Non-fiction: Annual Message to Congress (1856)

Overview
Franklin Pierce’s 1856 Annual Message surveys a Union strained by sectional conflict, especially over Kansas, while asserting a doctrine of constitutional fidelity, executive restraint, and national expansion through law, treaty, and commerce. He defends the principle of popular sovereignty in the territories, condemns extra-legal agitation, and urges Congress to sustain orderly government. Abroad, he reports cautious diplomatic gains and a posture of neutrality coupled with vigorous protection of American commerce and citizens. He frames prosperity and territorial development as reliant on strict adherence to constitutional limits and the equal rights of the states.

Kansas and Sectional Agitation
Pierce places the Kansas crisis at the center of domestic affairs. He insists the territorial government created under federal law is the only lawful authority and denounces the rival Topeka movement as revolutionary. Violence in the territory, he argues, stems from organized interference by outsiders seeking to impose their will on local voters, thereby subverting the Kansas-Nebraska framework. He pledges to use federal force only to uphold existing law, not to favor either proslavery or antislavery factions, and warns that admitting a state under an unauthorized constitution would reward disorder and destroy the principle of self-government. The broader target of his criticism is sectional parties that elevate a single issue over the Constitution, threatening the Union by denying equal standing to some states and citizens.

Constitutional Limits and Federal Power
The message reiterates Pierce’s narrow reading of federal authority. He cautions against federal subsidies for generalized internal improvements, endorsing instead targeted measures clearly tied to national defense, commerce, or treaty obligations. He favors the independent treasury, sound public credit, and moderation in taxation, holding that prosperity already flowing from commerce, agriculture, and manufactures requires legal stability rather than expansive federal spending. He urges Congress to respect settled compromises and the supremacy of law as the surest guard against sectional extremism.

Foreign Relations and Neutral Rights
Pierce reviews a busy diplomatic docket shaped by American trade growth and global conflict. The United States remained neutral during the European war, while advancing maritime principles favoring neutral commerce. He supports reforms limiting belligerent seizures at sea but resists surrendering lawful means of defense unless broader protections for private property in wartime are accepted. In the Americas, he presses for a faithful execution of the Clayton-Bulwer understanding, seeking the withdrawal of foreign protectorates from Central America and the security of interoceanic transit. He condemns private filibustering expeditions as unlawful and destabilizing. Relations with Spain and Cuba are treated with caution; any change in Cuba’s status, he suggests, must come by peaceful means consistent with honor and safety. He highlights expanding ties in the Pacific, including treaty openings in East Asia, and underscores protection of naturalized American citizens abroad, insisting that expatriation and equal consular safeguards be recognized by other powers.

Military, Naval, and Frontier Affairs
Pierce requests continued modernization of the Navy, especially steam power, coastal defense, and reliable ocean mail service that doubles as a naval auxiliary. On land he reports frontier frictions arising from rapid settlement and overland migration, calling for disciplined use of the Army to protect routes, enforce treaties, and prevent conflicts with Native nations. He frames Indian policy around treaty faith and gradual civilization, while acknowledging the pressures unleashed by westward movement.

Territories, Lands, and the Pacific
Public land policy is presented as a tool for orderly settlement and national integration. He supports surveys, judicious grants for essential routes, and sustained exploration toward a transcontinental railroad and telegraph, while warning against speculative giveaways detached from national purposes. Territorial governance, he maintains, must grow from legal institutions toward statehood once populations are ready and constitutions are formed without outside coercion.

Closing Emphasis
Pierce concludes by linking domestic peace and international respect to a single discipline: fidelity to the Constitution, equality of the states, obedience to lawful authority, and a rejection of sectional domination. Only by those means, he argues, can the Union pass through its present crisis and continue its commercial and territorial rise.