Presidency of Millard Fillmore

Historical Context Note

Lucas Paul Richert (University of Saskatchewan)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.2: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Domains

Changes of government, elections and reigns

Dates

Date of occurrence 1850-07-10-1853-03-04

Places

United States (Location)

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

During the national Whig convention in 1848, Millard Fillmore was elected as the party's vice presidential nominee to stand alongside the presidential candidate, Zachary Taylor. Both men owed a substantial debt to Henry Clay, one of the most influential men in the party who lent his support to their campaigns. Thereafter, the Whig ticket won the presidential election. Fillmore rose to the presidency upon the death of Talyor in 1850. On the domestic front, Fillmore made grievous errors that surley cost him any chance of re-election. He supported Henry Clay's Compromise of 1850 Act, which sought to appease both sides of the fractious lsavery issue. Fillmore was himself opposed to slavery but he believed that Clya's measure would hold the Union together. Thus, Fillmore felt obligated to…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

268 words

Citation: Richert, Lucas Paul. "Presidency of Millard Fillmore". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 January 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=725, accessed 11 May 2024.]

Save this article