Franklin Pierce was born on November 23, 1804, in Hillsborough, New Hampshire. He was the 14th president of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857. A Northern Democrat with Southern sympathies, Pierce sought to ease tensions between the North and South but instead deepened divisions with his support of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed the spread of slavery into new territories. His presidency is often criticized for failing to prevent the growing conflict that led to the Civil War. Pierce died on October 8, 1869.