Franklin Pierce — 14th President (1853–1857)

**Franklin Pierce** is consistently ranked among the worst presidents — a Northern Democrat who sympathized with Southern slaveholders, signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act (which led directly to Bleeding Kansas), and watched the country slide toward civil war while hoping the problem would resolve itself. He was personally charming, devastated by the death of his son in a train accident weeks before his inauguration, and completely overwhelmed by the forces of history arrayed against him.