Millard Fillmore Essay, Research Paper

Introduction Millard Fillmore was born in 1800. Fillmore is largely know for being the 13th President of the United States. In a critical minute in American history, Fillmore succeeded President Zachary Taylor. Because the Mexican War had let the United States gain new districts, the struggle over bondage was renewed. To the alleviation of Northern and Southern politicians, Fillmore pursued a moderate and compromising policy. In 1850, he signed the Compromise of 1850 into jurisprudence, which admitted one district as a free province and allowed slave proprietors to settle in the others. The via media didn & # 8217 ; t wholly work out the bondage job, but it did maintain the subject peaceful for over a decennary. Fillmore went on to decease in the twelvemonth 1874. Early Old ages Millard Fillmore began life in the twelvemonth 1800 in upstate New York. He was the oldest boy in a household with a sum of 9 kids. Several old ages before he was born, his parents, Nathaniel and Phoebe Millard Fillmore, moved from Vermont to upstate New York. As a immature adult male, Fillmore did many different things. Fillmore did jobs on his male parents farm, worked as an learner in the haberdasher & # 8217 ; s trade, and attended to local schools away and on until he was 17 old ages old. With the aid of Abigail Powers, Fillmore was able educate himself. At the age of 19, with the assistance of Judge Walter Wood of Cayuga County, Fillmore began to analyze jurisprudence. To assist fund his instruction, he would learn categories at schools. Then his household moved to East Aurora. In 1823 he opened a jurisprudence office in East Aurora. Three old ages subsequently he married his old instructor, Abigail Powers. During thier matrimony, they had 2 kids, Mary Abigail and Millard Powers. Throughtout the beginning of their matrimony, Mrs. Fillmore continued to learn school and to assist her hubby with his jurisprudence surveies. Politicss In 1826, the twelvemonth Fillmore was married, an incident in western New York set him on the route to the presidential term. When a former member of the Masonic fraternal order who had written a book that claimed to expose the order & # 8217 ; s secrets, named William Morgan, disappeared, a rumour spread that he had been murdered by revenging Masons. A newspaper publishing house and politician by the name Thurlow Weed, picked up on the incident and to elicit public feeling against all secret organisations and helped to form the Anti-Masonic Party. Meanwhile, Millard Fillmore had been deriving regard and popularity in East Aurora. Peoples liked his professional moralss, temperate wonts, careful address and frock, and attractive visual aspect. These qualities got him the attending of the Anti-Masonic politicians, who were looking for vote-winning campaigners. In 1828, Weed and his group ran Fillmore for a place in the New York province legislative assembly, and he was elected. Four old ages subsequently, once more with Weed & # 8217 ; s backup, Fillmore was elected to the House of Representatives in the Congress of the United States. United States Congressman In the mid-1830s, Fillmore be came a member of the Whig Party when Anti-Masonic Party merged with the Whig Party. In Congress Fillmore was a protagonist of Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, the leader of the Whig Party. The two work forces believed that via media on the bondage issue was necessary to continue peace between the North and South. In the of import place of president of the House Ways and Means Committee, Fillmore took a prima portion in bordering the protective duty of 1842. The duty raised rates to about the high degree of the duty of 1833. That duty was opposed by the South and had provoked the province of South Carolina to go through its Regulation of Nullification, doing the duty nothingness within its boundary lines. Fillmore chose non to run for reelection in 1842. He hoped for the frailty presidential nomination on Clay & # 8217 ; s Whig presidential ticket, but the party & # 8217 ; s national convention of 1844 gave that topographic point to Theodore Frelinghuysen of New Jersey. Fillmore decided to accept the Whig nomination for governor of New York. In the election Fillmore was defeated by opponet from the Democratic Party, Silas Wright, and Clay lost the decisive New York ballot. The Whigs nominated Fillmore for province accountant in 1847. This office was following in power after the governors and supervised public fundss and superintended the Bankss. Fillmore defeated his Democratic opposition by the largest border of all time gained by any Whig over a Democrat in New York. The triumph established Fillmore as a ballot getter puting him in competition with former Governor William Henry Seward for the place of New York & # 8217 ; s taking Whig. The presidential election of 1848 was dominated by the late ended Mexican War and by the Wilmot Proviso of 1846, which had been inspired by the war. The provision said that bondage should non be brought into any district acquired by the United States as a consequence of the Mexican War. Although the provision was ne’er passed in Congress, it raised the political issue of whether bondage should be extended past its bounds prior to the war. During the Whig convention of 1848 in Philadelphia, a friend of Fillmore, Henry Clay, lost the presidential nomination to Zachary Taylor. Clay & # 8217 ; s policy of via media on the bondage issue was

good known, whereas Taylor, a hero of the Mexican War, was associated with no peculiar point of position. He won the nomination largely through the attempts of Weed and Southern leaders. After Taylor was nominated, John A. Collier, a Whig delegate from New York and a political ally of Fillmore’s, suggested to the convention that it lessen the letdown of the Clay protagonists by calling Fillmore as the campaigner for frailty president. His thought was successful, and Fillmore was nominated. To avoid farther contention over bondage or any other issue, the national convention adopted no peculiar platform.

During their national convention the Democratic Party tried non to do a large trade out of bondage. They nominated United States Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan for president and William O. Butler of Kentucky for frailty president. Cass favored allowing the colonists of new districts decide for themselves whether they would let bondage or non. Vice President of the United States During the first half of 1850, Fillmore as frailty president presided over the United States Senate ( the upper chamber of Congress ) as angry arguments raged between Northern and Southern sectionalists over the position of bondage in the late acquired lands. His equity and sense of wit in the chair were non plenty to reconstruct peace among the contending senators. The antislavery cabal, led by Senator Seward ( the former governor of New York ) and Senator Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, clashed with the Southerners, led by Senator James M. Mason of Virginia, Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, and Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Angry words figuratively rocked the Senate hall, as they did the chamber of the House of Representatives. Although President Taylor was a Louisiana slave owner, he leaned more toward Seward & # 8217 ; s antislavery positions. Determined to continue the Fundamental law of the United States, the president threatened to direct federal military personnels to protect disputed New Mexico district from an invasion by proslavery Texans. Southerners countered that, if Taylor followed through with his menace, the act would be the signal for an armed Southern rebellion against federal power. Mississippi called for a convention to run into in June 1850 at Nashville, Tennessee, to see sezession. President of the United States President Fillmore & # 8217 ; s pick of a Cabinet showed unmistakably that, as a moderate Whig and a enemy of provincialism, he favored via media to avoid a national crisis. As his secretary of province, Fillmore appointed Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, who had appealed for via media in a famed address on March 7, 1850. Another important Cabinet assignment was Governor John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, besides a well-known conciliatory Whig, as lawyer general. Fillmore made field his desire for peace in a message to Congress on August 6, 1850. It was hailed by influential congressional leaders as a masterstroke of timing and persuasive moderateness. Aided by the full power and support of Fillmore & # 8217 ; s disposal, Clay & # 8217 ; s omnibus measure, known as the Compromise of 1850, was split into five separate steps, all of which were passed by Congress and signed into jurisprudence by Fillmore. Meanwhile, the Nashville convention adjourned without taking any action against the Union. One of the five steps was the new Fugitive Slave Law. Fillmore signed and, more of import, enforced the Fugitive Slave Law, actions that were wholly in maintaining with his conciliatory policy. As a consequence, he won the hate of the more extremist antislavery group. Seward and Weed, the antislavery Whig leaders of New York, opposed Fillmore vehemently, and the president countered by taking pro-Seward people from federal office. At a Whig convention in Syracuse, New York, declarations were passed O.K.ing Seward & # 8217 ; s extremist place. Thereupon a contingent of Fillmore conservativists walked out, led by Francis Granger, whose grey hair gave the name Silver Gray Whigs to that cabal. This act widened the breach in the Whig Party, which was besides disintegrating in other parts of the state on the issue of bondage. Election of 1852 Fillmore was diffident to function a 2nd term, but participated in the Whig national convention of 1852 because he wanted to guarantee that the party platform supported the Compromise of 1850. After procuring that, he asked that his name be withdrawn at an opportune minute and his delegates transferred to Daniel Webster, another rival for the Whig presidential nomination. However, Fillmore & # 8217 ; s Southern Whig protagonists, who believed he would win, backed him smartly and ne’er did retreat his name. They held out for Webster to let go of his delegates. By the clip Webster did that, it was excessively late. The antislavery Whigs had secured control of the convention and, mindful of Fillmore & # 8217 ; s enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, they succeeded in holding General Winfield Scott named the party & # 8217 ; s campaigner. In November, Scott was resolutely defeated by his Democratic opposition, Franklin Pierce. After the 1852 election the Whig Party broke up over the slavery issue. By 1856 its topographic point had been taken by the Republican Party, led by Seward and Weed.