Non-fiction: Annual Message to Congress (1855)

Overview
Franklin Pierce’s 1855 annual message presents a defense of constitutional restraint amid intensifying sectional strife and turbulent foreign affairs. He frames the Union’s safety in fidelity to limited federal powers, the sanctity of the Constitution, and a foreign policy of neutrality coupled with firm protection of American rights. The message blends administrative reporting with a sustained argument against agitation, at home over slavery and immigration, and abroad over disputed spheres of influence, while urging Congress to sustain public credit, expand commerce, and secure lawful transit to the Pacific.

Foreign Affairs and Neutrality
Pierce situates the United States outside Europe’s Crimean War, insisting on strict neutrality while protesting British efforts to recruit within American jurisdiction. He emphasizes that friendly relations depend on mutual respect for sovereignty and laws, and he reports ongoing correspondence aimed at redressing violations without compromising national dignity. In the American tropics he presses Britain to conform to the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty by relinquishing pretensions over the Mosquito Coast and Bay Islands, reaffirming that neither power should exercise dominion over Central American routes. He defends the nation’s interest in secure, neutral transit across the isthmuses of Panama and Nicaragua, decries private filibustering expeditions as unlawful and destabilizing, and pledges enforcement of neutrality laws. With Mexico, he notes progress in boundary adjustment and transit arrangements following the recent treaty, together with the need for vigilance against frontier depredations. He highlights the reciprocity arrangement with the British North American provinces as proof that judicious treaties can expand fisheries and trade to mutual benefit.

Kansas, the Territories, and the Union
Addressing the nation’s central controversy, Pierce upholds the territorial principle embodied in the Kansas–Nebraska framework: that the people of a Territory, acting through orderly legal processes, decide domestic institutions for themselves. He condemns organized interference from both sections as an affront to self-government and calls for impartial federal execution of the laws, warning that attempts to nationalize the slavery question will shatter the Union’s constitutional equilibrium. He urges Congress to resist sectional demands, to discourage clandestine or violent interventions, and to leave territorial questions to local majorities under lawful authority.

Finance, Commerce, and Public Works
Pierce reports robust revenues and a steady reduction of the public debt as evidence that prudent administration and a revenue-based tariff can meet the government’s needs without protective extremes. He counsels economy in appropriations and cautions against federal underwriting of local or sectional improvements, reserving national expenditures for clearly constitutional objects. He notes the growth of ocean and overland mails, improvements in the Post Office despite structural deficits, and the expansion of commercial steam routes. Pacific railroad surveys continue across multiple corridors; while endorsing ultimate transcontinental connection as a national aim, he declines to recommend a single route before the surveys and fiscal considerations are complete. The Navy’s transition to steam, and the Army’s dispersed frontier duties, are cited as reasons to modernize matériel judiciously while avoiding unnecessary enlargement.

Immigration, Civil Order, and Citizenship
Pierce rebukes secret political societies and nativist intolerance as subversive of republican openness and the equal standing of naturalized citizens. He links domestic tranquility to even-handed law enforcement: suppression of illegal enlistment, punishment of filibustering, and protection of persons and property irrespective of origin or creed. Such discipline, he argues, strengthens the nation’s moral authority abroad and preserves liberty at home.

Executive Perspective
Throughout, Pierce advances a coherent program: peace with honor, commerce expanded by treaty and infrastructure, territorial development guided by local self-government, and federal action bounded by the Constitution. The message seeks to calm passions, recommit the nation to lawful processes, and carry westward expansion forward without sacrificing Union or principle.