Millard Fillmore

Millard Fillmore

Whig Party

Prior offices

President of the United States

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Personal

Profession

Attorney

Millard Fillmore (b. January 7, 1800, in Locke Township, New York) was the 13th president of the United States. Fillmore took office following Zachary Taylor's (Whig) death on July 9, 1850, and served until the expiration of Taylor's term on March 4, 1853. He died in Buffalo, New York, on March 8, 1874, after suffering a stroke.

Fillmore was a member of the Whig Party, serving as the fourth and final Whig president.

Prior to serving as president, Fillmore worked as an attorney and served three one-year terms in the New York State Assembly and four two-year terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as a partial term as state comptroller of New York. He ran for governor of New York in 1844 but was defeated by Sen. Silas Wright (D). Fillmore ran for president on the Know-Nothing ticket in 1856, receiving 21.5 percent of the popular vote.

Biography

Timeline of life events

Below is an abbreviated outline of Fillmore's professional and political career:

• January 7, 1800: Born in Locke Township, New York
• 1819: Served as a clerk with a local judge
• 1823: Admitted to the New York Bar
• 1826: Married Abigail Powers
• 1828: Elected to his first term in the New York State Assembly
• 1832: Elected to his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives
• 1843: Resigned from the House in order to run for governor of New York
• 1847: Elected as state comptroller
• 1848: Elected as Vice President alongside Zachary Taylor (W)
• July 9, 1850: Sworn in as president following Zachary Taylor's death
• 1856: Ran unsuccessfully for president on the Know-Nothing ticket
• March 8, 1874: Died following a stroke in Buffalo, New York

Before the presidency

Fillmore was born into an impoverished farming family in Locke Township, New York. At the age of seventeen, Fillmore left for New Hope, New York, seeking an education after two years apprenticed to a cloth maker. He attended New Hope Academy, where he met his future wife, Abigail Powers. At the age of 19, Fillmore secured a clerkship with a local judge, and was admitted to the New York Bar four years later.

Fillmore made his first run for elected office in 1828, seeking a one-year term in the New York State Assembly as a member of the Anti-Masonic Party. After three terms in the state Assembly, Fillmore was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1832. While in the House, Fillmore was in favor of tariffs on foreign imports and was opposed to the interstate slave trade. It was during this time that Fillmore joined the Whig Party. He served until resigning in 1843 to make an unsuccessful run for the governorship. Following his gubernatorial campaign, Fillmore joined the newly-established University of Buffalo as its founding chancellor. He was elected as state comptroller in 1847.

Fillmore was selected as the Whig Party's vice presidential nominee in 1848, appearing on a ticket alongside Gen. Zachary Taylor (W), a veteran of the recently-concluded Mexican-American War. Taylor did not join other prominent Whig figures in criticizing the war, which had been started under James Polk (D), but stated his opposition to entering future wars. Historians interpret Taylor's nomination as a bid to rally voters behind a war hero in an election cycle which would otherwise have been a likely Democratic victory due to popular support for the war. Fillmore's selection as vice president added regional balance to the ticket, as Taylor was a resident of Louisiana. In the 1848 election, the Whig Party carried the mid-Atlantic and northeastern states, with the exception of New Hampshire and Maine, as well as some Southern states, most notably Tennessee with its 13 Electoral College votes. The Democratic ticket swept the Midwest. In 1848, the five states with the most votes in the electoral college were New York (36 votes), Pennsylvania (26 votes), Ohio (23 votes), Virginia (17 votes), and Tennessee (13 votes). Of those, the Taylor-Fillmore ticket carried New York, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. Fillmore served just over a year as vice president before Taylor's death in July 1850.

Presidency

After taking office, Fillmore joined Sens. Stephen Douglas (D-IL) and Henry Clay (W-KY) in support of the Compromise of 1850, a legislative package concerning the expansion of slavery into territory acquired from Mexico which had been opposed by Taylor. Under the compromise, California was admitted to the Union as a free state, while settlers in the Arizona and New Mexico territories were granted the right to determine for themselves whether slavery would be extended to their territories under the principle of popular sovereignty, and Texas surrendered territorial claims to the federal government in exchange for Congress taking on its debt. The compromise included a ban on the slave trade within the District of Columbia but also included the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required free states to participate in the apprehension and return of escaped slaves.

Fillmore's brief term is also remembered for his foreign policy achievements. In 1852, he dispatched U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Perry to make an attempt at ending Japan's 220-year period of near-complete isolation. Although Perry's expedition did not reach Japan until after Fillmore had left office, it succeeded in its mission, setting the stage for Japan's rapid industrialization during the 1870s and emergence as a great power at the turn of the 20th century. In the Pacific, Fillmore sought to keep the Kingdom of Hawaii free of European influence, blocking an attempt by French Emperor Napoleon III to assert control over the islands. Over the objections of leading Southern political figures, Fillmore declined to sponsor an expedition to wrest control of Cuba from Spanish hands and use it as a launchpad to establish a plantation network across the Caribbean.

Fillmore's bid for re-election was doomed by the regional divisions present in American politics at the time. At the 1852 convention, northern Whigs who were angered by Fillmore's support for the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 backed Secretary of State Daniel Webster as the nominee. Meanwhile, southern Whigs angered by Fillmore's refusal to back the Cuba expedition backed Gen. Winfield Scott. Scott ultimately received the nomination on the 53rd round of voting. Fillmore ran for president on the American Party ticket in 1856 and was defeated by James Buchanan (D).

Fillmore did not serve alongside a vice president; prior to the passage of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment in 1967, there was no procedure for filling a vacancy in the vice presidency, meaning that the office was left open upon Taylor's death. Under the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, the President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate would have succeeded Fillmore had he left office prior to the expiration of Taylor's term. Sen. William R. King (D-AL) served as president pro tem until December 1852, when he was succeeded by David Atchison (D-MO).

Post-presidency

After his unsuccessful presidential run in 1856, Fillmore retired from politics. He was critical of Buchanan's handling of the secession crisis, arguing that Buchanan should have taken action upon the secession of South Carolina from the Union. He later criticized Lincoln's approach to the South during the war, expressing his support for Andrew Johnson's (D) approach during Reconstruction. Fillmore died on March 8, 1874, at the age of 74 after suffering a stroke.

Personal

Fillmore was married to Abigail Powers. They had two children, Millard Powers Fillmore and Mary Abigail Fillmore. Both he and Abigail are known for their modifications to the White House; as president, Fillmore established the first permanent White House library, while his wife ordered the installation of the building's first bathtub to make use of running water.

Elections

1856

In the 1856 presidential election, James Buchanan (D) defeated John C. Fremont (R), receiving 174 electoral college votes to Fremont's 114. Millard Fillmore, who ran on the Know-Nothing ticket, received eight electoral college votes.

U.S. presidential election, 1856
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes	Electoral votes
	Democratic	James Buchanan/John C. Breckinridge	45.4%	1,838,169	174
	Republican	John C. Frémont/William L. Dayton	33.1%	1,341,264	114
	American	Millard Fillmore/Andrew Jackson Donelson	21.5%	873,000	8
Total Votes				4,052,433	296
Election results via: 1856 official election results

1848

In the 1848 presidential election, Zachary Taylor (Whig) defeated Lewis Cass (D), receiving 163 electoral college votes to Cass' 127. Martin Van Buren, who ran on the Free Soil ticket, did not receive any electoral college votes.

U.S. presidential election, 1848
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes	Electoral votes
	Whig	Zachary Taylor/Millard Fillmore	47.4%	1,360,099	163
	Democratic	Lewis Cass/William Butler	42.5%	1,220,544	127
	Free Soil	Martin Van Buren/Charles Adams	10.1%	291,501	0
Total Votes				2,872,144	290
Election results via: 1848 official election results

State of the Union addresses

Every year in office, the president of the United States addresses Congress on the present state of affairs as well as the administration's goals for the coming year. Following are transcripts from Fillmore's State of the Union addresses.

• December 2, 1850
• December 2, 1851
• December 6, 1852

See also

• Zachary Taylor
• Franklin Pierce
• New York
• Federal judges nominated by Millard Fillmore

External links

• Official White House Biography
• C-SPAN Biography

Footnotes

Political offices
Preceded by Zachary Taylor (W)	President of the United States 1850-1853	Succeeded by Franklin Pierce (D)