The complete campaign biography of the 14th president, written by his college friend Nathaniel Hawthorne for the election of 1852.
When the Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce for president in 1852, his old friend from Bowdoin College, then the most celebrated novelist in America after The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, agreed to write the campaign biography. Hawthorne was rewarded after the election with the consulship at Liverpool. The book remains the only presidential campaign biography written by a major American author, and it is presented here in full.
See also the biography of Franklin Pierce and his 1853 Inaugural Address.