Pearce participated in the so-called Dorr Rebellion of 1842-43 which was an effort to extend suffrage in Rhode Island which had been limited to landowning men holding $134 or more in property.
Thomas Dorr and followers organized a People's Convention in 1841 to draft a new constitution featuring universal male suffrage.
However Newport delegate Pearce argued that including black suffrage would alienate subsequent wider white support needed to adopt the proposed constitution.
In 1842 after the existing state government rejected the results of the convention and a popular vote in favor of the new constitution, Pearce and others were accused of treason after an attempt by Dorrites to capture the Providence armory.
[3] In following months, abolitionists succeeded in eliminating the word white in the proposed new constitution which was then adopted in an overwhelming referendum, proving Pearce wrong.