Considered a failure upon leaving the White House in 1857 and thought to be on his way to a well-deserved obscurity, Franklin Pierce during the Civil War emerged as a major spokesman for that era's Peace Democrats, opposed to President Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and in defense of civil liberties.

A Northerner with many close Southern friends, including Jefferson Davis the president of the Confederacy and his wife, Varina Davis, Pierce was also thought to be a traitor because of such ties and was at one point nearly arrested for suspected seditious behavior.