Object Details
Biography
William Learned Marcy (1786–1857) was born to a farming family in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. He graduated from Brown University, studied law, and opened a practice in Troy, New York. He was a U.S. senator from New York and governor of the state before President James K. Polk named him secretary of war. In 1853 President Franklin Pierce appointed Marcy secretary of state.
As secretary, Marcy negotiated the 1854 Gadsden Treaty with Mexico, a purchase of land just south of New Mexico that was wanted for a transcontinental rail route. Marcy also oversaw the drafting of the Ostend Manifesto, a document that detailed the rationale for the purchase or even the seizure of Cuba from Spain. The manifesto proved an embarrassment to the Pierce administration, criticized at home as well as abroad for its support of the expansion of slavery. In 1855, Marcy negotiated a treaty with Great Britain over reciprocal fishing rights in Canada.
Marcy died in New York shortly after the end of President Pierce’s term.