American Executor: Franklin Pierce

A quiet hand ascends the nation’s seat,

A name not forged in battle’s field or fame;

Yet party calls, and factions now entreat

A chief to guard the Union’s fragile frame.

No crown bestows the burden he must claim,

No easy course extends before his stand—

He bears the nation with a steady hand.

The sections watch, each fearing what may come,

As old disputes beneath the surface grow;

The office stands where every choice may turn

The fate of lands and lives it must bestow—

He bears the nation with a steady hand.

The continent still calls the nation west,

Expansion drives the vision of the age;

The distant shores and territories are pressed,

As maps are drawn upon history’s page.

The purchase sought through diplomatic stage

Extends the reach of presidential command—

He bears the nation with a steady hand.

Yet every mile the republic claims to gain

Brings questions that no compromise can mend;

The boundaries of power become a chain

That binds the nation’s future to the end—

He bears the nation with a steady hand.

The Kansas plains become the testing ground,

Where rival hopes and armed factions collide;

The laws proclaimed bring fury all around,

As settlers fight with freedom on each side.

The executive chooses where to guide,

And controversy follows his command—

He bears the nation with a steady hand.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act reshapes the fight,

The old restraints on slavery swept away;

A settlement once thought to hold the night

Now opens doors to conflict’s rising day—

He bears the nation with a steady hand.

No crown commands him, yet his office holds

A power shaped by party and belief;

He follows paths his administration molds,

Yet finds the consequences bring no relief.

The presidency, both burden and chief,

Must answer for the storms its choices planned—

He bears the nation with a steady hand.

The people’s trust begins to fade away,

As divisions sharpen through the land;

A leader seeking unity finds instead

A nation slipping farther from his hand—

He bears the nation with a steady hand.

So stands the fourteenth, caught before the fall,

A president who sought a lasting peace;

Yet every measure widened still the wall

That kept the sections from a full release.

The coming war approaches without cease,

And history weighs the course that he had planned—

He bears the nation with a steady hand.

The office learns that power cannot hide

The consequences choices bring to light;

A quiet course may still unleash the tide,

And patience cannot always halt the fight—

He bears the nation with a steady hand.

Envoi:

O keeper of a Union near the storm,

You held the office with a measured hand;

Yet found that laws and choices shape the form

Of conflicts rising through the troubled land—

He bears the nation with a steady hand.