Millard Fillmore

Fillmore was born into poverty in upstate New York's Finger Lakes on January 7, 1800, had little formal schooling, but studied law and built a practice in Buffalo. He entered politics through the Anti-Masonic Party, won a seat in the New York Assembly in 1828 and the U.S. House in 1832, then joined the Whigs as they coalesced in the mid-1830s - always trailing his rival William H. Seward in the state party's hierarchy. Elected vice president in 1848, he was sidelined by Zachary Taylor until Taylor's sudden death in July 1850 elevated him to the presidency. Fillmore immediately dismissed the cabinet, backed Henry Clay's omnibus bill, and drove through the Compromise of 1850 - including the Fugitive Slave Act, which he enforced as duty despite the political poison it spread through his party. The Whigs denied him their 1852 nomination, then collapsed entirely; Fillmore drifted to the Know Nothings, ran a muted 1856 campaign that avoided nativism and lost to James Buchanan, and spent the Civil War criticizing Lincoln from the margins. He died March 8, 1874, remembered mostly for accelerating the crackup he tried to delay.