#13: Fillmore, Millard

Millard Fillmore, our Thirteenth President
January 7, 1800 (Locke, New York) - March 8, 1874 (Buffalo, New York)

• Fillmore signed the Compromise of 1850, the series of laws passed by Congress that abolished the slave trade in the District of Columbia, admitted California as a free state, and organized the territories of Utah and New Mexico with no reference to slavery. It also established a stricter fugitive slave law. This Compromise is credited with staving of civil war for ten years, but it also was a huge concession to the South.
• Fillmore was a self-made man. He spent part of his childhood as a clothmaker's apprentice. The master treated him so badly "that the boy once threatened him with an axe." At age 19, Fillmore bought his freedom from the apprenticeship for $30. He also bought the first book he ever owned: a dictionary. He went on to study law with a local judge.
• Fillmore was elected with Taylor on the Whig ticket. They won in part because the slavery issue split the Democratic vote--many voted with the Free Soil party. Fillmore took office when Taylor died: the second vice president to inherit the presidency in this way.
• Fillmore married one of his teachers, Abigail Powers, the daughter of a baptist minister. "He was 19 and she was 21, and they fell in love." They had two children and lived in Buffalo. Mrs. Fillmore died one month after her husband left office (he was not re-elected). He remarried five years later in Buffalo, where he continued to be active in politics, opposing Abraham Lincoln's policies.
  
• During Fillmore presidency, "Amelia Bloomer wore long pantaloons to draw attention to the woman suffrage movement. Many of her followers copied her costume, and they became known as 'Bloomer Girls.'" Also, school attendance became compulsory in Massachusetts--the first law in the country of its kind.