13) Millard Fillmore - The Compromiser

Millard Fillmore marks the halfway point of the stretch of this project I was least excited about. I had pegged the four presidents leading up to Lincoln, of which I knew little about, as a dull period leading up to the Civil War. Taylor served as a nice surprise, filling in gaps about the goings on during the Mexican American War. Fillmore’s story has some color on the development of the Whig Party but, like Martin Van Buren’s story, it is largely focused on nineteenth century New York state politics which can get dry.

A statue of Fillmore that stands outside
Buffalo's imposing City Hall.

Like Andrew Jackson and Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore was born in a log cabin. Fillmore grew up on an unproductive farm in New York’s Finger Lakes region, his family then moved west to the Buffalo region in Fillmore’s late teens. It was there, in East Aurora, NY, that Fillmore made his mark as a lawyer. He went on to form a law practice with Nathan Hall and Solomon Haven. These men were instrumental in Buffalo’s development, particularly in education. Hall, who would serve as Fillmore’s Postmaster General, helped institute Buffalo’s fist free public school system and Fillmore was instrumental in the founding of the University of Buffalo. Hall would begin his own law office when Fillmore’s duties no longer allowed him to focus on the practice. The new firm went on to train future president Grover Cleveland. That two U.S. presidents came from essentially the same law practice in western New York is an interesting bit of presidential trivia.

Fillmore came of age at a time when Thurlow Weed was building the Whig Party’s base in New York. Fillmore rose through its ranks serving three terms in the House of Representatives and then running unsuccessfully for governor. Weed and Fillmore often battled due to what the author portrayed as Weed’s repeated backing of the other major New York Whig of the time, William Seward, often at Fillmore’s expense. After losing the bid for Governor, Fillmore was elected as the state’s Comptroller.

It is ironic that Fillmore ended up on the Whig ticket with Zachary Taylor in the election of 1848. Taylor was a slaveholding Southerner so to deliver the North in this tenuous period of American history the Whigs needed an anti-slavery Northerner. Fillmore fit the bill. The irony is that Taylor’s anti-slavery views and opposition to slavery in the newly acquired southwestern territories would soon be apparent. Further, when Taylor died and Fillmore assumed the reigns of the presidency he backed Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas’s efforts to broker a compromise between North and South. The compromise was viewed by many as strengthening the protection of slavery. What became known as the Compromise of 1850 was structured as a series of bills whereby:

• Texas surrendered its claim on New Mexico.
• California was admitted as a non-slave state.
• Utah and New Mexico were allowed to choose whether or not they wanted slavery to be  permitted (it was known both were unlikely to permit the practice).
• The slave trade, but not slavery itself, was outlawed in Washington DC.
• The Fugitive Slave Act was strengthened.

Given the political climate in which everyone was focused on the newly acquired Western territories, the likely abolition of slavery in these lands gave Southerners a sour feeling about the Compromise. Northerners were not happy with the strengthening of the Fugitive Slave Act which required law enforcement, even in jurisdictions where slavery was outlawed, to assist in the capture and return of runaway slaves. This had not been the practice in many Northern municipalities where a blind eye was turned to the efforts of abolitionists to aid escaped slaves. Northern abolitionists flouted the new law. A particular incident in Boston where the arrival of escaped slaves William and Ellen Crofts was loudly celebrated forced Fillmore to take a stand. Fillmore announced that he was prepared to use Federal troops to intervene and the Crofts were quickly and quietly moved to London.

It is important to keep in mind that Fillmore’s actions, both supporting the Compromise and his willingness to use force to protect it, were taken at a time when segments of the South were preparing for disunion. While history may remember Fillmore as a feckless doughface, he was attempting to save the Union. Fillmore’s anti-slavery credentials had been sufficient enough to get him on the ticket with Taylor as a sop to the abolitionist wing of the Whig party so branding him a lackey to slaveholders is lazy analysis.

Fillmore’s domestic failings are surely his presidential legacy. However, he did have a notable achievement in foreign policy when he sent Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan. Japan had been a closed society up to this point and America wanted to trade with them, particularly for their large supply of coal which could fuel new coal-powered ocean liners. Perry was successful in opening Japanese ports giving Fillmore a key diplomatic victory.

Fillmore may not have intended to run for a full term. Friends who had tried to convince him to run later said that he did not want to. The endorsement of party leader Henry Clay, on his death bed, finally convinced him to run. Fillmore did not receive the nomination, on the 53^rd ballot General Winfield Scott was nominated and he would go on to lose to another Mexican American War General, Franklin Pierce. But that is a story for the next post.

The Whig Party began to fracture following the defeat of General Scott. Perhaps the correct way to phrase it is that existing fractures could no longer be ignored after Scott’s defeat. The Whig party split largely over the issue of slavery into the Know-Nothings and the modern-day Republican Party. The Know-Nothings were a short-lived anti-Catholic / anti-immigrant party of which, unfortunately, Millard Fillmore joined and represented in the Presidential election of 1856. The Republican party would find presidential success in 1860 when Lincoln’s election raised the drumbeat of secession to fruition.