Millard Fillmore (1800-1874)/Biography

Millard Fillmore (, –, ) was the thirteenth , serving from 1850 until 1853, and the last member of the  to hold that office. He succeeded from the on the death of President, who died of unknown reasons, becoming the second U.S. President to assume the office in this manner. Fillmore was never elected President; after serving out Taylor's term, he failed to gain the nomination for the Presidency of the in the, and, four years later, in the , he again failed to win election as President as the  and Whig candidate.

Early life and career
Fillmore was born in a in, to Nathaniel and Phoebe Millard Fillmore, as the second of nine children and the eldest son. Though a in later life, Fillmore was descended from s on his father's side and English dissenters on his mother's. He was first apprenticed to a  to learn the cloth-making trade. He also served as a home guard in the for some time. He struggled to obtain an education under frontier conditions, attending for six months.

He fell in love with [Abigail Fillmore], whom he later married on,. The couple had two children, and. Later, Fillmore bought out his apprenticeship and moved to, to continue his studies. He was admitted to the in  and began his law practice in. In, he formed a law partnership, Fillmore and Hall (becoming Fillmore, Hall and Haven in 1836), with his good friend (who would later serve in his cabinet as ). It would become one of western 's most prestigious firms. In 1848, he founded the private University of Buffalo, which today is the public (UB, University at Buffalo), the largest school in the New York state university system.

Politics
In, Fillmore was elected to the on the  ticket, serving for one term, from  to. He was later elected as a (having followed his mentor  into the party) to the  in, serving from  to. He was re-elected in to the, to the  and to the  and serving from in total from 1833 to , declining to be a candidate for re-nomination in.

In Congress, he opposed the entrance of as a. He came in second place in the bid for in. He served as chairman of the from  to  and was an author of the, as well as two other bills that   vetoed.

After leaving Congress, Fillmore was the unsuccessful candidate for  in. He served as from  to. As state comptroller, he revised New York's banking system, making it a model for the future National Banking System.

Vice Presidency
At the Whig national convention in 1848, the nomination of Gen. for president angered the supporters of as well as the opponents of slavery extension into the territory gained by the. A group of practical Whig politicians nominated Fillmore for vice president, believing that he would heal party wounds and help the ticket carry New York state.

Having worked his way up through the Whig Party in New York, Fillmore was selected as Taylor's. (It was thought that the obscure, self-made candidate from would complement Taylor, a slave-holding military man from the south.)

Fillmore was also selected in part to block New York state machine boss from receiving the vice presidential nomination (and his front man  from receiving a position in Taylor's cabinet). Weed ultimately got Seward elected to the senate. This competition between Seward and Fillmore led to Seward's becoming a more vocal part of cabinet meetings and having more of a voice than Fillmore in advising the administration. The battle would continue even after Taylor's death.

Taylor and Fillmore disagreed on the issue in the new western territories taken from  in the. Taylor wanted the new states to be free states, while Fillmore supported slavery in those states as a means of appeasing the South. In his own words: "God knows that I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil ... and we must endure it and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the Constitution."

Fillmore presided over the Senate during the months of nerve-wracking debates over the. During one debate, Senator of  pulled a pistol on Senator  of. Fillmore made no public comment on the merits of the compromise proposals, but a few days before President Taylor's death, Fillmore suggested to the president that, should there be a tie vote on Henry Clay's bill, he would vote in favor of the North.

Policies
Fillmore ascended to the presidency upon the sudden and unexpected death of President Taylor in July 1850. The change in leadership also signaled an abrupt political shift in the administration, as Fillmore removed Taylor's entire cabinet, replacing them with individuals known to be favorable to the Compromise efforts. Fillmore signaled this shift by appointing as his Secretary of State.

As president, Fillmore dealt with increasing party divisions within the Whig party; party harmony became one of his primary objectives. He tried to unite the party by pointing out the differences between the Whigs and the Democrats (by proposing tariff reforms that negatively reflected on the ). Another primary objective of Fillmore was to preserve the Union from the intensifying slavery debate.

Henry Clay's proposed bill to admit to the Union still aroused all the violent arguments for and against the extension of slavery without any progress toward settling the major issues (the South continued to threaten secession). Fillmore recognized that Clay's plan was the best way to end the sectional crisis (California free state, harsher fugitive slave law, abolish slave trade in DC). Clay, exhausted, left Washington to recuperate, passing leadership to Senator of Illinois. At this critical juncture, President Fillmore announced his support of the Compromise of 1850.

On, , he sent a message to Congress recommending that be paid to abandon its claims to part of. This helped shift a critical number of northern Whigs in Congress away from their insistence upon the -—the stipulation that all land gained by the Mexican War must be closed to slavery.

Douglas's effective strategy in Congress combined with Fillmore's pressure gave impetus to the Compromise movement. Breaking up Clay's single legislative package, Douglas presented five separate bills to the Senate:
 * Admit California as a free state.
 * Settle the Texas boundary and compensate the state for lost lands.
 * Grant territorial status to New Mexico.
 * Place federal officers at the disposal of slaveholders seeking escapees—the.
 * Abolish the slave trade in the.

Each measure obtained a majority, and, by, President Fillmore had signed them into law. Webster wrote, "I can now sleep of nights."

Whigs on both sides refused to accept the finality of Fillmore's law (which led to more party division, and a loss of numerous elections), which forced Northern Whigs to say "God Save us from Whig Vice Presidents."

Fillmore's greatest difficulty with the fugitive slave law was how to enforce it without seeming to show favor towards Southern Whigs. His solution was to appease both northern and southern Whigs by calling for the enforcement of the fugitive slave law in the North, and enforcing in the South a law forbidding involvement in Cuba (for the sole purpose of adding it as a slave state).

Another issue that presented itself during Fillmore's presidency was the arrival of (exiled leader of a failed  revolution). Kossuth wanted the United States to abandon its non-intervention policies when it came to European affairs and recognize Hungary’s independence. The problem came with the enormous support Kossuth received from German-American immigrants to the United States (who were essential in the re-election of both Whigs and Democrats). Fillmore refused to change American policy, and decided to remain neutral despite the political implications that neutrality would produce.

Another important legacy of Fillmore's administration was the sending of  to open  to Western trade, though Perry did not reach Japan until  had replaced Fillmore as president.

Supreme Court appointments
Fillmore appointed the following Justices to the :
 * - 1851

States admitted to the Union

 * – September 9, 1850

Legacy
Some northern Whigs remained irreconcilable, refusing to forgive Fillmore for having signed the. They helped deprive him of the Presidential nomination in 1852. Within a few years it was apparent that although the Compromise had been intended to settle the slavery controversy, it served rather as an uneasy sectional truce.

Because the Whig party was so deeply divided, and the two leading candidates for the Whig party (Webster and Fillmore) refused to combine to secure the nomination, received it. Because both the north and the south refused to unite behind Scott, he won only 4 of 31 states, and lost the election to Franklin Pierce.

After Fillmore's defeat the Whig party continued its downward spiral with further party division coming at the hands of the Kansas Nebraska Act, and the emergence of the Know Nothing party.

Later life
Fillmore was one of the founders of the. The school was chartered by an act of the New York State Legislature on May 11, 1846, and at first was only a medical school. Fillmore was the first, a position he maintained while both Vice President and President. Upon completing his presidency, Fillmore returned to Buffalo, where he continued to serve as chancellor.

After the death of his daughter, Fillmore went abroad. While touring in 1855, Fillmore was offered an   (D.C.L.) degree by the. Fillmore turned down the honor, explaining that he had neither the "literary nor scientific attainment" to justify the degree. He is also quoted as having explained that he "lacked the benefit of a classical education" and could not, therefore, understand the  text of the, then joking that he believed "no man should accept a degree he cannot read."

By 1856, Fillmore's Whig Party had ceased to exist, having fallen apart due to dissension over the slavery issue, and especially the of 1854. Fillmore refused to join the new, where many former Whigs, including , had found refuge. Instead, Fillmore joined the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, the political organ of the.

He ran in the as the party's candidate, attempting to win a non-consecutive second term as President (a feat accomplished only once in American politics, by ). His running mate was, nephew of former president. Fillmore and Donelson finished third, carrying only the state of Maryland and its eight electoral votes; but he won 21.6% of the popular vote, one of the best showings ever by a Presidential third-party candidate.

On, , after the death of his first wife, Fillmore married , a wealthy widow. Their combined wealth allowed them to purchase a big house in Buffalo, New York. The house became the center of hospitality for visitors, until her health began to decline in the 1860s.

Throughout the, Fillmore opposed and during  supported. He commanded the Union Continentals, a corps of s of males over the age of 45 from the area, during the Civil War.

He died at 11:10 p.m. on, , of the after-effects of a. His last words were alleged to be, upon being fed some soup, "the nourishment is palatable." On each year, a ceremony is held at his grave site in the  in Buffalo.

Notable presidential facts

 * Fillmore, a bookworm, found the devoid of books and initiated the White House library.
 * , Millard Fillmore remains the last U.S. president who was neither a nor a  (although  was re-elected in 1864 running on the  ticket with Democrat  as his running mate and opposed  by the ).
 * Fillmore was the first U.S. President born after the death of a former president, as he was born three weeks after 's death on,.
 * Fillmore is the first of two presidents to have been an . He was a.

Places named after Fillmore

 * , New York

References in popular culture

 * In an article in in the late 1950s appears the phrase: "Who in heck was Millard Fillmore anyhow?"
 * The 80s sitcom took place at the fictional "Millard Fillmore High School".
 * anchor often makes references to Millard Fillmore while hosting.
 * The comic strip is named after the president.
 * In 2007, wrote The Remarkable Millard Fillmore, a fake biography based on real events that happened in Fillmore's life. Pendle mixes such imagined events as Fillmore fighting at the  with equally improbable, but actually true events, such as the fact that Fillmore's great-grandfather, John Fillmore, was abducted by pirates, organized a mutiny aboard the pirate ship, and killed the pirate captain, before sailing the ship back into Boston harbor.
 * In one episode in, the statue of Millard Fillmore was shown to the parents in a parent-teacher meeting by Professor Rokwood.
 * In an episode of , Johnny (in a partially delirious state) speaks to a statue of Millard Filmore.
 * In his book Dave Barry Slept Here, lists the most notable achievement of the Fillmore administration as "The Earth did not crash into the Sun."

Trivia

 * The myth that Millard Fillmore installed the 's first was started by  in a joke column published on,  in the . (See )
 * In, Fillmore, who had no , refused an  from  claiming that he would not accept a degree he could not read.  It should be noted that most university diplomas were inscribed in Latin in those days.
 * Millard Fillmore was the last President not to be a Democrat or a Republican.
 * Queen Victoria said that Millard Fillmore was the handsomest man she'd ever seen.