Millard Fillmore: The President of Compromise

Millard Fillmore: Biography of a President
Robert J. Rayback

Thoughts on the Biography

Robert J. Rayback’s Millard Fillmore: Biography of a President is an interesting and somewhat unusual presidential biography, given that Fillmore is almost invisible in contemporary memory. He did not lead a revolution, win a great war, write a defining document, or leave behind a towering political philosophy. In fact, little about him commands attention on the surface. Rayback attempts to wrestle with this narrative and manages to make Fillmore interesting by presenting his entire life as a story of ambition, pragmatism, compromise, and political survival.

The book is also remarkably sympathetic to its subject. Rayback seems determined to rescue Fillmore from the historical footnote he has become and, at times, that makes for a compelling reassessment. At other times, I found myself wondering whether Rayback was defending Fillmore a little too vigorously. He seemed to always be the hero. But given how obvious Rayback makes this, to me it actually heightens the interest. I found myself happy that someone has taken up the task of defending and building up a relatively unknown president. Finally, Fillmore had found a cheerleader.

Fillmore rose from extremely humble beginnings in rural New York and eventually became a lawyer, congressman, vice president, and president of the United States. His rise was built almost entirely through ambition, education, persistence, and an ability to navigate the political world around him and as opposed to military glory or inherited wealth like many presidents before and after him.

This biography is also very much a portrait of New York politics and the Whig Party (in fact, Rayback’s initial research was intended to focus on Whig politics firstly). Fillmore’s relationship with Thurlow Weed, his partnerships with Nathan Hall and Solomon Haven, and his years in Congress provide much of the political foundation for the story. Rayback clearly understands this world and presents Fillmore as the centerpiece of the narrative.

Still, I found the book worthwhile. Fillmore is one of those presidents whose name everyone might recognize but whose actual life most people probably know very little about. That was certainly the case for me.

From Poverty to Buffalo

Fillmore’s early life may be the most compelling part of the story.

Born in 1800 in what is now Summerhill, New York, Fillmore grew up in poverty and received little formal education. He worked on the family farm and later became apprenticed in the textile trade. Rather than accept the limitations of his circumstances, he educated himself and eventually studied law.

He eventually found his way to Buffalo, a place that seems to have captured his imagination from an early age. Buffalo was growing rapidly, and Fillmore recognized that opportunity was there.

This is where the story begins to resemble the classic American rise. Fillmore was ambitious, but not necessarily flashy. He seems to have possessed an unusual ability to make himself useful wherever he found himself. Probably most importantly for the time, he was moderate in his views – meaning he offended few.

The author barely scratches the surface of his personal life, but does note he married Abigail Powers in 1826. They go on to have children, whom Fillmore appears to be close with, but sadly we get very little insight into their relationships and dynamics. Even later, with the sudden deaths of his (first) wife and daughter, we learn of his grief. While understandable, little had been written to build up this sudden loss in his life, so we have no choice to take the author’s word for it. This was the most glaring issue in this biography.

There is something appealing about this early part of Fillmore’s story. His rise was not sudden. It was a series of small advancements that accumulated over time.

My Takeaway: Fillmore’s early life is a reminder that ambition does not always announce itself dramatically. Sometimes it looks like simply refusing to stay where you started.

The Whig Politician

Fillmore entered politics as a Whig and remained one almost to the end of the party itself.

His political career developed gradually. He served in the New York Assembly before entering Congress, where he eventually became chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. He played an important role in the protective Tariff of 1842, establishing himself as a serious congressional figure, though maybe not a particularly flashy one.

He also developed a reputation for pragmatism. That characteristic seems to follow Fillmore throughout Rayback’s biography. He was not necessarily the loudest man in the room, but he seemed to understand the room. He could work with people, understand competing interests, and find a position that could actually survive politically.

His relationship with Thurlow Weed is particularly fascinating. Weed was one of the most influential political strategists in New York and became an important figure in the Whig Party. Fillmore and Weed were not friends and developed a political rivalry. Throughout the novel, it was depicted almost as good vs. evil in which Weed would stoop low to out-politik Fillmore. But in any instance of ‘loss’ as Rayback viewed it, it was the result of Fillmore taking the high road. Rayback portrays Fillmore as principled and Weed as more politically calculating. I found myself occasionally wondering whether the distinction was quite so clean.

There is an interesting outside assessment of Rayback’s biography that makes essentially this same point, noting that the author sometimes seems to portray Fillmore and Weed as champions of good and evil when perhaps they were simply two politicians playing the same political game with different levels of skill.

That tension made the book more interesting for me, not less.

Vice President by Circumstance

Fillmore eventually became comptroller of New York and then, somewhat unexpectedly, found himself on the Whig ticket with Zachary Taylor in 1848. The ticket itself reflected the divisions within the Whig Party, particularly over slavery and the increasingly difficult relationship between northern and southern Whigs. Fillmore’s moderate views and standing New York made him, in Whig’s view, the most appropriate vice presidential candid ant for sectional politics of the time.

Fillmore was not Taylor’s closest political ally. In fact, their relationship would become increasingly strained once they were in office.

… And then Taylor died. The following day, Millard Fillmore became president of the United States. And almost immediately, Fillmore inherited the most difficult political problem in the country.

The Compromise of 1850

This is where Millard Fillmore’s presidency becomes historically significant.

The country was being pulled apart by the question of slavery in the territories acquired following the Mexican-American War. Henry Clay’s proposed Compromise of 1850 attempted to resolve several of these disputes simultaneously.

Fillmore supported the effort to bring the compromise to completion and ultimately signed the series of measures into law. California entered the Union as a free state, territorial questions were addressed, the slave trade was prohibited in Washington, D.C., and a strengthened Fugitive Slave Act was enacted. This ultimately became the the great contradiction of Fillmore’s presidency.

The compromise temporarily reduced sectional tensions, but the Fugitive Slave Act became one of its most controversial components. Fillmore’s approval of it has remained central to assessments of his presidency.

Rayback spends considerable effort placing Fillmore’s decisions within the political circumstances of the time and defending the president’s motives and actions. The compromise was undoubtedly an enormous political undertaking. But the fact that it temporarily held the Union together does not make every component of the compromise equally defensible.

This is also where Fillmore’s presidency becomes difficult to separate from the question of what compromise actually means. Compromise can preserve political stability, but sometimes the price of compromise is itself the thing future generations question.

My Takeaway: Fillmore’s presidency demonstrates how difficult it can be to judge political decisions without separating the immediate objective from the eventual consequences. The Compromise of 1850 bought the country time. What that time accomplished, and what it merely postponed, is a much harder question.

The Whigs, Seward, and the End of a Political Career

Fillmore’s relationship with William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed provides another fascinating thread. Seward represented the emerging antislavery wing of the Whig Party, while Fillmore was much more concerned with preserving the Union and the Whig coalition itself.

The political battles between them are presented by Rayback in a way that often favors Fillmore. Again, I found myself wondering how much of this was historical assessment and how much was the author’s admiration for his subject.

Fillmore ultimately failed to secure the Whig nomination for president in 1852. The party nominated Winfield Scott instead. Fillmore’s national political career was effectively moving toward its end, although the country’s political crisis was only beginning.

As mentioned previously, his personal life also took a devastating turn. Abigail Fillmore died in 1853, only weeks after attending Franklin Pierce’s inauguration. Their daughter Mary Abigail would die shortly after.

The timing is particularly heartbreaking. Fillmore had lost his presidency, his political party was weakening, and then he lost his wife and daughter in rapid succession.

The Know-Nothings and the Election of 1856

Fillmore’s later political career may be the strangest part of the story.

As the Whigs collapsed, a new political movement emerged: the American Party, commonly known as the Know-Nothings. The party was associated with opposition to immigration and anti-Catholic sentiment. Fillmore became its presidential candidate in 1856.

At the same time, John C. Frémont represented the newly formed Republican Party, while James Buchanan carried the Democratic nomination. Fillmore’s candidacy therefore became part of a three-way contest occurring as the slavery question was becoming increasingly impossible to contain.

Rayback’s account of the election is fascinating because of the political calculations occurring behind the scenes. The anti-Frémont sentiment among some voters meant that Buchanan could benefit from people who were not necessarily enthusiastic about him but were determined to prevent Frémont from winning. The result was a Buchanan victory.

Fillmore’s role in the election is particularly interesting because it illustrates how quickly American politics was changing. The Whig Party had effectively disappeared, the Republicans had emerged as a new national force, and Fillmore had attached himself to a movement that was itself built around a different set of grievances.

The political world that had produced Millard Fillmore was disappearing.

A President Outside Politics

After 1856, Fillmore largely left national politics behind.

The Civil War brought him back into the public conversation, however. Fillmore became a staunch supporter of the Union, although his opposition to the Republican Party sometimes placed him at odds with people in his own community.

This is another interesting contradiction in his later life. Fillmore supported preservation of the Union while remaining deeply critical of the Republicans who were leading the country.

As he contemplated his role as a post-presidential citizen, he became deeply involved in civic organizations and institutions. He served as president of the Buffalo Historical Society and chancellor of the University of Buffalo and was involved with efforts supporting hospitals and other civic institutions. In some ways, this feels like the natural conclusion to Fillmore’s story. He began as a poor young man trying to educate himself and eventually became one of Buffalo’s most prominent civic figures.

Fillmore died in Buffalo in 1874 at the age of 74.

Lessons from Fillmore’s Life

Rayback’s biography left me with several themes that seem worth carrying forward:

1. Ambition can be quiet: Fillmore’s rise was built less on dramatic moments than on education, persistence, relationships, and consistently making himself useful.
2. Compromise has consequences: The Compromise of 1850 demonstrates both the power and limitations of political compromise. It addressed an immediate crisis while leaving fundamental disagreements unresolved.
3. Political parties are temporary: Fillmore’s entire political career unfolded alongside the rise and collapse of the Whigs. By the end of his life, the political system that had produced him barely existed.
4. A presidency is only part of a life: Fillmore’s post-presidential years in Buffalo are easy to overlook, but they reveal another side of his character and interests.
5. Biography requires some skepticism: Rayback clearly admires his subject. That makes the book engaging, but it also means the reader occasionally needs to step back and ask whether the author’s defense of Fillmore is as convincing as the author believes it is.

Sidebar / Quick Facts

• Fillmore was born into extreme poverty in rural New York and received little formal education before pursuing his own education.
• He married Abigail Powers in 1826. She had been one of his teachers when they were young.
• Fillmore served four nonconsecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
• He was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and helped shape the Tariff of 1842.
• He became president after Zachary Taylor’s sudden death in July 1850.
• The Compromise of 1850 admitted California as a free state and included the controversial Fugitive Slave Act.
• Fillmore was the last Whig president.
• He failed to receive the Whig presidential nomination in 1852.
• Fillmore ran for president in 1856 as the American Party, or Know-Nothing, candidate.
• Fillmore’s presidential papers are unusually incomplete; much of the surviving documentary record comes from scattered collections and correspondence.