Try not to laugh, my favorite president is Franklin Pierce (it's been that way for years!). Poor guy, do you realize all of his children died at early ages? Franklin Jr. died in infancy, Frank Robert died as a child, and Benjamin died at age 11 when he was killed in a train wreck as the Pierces traveled to Washington for the inauguration. All this made his wife Jane nearly go insane. Really makes you feel sympathetic for the guy. While he was in office he did the most honorable thing any president could do, he upheld the Constitution. Unfortunately since the poor idiot believed the Constitution validated slavery he would always be remembered as one of the bad presidents who brought on the civil war. Did you know his VP, William Rufus Devane King, died a few weeks after taking the oath of office and was so sick during that time that he never actually performed his duties as Vice President? Or that Pierce's best friend was none other than Nathaniel Hawthorne? For a great site about Pierce visit "The Pierce Pages" at
www.mindspring.com/~dbholzel/pierce/pierce.html
