Unknown Presidents- MIllard Fillmore. Fillmore was the was the 13th president of the US. Here are a few facts about this little known president.
From History.com
-Was born in to extreme poverty. Born in a log cabin, Fillmore spent much of his youth clearing land and raising crops on the 130-acre farm that his father leased in New York’s Finger Lakes region. At age 14, his father, hoping to steer him away from farm life, apprenticed him to a cloth dresser. But he soon returned home after allegedly suffering severe mistreatment. Fillmore next apprenticed with the owners of a textile mill. Despite receiving only minimal formal schooling, he worked hard to educate himself and eventually became a schoolteacher. He also took an interest in the law, spurred on by his father’s landlord, a local judge. Following a couple of clerkships, Fillmore was admitted to the bar at age 23 and opened a practice near Buffalo, New York
-He got his political start as an Anti-Mason.
Fillmore was elected to the New York state legislature in 1828 on the Anti-Masonic ticket, which, as its name suggests, strongly opposed Freemasonry. He remained affiliated with that party, which at the time polled well in western New York, upon winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives four years later. But he soon cut ties with it to join the Whig Party, an amalgam of forces opposed to Democratic President Andrew Jackson. As a Whig, Fillmore served three terms in the House, lost a race for New York governor, became New York’s comptroller and then received a surprise nomination to be Zachary Taylor’s running mate in the 1848 presidential election.
-Fillmore did not have a vice president.
Since the Constitution did not originally include a provision for replacing dead or departed vice presidents, the office has been vacant for about 38 of its 225 years. Fillmore, along with Tyler, Johnson and Arthur, had no second-in-command for the entirety of their terms. This situation is unlikely to repeat itself, however, as the 25th Amendment, ratified in 1967, allows the president to appoint a VP subject to the approval of the U.S. Congress.
- Fillmore attempted to reduce tensions between the North and South.
Though personally opposed to slavery, Fillmore valued the preservation of the Union above all. As a result, he supported the so-called Compromise of 1850, a package of bills that allowed the newly formed territories of New Mexico and Utah to decide the slavery question for themselves; admitted California as a free state; banned the slave trade (but not slavery) in Washington, D.C.; settled a Texas boundary dispute; and authorized the use of federal officers to capture runaway slaves. “The long agony is over,” Fillmore wrote afterward. “[…] These several acts are not in all respects what I would have desired, yet, I am rejoiced at their passage, and trust they will restore harmony and peace to our distracted country.” However, the compromise did not hold, and the Civil War broke out in 1861.
-Fillmore once personally fought a fire at the Library of Congress.
Fillmore’s father purportedly owned only three books: a Bible, a hymnbook and an almanac. Yet Fillmore became a bibliophile anyway, carrying a dictionary with him at all times in order to improve his vocabulary. As president, he and his wife founded the first permanent White House library. He also reportedly raced to help fight a December 1851 blaze at the Library of Congress and then signed a bill to fund the replacement of all the books that had been destroyed.