rubber soul

13. MILLARD FILLMORE (I know nothing)





Born: January 7, 1800, Cayuga County, New York
Died: March 8, 1874, Buffalo, New York

Term: July 9, 1850- March 4, 1853
Political Party: Whig

Vice President: none

First Lady: Abagail Powers Fillmore

Before the Presidency: Millard Fillmore grew up in poverty in upstate New York. His family owned a farm, but it wasn’t very successful, and the family often went hungry. Millard had little formal schooling but was known to have quite a bit of curiosity.

As a young man, Fillmore worked in the cloth trade. It was hard, grueling work, and Fillmore wanted a way out. As Fillmore was an apprentice, this amounted to what was slavery and Fillmore had to buy his way out of the apprenticeship.

While an apprentice, Fillmore taught himself how to read. He then learned his studies with the help of his future wife, Abagail Powers. Meanwhile, Fillmore’s father was impressed enough that he arranged for his son to work for a local judge. There he could continue his law studies.

Fillmore moved with his family to a town near Buffalo, where he taught school, and was admitted to the bar in 1823. With his now fiancée, then wife, young Fillmore prospered, and seemed quite happy with his lot in life.

Fillmore’s entry into politics was under strange circumstances to say the least. Many of the politicians of the day were Freemasons, a rather controversial fraternity that exists to this day. In some ways it could be compared to Scientology as they were something of a secretive organization. One disaffected Mason, William Morgan, mysteriously disappeared and it was big news around Buffalo at the time.

So, Fillmore found himself as a member of the Anti-Masonic party. Soon, he was drafted to run for the New York State legislature, and he would be elected in 1829. Fillmore proved to be an able politician, pushing through legislation to end the practice of putting debtors in jail. As someone raised in poverty, debtors’ prisons was something that our Millard was not comfortable with.

Fillmore’s compassion for the less fortunate proved popular with constituents and he found himself elected to the House of Representatives in 1832.

By 1834, the Anti- Masonic party was fading, and they merged with the anti-Jacksonian Whigs. It wasn’t necessarily an easy transition for Fillmore as he found himself at odds with New York Whig party boss Thurlow Weed. Weed was decidedly anti-slavery. So was Fillmore, but Fillmore preferred the route of compromise.

In the meantime, Fillmore’s star rose in the House as he would become chairman of the powerful Ways and Means committee which controlled the tax and financial issues of the day. Fillmore left the House in 1843 in hopes of landing a Vice-Presidential candidacy. Boss Weed ordered him to run for Governor of New York instead, which he did, and lost. Fillmore was bitter as he not only blamed Weed, but the abolitionists as well as the Catholics. The ugly side of Millard Fillmore was beginning to come through.

Afterwards, he broke with Weed, Fillmore was able to win election as New York State Comptroller in 1847. Because he won in a landslide, the National Whig party was looking at Fillmore as a viable Presidential candidate.


Summary of offices held:

1829-1833: Member, New York State Assembly

1837-1843: US House of Representatives

1841-1843: Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee

1848-1849: New York State Comptroller

1849-1850: Vice President of the United States





What was going on: Missouri Compromise repeal, slavery issue, immigration

Scandals within the administration: none that we know of

Why he was a good President: The one smart thing Fillmore did was tagging the legendary Daniel Webster as his Secretary of State. Through him, he was able to open trade with Japan (though technically started in the Pierce Administration, it was through the work of the Fillmore Administration).

Why he was a bad President: Just about everything else, but especially his clumsiness with the slavery issue. Like Taylor, he should have simply chucked it and dealt with the Civil War, if it was inevitable anyway.

What could have saved his Presidency: Perhaps had he rejected Stephen Douglass’ ridiculous compromises and simply stopped slavery in the bud, even if it meant war. Also maybe had the trade talks with Japan been a little more publicized at the time.

What could have destroyed his Presidency: It already was the moment he signed the Fugitive Slave Act, then tried to enforce it.

How he became Vice President: In 1848, Fillmore supported Clay’s candidacy for the Presidency but Clay wasn’t trusted by the pro-slavery Whigs, so this was not to be his year.

Instead, the Whigs actively pursued the two Mexican war heroes, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott. Meanwhile enter Boss Thurlow Weed. While Scott was obviously much more refined than Rough and Ready Taylor, Weed threw his weight behind Taylor and Taylor won nomination on the fourth ballot.

Even though Taylor was the nominee, it didn’t necessarily go well with the anti-slavery North so it was decided to find a Vice Presidential candidate that could balance the ticket.

And that was how Millard Fillmore was chosen. After all, he was from the North, and though he, like Taylor, believed in compromise, there was no doubt in their minds he was in the anti-slavery camp. So, Fillmore was on the ticket.

It was a bitter campaign as both the Whigs and the Democrats desperately tried to avoid the slavery issue. The election really could have gone either way and, but for Martin Van Buren’s Free Soil party (He ran out of distaste for Democratic candidate Lewis Cass). Van Buren’s third candidacy is credited (blamed?) for getting Zachary Taylor into the White House.

As far as the Vice Presidency goes, Fillmore was pretty typical. Like most VP’s he had little to do with the Taylor administration. In fact, President Taylor didn’t really like the more gentlemanly man. And he, along with Boss Weed and William Seward, all but kept him shut out of the White House. Probably a fatal mistake as he was at least well respected by the Senate he presided over.

The big issue in 1850 was Henry Clay’s latest compromise to slavery. Known as the 1850 compromise, it was the subject of heated and bitter debate. President Taylor all but opposed it. The Vice President supported the compromise, but he was in a position where he really couldn’t do anything about it.

Then President Taylor died.

First term: As it was, there would be no pledge to continue the policies of the late President, which would become a common practice from Garfield on. Indeed, the first thing now President Fillmore did was clean out Taylor’s cabinet and backing the Compromise of 1850, which would be quickly passed. He signed the Fugitive Slave Act which criminalized the assistance of runaway slaves. He signed it mainly to appease the South but in so doing he angered the North. The Fugitive Slave Act would also inspire Harriet Beecher Stowe to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin which also inflamed the tensions between North and South.

So, nobody was really happy with the various compromises, and in particular, the North with the Fugitive Slave Act, a law that Fillmore clumsily tried to enforce, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

He fared a little better on the foreign front as Japan opened its doors to trade on Fillmore’s watch through the efforts of Secretary Daniel Webster and Commodore Matthew Perry. He also kept Hawaii protected from would be French and British colonists which might have seen silly at the time, but maybe if he didn’t, Hawaii might have been a French territory or, with a little luck, an independent nation of its own. In any event, it seemed to work out.

But the subject of slavery would all but ruin any chances for the Fillmore administration. He already had alienated the North and he likely wasn’t all that popular in the South either.

But, if you think he was bad then, just wait until the next Presidency.

Post Presidency: Fillmore decided not to even try to run in 1852. He very quickly had two tragedies befall him during 1853. His beloved wife died of pneumonia, having gotten sick at the Pierce inauguration, then he lost his daughter to cholera. Fillmore needed something to preoccupy him.

So, he reentered the world of politics. The Whigs, mainly because of Fillmore, had quickly began to disintegrate and some of the Whigs joined up with a new party, known as the Know-Nothings. This was not the most tolerant of parties. People who were once vehemently opposed to slavery were now even more opposed to immigrants and Catholics. Fillmore joined this party despite not sharing those intolerant views. It didn’t matter; he was propped up as their candidate in 1856 as did the surviving Whigs. He proved to be a strong third party candidate and he likely prevented John Fremont, now of the new Republican Party, to win election, thus condemning the nation to four years of James Buchanan.

After the 1856 election, he retired and remarried. He managed to rehabilitate his image somewhat during the Civil War. He was a staunch Unionist, organizing enlistments and fund raising drives. He died in 1874 as one of the most respected people in Buffalo.

Odd notes: Fillmore married his teacher

Fillmore refused an honorary degree from Oxford

https://constitutioncenter.org/media...s_funfacts.pdf


Final Summary: Fillmore’s biggest fault was that he seemed desperate to please everybody and ended up pleasing no-one. He had his own strong views, but he wouldn’t emphasize them. Perhaps he was too fearful of any consequences, often a fatal flaw in our Presidents. I mean there is a reason that Presidents like Lincoln, the two Roosevelts, Kennedy, even Reagan, have been considered great or near great Presidents by historians. They never cowered down from their own convictions. Unfortunately, Fillmore did, and it cost his standing in history dearly. At least I was able to learn (and be relieved) that while the Know Nothings may have been a bunch of hatemongers overall, Fillmore himself wasn’t.

In any event, as in the immortal words of William Dozier of Batman TV fame: The worst was yet to come.

Overall rating: D+

https://millercenter.org/president/fillmore

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