Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) was the second President of the United States not to have been elected to the office. The first, John Tyler, had set a precident by taking up the full powers of the Presidency after the death of William Henry Harrison (after which he served a fairly ineffective term in office).
With the precident having been set, upon the sudden death of Zachary Taylor in the summer of 1850 (after just over a year in office), Vice-President Fillmore was ushered into power - ready or not.
New York Politician
Unlike Zachary Taylor, whom he followed into the White House, Fillmore had been a professional politician for some time by the time 1950 came around.
Though the first two decades of his life did not exactly foreshadow his future power (he was apprenticed to a clothmaker for some time), at the age of 26 he married a girl named Abigail, bought out his apprenticeship, and moved to Buffalo, where he continued his education and became a lawyer.
Fillmore practiced law in Buffalo for the next 20 years until earning his first elected position - membership on the New York State Assembly as a member of the Anti-Masonic ticket in 1828, where he served until 1831.
In 1832, Fillmore finally achieved a place in national politics, with election to the United States Congress as a Whig in 1832, where he served four terms before declining to run for reelection in 1842. During this time, Fillmore's stature within the house grew considerably, being runner-up for the role of Speaker of the House in 1841 and being named chairman of the House Ways and Means committee (one of the most powerful in congress).
Vice-President
Six years after leaving congress, Fillmore's name arose on the national scene again as the Whig party searched for a running mate for their war-hero candidate for President, Zachary Taylor. Fillmore, in many ways, was a perfect fit for the job - a northern, self-made politician to counterbalance Taylor, who was a southern slaveholder who had lived his life far from the realm of politics.
Though Millard Fillmore was relatively abscure among the American populace (as, admittedly, he still is today), he was a good choice for the role from a political perspective, helping bring northern votes that Taylor surely would not have garnered on his own. In the end, they won the election with a decent plurality and Millard Fillmore, virtually an unknown, became Vice President.
During his sixteen short months in this capacity, Fillmore practically watched from the sidelines as congress debated one of the most hotly contested issues of the day - westward expansion and the morality of allowing further slave states into the union.
At hand was a proposed comprimise between the slave and free states in hopes of staving off secession and, worst case scenario, civil war.
President Fillmore
Everything changed during the summer of 1850, when Taylor fell ill and died suddenly from natural, yet still debated, causes, thrusting an unprepared Fillmore into the role that would define his political career - President of the United States.
The issue at hand, of course, had not changed. The comprimise bill was still on the table.
As a northerner and a good Whig (a party which was for the most part in opposition to slavery), it seems as if Fillmore should have been opposed to the Comprimise bill on the table which, while in some ways curtailing slavery by abolishing the slave trade within the District of Columbia and allowing free states into the union, also benefited slave holders by introducing a fugitive slave act and not specifying a slavery policy in new states.
However, Fillmore did not live up to these expectations, and less than a month after Taylor's death, began urging congress to pass the comprimise bill so he could sign it and do away with the rancorous debate that was dividing both congress and the country.
Within a few months, the Comprimise of 1850 had passed through congress, providing unity of the nation only in the form of near-universal condemnation. Northerners hated the fugitive slave law and southerners hated the restrictions on slavery. The unity of the nation crumbled even further.
This comprimise, which was intended to unite Americans but ended up leaving everyone displeased, rightly has become the most important element of Millard Fillmore's time in office. While he clearly attempted to do right in urging the bill's passing, it left him with a truly marred and forgetable legacy in American History. While some credit this action for staving off the Civil War for at least a few years, in truth it was much like putting a band-aid on a broken arm.
Post-Presidency
Fillmore failed to achieve his party's nomination for reelection in 1852, and the Whigs would never again win a national election. For this reason, Fillmore's nickname stands to this day as "The Last of the Whigs." The party would before long morph itself into the new Republican party, but for now it was all but done for.
Fillmore ran for President once more, in 1856 as a member of the "Know-Nothing" party, though he did not necessarily agree with all of their anti-immigrent sentiments. Fillmore failed in this attempt, though he had the backing of his own party and the remnants of the Whigs, instead acting as a spoiler - ensuring the election of James Buchanan over the new Republican candidate, John C. Fremont.
After this, Fillmore retired to Buffalo and remarried (his first wife, Abigail, had died of pneumonia after attending the inauguration of her husband's successor, Franklin Pierce - very similar to the cause of death of William Henry Harrison a decade earlier).
Today, Fillmore is most popularly remembered as the man who had the first bathtub installed in the White House. Unfortunately, there is not even a hint of truth to this story - so even the most well-known of his accomplishments only serves to emphasize just how forgotten this character is, despite playing an important role in this crucial chapter of American history.
References:
"Millard Fillmore." American Presidents: An Online Reference Resource.
"Biography of Millard Fillmore." The White House.
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