 |
| Image from: https://issuu.com/wintersking74/docs/080508715x-millard_fillmore_by_paul |
Written by law professor Paul Finkelman, Millard Fillmore, in The American President series, focuses much less on the life of Fillmore himself and more on a political and legal analysis of what got him into the office of Vice President in the first place and his policy decisions once President that the author argues would pave the way for Civil War in the long-term and in the short-term prevent Fillmore’s outright election to a term as President. Finkelman spends a large chunk of the middle section of the book discussing the machinations of the Compromise of 1850 and how it was in no way a real compromise and then repetitiously reminding us of Fillmore’s aggressive implementation of the Fugitive Slave Act that was part of that “Compromise.”
 |
| image from: http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=14 |
We are only offered a few small pieces of information about Fillmore’s wife and family. Fillmore came from a poor family in central New York. He was almost entirely self-taught, but met his future wife while briefly enrolled in a local academy. Abigail Powers was a teacher at the school. “She was two years his senior, the daughter of a deceased Baptist minister and the sister of a local judge. Abigail was well read and as sophisticated as one could become at the time in a tiny town in rural central New York” (4-5). Millard and Abigail married in February 1826. Abigail continued teaching for two years after their marriage, making her “the only first lady before the twentieth century to have worked outside the home after marriage” (10). As Finkelman points out, “Her employment after marriage also suggests that while Fillmore was rising in his profession [law], he was hardly economically secure at this time” (10). Abigail remained in Buffalo for much of her husband’s vice presidency. The book says that after Fillmore moved into the White House as President in July 1850, “in the fall Abigail, who had last visited her husband in March, returned to Washington” (72). We learn nothing else about Abigail during her time as First Lady except that either she or her husband started the White House library, and the Fillmore family was personally involved in ordering books (96). Abigail Fillmore died less than a month after President Fillmore left office and their daughter, Mary Abigail, died in July 1854. Finkelman tells us when mentioning her death that Mary Abigail “often served as the official hostess in the White House” (131-32), but we learn nothing else about life in the White House or any other details of the personal lives of the Millard family.
While reading this book, I was most struck by how much Millard Fillmore seems to have had in common with our current president. While significant differences are that Fillmore did not come from a wealthy family and was a largely self-educated, voracious reader, both Fillmore and 45 had, respectively, little to no political experience and unexpectedly gained their nominations. Each fumbled his way through most of his time in high office – making costly mistakes and lacking any real backbone and leadership abilities in cases where it might have actually been beneficial to himself or the country. At the same time, each proved stubborn in obsessively enforcing unfair and potentially damaging policy and let his fear of outsiders and disregard for the most vulnerable populations dictate his policy and campaigns. And similar to what seems to be the trajectory of the current administration, Millard Fillmore’s “leadership, or lack thereof, did little to either solve the nation’s problems or reduce its tensions. Indeed, his presidency exacerbated both” (4). I’ll let the reader consult Finkelman's book or other research for details and to make their own determination in this regard, but consider this: When Fillmore ran for president again in 1856, he did so under the nomination of the American Party (also known as the Know-Nothing Party) whose slogan was “Americans Must Rule America.” Sound at all familiar?
