FILLMORE,
Millard, thirteenth president of the United States, born in
the township of Locke (now Summerhill), Cayuga County, New York, 7 February
1800; died in Buffalo, New York, 7 March 1874. The name of Fillmore is of
English origin, and at different periods has been variously written. Including
the son of the ex-president, the family can be traced through six generations,
and, as has been said of that of Washington, its history gives proof "of
the lineal and enduring worth of race." The first of the family to appear
in the New World was a certain John Fillmore, who, in a conveyance of two acres
of land dated 24 November 1704, is described as a " mariner of
Ipswich," Massachusetts.
His
eldest son, of the same name, born two years before the purchase of the real
estate in Beverly, also became a seafaring man, and while on a voyage in the
sloop "Dolphin," of Cape Ann, was captured with all on board by
the pirate Captain John Phillips. For nearly nine months Fillmore and his three
companions in captivity were compelled to serve on the pirate ship and to
submit, during that long period, to many hardships and much cruel treatment.
After watching and waiting for an opportunity to obtain their freedom, their
hour at length came. While Fillmore sent an axe crashing through the skull of
Burrall, the boatswain, his companions dispatched the captain and other
officers, and the ship was won. They sailed her into Boston harbor, and the same
court, which condemned the brigands of the sea presented John Fillmore with the
captain’s silver hilted sword, and other articles, which are preserved to this
day by his descendants. The sword was inherited by his son, Nathaniel, and was
made good use of in both the French and Revolutionary wars.
Lieutenant
Fillmore's second son, who also bore the name Nathaniel, and who was the father
of the president, went with his young wife, Phebe Millard, to what at the close
of the past century was the "far west," where he and a younger
brother built a log cabin in the wilderness, and there his second son, Millard,
was born. Nathaniel Fillmore was one of "God Almighty's gentlemen,"
whose creed was contained in two words. "Do right," and who
lived to see his son elevated to a position than which there is none loftier on
earth. Of the president's mother, who died in 1831, little is known beyond the
fact that she was a sensible and, in her later years, a sickly woman; with a,
sunny nature that enabled her to endure uncomplainingly the many hardships of a
frontier life, and that her closing (lays were gladdened by the frequent visits
of her second son, who was then in public life, with every prospect of a
successful professional and political career. From a brief manuscript
autobiography prepared by "worthy Mr. Fillmore," as Washington
Irving described him, we learn that, owing to a defective title, his father
lost, his property on what was called the "military tract," and
removed to another part of the same County, now known as Niles, where he took a
perpetual lease of 130 acres, wholly unimproved and covered with heavy timber.
It
was here that the future president first knew anything of life. Working for nine
months on the farm, and attending such primitive schools as then existed in that
neighborhood for the other three months of the year, he had an opportunity of
forgetting during the summer what he acquired in the winter, for in those days
there were no newspapers and magazines to be found in pioneers' cabins, and his
father's library consisted of but two books the Bible and a collection of hymns.
He never saw a copy of "Shakespeare" or "Robinson
Crusoe," a history of the United States, or even a map of his own
country, till he was nineteen years of age Nathaniel
Fillmore's misfortunes 'in losing his land through a defective title',
and again in taking another tract of exceedingly poor soil, gave him a distaste
for farming, and made him desirous that his sons should follow other
occupations. As his means did, lot justify him or them in aspiring to any
profession, he wished them to learn trades, and accordingly Millard, then a
sturdy youth of fourteen, was apprenticed for a few months on trial to the
business of carding wool and dressing cloth.
During
his apprenticeship he was, as the youngest, treated with great injustice, and on
one occasion his employer, for some expression of righteous resentment,
threatened to chastise him when the young woodsman, turning with indignation,
raised the axe with which he was at work and told him the attempt would cost him
his life. Most fortunately for both the attempt was not made, and at the close
of his term he shouldered his knapsack, containing a few clothes and a supply of
bread and dried venison, and set out on foot and alone for his father's house, a
distance of something more than a hundred miles through the primeval forests.
Mr.
Fillmore in his autobiography remarks:" I think that this injustice
which was no more than other apprentices have suffered and will suffer had a
marked effect on my character. It made me feel for the weak and unprotected, and
to hate the insolent tyrant in every station of life."
In
1815 the youth again began the business of cloth dressing, which was carried on
from June to December of each year. The first book that he purchased or owned
was a small English dictionary, which he diligently studied while attending the
carding machine. In 1819 he conceived the design of becoming a lawyer. Fillmore,
who had yet two years of his apprenticeship to serve, agreed with his employer
to relinquish his wages for the last year's services, and promised to pay thirty
dollars for his time. Making an arrangement with a retired country lawyer, by
which he was to receive his board in payment for his services in the office, he
began the study of the law, a part of the time teaching school, and so
struggling on, overcoming almost insurmountable difficulties, till at length, in
the spring of 1823, he was, at the intercession of several leading members of
the Buffalo bar, whose confidence he had won, admitted as an attorney by the
court of common pleas of Erie County, although he had not completed the course
of study usually required.
The
writer has recently seen the dilapidated one story building in Buffalo where Mr.
Fillmore closed his career as a schoolmaster, and has also conversed with one of
his pupils of sixty-five years ago. The wisdom of his youth and early manhood
gave presage of all that was witnessed and admired in the maturity of his
character Nature laid on high, in the kindly phrase of Wordsworth, " the
strong hand of her purity," and even then he was remarked for that
sweet courtesy of manner which accompanied him through life.
Millard
Fillmore began practice at Aurora, where his father then resided, and
fortunately won his first case and a fee of four dollars. In 1827 he was
admitted as an attorney, and two years later as counselor of the Supreme Court
of the state. In 1830 he removed to Buffalo, and after a brief period formed a
partnership with Nathan K. Hall, to which Solomon G. Haven was soon afterward
admitted. By hard study and the closest application, combined with honesty and
fidelity, Mr. Fillmore soon became a sound and successful lawyer, attaining a
highly honorable position in the profession. The law firm of Fillmore, Hall
& Haven, which continued till 1847, was perhaps the most prominent in
western New York, and was usually engaged in every important suit occurring in
that portion of the state. In 1853, while still in Washington, Mr. Fillmore made
an arrangement with Henry E. Davies to renew, on retiring from the presidency,
the practice of his profession in New York in partnership with that gentleman,
who, after occupying a judge's seat in the court of appeals, returned to the
bar.
Family
afflictions, however, combined with other causes, induced the ex-president to
abandon his purpose. There were doubtless at that time men of more genius and
greater eloquence at the bar of the great city but we can not doubt that Mr.
Fillmore's solid legal learning, and the weight of his personal character, would
have won for him the highest professional honors in the new field of action. Mr.
Fillmore's political career began and ended with the birth and extinction of the
great Whig party. In 1828 he was elected by Erie County to the state legislature
of New York, serving for three terms, and retiring with a reputation for
ability, integrity, and a conscientious performance of his public duties, he
distinguished himself by his advocacy of the act to abolish imprisonment for
debt, which was passed in 1831. The bill was drafted by Fillmore, excepting the
portions relative to proceedings in courts of record, which were drawn by John
C. Spenser.
In
1832 he was elected to congress, and, after serving for one term, retired till
1836, when he was reelected, and again returned in 1838 and 1840, declining a re-nomination
in 1842. In the 27th congress Mr. Fillmore, as chairman of the committee on ways
and means a committee performing at that period not only the duties now
devolving upon it, but those also which belong to the committee on
appropriations had Herculean labors to perform. Day after day, for weeks and
months, Fillmore had to encounter many of the ablest debaters of the house, but
on all occasions he proved himself equal to the emergency. It should not be
forgotten that, in the opinion of John
Quincy Adams, there were more men of talent and a larger aggregate of
ability in that congress than he had ever known. Although Mr. Fillmore did not
claim to have discovered any original system of revenue, still the tariff of
1842 was a new creation, and he is most justly entitled to the distinction of
being its author. It operated successfully, giving immediate life to our
languishing industries and national credit.
At
the same time Mr. Fillmore, with great labor, prepared a digest of the laws
authorizing all appropriations reported by him to the house as chairman of the
committee on ways and means, so that on the instant he could produce the legal
authority for every expenditure, which he recommended. Sensible that this was a
great safeguard against improper expenditures, he procured the passage of a
resolution requiring the departments, when they submitted estimates of expenses,
to accompany them with a reference to the laws authorizing them in each and
every instance. This has ever since been the practice of the government.
Mr.
Fillmore retired from congress in 1843, and was a candidate for the office of
vice president, supported by his own and several of the western states, in the
Whig convention that met at Baltimore in May 1844. In the following September he
was nominated by acclamation for governor, but was defeated by Silas Wright, his
illustrious contemporary, Henry
Clay, being vanquished at the same time in the presidential contest by James
K. Polk. In 1847 Fillmore was elected comptroller of the state of New York,
an office which then included many duties now distributed among other
departments. In his report of 1 January 1849, he suggested that a national bank,
with the stocks of the United States as the sole basis upon which to issue its
currency, might be established and carried on, so as to prove a great
convenience to the government, with perfect safety to the people. This idea
involves the essential principle of our present system of national banks.
In
June 1848, Millard Fillmore was nominated by the Whig national convention for
vice president, with General
Taylor, who had recently won military renown in Mexico, as president, and
was in the following November elected, making, with the late occupant of the
office, seven vice presidents of the United States from New York, a greater
number than has been yet furnished by any other state.
In
February 1849, Fillmore resigned the comptrollership, and on 5 March He was
inaugurated as vice president. In 1826 Calhoun,
of South Carolina, then vice president established the rule that that officer
had no authority to call senators to order. During the heated controversies in
the sessions of 1849'50, occasioned by the application of California for
admission into the Union, the vexed question of slavery in the new territories,
and that of the rendition of fugitive slaves, in which the most acrimonious
language was used, Mr. Fillmore, in a forcible speech to the senate, announced
his determination to maintain order, and that, should occasion require, he
should resume the usage of his predecessors upon that point. This announcement
met with the unanimous approval of the senate, which directed the vice
president's remarks to be entered in full on its journal.
He
presided during the exciting controversy on Clay's "omnibus bill "
with his usual impartiality, and so perfectly even did he hold the scales that
no one knew which policy he approved excepting the president, to whom he
privately stated that, should he be required to deposit a casting vote, it would
be in favor of Henry Clay's bill. More than seven months of the session had been
exhausted in angry controversy, when, on 9 July 1850, the country was startled
by the news of President Taylor's death. He passed away in the second year of
his presidency, suddenly and most unexpectedly, of a violent fever, which was
brought on by long exposure to the excessive heat of a fourth of July sun, while
he was attending the public ceremonies of the day.
It
was a critical moment in the history of our country when Millard Fillmore was on
Wednesday, 10 July 1850, made president of the United States. With great
propriety he reduced the ceremony of his inauguration to an official act to be
marked by solemnity without joy; and so with an absence of the usual heralding
of trumpet and show, he was unostentatiously sworn into his great office in the
hall of representatives, in the presence of both houses. The chief justice of
the circuit court of the District of Columbia the venerable William Cranch,
appointed fifty years before by President John
Adams administered the oath, which being done, the new president bowed and
retired, and the ceremony was at an end.
Mr.
Fillmore then in the prime of life, possessed that which to the heathen
philosopher seemed the greatest of all blessings a sound mind in a sound body.
The accompanying vignette portrait was taken at this time, while the large steel
engraving is from a picture made some twenty years later. Of Fillmore's keen
appreciation of the responsibility devolving on him we have the evidence of
letters written at that time, in which he says ha should despair but for his
humble reliance on God to help him in the honest, fearless, and faithful
discharge of his great duties. President Taylor's cabinet immediately resigned,
and a new and exceedingly able one was selected by Mr. Fillmore, with Daniel
Webster as secretary of state; Thomas Corwin, secretary of the treasury ;
William A. Graham, secretary of the navy ; Charles M. Conrad, secretary of war;
Alexander H. II. Stuart, secretary of the interior; John
J. Crittenden, attorney general; and Nathan K. Hall, postmaster general. Of
these, Mr. Webster died, and Messrs. Graham and Hall retired in 1852, and were
respectively replaced by Edward Everett, John P. Kennedy, and Samuel D. Hubbard.
Stuart, of Virginia, is now the sole survivor of the illustrious men who aided
Mr. Fillmore in guiding the ship of state during the most appalling political
tempest, save one, which ever visited this fair land.
It
is not the writer's wish to reawaken party feelings or party prejudice or to
recall those great questions of pith and merit which so seriously disturbed
congress and the country in the first days of Fillmore's administration, but
yet, even in so cursory a glance as we are now taking of his career, some
comment would seem to be called for in respect to those public acts connected
with slavery which appear to have most unreasonably and unjustly lost him the
support of a large proportion of his party in the northern states. Whatever the
wisdom of Mr. Fillmore's course may have been, it is impossible to doubt his
patriotism or his honest belief that he was acting in accordance with his oath
to obey the constitution of his country. The president's dream was peace to
preserve without hatred and without war tranquility throughout the length and
,breadth of our broad land, and if in indulging this delusive dream he erred, it
was surely an error that leaned to virtue's side. There is a legend "that
he serves his party best who serves his country best."
In
Mr. Fillmore's action it is confidently believed that he thought not of party or
of personal interests, but only of his bounden duty to his country and her
sacred constitution. One of the president's earliest official acts was to send a
military force to New Mexico to protect that territory from invasion by Texas on
account of its disputed boundary. Then followed the passage by a large majority
of the celebrated compromise measures, including the fugitive slave law. The
president referred to the attorney general the question of its
constitutionality, and that officer in a written opinion decided that it was
constitutional. Fillmore and the strong cabinet that he had called around him
concurred unanimously in this opinion, and the act was signed, together with the
other compromise measures.
The
fugitive slave law was exceedingly obnoxious to a large portion of the Whig
party of the north, as well as to the antislavery men, and its execution was
resisted. Slaves in several instances were rescued from the custody of the
United States marshals, and a few citizens of Christiana, in Pennsylvania, were
killed. Although it was admitted that Fillmore's administration as a whole was
able, useful, and patriotic, although his purity as a public man was above
suspicion, and no other act of his administration could be called unpopular,
still, by the signing and attempted enforcement of the fugitive slave law and
some of its unfortunate provisions, of which even Mr. Webster did not approve,
the president, as has been already stated, lost the friendship and support of a
large portion of his party in the north.
French Ambassador Appointment signed Millard Fillmore as President
and Daniel Webster as Secretary of State.
Mr.
Fillmore's administration being in a political minority in both houses of
congress, many wise and admirable measures recommended by him failed of
adoption; nevertheless we are indebted to him for cheap postage; for the
extension of the national capitol, the cornerstone of which he laid 4 July 1851;
for the Perry treaty, opening the ports of Japan, and for various valuable
exploring expeditions. When South Carolina in one of her indignant utterances
took Mr. Fillmore to task for sending a fleet to Charleston harbor, and he was
officially questioned as to his object and authority, the answer came promptly
and to the purpose, " By authority of the constitution of the United
States, which has made the president commander-in-chief of the army and navy,
and who recognizes no responsibility for his official action to the governor of
South Carolina."
With
stern measures he repressed filibustering, and with equal firmness exacted from
other countries respect for our flag. Mr. Fillmore carried out strictly the
doctrine of nonintervention in the affairs of foreign nations, and frankly
stated his policy to the highly gifted Kossuth, who won all hearts by his
surpassing eloquence. At the same time, however, it was clearly shown how little
the administration sympathized with Austria by the celebrated letter addressed
to her ambassador, Hulsemann, by Daniel Webster, who died soon after. His
successor as secretary of state was Edward Everett, whose brief term of office
was distinguished by his letter declining the proposition for a treaty by which
England, France, and the United States were to disclaim then and for the future
all intention to obtain possession of Cuba. In his last message, however, the
president expressed an opinion against the incorporation of the Island with this
Union.
Nothing
in Mr. Fillmore's presidential career was, during the closing years of his life,
regarded by himself with greater satisfaction than the suppressed portion of his
last message of 6 December 1852. It was suppressed by the advice of the cabinet,
all of whom concurred in the belief that, if sent in, it would precipitate an
armed collision, and he readily acquiesced in their views. It related to the
great political problem of the period the balance of power between the free and
the slave states. He fully and clearly appreciated the magnitude of the then
approaching crisis, and in the document now under consideration proposed a
judicious scheme of rescuing the country from the horrors of a civil war, which
soon after desolated so large a portion of the land. His perfectly practicable
plan was one of African colonization; somewhat similar to one seriously
entertained by his successor, Mr.
Lincoln. Had President Fillmore's scheme been adopted, it is quite possible
that it would have been successful, and that our country might have been blessed
with peace and prosperity, in lieu of the late war with its loss of half a
million of precious lives and a debt of more than double the amount of the
estimated cost of his plan of colonization.
Mr.
Fillmore retired from the presidency, 4 March 1853, leaving the country at peace
with other lands and within her own borders, and in the enjoyment of a high
degree of prosperity in all the various departments of industry. In his cabinet
there had never been a dissenting voice in regard to any important measure of
his administration, and, upon his retiring from office, all its members,
expressing their united appreciation of his ability, his integrity, and his
single hearted and sincere devotion to the public service, addressed a letter to
him. The surviving member of Fillmore's cabinet, who also sat in the 27th
congress with him, in a communication, with which he has favored the writer,
says: "Mr. Fillmore was a man of decided opinions, but he was always
open to conviction. His aim was truth, and whenever he was convinced by
reasoning that his first impressions were wrong, he had the moral courage to
surrender them. But, when he had carefully examined a question and had satisfied
himself that he was right, no power on earth could induce him to swerve from
what he believed to be the line of duty .... There were many things about Mr.
Fillmore, aside from his public character, which often filled me with surprise.
While he enjoyed none of the advantages of early association with cultivated
society, he possessed a grace and polish of manner, which fitted him for the
most refined circles of the metropolis. You saw, too, at a glance, that there
was nothing in it, which was assumed, but that it was the natural outward
expression of inward refinement and dignity of character. I have witnessed, on
several occasions, the display by him of attributes apparently of the most
opposite character. When as sailed in congress he exhibited a manly
self-reliance and a lofty courage which commanded the admiration of every
spectator, and yet no one ever manifested deeper sensibility, or more tender
sympathy, with a friend in affliction He seemed to have the peculiar faculty of
adapting himself to every position in which he was called to serve his country.
When he was chairman of the committee of ways and means, members of congress
expressed their sense of his fitness by declaring that he was born to fill it.
When he was elected vice president, it was predicted that he would fail as the
presiding officer of the senate, yet he acquitted himself in this new and
untried position in such a manner as to command the applause of senators.And
when advanced to the highest office of our country, he so fulfilled his duties
as to draw forth the commendation of the ablest men of the opposite party ....
For the last two years of my official
association with Mr. Fillmore," adds Mr. Stuart, "our
relations, both personal and political, were of an intimate and confidential
character. He knew that I was his steadfast friend, and he reciprocated the
feeling. He talked with me freely and without reserve about men and measures,
and I take pleasure in saying that in all my intercourse with him I never knew
him to utter a sentiment or do an act which, in my judgment, would have been
unworthy of Washington."
His
gifted contemporary, Henry Clay, thought highly of Fillmore’s moderation and
wisdom, said his administration was an able and honorable one, and on his
deathbed recommended his nomination for the presidency (by the Baltimore
convention of 1852), as being a statesman of large civil experience, and one in
whose career there was nothing inconsistent with the highest purity and
patriotism. After leaving Washington for the last time, Webster said to a friend
that Fillmore's administration leaving out of the question his share of its work
was the ablest the country had possessed for many years. The same great
statesman, in his speech at; the laying of the cornerstone of the capitol
extension, said "President Fillmore, it is your singularly good fortune
to perform an act such as that which the earliest of your predecessors performed
fifty-eight years ago. You stand where he stood; you lay your hand on the
cornerstone he laid. Changed, changed is everything around. The Same sun,
indeed, shone upon his head, which shines upon yours. The same broad River
rolled at his feet, and now bathes his last resting place, which now rolls at
yours. But the site of this City was then mainly an open field. Streets and
avenues have since been laid out and completed, squares and public grounds
enclosed and ornamented, until the City, which bears his name, although
comparatively inconsiderable in numbers and wealth, has become quite to be
the seat of government of a great and united people. Sir, may the
consequences of the duty which you perform so auspiciously today equal those
which flowed from his act. Nor this only may the principles of your
administration and the wisdom of your political conduct be such that the world
of the present day and all history hereafter may be at no loss to perceive what
example you made your study."
It
should be stated as a part of Mr. Fillmore's public record that he was a
candidate for nomination as president at the Whig convention of 1852: but
although his policy, the fugitive slave law included, was approved by a vote of
227 against 60, he could not command 20 votes from the free states. Four years
later, while at Rome, he received the news of his nomination for the presidency
by the American party. He accepted the nomination, but before the close of the
campaign it became evident that the real struggle was between the Republicans
and Democrats. Many, with whom Fillmore was the first choice for president, cast
their votes for General Fredmont or James
Buchanan, believing that there was no hope of his election, and, although he
received the support of large numbers in all the states, Maryland alone gave him
her electoral vote.
In
the summer of 1864 Colonel Ogle Taylor, of Washington, wrote to Mr. Fillmore on
the subject of the presidential nomination, and his response was: "I can
assure you in all sincerity that I have no desire ever to occupy that exalted
station again, and more especially at a time like this." Apropos of
letters, the writer has had the privilege of perusing a collection of
confidential correspondence written by President Fillmore during a score of
years while in public life; and, after a most careful examination, has failed to
find a single passage that would not stand the light of day, not a word of
ignoble office seeking, no paltry tricks to gain notoriety, no base designs of
fattening upon public plunder. Having thus glanced at the professional and
political career of Mr. Fillmore, it now only remains to allude very briefly to
his private life from 1853 onward. "The circles of out' felicities make
short arches." Who shall question the wise axiom of Sir Thomas Browne,
the brave old knight of Norwich, a favorite author with the president?
Three
weeks after the close of his administration he sustained a severe affliction in
the loss of his wife, Abigail Powers, the daughter of a clergyman, whom he
married 5 February 1826, and who was emphatically her husband's "righthand."
She had long been a sufferer from ill health and was looking forward most
eagerly to a return to her old home, when she was taken away to those temples
not made with hands. Irving says that she received her death warrant while
standing by his side on the cold marble terrace of the capitol, listening to the
inaugural address of Mr. Fillmore's successor. To this Christian lady the White
House is indebted for the books, which today make the library one of the most
attractive rooms in the presidential mansion. In the following year their only
daughter, who had grown to womanhood, also passed away, leaving a memory
precious to all who had the privilege of her acquaintance, his home now lonely
from the loss of those who spread around it sunshine and happiness, induced Mr.
Fillmore to carry out a long cherished project of visiting the Old World, and in
May 1855, he sailed in the steamer "Atlantic." During his visit
to England he received numerous and gratifying attentions from the queen and her
cabinet ministers, and was proffered the degree of D. C. L. by the University of
Oxford, through its chancellor, the late Earl of Derby. This honor he however
declined, as did Charles Francis Adams a few years later.
We
can not dwell as we could wish on Mr. Fillmore's patriotic attitude during the
early years of the late war; of his warm interest in all the charitable
Christian work of the City in which he passed nearly half a century; of his
establishing the Buffalo historical society; how, as the first citizen of
Buffalo, he was called upon to welcome distinguished visitors, including Mr.
Lincoln, when on his way to Washington in 1861, and frequently to preside over
conventions and other public gatherings, for the control of which he was so
admirably qualified by his thorough parliamentary abilities, his widely extended
knowledge, his broad views, and a personal urbanity which nothing could disturb;
of the method and exactness, the precisiontrod punctuality, with which he conducted his private affairs, as in
earlier years he had performed his professional and public duties; of another
visit to Europe in 1866, accompanied by his second wife, Caroline C. McIntosh,
who survived him for seven years; of his manner of life in dignified retirement,
surrounded by all the comfort and luxuries of a beautiful and well appointed
mansion, including a large library, and with an attached wife to share his happy
home (see accompanying illustration).
In
a letter written to his friend Mr. Corcoran, of Washington, but a few weeks
before the inevitable hour came, he remarks: "I am happy to say that my
health is perfect. I eat, drink, and sleep as well as ever, and take a deep but
silent interest in public affairs, and if Mrs. Fillmore's health can be
restored, I should feel that I was in the enjoyment of an earthly
paradise." The ex-president accepted an invitation to meet the
surviving members of his cabinet and a few other valued friends at the residence
of Mr. Corcoran. The month of January 1874, was designated as the date of the
meeting, but was afterward changed to April by Mr. Fillmore's request. Before
that time he was no longer among the living. After a short illness, at ten
minutes past eleven ()'clock, on Sunday evening, 8 March Millard Fillmore
"Gave his honors to the world again, His blessed part to heaven, and slept
in peace." He was gathered to his fathers at the ripe age of seventy-four
years, and passed away without the knowledge that his former partner, Judge
Hall, with whom he had been so long and so closely united in the bonds of
friendship, as well as in professional and political life, had also, a few days
previous, rested from his labors, and was then lying in the Forest Hill
cemetery, where the ex-president now sleeps by his side.
Among
the chief magistrates of our country there appear more brilliant names than
Fillmore's, yet none who more wisely led on the nation to progress and
prosperity, making her name great and preserving peace in most perilous times,
without invoking the power of the sword, or one who could more truthfully say,
" These hands are clean." Without being a genius like Webster
or Hamilton,
he was a safe and sagacious statesman. He possessed a mind so nicely adjusted
and well balanced that he was fitted for the fulfillment of any duty that he was
called to perform. He was always ready to give up everything but conviction when
once convinced. A single public act honestly and unflinchingly performed cost
him his popularity. Posterity, looking from a distance, will perhaps be more
just. All his acts, whether daily and common or deliberate and well considered,
were marked with modesty, justice, and sincerity.
FILLMORE, Millard,
a Representative from New York, Vice President and 13th President
of the United States; born in Locke Township (now Summerhill), Cayuga County,
N.Y., January 7, 1800; reared on a farm; largely self-taught; apprenticed to a
clothier; taught school in Buffalo while studying law; was admitted to the bar
in 1823 and commenced practice in East Aurora, N.Y.; moved to Buffalo, N.Y., in
1830; member, State assembly 1829-1831; elected as a Whig to the Twenty-third
Congress (March 4, 1833-March 3, 1835); elected to the Twenty-fifth,
Twenty-sixth, and Twenty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1837-March 3, 1843);
declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1842; unsuccessful Whig candidate
for Governor in 1844; State comptroller 1847-1849; elected Vice President of the
United States on the Whig ticket headed by Zachary Taylor in 1848, and was
inaugurated March 4, 1849; became President upon the death of President Taylor
and served from July 10, 1850, to March 3, 1853; unsuccessful candidate for the
Whig nomination for president in 1852; unsuccessful candidate for president on
the National American ticket in 1856; commanded a corps of home guards during
the Civil War; traveled extensively; died in Buffalo, N.Y., March 8, 1874;
interment in Forest Lawn Cemetery.- -Biographical
Data courtesy of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Millard Fillmore rose from a log cabin to wealth and the White House. He
demonstrated that through perseverance and competence a man could make the
American dream come true. The United States was close to civil war in 1850 over
the bothersome problems of slavery. While nearing a compromise, President
Zachary Taylor suddenly died. Vice President Millard Fillmore assumed the
Presidency and was left to secure passage of five separate measures dealing with
slavery problems. Known as the Compromise of 1850, this delayed war for another
10 years. It was also proved to be the end of Fillmore's political career. The
Whig Party refused to nominate him for a second term in 1852 and he thus became
the nation's last Whig president. Fillmore is credited with helping to provide
Samuel Morse with $30,000 to aid in his perfecting of the telegraph.
Born is Cayuga County, New York on January 7, 1800, Fillmore was the only
son and second child of Phoebe Millard and Nathaniel Fillmore. His parents were
poor. He worked on his father's farm and received little schooling, only able to
attend school three months each year. At the age 14 his father apprenticed young
Fillmore as a woolworker. After five years he purchased his release from this
apprenticeship for $30. In 1822 he became a law clerk in Buffalo, working for
room and board. After passing the bar examination in 1823, his law practice
flourished, first in East Aurora, New York, and then in Buffalo, New York, which
in 1830 he made his permanent home. He was married twice, first to Abigail
Powers, his teacher with whom he fell in love. They had two children, Mary
Abigail and Millard Powers. Abigail died in 1853. Five years later he married
Caroline Carmichael McIntosh, a wealthy widow from Albany.
Fillmore entered politics, one of many swept up in the Anti-Masonic party
movement in western New York. Elected to the state Assembly in 1828, Fillmore
successfully sponsored a bill to end imprisonment for debt. He served until 1831
and soon acquired influence in the party. In 1832 he was elected to Congress as
an Anti-Mason, but he joined the Whig party in opposition to Andrew Jackson. He
served as the Whig congressman from Buffalo until 1843, and became a strong
advocate of internal improvement and of the protective tariff. He was a man of
solid character and diplomatic temperament and won the respect of his
colleagues. He was named Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in 1840.
In 1844, he ran unsuccessfully for governor, but in1847 was elected Comptroller
of New York State. Supported by Henry Clay of Kentucky, he became one of the
most prominent Whigs in the party. On the matter of slavery, Fillmore was a
moderate, making him acceptable to both Northern and Southern Whigs. In 1848
Fillmore became the successful Whig Party Vice Presidential candidate and
Zachary Taylor's running mate. After a narrow victory, Fillmore as Vice
President had to preside over the Senate during months of agonizing debates over
the Compromise of 1850.
At the height of the crisis Taylor died unexpectedly, and on July 9, 1850,
Fillmore assumed the Presidency. Immediately he formed a new Cabinet with Daniel
Webster as Secretary of State. He also named Whigs favorable to the compromise
to other cabinet posts. He, himself, fully supported the Compromise of 1850
feeling that this was the only way to preserve the Union. This legislation,
devised by Henry Clay, was designed to settle the slavery issue to Southern
satisfaction. Without it, civil war was becoming a genuine threat. As fast as
Congress could approve the bills making up the Compromise of 1850, Fillmore
signed them into law. His administration strictly enforced the most
controversial of the new measures, the Fugitive Slave Law, requiring that
Northerners collaborate in the return of escaped slaves to their Southern
owners. This rigid enforcement subjected him to widespread criticism in the
North. Except for these measures there was no other major legislation passed
during Fillmore's term. He was the first President to approve federal aid for
the building of railroads. In foreign affairs, Fillmore promoted America's
developing trade with the Orient by sending an expedition under Commodore
Matthew Perry to Japan. This led to the treaty of 1854 opening Japanese ports to
American vessels and setting Japan on its way to modern industrialization.
Fillmore could not win a second term. It was apparent that although the
Compromise was intended to settle the slavery controversy, it served as an
uneasy sectional truce. Refusing to forgive Fillmore for signing the Fugitive
Slave Act, militant northern Whigs helped deprive Fillmore of the presidential
nomination in 1852.
After his retirement, Fillmore traveled widely and attempted to revive the
disintegrating Whig Party and formed an alliance with the Know Nothing or
American Party. They made Fillmore their candidate for president in 1856. Pitted
against Democrat James Buchanan and John C. Fremont, the first presidential
nominee of the new Republican Party, Fillmore carried only Maryland in the
election, but won 40 percent of the voted in ten other Southern states. This
presidential campaign was Fillmore's last political service. He continued,
however, to have an active interest in public affairs.
Fillmore supported the Union during the Civil War, but felt the conflict
was needless. He was highly critical of the Lincoln administration. After the
war, he sided with the policies of Andrew Johnson. He became active in the civic
life of Buffalo and became the first chancellor of the University of Buffalo.
While in England, he was offered an honorary degree by Oxford University, which
he refused to accept. Millard Fillmore died in Buffalo, New York at the age of
74 on March 8, 1874.
Presidents of the Continental
Congress
United Colonies of The United States
Peyton
Randolph September
5, 1774 to October 22, 1774
and May 20 to May 24, 1775
Henry Middleton October 22, 1774 to October 26, 1774
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