President Millard Fillmore

First Generation

      1. President Millard Fillmore ^1,2  was born on 7 Jan 1800 in Locke, Cayuga, New York. He died^3,4  on 8 Mar 1874 in Buffalo New York.  The cause of death was stroke. He was buried in Forest Lawn Cem., Buffalo New York.

Millard was born⁵  on 7 Jan 1800 in Locke New York. He was born on 7 Jan 1800 in Locke, Cayuga, New York. He died on 8 Mar 1874 in Buffalo, New York. He died on 8 Mar 1874 in Buffalo, New York. He died on 8 Mar 1874 in Buffalo, Erie, New York. He was employed as 13th Presdent.

In his rise from a log cabin to wealth and the White House, Millard Fillmore demonstrated that through

methodical industry and some competence an uninspiring man could make the American dream come

true.

Born in the Finger Lakes country of New York in 1800, Fillmore as a youth endured the privations of

frontier life. He worked on his father's farm, and at 15 was apprenticed to a cloth dresser. He attended

one-room schools, and fell in love with the redheaded teacher, Abigail Powers, who later became his

wife.

In 1823 he was admitted to the bar; seven years later he moved his law practice to Buffalo. As an

associate of the Whig politician Thurlow Weed, Fillmore held state office and for eight years was a

member of the House of Representatives. In 1848, while Comptroller of New York, he was elected Vice

President.

Fillmore presided over the Senate during the months of nerve-wracking debates over the Compromise of

1850. He made no public comment on the merits of the compromise proposals, but a few days before

President Taylor's death, he intimated to him that if there should be a tie vote on Henry Clay's bill, he

would vote in favor of it.

Thus the sudden accession of Fillmore to the Presidency in July 1850 brought an abrupt political shift in

the administration. Taylor's Cabinet resigned and President Fillmore at once appointed Daniel Webster

to be Secretary of State, thus proclaiming his alliance with the moderate Whigs who favored the

Compromise.

A bill to admit California still aroused all the violent arguments for and against the extension of slavery,

without any progress toward settling the major issues.

Clay, exhausted, left Washington to recuperate, throwing leadership upon Senator Stephen A. Douglas

of Illinois. At this critical juncture, President Fillmore announced in favor of the Compromise. On August

6, 1850, he sent a message to Congress recommending that Texas be paid to abandon her claims to

part of New Mexico.

This helped influence a critical number of northern Whigs in Congress away from their insistence upon

the Wilmot Proviso--the stipulation that all land gained by the Mexican War must be closed to slavery.

Douglas's effective strategy in Congress combined with Fillmore's pressure from the White House to give

impetus to the Compromise movement. Breaking up Clay's single legislative package, Douglas

presented five separate bills to the Senate:

Admit California as a free state.

Settle the Texas boundary and compensate her.

Grant territorial status to New Mexico.

Place Federal officers at the disposal of slaveholders seeking fugitives.

Abolish the slave trade in the District of Columbia.

Each measure obtained a majority, and by September 20, President Fillmore had signed them into law.

Webster wrote, "I can now sleep of nights."

Some of the more militant northern Whigs remained irreconcilable, refusing to forgive Fillmore for having

signed the Fugitive Slave Act. They helped deprive him of the Presidential nomination in 1852.

Within a few years it was apparent that although the Compromise had been intended to settle the

slavery controversy, it served rather as an uneasy sectional truce.

As the Whig Party disintegrated in the 1850's, Fillmore refused to join the Republican Party; but, instead,

in 1856 accepted the nomination for President of the Know Nothing, or American, Party. Throughout the

Civil War he opposed President Lincoln and during Reconstruction supported President Johnson. He

died in 1874.

Millard married Abigail Powers  on 5 Feb 1826 in Moravia, Cayuga, New York. Abigail was born on 13 Mar 1798 in Stillwater, Saratoga Co, New York. She died on 30 Mar 1853 in Washington, Dc.

Abigail was born on 13 Mar 1798 in Stillwater, New York. She was born on 13 Mar 1798 in Stillwater, Saratoga, New York. She died on 30 Mar 1853 in Wa. She died on 30 Mar 1853 in Washington, Dc.

Sources

  1.  David Williamson, Debrett's Presidents of the United States of America, Salem House Publishers 1989 ISBN 0-88162-366-0.

  2.  William Addams Reitwiesner , Presidential Candidates Ancestry Homepage, http://members.aol.com/wreitwiesn/candidates2000/.

  3.  David Williamson, Debrett's Presidents of the United States of America.

  4.  William A. DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents  (Gramercy Books 2001 ISBN 0-517-08244-6).

  5.  David Williamson, Debrett's Presidents of the United States of America.