He was instrumental in the passing of the Compromise of 1850, a bargain that led to a brief truce in the battle over slavery. He failed to win the Whig nomination for president in 1852, but he gained the endorsement of the nativist Know Nothing Party four years later, finishing third in the 1856 presidential election. As vice president, Fillmore was largely ignored by Taylor, even in the dispensing of patronage in New York, on which Taylor consulted Weed and Seward. In his capacity as President of the Senate, however, he presided over angry debates there as Congress decided whether to allow slavery in the Mexican Cession. Fillmore supported Henry Clay's Omnibus Bill (the basis of the 1850 Compromise) though Taylor did not. Millard's grandfather, Nathaniel Sr., served in local offices in Bennington—as hayward ('hedge warden'), highway surveyor and tax collector. Millard then also became interested in politics—the rise of the Anti-Masonic Party in the late 1820s provided his initial attraction and entry.