Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/253

 FRANKLIN PIERCE 199 justly, his political training and the circumstances that environed him must be taken into account. Like his honored father, he believed that the states men of the Revolution had agreed to maintain the legal rights of the slave-holders, and that without such agreement we should have had no Federal constitution or Union. He believed that good faith required that agreement to be performed. In that belief all or nearly all the leaders of both the great parties concurred. However divided on other ques tions, on that the south was a unit. The price of its political support was compliance with its de mands, and both the old parties (however reluct antly) paid the price. Political leaders believed that, unless it was paid, civil war and disunion would result, and their patriotism re-enforced their party spirit and personal ambition. Among them all there were probably few whose conduct would have been essentially different from that of Pierce had they been in the same situation. He gave his support to the repeal of the Missouri compromise with great reluctance, and in the belief that the measure would satisfy the south and thus avert from the country the doom of civil war and dis union. See the lives by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Boston, 1852) and David W. Bartlett (Auburn, 1852), and &quot;Review of Pierce s Administration,&quot; by Arthur E. Carroll (Boston, 1856).