Fillmore, MILLARD

Fillmore, MILLARD, thirteenth president of the United States, was born on 7th February 1800, at Summer Hill, New York, where his education was limited to the very imperfect instruction furnished during three months of the year by a primitive frontier school. At the age of fourteen he was bound apprentice to a wool-carder; and during the five years he laboured at this occupation he used every means at his disposal to cultivate his mind. In 1819 he began the study of law, receiving his board in return for his work in the office of a country lawyer; and during part of this time he also taught school, until in 1823 he was admitted to the Buffalo bar, where he built up a solid reputation for sound legal knowledge and sterling probity. In 1828 he began his political career, being in that year returned by Erie county to the state legislature of New York, where he joined the Whig party, and was mainly instrumental in procuring the abolition of imprisonment for debt in the state of New York. In the period 1832-42 he was four times elected member of congress; in 1844 he was defeated in a contest for the governorship of the state; in 1847 he was elected to the post of comptroller of New York; and in the following year he was made vice-president of the United States. The unexpected death of President Taylor in July 1850 left the chief magistracy vacant, and Fillmore succeeded to that office, which he held till 1853. He proved an able statesman, and his presidency was marked by the passing of some very salutary measures, notwithstanding that his party were in the minority; but his signing of and attempt to enforce the fugitive-slave law rendered him unpopular in the North. In 1856 he was nominated for the presidency by the American party, but the struggle lay be- tween the republican and the democratic candidates, and he received the electoral vote of Maryland only. He visited Europe in 1855 and 1866. He took no active part in the civil war, although he gave his influence to the cause of the Union. After his retirement from political life he resided at Buffalo, where he died 7th March 1874. See Chamberlain's Biography of Fillmore (1856), and the article by General James Grant Wilson in Appleton's Cyclo. of Amer. Biog. (1887).