Millard Fillmore

13th President of the United States

### Political party

Anti-Masonic (1828–1832); Whig (1832–1855)Know Nothing (1855–1856); Democratic (1857–1874)

### Residence

Fillmore House,East Aurora, New York, U.S.

### Spouse

Abigail Powers​​(m. 1826; died 1853)​Caroline McIntosh ​(m. 1858)

### Children

Millard Powers Fillmore (son)Mary Abigail Fillmore (daughter)

### Parents

Nathaniel Fillmore (father)Phoebe Millard (mother)

### Siblings

Olive Fillmore Johnson (sister), Cyrus Fillmore (brother), Almon Hopkins Fillmore (brother), Calvin Turner Fillmore (brother), Julia Fillmore Harris (sister), Darius Ingraham Fillmore (brother), Charles DeWitt Fillmore (brother), Phoebe Maria Fillmore (sister)

### Hair color

Fair

**Millard Fillmore**, a member of the Whig party, became the 13th President of the United States (1850-1853) after the death of Zachary Taylor and the last President not to be affiliated with either the Democratic or Republican parties.

*The Presidency of Millard Fillmore spanned the period in United States history that encompasses the events of the Secession era. President Millard Fillmore represented the Whig political party which influenced the domestic and foreign policies of his presidency.*

## Biography

In his rise from a log cabin to wealth and the White House, Millard Fillmore demonstrated that through methodical industry and some competence an uninspiring man could make the American dream come true.

Born in the Finger Lakes country of New York in 1800, Fillmore as a youth endured the privations of frontier life. He worked on his father’s farm, and at 15 was apprenticed to a cloth dresser. He attended one-room schools, and fell in love with the redheaded teacher, Abigail Powers, who later became his wife.

In 1823 he was admitted to the bar; seven years later he moved his law practice to Buffalo. As an associate of the Whig politician Thurlow Weed, Fillmore held state office and for eight years was a member of the House of Representatives. In 1848, while Comptroller of New York, he was elected Vice President.

Fillmore presided over the Senate during the months of nerve-wracking debates over the Compromise of 1850. He made no public comment on the merits of the compromise proposals, but a few days before President Taylor’s death, he intimated to him that if there should be a tie vote on Henry Clay’s bill, he would vote in favor of it.

Thus the sudden accession of Fillmore to the Presidency in July 1850 brought an abrupt political shift in the administration. Taylor’s Cabinet resigned and President Fillmore at once appointed Daniel Webster to be Secretary of State, thus proclaiming his alliance with the moderate Whigs who favored the Compromise.

A bill to admit California still aroused all the violent arguments for and against the extension of slavery, without any progress toward settling the major issues.

Clay, exhausted, left Washington to recuperate, throwing leadership upon Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. At this critical juncture, President Fillmore announced in favor of the Compromise. On August 6, 1850, he sent a message to Congress recommending that Texas be paid to abandon her claims to part of New Mexico.

This helped influence a critical number of northern Whigs in Congress away from their insistence upon the Wilmot Proviso–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 from the White House to give impetus to the Compromise movement. Breaking up Clay’s single legislative package, Douglas presented five separate bills to the Senate:

1. Admit California as a free state.

2. Settle the Texas boundary and compensate her.

3. Grant territorial status to New Mexico.

4. Place Federal officers at the disposal of slaveholders seeking fugitives.

5. Abolish the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

Each measure obtained a majority, and by September 20, President Fillmore had signed them into law. Webster wrote, “I can now sleep of nights.”

Some of the more militant northern Whigs remained irreconcilable, refusing to forgive Fillmore for having signed the Fugitive Slave Act. 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.

As the Whig Party disintegrated in the 1850’s, Fillmore refused to join the Republican Party; but, instead, in 1856 accepted the nomination for President of the Know Nothing, or American, Party. Throughout the Civil War he opposed President Lincoln and during Reconstruction supported President Johnson. He died in 1874.

## Personality

The character traits of President Millard Fillmore can be described as genial, practical and logical. It has been speculated that the Myers-Briggs personality type for Millard Fillmore is an ISFP (Introversion, Sensing, Feeling, Perception). A quiet, easygoing character with a a "live and let live" approach to life. A perfectionist, loyal to values and beliefs. Millard Fillmore Personality type: Practical, action-oriented and considerate.

## Nicknames

* "The American Louis Philippe"

*Meaning: The nickname of President Millard Fillmore provides an insight into how the man was viewed by the American public during his presidency. The meaning of the nickname the "American Louis Philippe" refers to the elegant clothes worn by Louis Philippe, King of France (1830 - 1848). The disparaging nickname "Wool Carder" referred to one of his earlier jobs in a wool factory.*

## Inauguration

The **inauguration of Millard Fillmore** as the 13th president of the United States, was held on Wednesday, July 10, 1850, at the House chamber inside the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., following the death of President Zachary Taylor the previous day. This inauguration – the second non-scheduled, extraordinary inauguration to ever take place – marked the commencement of Millard Fillmore’s only term (a partial term of 2 years, 237 days) as president. During the inauguration, William Cranch, the chief judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of the D.C., administered the presidential oath of office to Fillmore. Cranch had also administered the oath to John Tyler in 1841, when Tyler succeeded to the presidency upon William Henry Harrison's death. Fillmore was the last president from neither the Democratic or Republican parties

## Accomplishments and major events

*The major accomplishments and the famous, main events that occurred during the time that Millard Fillmore was president included the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1850 Fugitive Slave Bill and Commodore Perry's Mission to Japan (1852-54) and the Treaty of Kanagawa.*

**The Compromise of 1850**

Summary: The Compromise of 1850 was attempt to smooth out differences between the slave states and the free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). The Compromise of 1850 allowed California to be admitted as a free state and the New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory with slavery was left to to the decision of the people in relation to Popular Sovereignty on Slavery, that asserted rule by the people.

**The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850**

Summary: The Fugitive Slave Act 1850 was enacted during the presidency of Millard Fillmore. The law was passed on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 and as a concession to the Southern states, increasing penalties against fugitive slaves and the people who aided them.

**The Commodore Matthew Perry's Mission to Japan**

Summary: Commodore Matthew Perry's Mission to Japan used "Gunboat Diplomacy" to open diplomatic and trade relations between the United States and Japan. President Fillmore initiated the mission to Japan by because the annexation of California had created an American port on the Pacific enabling easier access to Asia. The development of steam powered ships allowed faster access to distant ports making the lucrative trade with Japan more viable.

**The Treaty of Kanagawa**

Summary: The Treaty of Kanagawa was signed on March 31, 1854 by Commodore Matthew Perry and Shogunate representatives of the Japanese government signaling the end of Japanese isolation.

**Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe**

Summary: The famous anti-slavery  book, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was published in 1852 during the presidency of Millard Fillmore. The characters featured in Uncle Tom's Cabin personalized the political and economic arguments about slavery and convinced the people of the North that bounds had be set to the extension of slavery.

## Post Presidency

### Subsequent political activity

The former president ended his seclusion in early 1854, as a debate over Senator Douglas's Kansas–Nebraska Bill embroiled the nation. 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. Fillmore retained many supporters, planned an ostensibly nonpolitical national tour, and privately rallied disaffected Whig politicians to preserve the Union and to back him in a run for president. Fillmore made public appearances opening railroads and visiting the grave of Senator Clay but met with politicians outside the public eye during the late winter and the spring of 1854.

Such a comeback could not be under the auspices of the Whig Party, with its remnants divided by the Kansas–Nebraska legislation, which passed with the support of Pierce. Many northern foes of slavery, such as Seward, gravitated toward the new Republican Party, but Fillmore saw no home for himself there. In the early 1850s, there was considerable hostility toward immigrants, especially Catholics, who had recently arrived in the United States in large numbers, and several nativist organizations, including the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, sprang up in reaction. By 1854 the order had morphed into the American Party, which became known as the Know Nothings. (In its early days, members were sworn to keep its internal deliberations private and, if asked, were to say they knew nothing about them.)

Many from Fillmore's "National Whig" faction had joined the Know Nothings by 1854 and influenced the organization to take up causes besides nativism. 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. On January 1, 1855, he sent a letter for publication that warned against immigrant influence in American elections, and he soon joined the order.

Later that year Fillmore went abroad, and stated publicly that as he lacked office he might as well travel. The trip was at the advice of political friends, who felt that by touring he would avoid involvement in the contentious issues of the day. He spent over a year, from March 1855 to June 1856, in Europe and the Middle East. Queen Victoria is said to have pronounced the ex-president as the handsomest man she had ever seen, and his coincidental appearance with Van Buren in the gallery of the House of Commons provoked a comment from the MP John Bright.

Dorothea Dix had preceded him to Europe and was lobbying to improve conditions for the mentally ill. They continued to correspond and met several times. In Rome, Fillmore had an audience with Pope Pius IX. He carefully weighed the political pros and cons of meeting with Pius. He nearly withdrew from the meeting when he was told that he would have to kneel and kiss the Pope's hand. To avoid that, Pius remained seated throughout the meeting.

### 1856 campaign

Fillmore's allies were in full control of the American Party and arranged for him to get its presidential nomination while he was in Europe. The Know Nothing convention chose Fillmore's running mate: Andrew Donelson of Kentucky, the nephew by marriage and once-ward of President Jackson. Fillmore made a celebrated return in June 1856 by speaking at a series of welcomes, which began with his arrival at a huge reception in New York City and continued across the state to Buffalo. 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. Fillmore warned that electing the Republican candidate, former California senator John C. Frémont, who had no support in the South, would divide the Union and lead to civil war. Both Fillmore and the Democratic candidate, former Pennsylvania senator James Buchanan, agreed that slavery was principally a matter for the states, not the federal government. Fillmore rarely spoke about the immigration question, focused on the sectional divide, and urged the preservation of the Union.

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. Political fixers who had been Whigs, such as Weed, tended to join the Republican Party, and the Know Nothings lacked experience at selling anything but nativism. Accordingly, Fillmore's pro-Union stance mostly went unheard. Although the South was friendly towards Fillmore, many people feared that a Frémont victory would lead to secession, and some of those who were sympathetic to Fillmore moved into the Buchanan camp for fear of splitting the anti-Frémont vote, which might elect the Republican. Scarry suggested that the events of 1856, including the conflict in Kansas Territory and the caning of Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate, polarized the nation and made Fillmore's moderate stance obsolete.

Buchanan won with 1,836,072 votes (45.3%) and 174 electoral votes to Frémont's 1,342,345 votes (33.1%) and 114 electoral votes. Fillmore and Donelson finished third by winning 873,053 votes (21.6%) and carrying the state of Maryland and its eight electoral votes. The American Party ticket narrowly lost in several southern states, and a change of fewer than 8,000 votes in Louisiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee would have thrown the election to the House of Representatives, where the sectional divide would have made the outcome uncertain. The historian Allan Nevins wrote that Fillmore was not a Know Nothing or a nativist, offering as support that Fillmore was out of the country when the nomination came and had not been consulted about running. Nevins stated about Fillmore that "by no spoken or written word had he indicated a subscription to American tenets." However, Fillmore had sent a letter for publication in 1855 that explicitly denounced immigrant influence in elections and Fillmore stated that the American Party was the "only hope of forming a truly national party, which shall ignore this constant and distracting agitation of slavery."

### Civil War and Later Life

In the 1860 presidential election Fillmore voted for Senator Douglas, the Democratic nominee. After the vote, in which the Republican nominee, 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, feeling that he lacked influence. He decried Buchanan's inaction as states left the Union and wrote that although the federal government could not coerce a state, those advocating secession should be regarded as traitors. When Lincoln came to Buffalo en route to his inauguration, Fillmore led the committee selected to receive him, hosted him at his mansion, and took him to church.

Once the Civil War began, Fillmore supported Lincoln's efforts to preserve the Union. He commanded the Union Continentals, a corps of home guards of men over 45 from upstate New York. The Continentals trained to defend the Buffalo area in the event of a Confederate attack. They performed military drills and ceremonial functions at parades, funerals, and other events. The Union Continentals guarded Lincoln's funeral train in Buffalo. They continued operations after the war, and Fillmore remained active with them almost until his death. Despite Fillmore's zeal in the war effort, he gave a speech in early 1864 calling for magnanimity toward the South after the war and counted its heavy cost, both in finances and in blood. The Lincoln administration saw the speech as an attack on it that could not be tolerated in an election year, and Fillmore was criticized in many newspapers and was called a Copperhead and even a traitor. That led to lasting ill-feeling against Fillmore in many circles.

In the 1864 presidential election, Fillmore supported the Democratic nominee, George B. McClellan, since he believed that the Democratic Party's plan for immediate cessation of fighting and allowing the seceded states to return with slavery intact was the best chance to restore the Union. After Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, black ink was thrown on Fillmore's house because it was not draped in mourning like others. Fillmore was apparently out of town at the time and put black drapes in the windows once he returned. He retained his position as Buffalo's leading citizen and was among those selected to escort the body when Lincoln's funeral train passed through Buffalo, but many remained angry at him for his wartime positions. Fillmore supported President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction policies since he felt that the nation needed to be reconciled as quickly as possible. He devoted most of his time to civic activities. He aided Buffalo in becoming the third American city to have a permanent art gallery, the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy.

## Death

Fillmore stayed in good health almost to the end of his life. He suffered a stroke in February 1874, and died on March 8, at age 74, after suffering a second stroke. Two days later, he was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo after a funeral procession including hundreds of others. The U.S. Senate sent three of its members to honor Fillmore, including former vice president Hannibal Hamlin.

## Facts and trivia

* Millard Fillmore was the first U.S. President born in the 19th century.
* Fillmore's father, Nathaniel Fillmore Jr., was the son of Nathaniel Fillmore Sr. (1739–1814), a native of Franklin, Connecticut, who became one of the earliest settlers of Bennington, Vermont, when it was founded in the territory that was then called the New Hampshire Grants.
* Born in a log cabin, Fillmore spent much of his youth clearing land and raising crops on the 130-acre farm that his father leased in New York’s Finger Lakes region. At age 14, his father, hoping to steer him away from farm life, apprenticed him to a cloth dresser. But he soon returned home after allegedly suffering severe mistreatment.
* The historian Tyler Anbinder described Fillmore's childhood as "one of hard work, frequent privation, and virtually no formal schooling."
* Despite receiving only minimal formal schooling, he worked hard to educate himself and eventually became a schoolteacher. He also took an interest in the law, spurred on by his father’s landlord, a local judge. Following a couple of clerkships, Fillmore was admitted to the bar at age 23 and opened a practice near Buffalo, New York, where he made a good living and began to meet the area’s political leaders.
* In 1819, his future wife, Abigail Powers took a teaching post at the new academy in New Hope, New York, where her oldest pupil was 19-year-old Fillmore. The world of knowledge and Fillmore's steady progress in it drew them together, and gradually the relationship of teacher and student evolved into romantic attachment.
* Millard and Abigail wed on February 5, 1826. They had two children, Millard Powers Fillmore (1828–1889) and Mary Abigail Fillmore (1832–1854).
* A prominent attorney in the Buffalo area, Fillmore owned one of the most successful law firms in New York State.
* Fillmore was elected to the New York state legislature in 1828 on the Anti-Masonic ticket, which, as its name suggests, strongly opposed Freemasonry. He remained affiliated with that party, which at the time polled well in western New York, upon winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives four years later. But he soon cut ties with it to join the Whig Party, an amalgam of forces opposed to Democratic President Andrew Jackson.
* As a Whig, Fillmore served three terms in the House, lost a race for New York governor, became New York’s comptroller and then received a surprise nomination to be Zachary Taylor’s running mate in the 1848 presidential election.
* With the Democrats split over the issue of slavery—some had left to form the anti-slavery Free Soil Party—Taylor and Fillmore took the White House with 47 percent of the popular vote.
* During Fillmore’s time as vice president, the Taylor administration largely left him out of the decision-making process. In his capacity as president of the Senate, however, Fillmore presided over the Senate's angry debates, as the 31st Congress decided whether to allow slavery in the Mexican Cession. Fillmore, unlike Taylor, supported Henry Clay's Omnibus Bill, which was the basis of the 1850 Compromise.
* On July 4, 1850, Taylor came down with a stomach bug after attending a Fourth of July celebration at the Washington Monument. His doctors, following the since-discredited medical practices of the era, gave him a mercury compound called calomel and induced bleeding and blisters. Within days, Taylor was dead and Fillmore had ascended to the presidency. The only other U.S. presidents never elected to the office were John Tyler (1841-1845), Andrew Johnson (1865-1869), Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885) and Gerald Ford (1974-1977)
* Since the Constitution did not originally include a provision for replacing dead or departed vice presidents, the office has been vacant for about 38 of its 225 years. Fillmore, along with Tyler, Johnson and Arthur, had no second-in-command for the entirety of their terms. This situation is unlikely to repeat itself, however, as the 25th Amendment, ratified in 1967, allows the president to appoint a VP subject to the approval of the U.S. Congress.
* Upon becoming president in July 1850, Fillmore dismissed Taylor's cabinet and pushed Congress to pass the compromise. The Fugitive Slave Act, expediting the return of escaped slaves to those who claimed ownership, was a controversial part of the compromise. Fillmore felt duty-bound to enforce it despite its damage to the popularity of both him and the Whig Party, which was torn between its Northern and Southern factions.
* In foreign policy, Fillmore supported U.S. Navy expeditions to open trade in Japan, opposed French designs on Hawaii, and was embarrassed by Narciso López's filibuster expeditions to Cuba.
* During his time in office, Fillmore started the White House library.
* Fillmore sought the Whig nomination to a full term in 1852 but was passed over by the Whigs in favor of Winfield Scott.
* After leaving office, Fillmore remained involved in civic interests in retirement, including as chancellor of the University of Buffalo, which he had helped found in 1846.
* Fillmore was the first president to return to private life without independent wealth or the possession of a landed estate. With no pension to anticipate, he needed to earn a living and felt that it should be in a way that would uphold the dignity of his former office.
* As the Whig Party broke up after Fillmore's presidency, many in his conservative wing joined the Know Nothings and formed the American Party. In his 1856 candidacy as the party's nominee, Fillmore had little to say about immigration, focused instead on the preservation of the Union, and won only Maryland.
* Fillmore considered his political career to have ended with his defeat in 1856. He again felt inhibited from returning to the practice of law. However, his financial worries were removed on February 10, 1858, when he married Caroline McIntosh, a well-to-do widow. Their combined wealth allowed them to purchase a large house on Niagara Square in Buffalo, where they lived for the remainder of his life. There, the Fillmores devoted themselves to entertaining and philanthropy. According to the historian Smith, "they generously supported almost every conceivable cause." Among these were the Buffalo General Hospital, which he helped found.
* 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. After peace was restored, he supported the Reconstruction policies of U.S. President Andrew Johnson.
* Fillmore stayed in good health almost to the end of his life. He suffered a stroke in February 1874, and died on March 8, 1874, at the age of 74 after suffering a second stroke. Two days later, he was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo after a funeral procession including hundreds of notables. The U.S. Senate sent three of its members to honor its former president, including Lincoln's first vice president, Maine's Hannibal Hamlin.
* According to biographer Scarry: "No president of the United States ... has suffered as much ridicule as Millard Fillmore." He ascribed much of the abuse to a tendency to denigrate the presidents who served in the years just prior to the Civil War as lacking in leadership. 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.

## References

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millard\_Fillmore#Remarriage,\_later\_life,\_and\_death
* https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/millard-fillmore/
* https://www.american-historama.org/presidents-united-states/millard-fillmore.htm
* https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Fillmore-3