When was millard fillmore elected president

Finally, it empowered federal marshals to enforce the law. The Fugitive Slave Law also cited severe penalties for noncompliance. The act horrified Americans openly opposed to slavery, and they vowed to fight its passage.

Clay urged Taylor to join the debate over the compromise, but the President wanted little part of it. Seeming to take a wait-and-see approach to the legislative fight, he simply contested some of the positions of the compromise and threatened a veto.

Gradually, support in Congress for the compromise lost steam, and the omnibus bill was tied up in endless Senate debates by mid America was no closer to deciding the slavery issue than it had been before. Fillmore watched much of the debate from the sidelines, isolated from the President's administration. Events, however, took a rapid turn. At a Fourth of July celebration in on the White House lawn, the President sought relief from the oppressive heat and humidity by gulping iced beverages and a large bowl of cherries.

He suddenly began to experience intestinal cramps. It is likely that either the ice or the fruit was contaminated with cholera, a stomach ailment caused by unsanitary conditions that could—and frequently did—kill a person in scant hours in those times. Physicians, resorting to the medical practices of the day, prescribed bleedings and opiates that only made matters worse.

Within five days, Zachary Taylor was dead. He had been President for just sixteen months. The presidency had suddenly fallen upon a forgotten man. Millard Fillmore, who had been all but banished from the Taylor administration and held opinions very different from the late chief executive, was suddenly the President of the United States.

He immediately replaced Taylor's cabinet with proponents of the compromise and threw the full weight of his new administration behind its passage. Weary from the epic compromise fight and the criticism that it had drawn toward him, Millard Fillmore showed little enthusiasm for serving another term.

He did no campaigning and did not even disclose his intentions on running again. In March of , using an editor allied to him, Fillmore planted a report in a newspaper that he was retiring from office. Then Daniel Webster announced his candidacy. The candidacy of his own secretary of state did not greatly trouble the President; indeed, he was honestly sympathetic towards Webster's longtime ambition for the office.

Webster's announcement, however, comprised the last straw for Fillmore, and the President tried to formally withdraw from consideration until others in the cabinet talked him out of it.

The Whig Party was fragmenting over slavery disputes. Fillmore was disliked by abolitionists for enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law. Jump to: navigation , search. This page was current at the end of the official's last term in office covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates. Categories : presidential candidate U. Hidden category: Pages with reference errors. Voter information What's on my ballot? Where do I vote? How do I register to vote?

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Election results. Privacy policy About Ballotpedia Disclaimers Login. Total Votes. Election results via: official election results. Preceded by Zachary Taylor W. President of the United States Succeeded by Franklin Pierce D. As a concession to the South, New Mexico's status -- free or slaveholding -- will be dependent on how its constitution reads at the time of admittance to the Union. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Bill, prohibiting individuals from aiding runaway slaves, and threatening fines and imprisonment to those who do.

Escaped slaves will be returned to their owners, denied a jury trial, and prevented from testifying on their own behalf. Part of the Compromise of and an attempt to ease tensions within the fractious nation, the bill is a concession to the South but angers many Northerners.

On September 18, , President Millard Fillmore signed into law the Fugitive Slave Act, which enacted strict provisions for returning runaway slaves to their owners. The act was part of the Compromise of , which was designed to ease sectional conflict between the North and South, but the inclusion of the Fugitive Slave Law made that nearly impossible.

Southerners and their allies in Congress designed the Fugitive Slave Law to end Northern interference in the capture and return of fugitive slaves. The law decreed that runaway slaves apprehended anywhere in the United States had to be returned to their masters if new federally appointed commissioners decided that they were in fact fugitive slaves. It denied any due process to such slaves and allowed authorities to arrest African American suspects and return them to slave territory—whether the arrested person was an actual slave or not.

Finally, it empowered federal marshals to enforce the law. The Fugitive Slave Law also cited severe penalties for noncompliance. The Fugitive Slave Act ignited a firestorm of protest across the North from both activists and the general public.

Many Northerners who had previously paid little attention to slavery became stanch opponents after the passage of the law. Most importantly, the act greatly increased sectional animosities and renewed interest in antislavery politics in the North in the s. Fillmore personally opposed slavery but signed the Fugitive Slave Law for two reasons.

First, he believed the South would secede if its demands, including a fugitive slave law, were not met. Second, Fillmore believed he could use the Compromise to unite the Whig Party behind a single national platform. He worked to prevent Northern Whigs who opposed the Fugitive Slave Law from winning elections and used his patronage powers to appoint pro-Fugitive Slave Law political allies to federal office.

While Fillmore's support for the Compromise of helped stall the Southern secessionist movement, his efforts to unite the Whigs behind the Compromise failed, in large part because of the Fugitive Slave Law. Antislavery Whigs, who thought the law unjust, refused to support Fillmore for President in the The Fugitive Slave Law, moreover, only deepened existing, and eventually fatal, divides within the Whig Party over slavery.

Congress passes the Compromise of , written by Kentucky senator Henry Clay. The deal settles the issue of slavery in the newly acquired territories, dividing the country along the thirty-seventh parallel, with slavery in the South and free states in the North.

From to , Young leads thousands of disciples from Illinois to the central Utah valley, where he establishes Salt Lake City, the site for the Church's new temple. With hundreds of new arrivals each year, Young founds scores of colonies to provide the inhabitants with homes and land; at his death in , nearly Mormon colonies exist. Headed by feminists and abolitionists, a national women's rights convention is held in Worcester, Massachusetts, and is attended by delegates from nine states.

Chosen for its accessibility by rail, the Worcester convention attracts hundreds of people. Among the main topics, participants discuss employment opportunities, political and legal rights, property rights after marriage, and educational opportunities for women, especially in medicine. Acting on long-held interest in gaining influence in Central America, the United States ratifies its first commercial treaty with El Salvador.

The coinage of three-cent pieces, the smallest coin in weight and thickness ever issued, begins to facilitate postal payments.

The park, right Native Americans hold a significant place in White House history. For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples, including the Nacotchtank and This year marks the centennial of the 19th Amendment, the culmination of the suffragists' fight to secure the right to Since the James Madison presidency, St.

The collection of fine art at the White House has evolved and grown over time. The collection began with mostly No sport is more closely tied to the American presidency than baseball. Financier and philanthropist Da Search WHHA - start typing and then listen for common searches like yours. Explore the Initiative. The Sessions Podcast. Have you Ever Wondered