Presidency of Franklin Pierce

The Pierce Cabinet
Office	Name	Term
President	Franklin Pierce	1853–1857
Vice President	William R. King	1853
	None	1853–1857
Secretary of State	William L. Marcy	1853–1857
Secretary of Treasury	James Guthrie	1853–1857
Secretary of War	Jefferson Davis	1853–1857
Attorney General	Caleb Cushing	1853–1857
Postmaster General	James Campbell	1853–1857
Secretary of the Navy	James C. Dobbin	1853–1857
Secretary of the Interior	Robert McClelland	1853–1857

The presidency of Franklin Pierce began on March 4, 1853, when Franklin Pierce was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1857. Pierce, a Democrat from New Hampshire, took office as the 14th United States president after routing Whig Party nominee Winfield Scott in the 1852 presidential election. Seen by fellow Democrats as pleasant and accommodating to all the party's factions, Pierce, then a little-known politician, won the presidential nomination on the 49th ballot of the 1852 Democratic National Convention.

As president, Pierce oversaw a series of executive branch departmental reforms that improved accountability. He simultaneously attempted to enforce neutral standards for civil service while also satisfying the diverse elements of the Democratic Party with patronage, an effort which largely failed and turned many in his party against him. He also vetoed funding for internal improvements and called for a lower tariff. Sympathetic to the Young America expansionist movement, Pierce supported the Gadsden land purchase from Mexico and led a failed attempt to acquire Cuba from Spain. Pierce's administration was severely criticized over this when several of his diplomats issued the Ostend Manifesto, calling for the annexation of Cuba by force if necessary.

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