Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was the 13th President of the United States, serving from 1850 until 1853 and the last member of the Whig Party to hold that office. He was the second Vice President to assume the presidency upon the death of a sitting president, succeeding Zachary Taylor, who died of what is thought to be acute gastroenteritis. Fillmore was never elected president; after serving out Taylor's term, he failed to gain the nomination of the Whigs for president in the 1852 presidential election, and, four years later, in the 1856 presidential election, he again failed to win election as the Know Nothing Party and Whig candidate.
Early life and career
Fillmore was born in a log cabin in Moravia, Cayuga County, in the Finger Lakes region of New York State on January 7, 1800, to Nathaniel Fillmore and Phoebe Millard, as the second of nine children and the eldest son. (As this was three weeks after George Washington's death, Fillmore was the first U.S. President born after the death of a former president.) He was the first future American President to be born in the 1800s. He later lived in East Aurora, New York in the southtowns region south of Buffalo, New York. Though a Unitarian in later life, Fillmore was descended from Scottish Presbyterians on his father's side and English dissenters on his mother's. His father apprenticed him to a brutal cloth maker in Sparta, New York, at age fourteen to learn the cloth-making trade. He left after four months but subsequently took another apprenticeship in the same trade at New Hope, New York. He struggled to obtain an education under frontier conditions, attending New Hope Academy for six months in 1819. Later that year, he began to clerk for Judge Walter Wood of Montville, New York, under whom Fillmore began to study law.
He fell in love with Abigail Powers, whom he met while at New Hope Academy and later married on February 5, 1826. The couple had two children, Millard Powers Fillmore and Mary Abigail Fillmore. After leaving Wood and buying out his apprenticeship, Fillmore moved to Buffalo, New York, where he continued his studies in the law office of Asa Rice and Joseph Clary. He was admitted to the bar in 1823 and began his law practice in East Aurora, in 1825, he built a house in East Aurora for his new bride, Abigail. In 1834, he formed a law partnership, Fillmore and Hall (becoming Fillmore, Hall and Haven in 1836), with his good friend Nathan K. Hall (who would later serve in his cabinet as Postmaster General). It would become one of western New York's most prestigious firms.
In 1846, he founded the private University of Buffalo, which today is the public State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY Buffalo), the largest school in the New York state university system.
His military service was limited. He served in the New York militia during the Mexican War of 1846 and during the American Civil War.
Politics
In 1828, Fillmore was elected to the New York State Assembly on the Anti-Masonic ticket, serving for one term, from 1829 to 1831. He was later elected as a Whig (having followed his mentor Thurlow Weed into the party) to the 23rd Congress in 1832, serving from 1833 to 1835. He was reelected in 1836 to the 25th Congress, to the 26th and to the 27th Congresses serving from 1837 to 1843, declining to be a candidate for re-nomination in 1842.
In Congress, he opposed the entrance of Texas as a slave territory. He came in second place in the bid for Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1841. He served as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee from 1841 to 1843 and was an author of the Tariff of 1842, as well as two other bills that President John Tyler vetoed.
After leaving Congress, Millard Fillmore was the unsuccessful Whig candidate for Governor of New York in 1844. He was the first New York State Comptroller elected by general ballot, and was in office from 1848 to 1849. As state comptroller, he revised New York's banking system, making it a model for the future National Banking System.
Vice Presidency 1849–1850
At the Whig national convention in 1848, the nomination of Gen. Zachary Taylor for president angered both the supporters of Henry Clay and the opponents of the extension of slavery into the territories gained in the Mexican–American War. A group of practical Whig politicians nominated Fillmore for vice president, believing that he would heal party wounds because he came from a non-slave state even though he was relatively obscure, and because he would help the ticket carry the populous state of New York.
Fillmore was also selected in part to block New York state machine boss Thurlow Weed from receiving the vice presidential nomination (and his front man William H. Seward from receiving a position in Taylor's cabinet). Weed ultimately got Seward elected to the Senate. This competition between Seward and Fillmore led to Seward's becoming a more vocal part of cabinet meetings and having more of a voice than Fillmore in advising the administration. The battle would continue even after Taylor's death.
Taylor and Fillmore disagreed on the slavery issue in the new western territories taken from Mexico in the Mexican-American War. Taylor wanted the new states to be free states, while Fillmore supported slavery in those states as a means of appeasing the South. In his own words: "God knows that I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil ... and we must endure it and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the Constitution."
Fillmore presided over the Senate during the months of nerve-wracking debates over the Compromise of 1850. During one debate, Senator Henry S. Foote of Mississippi pulled a pistol on Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri. Fillmore made no public comment on the merits of the compromise proposals, but a few days before President Taylor's death, Fillmore suggested to the president that, should there be a tie vote on Henry Clay's bill, he would vote in favor of the North.
Presidency 1850–1853
Policies
Upon the unexpected death of President Taylor on July 9, 1850, Fillmore ascended to the presidency. The change in leadership also signaled an abrupt political shift as Fillmore appointed his own cabinet. Taylor, himself, had been about to replace his entire scandal-ridden cabinet at the time of his death, but now, beginning with the appointment of Daniel Webster as Secretary of State, Fillmore's cabinet would be dominated by individuals who, except for Treasury Secretary Thomas Corwin, favored what would become the Compromise of 1850.
As president, Fillmore dealt with increasing party divisions within the Whig party; party harmony became one of his primary objectives. He tried to unite the party by pointing out the differences between the Whigs and the Democrats (by proposing tariff reforms that negatively reflected on the Democratic Party). Another primary objective of Fillmore was to preserve the Union from the intensifying slavery debate.
Henry Clay's proposed bill to admit California to the Union still aroused all the violent arguments for and against the extension of slavery without any progress toward settling the major issues (the South continued to threaten secession). Fillmore recognized that Clay's plan was the best way to end the sectional crisis (California free state, harsher fugitive slave law, abolish slave trade in DC). Clay, exhausted, left Washington to recuperate, passing leadership to Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. At this critical juncture, President Fillmore announced his support of the Compromise of 1850.
On August 6, 1850, he sent a message to Congress recommending that Texas be paid to abandon its claims to part of New Mexico. This, combined with his mobilization of 750 Federal troops to New Mexico, helped shift 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 gave 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 the state for lost lands.
- Grant territorial status to New Mexico.
- Place federal officers at the disposal of slaveholders seeking escapees—the Fugitive Slave Act.
- Abolish the slave trade, but not slavery, 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." Whigs on both sides refused to accept the finality of Fillmore's law (which led to more party division, and a loss of numerous elections), which forced Northern Whigs to say "God Save us from Whig Vice Presidents."
Fillmore'
Obelisk in Washington, DC: Reviews and details on washingtonpost.com
Obelisk on washingtonpost.com's Going Out Guide; your source for Italian restaurants in Washington, DC
Obelisk Restaurants in Washington, DC - Lonely Planet Travel ...
Obelisk Restaurants in Washington, DC, experience eating out for dinner, lunch or breakfast when you are dinning out in Washington, DC - Lonely Planet
Obelisk, Washington DC - Restaurant Reviews - TripAdvisor
Obelisk, Washington DC: See 27 unbiased reviews of Obelisk, rated 4.0 of 5 on TripAdvisor and ranked #21 of 1,189 restaurants in Washington DC.
Obelisk in Washington, DC - Switchboard.com
Find Obelisk in Washington, DC. We have the Business Details, Phone, Map, Directions, Reviews and More. Obelisk in Washington, DC for Restaurants - Switchboard.com
Obelisk - Washington Restaurant - MenuPages Italian Restaurant Search ...
Hold down Control (PC) or Command (Mac) key + mouseclick to select more than one option
Obelisk - Dupont Circle - Washington | Urbanspoon
Obelisk, Italian Restaurant in Dupont Circle. See 7 critic reviews and 1 blog post. Reviews from critics, food blogs and fellow diners.
Obelisk - Washington, DC, 20036 - Citysearch
Advertise With Us Washington, DC Metro >Washington >Restaurants >Obelisk ... Citysearch is a registered trademark of Bluefoot Ventures Inc., and ...
Obelisk Restaurant Washington Washington DC DC Reviews Gayot
Want Italian cuisine in Washington tonight? Obelisk has a 15 rating at Gayot. Read the full reviews for Washington restaurants now.
Obelisk - Washington DC - BooRah
Obelisk, Washington, DC - A small, cozy place ; perfect for an anniversary and a romantic birthday dinner. We would definately go back the next time we are in DC for a nice dinner ...
Obelisk - Washington, DC Restaurant Info - when.com
Seeking information about Obelisk in Washington? Come to when.com for local reviews, driving directions, promotional offers and photos.