Basic Information
Name: Millard Fillmore
Nickname: The American Louis Philippe, Milli Vanilli
Born: January 7, 1800
Died: March 8, 1874
Nationality: American
Hometown: Summerhill, NY
WORK & EDUCATION
Occupation: clothmaker, lawyer, Congressman, Senator, Secretary of State, Vice President, President
Education: New Hope Academy
FAMILY & FRIENDS
Parents: Nathaniel, Phoebe
Siblings: Olive Armstrong, Cyrus, Almon Hopkins, Calvin Turner, Julia, Darius Ingraham, Charles DeWitt, Phoebe Maria
Spouse: Abigail Powers, Caroline Carmichael McIntosh
Children: Millard Powers, Mary Abigail
Friends: Henry Clay, John Crittenden
Foes: Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor
Analysis
If Zachary Taylor had lived longer, the Compromise of 1850 might never have happened. But he didn't, and it's not good to dwell on historical "what-ifs", so let's focus on the guy who was around for it.
Millard Fillmore isn't usually ranked as one of the U.S.'s best presidents. In fact, you'll sometime find him on the "worst presidents" list. So why are we discussing him? Well, his short time in office is pretty much taken up with the Compromise of 1850 and its aftermath. He supported the Compromise and signed it into law.
Fillmore was the last POTUS not to belong to either the Republican or Democratic party, so at least that made him interesting.
It's A Hard Knock Life for Millard
Fillmore's early life is a rags-to-riches tale. Literally.
He was born into a very poor family and was apprenticed to a clothmaker (See? Rags.) at a very young age, because his parents couldn't support him. The apprenticeship, though, was extremely harsh, and Millard eventually scraped up enough money to buy his freedom and walk 100 miles to get back home (source). And he would walk 100 more, just to be the man who'd walk 100 miles to fall down at your door.
Anyway, back on his home turf, he became obsessed with educating himself. Not only did he get himself through school, but found himself a wife there as well. He married his teacher Abigail (she was only two years older than him) (source). He soon passed the bar and became lawyer, and got into politics in 1828 when he won a seat in the New York State Assembly.
Note to those of you already worrying about the LSAT: you were born 200 years too late. Back then, you could become a lawyer (or President) with hardly any formal education.
Anti-Masonic, Pro-Financial Planning
Once upon a time, there were more than two significant political parties in the United States. In the antebellum period, in fact, political parties rose and fell all the time, although there were generally still two biggies that dominated things.
Fillmore got his start in politics as part of the Anti-Masonic Party, the first real third party in American politics. If that name seems super specific and reminds you of a Dan Brown novel, you wouldn't be far off.
Fillmore made it to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1832. The Anti-Masons had been absorbed into the Whig Party, and being a Whig put Fillmore in direct opposition to then-president Andrew Jackson. The Whigs as a party were seen as the old fuddy-duddies whom people like Jackson were trying to run out of politics. Fillmore and Jackson did not see eye-to-eye on the big political issues of the day, like tariffs and the slave trade (source).
The 1840s were eventful for Fillmore. In 1844, he ran as vice president in Henry Clay's presidential campaign, but lost the election. The same year, he ran for governor of New York, but he lost. However, in 1847 he was elected by an overwhelming margin to be Comptroller of New York (basically the CFO of NY), and suddenly people once again thought "hey, this guy might be good for a big national political office" (source).
The Opportunity of Lifetime, Except for Zachary Taylor
In 1848, the Whigs picked war hero Zachary Taylor over Henry Clay to be their nominee for president. But they realized that having a slave-owning southerner as their presidential candidate might not go over so well with their northern base.
Their solution? Find a solid northerner to balance the ticket. Enter Millard Fillmore as the vice presidential candidate (again) (source).
Fillmore and Taylor won a pretty tough election, but didn't even meet each other until after they were elected. Imagine if Barack Obama and Joe Biden had never met while they were campaigning. How would their bromance have suffered?
Fillmore and Taylor's sure did. They were basically political opposites, and did not hit it off. Taylor ended up boxing out Fillmore from having any real role in the Executive branch, leaving him just his role in the Senate (source).
Suddenly, on July 9, 1850, Zachary Taylor died, well into the debates over the Compromise of 1850. Fillmore was promoted to the presidency, where he quickly replaced Taylor's cabinet with his own people, including Daniel Webster. The general political stance of the president shifted towards the moderates who were trying to pass the Compromise.
Between a Rock, a Hard Place, and an Even Bigger Rock
There comes a time in most people's lives when they get a little older and realize: "Actually, I don't want to be President when I grow up; it doesn't look like a lot of fun. Plus, I'd have to sneak out the back door of the White House for pizza."
Millard Fillmore's presidency would have gotten you there a lot faster. He basically inherited a lose-lose situation. Every move he could possibly make was going to alienate some group. He decided to go down the road that he thought would most likely prevent the secession of the South and the destruction of the Union. He supported Clay's Compromise.
The part that gave him pause, like many northerners, was the Fugitive Slave Act. He knew the growing abolition movement in the North would hate him for signing it. But after talking to his attorney general, John C. Crittenden, Fillmore was convinced that signing the act into law was the only way to stop southern secession. After all, he argued, he was technically just upholding the Constitution.
You heard right, folks: Article IV of the U.S. constitution specifically stated that escaped slaves (it reads a "person held to service or labor") had to be returned to their owners even if the slave had escaped into a free state.
Fillmore's signing, and even more so, his enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act using federal troops, earned him the eternal wrath of some sections of the North. It also cost him the nomination for president by the Whig party in 1852.
What would have been his alternative? To not sign the Act, or not enforce it, and seriously risk the secession of the southern states, that's what.
In Pennsylvania in 1852, a riot erupted when a group of white and Black abolitionists attacked a posse trying to retrieve a group of runaway slaves. The pressure for Fillmore to take action led him to take too much action (like calling in the Marines and trying the abolitionists for treason), and the whole affair ended with his administration having to backtrack and release everyone without charges (source).
The northerners were already unhappy with Fillmore for signing the Compromise of 1850 and stepping up efforts to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. Now he'd lost the south, too.
Whoops.
Protector of Islands, But not Immigrants
Although Fillmore's remembered mostly for the Compromise of 1850, he did do some other stuff in the short time he was president. He sent Commodore Matthew Perry (no, not that one, this one), to open up Japan for western trade. That's a whole big story on its own, and it forever changed Japan and the U.S.'s relationship with Asia.
Fillmore also actively prevented Europeans from getting their hands on the Hawaiian islands (only one colonial overlord at a time, please), and made it clear he didn't support the "filibuster" movement of the 1850s, where southern plantation owners thought they'd liberate some land from Spain so they could put their slaves on it (source).
So Fillmore stopped Europeans from successfully invading American-held territory, and stopped Americans from successfully invading Spanish-held territory. Sure, no one was really looking out for the indigenous people of Hawaii or the Caribbean, but at least southern plantation owners didn't get to start a new slavery-based empire.
Know-Nothing Candidate, Do-Nothing President?
Despite all the drama over the Fugitive Slave Act, by 1852 Fillmore had come around to the idea of running for re-election. His party, though, was not as excited about that idea, and he didn't even get the nomination. He'd run again in 1856 as a candidate for the American Party, generally known as the "Know-Nothing" Party, whose members were so secretive about their doctrines that when asked about them they'd reply, "We know nothing." Their platform was being against immigration and Catholicism.
Like, really against immigration and Catholicism.
He won one state (Maryland). The party never actually got a president into office, but they did have a pretty solid number of representatives in Congress in the early 1850s (source).
They say you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Fillmore tried to make the omelet (the United States) and definitely broke some eggs in the process (civil rights and North-South relations). Maybe too many eggs. We're kind of hungry now.