Millard Fillmore, the 13th US president, assumed office following the death of Zachary Taylor. He lacked formal education and was an indentured laborer before becoming a lawyer and entering politics. Fillmore tried to please both sides of the slavery debate, but his support of the Fugitive Slave Act angered many. He abolished slavery in the District of Columbia but failed to unite the Whig party. After his presidency, he founded the University at Buffalo and declined an honorary degree from Oxford. He died in 1874 at age 74.
Millard Fillmore was the 13th president of the United States and the second president to assume office following the death of the acting president. A year and a half after he was elected vice president, the death of Zachary Taylor would hand the presidency over to Millard Fillmore. He served in office from 1850 to 1853 and would return unsuccessfully in 1856.
Millard Fillmore is in stark contrast to many of the presidents who preceded him, and especially his running mate Taylor. He was born into a relatively poor native New York family, and was one of only two presidents who were indentured laborers, being an apprentice to a draper. He also lacked a lot in terms of formal education, but he finally passed the bar exam to work as a lawyer.
Fillmore’s career in politics began in 1828, when he was 28 years old. He served in the New York State Assembly for three years. He had strong Whig leanings and would be elected as a Whig politician to the 23rd, 25th and 27th Congresses. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1832 to 1843. After an unsuccessful bid for governor of New York, he became Comptroller of New York State.
Millard Fillmore was considered an excellent check for Taylor. He was a Nordic and opposed slavery. Yet despite his public comments about slavery as an evil, he angered the Whig party, particularly in the North, by supporting the Compromise of 1850, which would keep the balance between slave and nonslave states equal. Millard Fillmore was a president who tried to straddle that middle line between opposing parties and ideas and, like many who have done it before and since, trying to please everyone, practically nobody liked him.
Much of Millard Fillmore’s presidency can be said to be a deliberate effort to keep the Whig party intact and soften its left and right contingents. While lip service to anti-slavery ideas, Millard Fillmore passed the Fugitive Slave Act. This act would result in the fine of any federal marshal or member of law enforcement who failed to apprehend runaway slaves. Helping runaway slaves was also a crime and could be punished with a fine.
For Northerners, the passage of this act was a violation of the rights of the states, making them responsible for enforcing slavery in the southern territories. It was seen as an endorsement of slavery and a terrible concession, and many criticized Milton Fillmore for not vetoing the act. Fillmore felt that the act would keep the southern states from separating and was eager for its passage.
Millard Fillmore abolished slavery in the District of Columbia in an effort to keep the Northern Whigs in check, but that simply wasn’t enough. His attempts to unite the Whig party largely failed. Fillmore left the presidency with the discord in the Whig party still raging, leading to its total dissolution in 1856.
After serving as president, Millard Fillmore founded the University at Buffalo, and was later offered an honorary degree from the University of Oxford. He turned it down because he had never studied Latin and suggested that it wasn’t right for a person to get a degree that he couldn’t read. Fillmore was married twice, early in life to Abigail Powers, and later to Caroline Carmichael McIntosh. He had two children from his first wife.
Millard Fillmore died of a stroke in 1874, aged 74. His second wife Caroline survived him, but his later life was marred by increasing illness.
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