds it became very clear he was not going to win. Keeping in contact through Telegraph, Pearce hears about how he's doing

and orders the removal of his name. So he does not run for a second term. Good. The party and the country is deeply divided, and there simply is no room for Franklin Pierce anymore. He left the White House in March of 1857. He lives on for another 12 years. Yeah.

Yeah, by this point, Jane was chronically ill. Remember, Jane was always a bit sickly and needed constant care, which is what took up most of Franklin's time to begin with. In fact, immediately after he steps down from being president, Jane was too ill to move out of the city, which means they stayed in the capital for a while. Awkward.

Yeah, this did nothing to aid the splitting Democrats. Those who hated Buchanan rallied around the ex-president who was still nearby. Things were tense for a while. However, after a few weeks, the Pearsons slowly make their way home to New Hampshire. Jane's health improves quite a while and they go on a tour of Europe.

They visit all the major countries and major cities, which was very nice. By the time they return, it's very clear that Buchanan was doing not a good job. Yeah. And in fact, so bad that Pierce's name was started to be bandied about in regards for another presidential run. Wow. Yeah.

That is negative. Yeah. Pierce, however, was just not interested. Instead, he wanted nothing more than to buy some land to farm in peace. With his slaves. He's got no slaves. He's a Northerner. He lives in the North. He's a Northerner. That surprises me. Yeah, no, he just wants

a little plot of land that he can farm. However, James Howe was failing once again. So instead, they went to the Bahamas, which is nice. Pierce sent a letter to Jefferson Davis, a personal friend of his, persuading him to run for president next time. He wrote stating that the current talk of southern secession would lead to civil war

due to the madness of northern abolitionists. He also predicted that many sane people in the north would rise and fight for the rights of the self. However, despite this overconfidence of like-minded Northerners, Pierce was able to predict the upcoming war fairly well. After all, Pierce knows the North, he's a Northerner. He also knows the South really well, because he was always in favour of the South. Yeah, so he kind of sees what's coming.

But he didn't get involved, really, when the war breaks out, because his own health was starting to fail. A war breaks out? Oh yeah, there's a war. When the war broke out, Pierce publicly opposed the war as unnecessary. We don't need to have a war. Why is this happening? He said. What on earth could have led to this?

He fully opposed Lincoln's policies. Hated Lincoln politically. Lincoln? Lincoln, he's an upcoming president. We'll do an episodeated Lincoln politically. Lincoln. Lincoln. He's an upcoming president. We'll do an episode on him soon. Yeah. Towards the end of the war, letters were found at Jefferson Davis's house.

This is after Davis has been captured. Captured? Again, we're going to details. We will. Yeah. Pierce's reputation sank even lower in the North when all his letters to Davis were found. Oh dear. Yeah.

Then Jane died of TB. And then his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne died. The famous author. The famous author, yeah. Pierce found life hard and he announced, and I quote, there is nothing left to do but drink. That's really sad. Yeah.

When Lincoln was assassinated a crowd appeared. What? Yeah, I know, I know. Spoilers, spoilers. When Lincoln was assassinated a crowd appeared outside his house to demand why he had not raised a flag as a sign of mourning. Too drunk. Pierce grew very angry at them but then expressed enough sadness that they left him alone.

Yeah, I'm sad. Just go away. Weeping through his whiskey. Eventually, his drinking, which had for some time been a problem, became a larger problem. He had a brief relationship with an unknown woman for a while, but then the alcohol became too much

for his liver. In 1869, his liver gives up. He dies of cirrhosis of the liver. Oh, dear. He was buried next to Jane. It takes a lot of alcohol to get you through. Oh, yes.

He was a big drinker. Wow. Yeah. So there you go. That's piss. Wow. Yeah. Let's rate this mother...

Statesmanship! Statesmanship. Statesmanship. Well, it's not great, is it? It's not great. A couple of small things. He negotiated a trade deal with Britain and Canada. Oh, with the President's side.

Yeah. I mean, he did a bit of his job, essentially. But still, he did that. It's a bonus. Come on. It's a positive. He's often credited with opening trade with Japan. Oh, yeah.

But, as we've seen, that should really go to Fillmore and we go back to Fillmore. Yeah. And actually, quite a lot of that was negative because that was gunboat diplomacy. Yeah, scratching that out. Yeah. He purchases some land off Mexico.

That's good. Yeah. This is known as the Gadsden Purchase. Right. A man named Gadsden was sent down to go and talk about maybe buying some more land off them. After all, they're really poor.

Something to do with a war and having all their wealth and land taken off them. We're doing them a favour, to be honest. Yeah, we really are. There was for a while a chance that America could buy all of Southern California. That's like all down the left-hand side of modern Mexico. But in the end, they didn't go for that.

So just a strip on the southern border of the US was purchased. The reason why they did that is because they wanted to run a railway all the way to California. And the companies making the railways realised that the current border didn't really work very well. And they noticed, if we could just build down there a little bit, that's a bit flatter. Yeah.

So maybe we could buy that off Mexico. Oh. Yeah, so they do. They buy that. It's not a huge expansion of the country, but what it does is it fills out the modern border of mainland US. Okay. So that's it.

No more growth for the mainland anymore. All right. So he does that. That's not point worthy. That's like somebody buying a new garden. Yeah, it's not great. And to be honest, if the US had grown more, this wouldn't have even

been noticeable. It's just that little fact that that fills out the modern border, really. Yep, there you go. So that happened. So, I mean, that's pretty much all I've got for good. Of course. Bad. He seriously contemplated invading Cuba, using the excuse that they were going to liberate it from the Spanish just so they could put slaves there.

That's not good. As we talked about, he managed to anger most in his own party by giving jobs to those on the fringes of the party. So he attempted to unify the Democrats. He actually had to split them apart. This then spread to a feeling of discontent, not justify the Democrats, he actually had to split them apart. This then spread to a feeling of discontent, not just in the government, but generally across the entire country.

Yeah. Yeah. He then supported and endorsed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, ripping up the Missouri Compromise and just completely bowing down to the South, which is usually characterised as him being weak and unable to stand up to powerful individuals who supported slavery. Well, that makes sense. Yeah. And quite often with things like this, there are two sides and you go, well, bad for some Americans, good for others. But when one side likes owning people, I'm coming down firmly on the north side. Yeah, I agree. So, yeah, he is considered an honest politician by historians

um he's not really known for for lying but he's generally described as someone who doesn't know his own mind and would just try and please other people yeah he just wasn't firm on anything and perhaps a politician yeah perhaps his biggest problem was his complete lack of ability to grasp the north's feelings towards the south. He seems to lack empathy. He was a Northerner who agreed with the South. So surely all other same Northerners did so. He just couldn't seem to understand that people had a justifiable reason for not being happy with the South.

It's almost like a sense of arrogance. It's like even nowadays you get politicians that say, yeah, they don't understand how the world works. They don't understand the feelings and emotions of their electorate. Yeah. They're just going with what they know, and they assume that's what they all think. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, teacher politics coming out there, but similar thing, even now.

Yeah, yeah. It's not good, is it? It's not listening, it's acting without thinking. Yeah, I mean, he also saw slavery as solely a property issue rather than a moral one. He just could not understand why people were not happy with slavery. The fact is that although he seemed to want unity across his party and the country more than anything else, he was utterly unable to achieve this. Yeah.

In fact, if anything, he made it worse he's a massive exacerbator a massive failure exacerbator an exacerbating failure exacerbated isn't it so there you go let's rate that one and that's generous what you're gonna give one for deal with uk and canada yeah no all the apprais that. Zero. He's getting nothing from me. You can give one if you want. I'll give him a one for that, but I wasn't going to if you gave him one. I think he only deserves a one. Political point scoring, I like it.

Yeah, there you go. That is one for statesmanship. He did something vaguely good. That was part of his job anyway. Next. Disgrace Gates. There's really not much here to be honest. What? Well he didn't own

slaves. He is the fourth president to do so. John Adams didn't own slaves. His son John Quincy Adams didn't own slaves. And Fillmore, our last guy, did not own slaves. Everyone else has owned slaves. See this is what I'm frustrated about this round. It's about his personal life isn't it? Yeah. But he encouraged other people to own slaves. Everyone else has owned slaves. See, this is what frustrates him about this round. Yeah. It's about his personal life, isn't it?

Yeah. But he encouraged other people to own slaves. Well, yes. Just as Fillmore was more than happy to spread slavery, so did Franklin. Yeah. Now, Fillmore did get penalised in this round for that. Yeah.

Because he got points taken off for his official statesmanship causing problems with the Futuristic Slave Act. But also, personal morality, I think, counts. If you're there arguing for the spread of slavery, that is a personal thing, not just a state thing. So, well done for not owning any slaves. But, I would say that John Quincy Adams not owning any slaves, but fighting against slavery all his adult life means he is far better than Pierce. Absolutely. Who you get the feeling, yes, he didn't own any slaves, but that's only because he happened to be born in the North.

It wouldn't have been seen as right. It's not a moral thing for him. It's just a visual thing. I can't own slaves because it's against the law. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I'm giving him some points for for his attitude towards

slavery perhaps he doesn't get as much as others who own slaves but it's still a bad attitude but apart from that there really isn't anything he seemed to genuinely love his wife and as far as we can tell he didn't go off on any affairs um He cared for her as well when she was sick. Yeah, cared for her when she was sick. He was a very boisterous, outgoing, friendly person, if you remember. And she was meant to be very frail and shy. And despite that difference, he cared for her. Which, I mean, got to get credit for that. Yeah.

Yeah. Morals in some regard. Yeah. He had problems with drink, but he tried to make sure that didn't negatively affect those around him. There's no stories of him being a violent drunk or anything. It seems like he was one of these people that just went and drank on his own. Yeah, his drinking was a problem he had, but it's certainly not something to penalise him for

because he didn't let it affect other people. His life is tragic. It really is. Yeah. But he doesn't seem like a disgrace people. His life is tragic. It really is. But he doesn't seem like a disgraceful character. No, that's true. Yeah, so I'm not going to give him too high on this. Well, I'm taking away three. I think I'm going to take away two.

So that's a minus five. So currently he has minus four. Silver screen. This may be his round, actually, in lots of ways. Oh yeah, yeah. This is, yeah. The drama for him. This is the one where he can score some points. Gorgeous looks. Yeah, he's got his gorgeous good looks and just a tragic story.

And that's the great thing about him, actually, is his backstory. If you split his entire story into a series arc, just one series of, of like 12 episodes. The first six episodes of him would be you'd feel for him. But when it hit the sixth episode you got to start to go, ooh. Seventh episode, ooh.

Eight, nine, ten, what? Eleven, twelve, you arse. And then by the end you've just got that tight shot on that whiskey glass and someone asking him if he regrets anything. Yeah. And all he can do is pause and then say no. Yeah.

Yeah. I was following the law. Yeah. It was all legal. Yeah, so there you go. I was following orders, sir. Well, let's do a quick recap here. Remember, he was sent to school as a youth.

Yeah. He hated it and he did that walk back and then he got sent back in the thunderstorm so that's that's quite fun you could do something with that yeah his wild days in college where he'd drink he'd go off fishing when he wasn't allowed to burst into people's rooms and rugby tackle them to the ground you're sure he's he never stopped doing that no no even at the senate yeah white house joy is an oracle speech just trying to take on the whole crowd yeah so i mean it's an inaugural speech you took down film yes his friendship with hawthorne you could probably make something out of that because lots of people know who hawthorne is unlike us he He was popular.

He was fun to be around. You could do lots of Mary J.P. kind of things. Yeah. Yeah. Let's turn this cow upside down. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Then he meets Bland Jane, and they fall in love.

And then you can do something about the contrast in their characters. People telling him, why do you like Bland Jane? And he'll be like, but I love her, man. And then you realise he's got a heart. So you could do something with that. But why do you like Bland Jane? And he'd be like, but I love her, man. And then he realised he's got a heart. So he could do something with that. But why do you love her? I just love her. Yeah.

And then his political rise, he starts getting, well, he becomes a lawyer. He rises through the ranks of politics very quickly, if you remember. Yeah. People, he's the golden child of the Democrat Party. And then he has a son who dies. A bit more political rise. And then he has another son who dies. Then, military career in Mexico, remember?

Oh, what an episode that would be. You've got the ball crushing. You've got him fainting. You've got him attempting desperately to get into a battle. Not won it. This is a three-ep episode arc in my mind. Would you play as him being a coward or genuinely trying to be that? Ooh.

How would you produce that? Oh, that's a good question. I would go. I'd go for coward. I would as well. I would go for really boisterous, confident all the way up into the war. Yeah. He thinks he's going to be brilliant.

Yeah. And then he just falls apart. Out of his depth. And he's going to be brilliant yeah and then he just falls apart out of his depth and he's got to face that within himself yes he's got to face his own inner demons but i'd add a bit of sympathy in that as well oh yeah yeah yeah i wouldn't make him like an idiot i'd want to make him look yeah yeah not completely idiotic but yeah the kind of person that's out of depth in a puddle yeah so there's that. Then he gets back. Dark horse nomination, remember? He was only put forward in, what was it,

the 35th round of voting? And then suddenly he's nominated. The election happens, which he wins handily because the wigs are falling apart. And then the death of his third son decapitated on a train. That's a way to end an episode, isn't it?

Close-up shot. Yeah, and then you can just have him just mentally falling apart as he starts his presidency. Just a drunken episode of him drinking and being a mess. Pulling it together somehow. Delivering his inaugural speech and then reaching for the whiskey. And then just his presidency, which is awful it's terrible and then you can have a bit post-presidency descent into civil war the death of jane and

his friend nathaniel and then him drinking himself to death i'd have a sad episode him reflect it's a reflected episode that's a tight shot on the whiskey the whole episode is just a tight shot on the whiskey. The whole episode is just a tight shot on that whiskey. Or arty. Yes. Or just the bottle. Yeah. Gradually empties throughout the episode. So it's pretty good, actually. It's tragic.

It's depressing. It starts off so happy, and it just turns hideous. And it's not a war-y one. There's a bit of war in there, but it's... Yeah, it's a nice mixture. It's not all war. There's a bit of war. There's a bit of war in there, but it's... Yeah, it's a nice mixture.

It's not all war. There's a bit of war. And it just... It's less of an arc and more of a slide. Yeah, yeah. Into despair. Yeah, a very bumpy slide. Seven.

Yeah, yeah. I don't think it's top tier, but I think it's a fairly good story. We're saving that for Lincoln, as we both know. So, yeah. No, I'm going to give this a seven as well for just general interestingness. So that's 14 for this round. Canvassability. Okay, the moment you've been waiting for.

Canvassability. Yes! Right, get your expectations. Oh, don't do this. And seriously lower them. Yeah, but you don't know what my type is, Rob. Right. If I start flirting with your iPad.

He is regularly rated as the hottest president. Let me just sort my hair out. But remember, this is his official White House portrait, so he's fairly old in this one. Oh. You've got another picture to show me. I have a

photograph and another painting okay here we go this is his official oh yeah oh oh strong chin yeah those eyes are just seeing to forever yeah slightly weird hair slightly weird hair it's a bit goofy on one side isn't it very again though the entire portrait is very reminiscent of earlier yeah it's a bit goofy on one side isn't it uh very again though the entire portrait is very reminiscent of earlier yeah it's that washington fillmore style of the red chair he stood next to he's standing next to a table he's pointing at a document well he's resting his hand on a document which is presumably the constitution yet again no background in this one you get the feeling almost there was supposed to be a window in the background and they didn't have time to finish it.

Because there's just a plain wall behind them with a curtain. But it's a less distracting It is a steely glare, isn't it? It's a, I'd get lost in that gaze. I'm going to zoom into his face there. He's just, the way he looks at you, he's much younger than

most presidents. He's after all the youngest president so far. I would say that's fairly good. I would give that a go. Okay. Well, we need to rate this portrait but then I'll show you a photo of him. It looks quite presidential. It's straight. Looks pretty lean. Five.

You want to go with five? I was hoping for more. Yeah. So five. What did I give Phil more last time? I quite liked that portrait but i think this one deserves slightly better you gave him eight yeah you see i do like wow i don't think i'm gonna go nine no definitely not no i'm gonna equal film was i'm gonna go eight really yeah no i i do like the ones where there's a bit going on there's a document there's a chair there's a stevie look they're all like that though They're not all The last two are in Washington

That's all So that is 3.25 for canvas ability Right do you want to see what else he looks like Okay top one That's a photograph of him Bloody hell he looks like um An act Green Wing

He looks like uh Steve Stephen Mangan Steve Mangan Oh he does a bit yeah Bloody hell He does look a bit like Stephen Mangan That's insane

He's so depressed in that picture We're doing comparison Yeah similar isn't it Steve Mangan. Oh, he does a bit, yeah. Bloody hell. He does look a bit like Stephen Mangan. That's insane. He's so depressed in that picture. We're doing comparison. Yeah, similar, isn't it? We've got our actor to play him. Yeah, Stephen Mangan's got a slightly longer face, but it's not far off. Similar hair as well.

Yeah, that is insane. Yeah. And then here's a painting of him whilst in Mexico on his horse. He's looking very stressed. Yeah, just looking a bit cross-eyed. Torn. a painting of him whilst in Mexico on his horse. Looking very stressed. Yeah. Just looking a bit cross-eyed. Torn. Torn, yes. That's a flattering.

Oh, that is very flattering. Yeah, that's a good looking. I mean, the horse is a bit dodgy, but aren't they always? But yeah, there he is in his uniform. Yeah. So, I mean, you can see why he's rated as a fairly hot emperor. He's a president.

Yeah, there you go. Are you disappointed? Has he met expectations? If the photograph would have been that, and that picture, I'd have scored him higher. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's a good-looking chap. I feel like the artist has done a disservice to him, to be honest. Maybe to knock him down a bit because he's too hot

to be president. Well don't forget this photo and this painting was of him younger. He's starting to get on a bit for the presidential one. Anyway,

there you go. 3.25 time for some bonus. Bonus! He only served one term so one point there. No one tried to kill him. Yeah.

So zero. Election. Remember he won with a lands. Yeah. So zero. Election, remember he won with a landslide. He got 85.5% of the electoral college vote. Wow. Big victory. That gives him two for that. His final score is

15.25, which considering he is often considered one of the very worst presidents, is not bad. No, it's not bad at all jerry landry is going to be so upset with this oh he's beaten harrison oh dear yeah why has he beaten harrison he's beaten harrison um his silver screen score is slightly higher not by much in fact similar in all rounds so there you go to go. Was I slightly generous with a seven? No, I think so.

I think that was a good solid seven. Looking back on those scores, I think that's about right. Yeah. So, a bad score, but possibly better than some people would be expecting. But, there's a question. Is he American or American? No. No, not at all.

No. The man was useless. Yeah. Utterly useless. You could have had a clothes peg being the president for those four years. No. The man was useless. Yeah. Utterly useless. You could have had a clothes peg, being the president for those four years, and it wasn't just as good. The only reason why he scores anything

is because his life was utterly tragic. In fact, he was worse than a clothes peg, because a clothes peg wouldn't have said, yeah, more slaves. That's what we need. Yeah, exactly. In fact, if his children hadn't died horribly, and if he hadn't squashed his balls on a horse,

he'd be down there right near the bottom so it's mere sympathy it is yeah it really is okay right so that is a no no for pierce so there we go that is right that is piss done we now go on to buchanan buchanan well the state isn't going through a good time at the moment, is it? It's not. And Buchanan is obviously the last president until civil war breaks out. Yeah. So how do you think he's going to do? Um... I think he's going to have areas to improve.

Yeah, quite possibly. Still, we will find out how he does next time. Thank you very much for listening. Please leave reviews on iTunes. Come and chat to us on Facebook and Twitter. Yeah. Send us an email. Send us a message.

We enjoy hearing them. Yeah. Or reading them. Let us know how you'd rank them so far. Would you make any changes? Yeah, just generally. Get in touch. It's always nice to hear from people how much of a dick was piss let us know yes and are you looking forward to lincoln i've already got his biography have you or is it the film yeah i'm just gonna

watch the film i'm sure that covers most of it doesn't it yeah probably yeah it's long enough oh we should we should watch that oh we should review it after we've uh yes let's do that it's been a while since i watched that film yeah i'll be good yeah so we're good i'll have you golden as they say right okay thank you very much for listening and until next time goodbye goodbye Ah, there you are, Pierre. Ah, bonjour, monsieur. And how are you today? I have word from Pierce.

Ah, Pierce. Yes. And how is he? He is looking a bit sad, actually. Yes, he's sent word. Yes. And how is he? He is looking a bit sad, actually. Yes, he's sent word. He's received reports on some of your actions over here. I hope the president is super impressed with my debonair accessories.

Your enthusiasm is welcomed, Pierre. I like to be enthusiastic. We have a couple of pointers that when you're negotiating with the Spanish over Cuba, that you may take into consideration. What? Just, not a criticism. Opportunities to develop. That is just office talk for me being rubbish. No, no, no, not at all. You're not happy with my work.

No, no, absolutely fine. It's wonderful. Just a couple of pointers, if you don't mind. I will listen, but I will not agree to nothing. Step one, please be more agreeable. What? What did I say? Go! Yes, we have noticed that you tend to shut conversations down.

I do not shut conversations down. I am always right. Yes, but maybe if you at least listen. Do not give me instructions. I will listen to only my right. Yes, but maybe if you at least listen. Do not give me instructions. I will listen to only my president. Yes. When he said sensible things. We'll move on to point two, shall we?

Oui. This one should be an easy one. Can you stop killing over diplomats? Well, they say things I don't like. The jolling needs to stop. But they mock my country. They mock me. They call me a dirty little American stop. But they mock my country. They mock me. They call me a dirty little American Frank.

But you are. You're a French American. But they call me a dirty Republican. You are. You come from a democracy. And quite frankly, you could do with a bath. Meh. Right.

Okay. So can we agree? No more killing other diplomats. I will make a promise to try not to. Right. Number three, can you stop sending abusive messages to the Queen of Spain? Well, you can tell her. She is...

Just please stop the messages. Okay? Just cut it out. It's not helping. What if I write them in English? She will know what I'm saying. She will know what you're saying. All right.

What is this? Number four. When we give you an amount to offer, give that amount to offer. We can't help but notice some of the numbers you've been manning around are a bit slapdash. Well, you go to a country like Spain, Espanol as they call that, you offer them $130,000. They don't accept dollars. It is not their currency. However, I offer them a billion dollars. You should see their eyes light up. They are so excited.

Yes, yes, yes. That's because you're just saying numbers at them. Big numbers. Yes, yeah. Okay, well. Really big numbers. Please, please stop doing that. It's not helpful. Okay, number six. Yes, of course. Can you stop inciting revolution in Spain? But we were here to take down the... No, no, seriously.

It's going to be hard enough to negotiate with them anyway if you're at the same time trying to bring their government down to their knees. Deliver the corruption. That's so disappointing. They could do so much more. Be so much more creative. Yes, that kind of leads us to our last point It's a delicate one, I'll admit

But it has been the main complaint against you Yes, it's a letter written On behalf of a majority of the aristocracy of Madrid, apparently I know They want you to be And how can I put this? Less French What?

But I do not understand Yes, apparently you're a bit too French less French. What? But I do not understand. Yes, uh, apparently you're a bit too French. Well, they want me to speak by my real accent? You mean they want me to speak like this? So you sound real or genuine? I sound like a British person and person

in American, and a bad one at that. Anyway, you can't talk. What's coming out of your mouth? Where the hell are you from? Out of Bodham, Virginia.