Book offers insights into Fillmore’s presidency

MILLARD FILLMORE: The 13th President, 1850-1853. By Paul Finkelman. Times Books. 192 pages. $23.

Millard Fillmore was the second “accidental president” in the history of the United States.

Born in central New York and largely self-educated, he was elected vice president to Zachary Taylor with little experience in national politics.

When Taylor died prematurely in July 1850, the politically obscure, and woefully unprepared, Fillmore was thrust into office, becoming the nation’s 13th president.

In this unapologetically critical assessment, a continuation of the American Presidents Series, legal scholar and historian Paul Finkelman contends that the legacy of Fillmore’s presidential career was his “reckless enforcement” of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, a federal law with strict provisions for the capture and return of alleged runaway slaves.

Fillmore’s failure to recognize widespread Northern abhorrence for the law and his desire to appease Southern Whigs caused him to go after dissenters, Finkelman writes, “with the fanaticism of a grand inquisitor.”

But Fillmore’s attempts to uphold the law did not resolve debates over slavery. Rather, as chief executive, his decisions exacerbated sectional tensions and accelerated the demise of the Whig Party, to which he belonged.

Finkelman’s focus in this book is necessarily narrow. As an installment in an ongoing series that consists of slim volumes, there is little room for discussion of Fillmore’s life outside of politics. But readers seeking to understand the essence of Fillmore’s administration and its historical significance will find this book valuable.

Reviewer Nathan P. Johnson, a park guide and acting curator at the Fort Sumter National Monument