Opinion of Franklin Pierce

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

An excellent president.

He supported the Confederacy.

Libertarians aren't real people. Just walk on by.

No need for such generalization. There are libertarians, without throwing names, who agrees Franklin Pierce was a failtard.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

President Pierce delivered one of the most eloquent veto addresses in the history of the American Presidency. He vetoed the Land-Grant Bill For Indigent Insane Persons on May 3, 1854, by stating that even though a piece of legislation may be popular that does not make it Constitutional. "I have been compelled to resist the deep sympathies of my own heart in favor of the humane purpose sought to be accomplished," Pierce wrote as he argued that the bill violated section eight of Article I of the United States Constitution. The very idea that a president would veto a popular bill because it was unconstitutional makes me have a high opinion of President Pierce.

He also vetoed such unconstitutional waste as a bill that would benefit only the Des Moines River Valley, the St. Clair Flats and the port of Baltimore. In vetoing popular legislation Pierce upheld classically liberal traditions of local support but alienated his own Democratic base leading to his defeat at the hands of good old boy James Buchanan who would usher in four years of utter corruption and waste in the federal government. Pierce was an excellent president.

He supported the Confederacy. It's impossible to be even an average president if you actively support people who are rebelling against the government because they want to have the right to own other people. Do you disagree with this?

Al, don't waste your breath. Rooney is a libertarian. This is an ideology that finds supporting the Confederacy quite alright because as we all know, Abraham Lincoln was a Marxist dictator, or something.

No need for such generalization. I can show you Libertarians on this very site that called Pierce a failtard.