Millard Fillmore
Posted by: 
Rayman
N 42° 55.763 W 078° 51.809
17T E 674346 N 4755187
13th president of the United States.
Waymark Code: WMDVE
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 05/30/2006
Views: 155
Mr. Fillmore's political career began with the birth of the Whig party and ended with its extinction. He was elected to the assembly as a Whig in 1828, and continued to serve in the sessions of 1830 and 1831. Most of his legislative work was local, but he was chiefly responsible for one important law of general interest -- an act abolishing imprisonment for debt.
He was one of a committee of eighteen citizens who drew up the first charter for the city of Buffalo, which was incorporated in 1832.
In the fall of that year he was elected to congress. After serving through the Twenty-third Congress he retired for a term, but was re-elected in 1836 to the Twenty-fifth Congress, and continued to serve through the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh.
Until the Twenty-seventh Congress he was one of the minority party. He took sufficient part in the debates, however, to gain for himself a position of leadership. He was proposed as a minority candidate for speaker of the Twenty-sixth Congress, and when the Whigs came into power in the Twenty-seventh Congress he was made chairman of the ways and means committee.
The great act of this session, for which Mr. Fillmore was chiefly responsible, was the tariff of 1842. The national treasury was virtually bankrupt, and the tariff was in the nature of an emergency measure. Nevertheless, it was vetoed by the president because of a duty on tea and coffee. A subsequent bill became a law without these duties.
Mr. Fillmore retired from congress by his own wish after the end of this session. As early as 1836 Mr. Fillmore was a delegate to the Whig state convention, and he was again a delegate in 1838, when William H. Seward was nominated for governor.
In 1842 he was proposed as a suitable candidate for vice-president on the ticket when Henry Clay was expected to head two years later. The choice, however, fell upon Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey.
Mr. Fillmore was made his party's nominee for governor. He conducted an energetic canvass, but was defeated by Silas Wright, the vote being 231,057 for Mr. Fillmore to 241,090 for Mr. Wright.
In 1846 his name was again put before the state convention and, although it was known that he would not accept, he received 65 votes to 44 for John Young. He declined and Mr. Young was nominated and elected.
The following year he consented to accept the nomination for state comptroller and was elected. In his report for 1849 he suggested the organization of national bonds with currency secured by deposits of national bonds, the system which was adopted during the civil war and is still in force.
VICE-PRESIDENT
The Whig national convention at Philadelphia, on June 9, 1848, after naming General Zachary Taylor for president, nominated Mr. Fillmore on the second ballot for vice-president. He was elected, and inaugurated on March 5, 1849.
He presided over the senate during the exciting controversy over Clay's omnibus bill, and also distinguished himself by enforcing order, contrary to precedents, during a slavery debate.
PRESIDENT
On July 9, 1850, President Taylor died, and on the following day Mr. Fillmore took the oath of office as president.
Mr. Fillmore's temper was conciliatory and his guide was the written law of the constitution, rather than the higher law of the anti-slavery men. This explains his approval of the celebrated Compromise measures of 1850, including the fugitive slave law, which cost him the support of most of his party in the North. He sought a peaceful solution of the great controversy over slavery. His last message to congress, as originally written, contained a plan for the colonization of negroes in Africa, similar to the one later favored by Mr. Lincoln. By advice of his cabinet it was suppressed, but Mr. Fillmore was personally proud of it.
The majority in congress was hostile to him throughout his administration, but the country, nevertheless, owes him thanks for a number of acts of great importance. Chief of these was the sending of Commodore Perry to Japan and the opening of that country to trade. He also sent the Lynch expedition to Africa, the Ringgold expedition to China, and the Herndon and Gibbon expedition up the Amazon. The Lopez insurrection in Cuba called for rigid measures to suppress filibustering, and the visit of Kossuth to this country required a declaration against interference with foreign affairs, despite the President's personal sympathy with the Hungarian patriot. Postal rates were lowered and the capitol was enlarged.
He was a candidate for renomination at the Whig national convention in 1852, but could command only twenty votes from the free states, although his policies were indorsed by a vote of 227 to 60.
POST-PRESIDENCY
Later, in 1855-6, he made a tour of Europe. It was while he was abroad in 1856 that he was nominated again for president by the American party, to which many of the former Whigs had gone at that time. The remnants of the Whig party met at Baltimore in September and indorsed Mr. Fillmore. He received only the eight electoral votes of the state of Maryland.
He returned to Buffalo to live where he performed many duties, including founders of the Buffalo General Hospital and of the Buffalo Historical Society, chancellor of the University of Buffalo, aided in establishing the Fine Arts Academy and the Society of Natural Sciences, and chairman of the committee of public safety.
Mr. Fillmore suffered a stroke of paralysis February 13, 1874, and died on March 8th.
Description:
President Fillmore was in Congress nearly most his life, then became Vice-President, and eventually President.
Date of birth: 01/07/1800
Date of death: 03/08/1874
Area of notoriety: Politics
Marker Type: Monument
Setting: Outdoor
Visiting Hours/Restrictions: 8AM-7PM (seasonal)
Fee required?: No
Web site: [Web Link]
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