Fillmore, Millard

Fillmore, Millard (1800–1874), thirteenth president of the United States.The son of a tenant farmer in western New York, Millard Fillmore gained a minimal education before he was apprenticed as a clothier. After reading law with a local judge, he moved to Buffalo and gained admittance to the bar at the age of twenty‐three. Capitalizing on the Anti‐Masonic frenzy in New York, Fillmore won election to the state legislature in 1828. He joined the Whig party in 1834 and served four terms in the U.S. Congress. A supporter of Henry Clay's American System, Fillmore helped craft the Tariff of 1842. After retiring from Congress in 1844, Fillmore lost a campaign for governor of New York, but his continued service to the party won him the vice presidency in 1848. Fillmore initially deferred to President Zachary Taylor, playing a small role in the new administration. As president of the Senate, he broke with Taylor to support the Compromise of 1850. When Taylor died unexpectedly that July, Fillmore became president. He signed the compromise measures into law, confident that the sectional crisis had finally been resolved.

Capitalizing on his presidential patronage power, Fillmore removed his intraparty opponents from office. The ensuing battle led to the Whigs’ decision in 1852 to bypass Fillmore and give the presidential nomination to the Mexican War hero Winfield Scott, who subsequently lost to Democrat Franklin Pierce. Out of office and skeptical about the prospects of the Whigs, Fillmore in 1855 joined the new nativist Know‐Nothing party, which nominated him for president in 1856. Fillmore used the campaign to promote his own nationalist vision, largely ignoring the nativism that brought the party together. After his defeat, Fillmore opposed the Republican party and Abraham Lincoln's administration, which were both controlled by his political foes. Although he continued to engage in politics in his later years, he exerted little influence, in part because of his personal vindictiveness.
See also Antebellum Era; Anti‐Masonic Party; Antislavery; Federal Government, Executive Branch: The Presidency; Nativist Movement; Slavery; Tariffs.

Bibliography

Robert J. Rayback , Millard Fillmore, 1959.
Elbert B. Smith , The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore, 1988.

Eric D. Daniels