6 CHAPTER XV. FRANKLIN PIERCE. FOURTEENTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. ENERAL BENJAMIN PIERCE was a soldier in the revolutionary war, was afterward a radical Jeffersonian democrat, who hated England and loved France; was an independent, large-hearted farmer; was for many years a representative of his town in the New Hampshire legislature; was a general in the state militia; was for a time. a member of the governor's council, and two years governor of the state. He was an ardent politician, and with political weapons fiercely fought the federalists. BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE. Franklin Pierce was the son of Governor Benjamin Piercethe sixth of eight children. Franklin was a bright, handsome, active boy, who took his father's politics by inheritance and repeated the ancestral arguments till they became his own. He was a generous boy, who won favor at home, at school, and wherever he was known. His father had suffered much for want of an education, and as Franklin inclined to it, he resolved that he should be educated. The district school gave him a good start; the farm gave him practical industry; the academies at Hancock and Francestown fitted him for college; Bowdoin college gave him a classical course of study; Judge Levi Woodbury and the law school at |