At this time, Americans were beginning to strike back. American politicians also liked to call Europe "Old Europe" and the "Old Continent," while America represented the "New Continent" and the "New Order."
On March 4, 1853, amid this current of thought, Franklin Pierce, this "young man of America," won victory once again.
Although the United States had suffered a string of failures, great and small, it was still overall in a period of rapid ascent. After all, it had achieved many successes as well; in a sense, things could be said to be steadily improving.
It was precisely because of those failures that Americans looked forward even more to a president in the prime of life. Compared to the aged and decrepit presidents before him, Franklin Pierce, not yet fifty, was truly young and promising.
Thus, as a dark horse, Franklin Pierce won even more spectacularly than he had in history. His election, in a sense, also hastened the dissolution of the Whig Party.
Lincoln even wrote him a lukewarm letter:
"Mr. Pierce, you won.
This is not surprising. The Democrats have always managed to stand united these past years. For us in the Whig Party, this is undoubtedly a disheartening defeat.
General Scott did his best, but we clearly failed to persuade the Chosen People.
But to be honest, I am concerned by those voices within the Democratic Party calling for the expansion of slavery and preaching radical ideas. May God bless this nation, and may the voices of reason and restraint drown out that clamor of division.
What we need now is steady leadership, not reckless expansion."
Franklin Pierce was known as the "brave lad from Maine," and the Democratic Party also proclaimed him a war hero. Yet in truth, he had accomplished nothing. During the previous Mexican-American