The bill would open the northern portion of the Louisiana Purchase to settlement and end the northern limit on slavery under the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Although Fillmore worked to gain support among German-Americans, a major constituency, he was hurt among immigrants by the fact that in New York City, Whigs had supported a nativist candidate in the mayoral election earlier in 1844, and Fillmore and his party were tarred with that brush. Buffalo was legally a village when Fillmore arrived, and although the bill to incorporate it as a city passed the legislature after he had left the Assembly, Fillmore helped draft the city charter.
[59] With a united party at his back, Fillmore won by 38,000 votes, the largest margin that a Whig candidate for statewide office would ever achieve in New York. Delegates hung on his every word as he described himself as a Clay partisan; he had voted for Clay on each ballot. [68] There was a crisis among the Whigs when Taylor also accepted the presidential nomination of a group of dissident South Carolina Democrats. [156] There are a number of remembrances of Fillmore; his East Aurora house still stands, and sites honor him at his birthplace and boyhood home, where a replica log cabin was dedicated in 1963 by the Millard Fillmore Memorial Association. The Democrats nominated Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan for president, with General William O. Butler as his running mate, but it became a three-way fight since the Free Soil Party, which opposed the spread of slavery, chose ex-President Van Buren. [119][120], Once Fillmore was back home in Buffalo, he had no excuse to make speeches, and his campaign stagnated through the summer and the fall of 1856. Fillmore became a firm supporter, and they continued their close relationship until Webster's death late in Fillmore's presidency. [53] Fillmore's biographer Paul Finkelman suggested that Fillmore's hostility to immigrants and his weak position on slavery had defeated him for governor. [102], A much-publicized event of the Fillmore presidency was the late 1851 arrival of Lajos Kossuth, the exiled leader of a failed Hungarian revolution against Austria. Nevertheless, Fillmore believed himself bound by his oath as president and by the bargain that had been made in the Compromise to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. As the Whig Party disintegrated, Millard Fillmore refused to join the emerging Republican Party. [1], Over time Nathaniel became more successful in Sempronius, but during Millard's formative years, the family endured severe poverty. Fearing that Taylor would be a party apostate like Tyler, Weed in late August scheduled a rally in Albany aimed at electing an uncommitted slate of presidential electors. For example, President Harry S. Truman later "characterized Fillmore as a weak, trivial thumb-twaddler who would do nothing to offend anyone" and as responsible in part for the war. When it reached Tyler's desk, he signed it but, in the process, offended his erstwhile Democratic allies. [78][79], Fillmore countered the Weed machine by building a network of like-minded Whigs in New York State. Without the votes of much of the South and also of Northerners who depended on peaceful intersectional trade, Scott was easily beaten by Pierce in November. The Continentals trained to defend the Buffalo area in the event of a Confederate attack. [109] He was bereaved again on July 26, 1854, when his only daughter, Mary, died of cholera. With the Whigs able to organize the House for the first time, Fillmore sought the Speakership, but it went to a Clay acolyte, John White of Kentucky. Instead, Fillmore, Webster, and the Spanish worked out a series of face-saving measures that settled the crisis without armed conflict. [69] Taylor and Fillmore corresponded twice in September, with Taylor happy that the crisis over the South Carolinians was resolved. The president-elect mistakenly thought that the vice president was a cabinet member, which was not true in the 19th century. [21] He taught school in East Aurora and accepted a few cases in justice of the peace courts, which did not require the practitioner to be a licensed attorney. "[155], Fillmore, with his wife, Abigail, established the first White House library. William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States, fulfilled a lifelong dream when he was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court, becoming the only person to have served as both a U.S. chief justice and president. Any assessment of a President who served a century and a half ago must be refracted through a consideration of the interesting times in which he lived. Zachary Taylor and Milliard Fillmore won a bitterly fought election, but could not have been more different in backgrounds and political positions. According to the historian Smith, "They generously supported almost every conceivable cause.
In foreign policy, President Millard Fillmore dispatched Commodore Perry to "open" Japan to western trade and worked to keep the Hawaiian Islands out of European hands. [49] Seeking to return to Washington, Fillmore wanted the vice presidency. After peace was restored, he supported the Reconstruction policies of U.S. President Andrew Johnson. Tired of Washington life and the conflict that had revolved around Tyler, Fillmore sought to return to his life and law practice in Buffalo. [41] When the Buffalo bar proposed Fillmore for the position of vice-chancellor of the eighth judicial district in 1839, Seward refused, nominated Frederick Whittlesey, and indicated that if the New York Senate rejected Whittlesey he still would not appoint Fillmore. [147] Steven G. Calabresi and Christopher S. Yoo, in their study of presidential power, deemed Fillmore "a faithful executor of the laws of the United States for good and for ill". )[112], Many from Fillmore's "National Whig" faction had joined the Know Nothings by 1854 and influenced the organization to take up causes besides nativism. He initially supported General Winfield Scott but really wanted to defeat Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, a slaveholder who he felt could not carry New York State. 
Fillmore made many speeches along the way from the train's rear platform, urged acceptance of the Compromise, and later went on a tour of New England with his Southern cabinet members. [65] Nevertheless, there were sound reasons for Fillmore's selection, as he was a proven vote-getter from electorally-crucial New York, and his track record in Congress and as a candidate showed his devotion to Whig doctrine, allaying fears he might be another Tyler were something to happen to General Taylor. Seward was openly hostile to slavery and argued that the federal government had a role to play in ending it. [94], A longtime supporter of national infrastructure development, Fillmore signed bills to subsidize the Illinois Central railroad from Chicago to Mobile, and for a canal at Sault Ste.
Fillmore was also successful as a lawyer. Kossuth was feted by Congress, and Fillmore allowed a White House meeting after he had received word that Kossuth would not try to politicize it. He failed to win the Whig nomination for president in 1852 but gained the endorsement of the nativist Know Nothing Party four years later and finished third in the 1856 presidential election. Fillmore warned that electing the Republican candidate, former California Senator John C. Frmont, who had no support in the South, would divide the Union and lead to civil war. Although Fillmore disliked slavery, he saw no reason for it to be a political issue. In 1848, the Whig Party tapped Fillmore to run as vice president with presidential candidate Zachary Taylor, a southerner. The sudden death of President Zachary Taylor in July 1850 brought a political shift to the administration. When Fillmore discovered that after the election, he went to Taylor, which only made the warfare against Fillmore's influence more open. In the 1860 presidential election Fillmore voted for Senator Douglas, the nominee of the northern Democrats. Fillmore's political career encompassed the tortuous course toward the two-party system that we know today. [153] Grayson also applauded Fillmore's firm stand against Texas's ambitions in New Mexico during the 1850 crisis. He was a rival for the state party leadership with the editor Thurlow Weed and Weed's protg, William H. Seward. [48], Out of office, Fillmore continued his law practice and made long-neglected repairs to his Buffalo home. Southerners were surprised to learn the president, despite being a Southern slaveholder, did not support the introduction of slavery into the new territories, as he believed the institution could not flourish in the arid Southwest. "[76] Despite his lack of influence, office-seekers pestered him, as did those with a house to lease or sell since there was no official vice-presidential residence at the time. [97], Justice John McKinley's death in 1852 led to repeated fruitless attempts by the president to fill the vacancy. Senator-elect Judah P. Benjamin declined to serve. Fillmore's work in finance as the Ways and Means chairman made him an obvious candidate for comptroller, and he was successful in getting the Whig nomination for the 1847 election. [105], The final months of Fillmore's term were uneventful. [99] He was particularly active in Asia and the Pacific, especially with regard to Japan, which then still prohibited nearly all foreign contact. They continued to correspond and met several times. He became vice president under President Zachary Taylor, assuming the presidency after Taylor's death in 1850. Officially retired from politics, he criticized President James Buchanan for not taking immediate action when South Carolina seceded from the Union in 1860, but opposed President Lincoln's unconditional policies toward the South during the Civil War. They were closer to those of another prominent New York Whig, William H. Seward of Auburn, who was also seen as a Weed protg. Webster had outraged his Massachusetts constituents by supporting Clay's bill and, with his Senate term to expire in 1851, had no political future in his home state. The vacancy was finally filled after Fillmore's term, when President Franklin Pierce nominated John Archibald Campbell, who was confirmed by the Senate. On the 48th ballot, Webster delegates began to defect to Scott, and the general gained the nomination on the 53rd ballot. The addresses were portrayed as expressions of thanks for his reception, rather than as campaign speeches, which might be considered illicit office-seeking if they were made by a presidential hopeful. Defeated in bids for the Whig nomination for vice president in 1844 and for New York governor the same year, Fillmore was elected Comptroller of New York in 1847, the first to hold that post by direct election. He also refused to back an invasion of Cuba by adventurous Southerners who wanted to expand slavery into the Caribbean. [140], According to biographer Scarry: "No president of the United States has suffered as much ridicule as Millard Fillmore. When Congress met in December 1849, the discord was manifested in the election for Speaker, which took weeks and dozens of ballots to resolve, as the House divided along sectional lines. [64], Weed had wanted the vice-presidential nomination for Seward, who attracted few delegate votes, and Collier had acted to frustrate them in more ways than one, since with the New Yorker Fillmore as vice president, under the political customs of the time, no one from that state could be named to the Cabinet. The comptroller regulated the banks, and Fillmore stabilized the currency by requiring that state-chartered banks keep New York and federal bonds to the value of the banknotes they issued. [114], Benson Lee Grayson suggested that the Fillmore administration's ability to avoid potential problems is too often overlooked. We strive for accuracy and fairness. The American enthusiasm for Kossuth petered out, and he departed for Europe.
[60], Before moving to Albany to take office on January 1, 1848, he had left his law firm and rented out his house. The Whigs were not cohesive enough to survive the slavery imbroglio, while parties like the Anti-Masonics and Know-Nothings were too extremist. They continued operations after the war, and Fillmore remained active with them almost until his death. He suffered a stroke in February 1874, and died on March 8, 1874, at the age of 74 after suffering a second stroke. James Polk was the 11th president of the United States, known for his territorial expansion of the nation chiefly through the Mexican-American War. [143] Anna Prior, writing in The Wall Street Journal in 2010, said that Fillmore's very name connotes mediocrity. The Fugitive Slave Act, expediting the return of escaped slaves to those who claimed ownership, was a controversial part of the compromise. [101], Fillmore had difficulties regarding Cuba since many Southerners hoped to see the island as an American slave territory. [27], Many Anti-Masons were opposed to the presidential candidacy of General Andrew Jackson, who was a Mason. [75], Fillmore was sworn in as vice president on March 5, 1849, in the Senate Chamber. Fillmore came to the notice of the influential Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster, who took the new representative under his wing. Taylor was unenthusiastic about the bill, which languished in Congress. 
[19][22] Later in life, Fillmore said he had initially lacked the self-confidence to practice in the larger city of Buffalo. [18] Nathaniel again moved the family, and Millard accompanied it west to East Aurora, in Erie County, near Buffalo,[19] where Nathaniel purchased a farm that became prosperous. South Carolina did not yet use the popular vote for choosing electors, with the legislature electing them instead. Fillmore prepared a second bill, now omitting distribution. By 1854 the order had morphed into the American Party, which became known as the Know Nothings. He enjoyed one aspect of his office because of his lifelong love of learning: he became deeply involved in the administration of the Smithsonian Institution as a member ex officio of its Board of Regents. A House committee, headed by Massachusetts's John Quincy Adams, condemned Tyler's actions. Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 March 8, 1874) was the 13th president of the United States, serving from 1850 to 1853, the last to be a member of the Whig Party while in the White House. Such cases were widely publicized North and South, inflamed passions in both places, and undermined the good feeling that had followed the Compromise. Southerners accused him of being an abolitionist, which he hotly denied. [50], Fillmore hoped to gain the endorsement of the New York delegation to the national convention, but Weed wanted the vice presidency for Seward, with Fillmore as governor. [111], Such a comeback could not be under the auspices of the Whig Party, with its remnants divided by the KansasNebraska legislation, which passed with the support of Pierce. Taylor's entire cabinet resigned, and Millard Fillmore sided with Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas for a series of bills that would become the Compromise of 1850. In 1843, Millard Fillmore attempted to strengthen his position in New York: He resigned from the House, thereafter making an unsuccessful run for the New York governorship. [12] In 1819 he took advantage of idle time at the mill to enroll at a new academy in the town, where he met a classmate, Abigail Powers, and fell in love with her. [100] The final Lpez expedition ended with his execution by the Spanish, who put several Americans before the firing squad, including the nephew of Attorney General Crittenden. [106], Fillmore was the first president to return to private life without independent wealth or the possession of a landed estate. [28] He proved effective anyway by promoting legislation to provide court witnesses the option of taking a non-religious oath and, in 1830, abolishing imprisonment for debt. Horace Greeley wrote privately that "my own first choice has long been Millard Fillmore," and others thought Fillmore should try to win back the governor's mansion for the Whigs. However, Weed had sterner opponents, including Governor Young, who disliked Seward and did not want to see him gain high office. Fillmore took the oath from Chief Justice Roger B. Taney and, in turn, swore in the senators beginning their terms, including Seward, who had been elected by the New York legislature in February. [110], The former president ended his seclusion in early 1854, as a debate over Senator Douglas's KansasNebraska Bill embroiled the nation. [127] There, the Fillmores devoted themselves to entertaining and philanthropy. All these crises were resolved without the United States going to war or losing face. Weed told out-of-state delegates that the New York party preferred to have Fillmore as its gubernatorial candidate, and after Clay was nominated for president, the second place on the ticket fell to former New Jersey senator Theodore Frelinghuysen. The nomination of William C. Micou, a New Orleans lawyer recommended by Benjamin, was not acted on by the Senate. An alliance between the incoming administration and the Weed machine was soon under way behind Fillmore's back. [17] Refusing to pledge not to do so again, Fillmore gave up his clerkship. That resulted in riots against the Spanish in New Orleans, which caused their consul to flee. In exchange for support, Seward and Weed were allowed to designate who was to fill federal jobs in New York, and Fillmore was given far less influence than had been agreed. Van Buren proposed to place funds in sub-treasuries, government depositories that would not lend money. In December, with Congress convened, Fillmore formally nominated Curtis, who was confirmed.
The 1851 completion of the Erie Railroad in New York prompted Fillmore and his cabinet to ride the first train from New York City to the shores of Lake Erie, in the company with many other politicians and dignitaries. He eloquently described the grief of the Clay supporters, frustrated again in their battle to make Clay president. He became prominent in the Buffalo area as an attorney and politician, and he was elected to the New York Assembly in 1828 and to the House of Representatives in 1832. In addition to his legal practice Fillmore helped found the Buffalo High School Association, joined the lyceum and attended the local Unitarian church, and became a leading citizen of Buffalo. He persuaded Fillmore to support an uncommitted ticket but did not tell the Buffalonian of his hopes for Seward. Fillmore and Donelson finished third by winning 873,053 votes (21.6%) and carrying the state of Maryland and its eight electoral votes. Martin Van Buren was the eighth president of the United States. Fillmore was instrumental in the passing of the Compromise of 1850, a bargain that led to a brief truce in the battle over the expansion of slavery. Fillmore is the only president who succeeded by death or resignation not to retain, at least initially, his predecessor's cabinet. His rivalry with Seward, who was already known for anti-slavery views and statements, made Fillmore more acceptable in the South. Fillmore prepared a bill raising tariff rates that was popular in the country, but the continuation of distribution assured Tyler's veto and much political advantage for the Whigs. The battle then moved to the House, which had a Northern majority because of the population.
[14] Appreciating his son's talents, Nathaniel followed his wife's advice and persuaded Judge Walter Wood, the Fillmores' landlord and the wealthiest person in the area, to allow Millard to be his law clerk for a trial period. The house is designated a National Historic Landmark. Fillmore, Weed, and others realized that opposition to Masonry was too narrow a foundation to build a national party. He eventually joined the Whig Party through his association with party boss Thurlow Weed, who would later help Abraham Lincoln become president. Fillmore, unlike Taylor, supported Henry Clay's omnibus bill, which was the basis of the 1850 Compromise. As the Whig Party broke up after Fillmore's presidency, many in his conservative wing joined the Know Nothings and formed the American Party. [113] Fillmore was encouraged by the success of the Know Nothings in the 1854 midterm elections in which they won in several states of the Northeast and showed strength in the South. [33] Weed had joined the Whigs before Fillmore and became a power within the party, and Weed's anti-slavery views were stronger than those of Fillmore, who disliked slavery but considered the federal government powerless over it. When, as President, Fillmore sided with proslavery elements in ordering enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, he all but guaranteed that he would be the last Whig President. [8] Hoping that his oldest son would learn a trade, he convinced Millard, who was 14, not to enlist for the War of 1812[9] and apprenticed him to clothmaker Benjamin Hungerford in Sparta. [20], In 1821 Fillmore turned 21, reaching adulthood. After the vote, in which the Republican candidate, former Illinois Representative Abraham Lincoln, was elected, many sought out Fillmore's views, but he refused to take any part in the secession crisis that followed since he felt that he lacked influence. [134], In the 1864 presidential election Fillmore supported the Democratic candidate, George B. McClellan, for the presidency since he believed that the Democratic Party's plan for immediate cessation of fighting and allowing the seceded states to return with slavery intact to be the best possibility for restoring the Union. [52], Putting a good face on his defeat, Fillmore met and publicly appeared with Frelinghuysen and quietly spurned Weed's offer to get him nominated as governor at the state convention. [15] Fillmore earned money teaching school for three months and bought out his mill apprenticeship. His nomination as a Northerner sympathetic to the southern view on slavery united the Democrats and meant that the Whig candidate would face an uphill battle to gain the presidency. Fillmore refused to change the American policy of remaining neutral. He continued to be active in the lame duck session of Congress that followed the 1842 elections and returned to Buffalo in April 1843. [42], Fillmore was active in the discussions of presidential candidates who preceded the Whig National Convention for the 1840 race. [131] Fillmore commanded the Union Continentals, a corps of home guards of males over the age of 45 from Upstate New York. Throughout his career, Fillmore declared slavery an evil but that it was beyond the powers of the federal government. [4][5] The historian Tyler Anbinder described Fillmore's childhood as "one of hard work, frequent privation, and virtually no formal schooling". Thus, approaching the national convention in Baltimore, to be held in June 1852, the major candidates were Fillmore, Webster, and General Scott. He took his lifelong friend Nathan K. Hall as a law clerk in East Aurora. Despite Fillmore's departure from office, he was a rival for the state party leadership with Seward, the unsuccessful 1834 Whig gubernatorial candidate. The law also permitted a higher payment to the hearing magistrate for deciding the escapee was a slave, rather than a free man. [c] Millard also became interested in politics, and the rise of the Anti-Masonic Party in the late 1820s provided his entry. Though her proposal did not pass, they became friends, met in person, and continued to correspond well after Fillmore's presidency. Although some Northerners were unhappy at the Fugitive Slave Act, relief was widespread in the hope of settling the slavery question. When the Anti-Masons did not nominate him for a second term in 1834, Fillmore declined the Whig nomination, seeing that the two parties would split the anti-Jackson vote and elect the Democrat. Many Southerners, including Whigs, supported the filibusters, and Fillmore's response helped to divide his party as the 1852 election approached. Fillmore rarely spoke about the immigration question, focused on the sectional divide, and urged the preservation of the Union. During the American Civil War, Fillmore denounced secession and agreed that the Union must be maintained by force if necessary, but he was critical of Abraham Lincoln's war policies. [85] The new department heads were mostly supporters of the Compromise, like Fillmore. When order had been restored, John A. Collier, a New Yorker who opposed Weed, addressed the convention. [45] Nevertheless, Fillmore was made chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Fillmore remained involved in civic interests in retirement, including as chancellor of the University of Buffalo, which he had helped found in 1846. Chester A. Arthur was the 21st president of the United States. The U.S. Constitution designates the vice president as the Senate's presiding officer. [21] He moved to Buffalo the following year and continued his study of law, first while he taught school and then in the law office of Asa Rice and Joseph Clary. 
Through the legislative process, various changes were made, including the setting of a boundary between New Mexico Territory and Texas, the state being given a payment to settle any claims. He was already in discussions with Whig leaders and, on July 20, began to send new nominations to the Senate, with the Fillmore Cabinet to be led by Webster as Secretary of State. He aided Buffalo in becoming the third American city to have a permanent art gallery, with the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. The Union Continentals guarded Lincoln's funeral train in Buffalo. "[1], Fillmore considered his political career to have ended with his defeat in 1856. He attended New Hope Academy, where he met his future wife, Abigail Powers, who was teaching the class. 
