Why was Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States, called a “doughface”?

Franklin Pierce (1804 - 1869) was the14th President of the United States from 1853 until 1857. As of 2020, he is still the only President from the northeastern state of New Hampshire. Pierce was a Democrat and a “doughface”, a term that described a Northerner with southern sympathies at the time.

Prior to his service as President, he served in both the U.S. House of Representatives (1833 -1837) and the Senate (1837 -1842).

His toughest challenge during his presidency was the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. This act repealed the Missouri Compromise and in the west, reopened the question of slavery.

His personal life included a series of tragedies. In 1834, Pierce married Jane Means Appleton and together they had three children. Each child died in childhood. Franklin Pierce Jr. died only three days after birth; Frank Robert Pierce died at four years of age from epidemic typhus; just two months before his inauguration, Franklin Pierce and his family boarded a train bound for Boston. Shortly after their departure, their derailed car started to roll down an embankment. Franklin and Jane survived, merely shaken up, but saw their 11-year old son Benjamin get crushed to death.

Jane Pierce thought the train accident was a divine punishment for Franklin’s pursuit and acceptance of high office.