Millard Fillmore Biography of a President Robert J Rayback Books
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Harry S. Truman “characterized Fillmore as a weak, trivial thumb-twaddler who would do nothing to offend anyone".
But is such a statement justified?
Robert J. Rayback in this fascinating biography re-evaluates the career and presidency of Millard Fillmore.
Rather than viewing him as a leader who only had two and a half years in office to implement his policies, he places Fillmore within the tumultuous political context of the 1840s and 1850s.
While the United States was gripped by division Fillmore worked tirelessly through his years, both before and after his presidency, to keep the Union together and his people united.
Rayback’s work provides brilliant insight into how the American political party system was developing through the nineteenth century and how it was becoming increasingly likely through Fillmore’s career that the country was developing into a two-party system.
Drawing his evidence from a variety of sources but particularly from a collection of 8,500 pieces of correspondence between Fillmore and his friends and rivals allows Rayback to fully uncover the mindset of the political leaders of the mid-nineteenth century.
“It is the story of a life not only of dignity and integrity but of permanent achievement on both the local and national scene. … This is a curious and complicated story well told.” American History Review
Robert J. Rayback was a professor of history at Syracuse University who died in 1996. Millard Fillmore Biography of a President was first published in 1959.
Millard Fillmore Biography of a President Robert J Rayback Books
Millard Fillmore, the U.S.A.’s 13th president, is generally viewed by many historians as one the all-time worst. Curiously, you would never have fathomed that after reading this biography. Interestingly, the author alludes to this fact in this book’s introduction. He claims that whatever history has taught us about this man, more scrutiny is required. He then paints a very flattering portrait of the man throughout the entire book. For someone like me who doesn’t know much about Millard Fillmore, who should I believe? The author? Or the masses? Whoever the masses may be.So it’s very easy to be critical based on the author’s treatment of his subject matter. But before anyone judges, they should do their own homework and not frame their opinion based on what others have told us. What is undeniable to me, is that this is a very well-written book that held my interest throughout. I admit I was a bit skeptical since (according to Amazon) the author doesn’t have any other published works. I’ve also learned that ‘older’ books tend to hold my interest less. Perhaps that’s an unfair generalization, but most biographies older than 50 years are a bit of a challenge for me when it comes to holding my interest (this book was written in 1959).
This book seemed to be the perfect length. Being that Millard Filmore served as president for less than one term (he succeeded Zachary Taylor after his death and was never elected again), one shouldn’t expect too lengthy of a narrative. Conversely, this isn’t a carelessly written volume designed to fill a gap that can be digested over a weekend. We read just enough about his youth, his early law career, his political beginnings, his ‘accidental’ presidency, and his waning years. To be honest, I would have liked to have read a tad more about his life after the presidency, but perhaps sources for the author were rare and/or unavailable.
I’m learning that any biography of any United States president focuses heavily on slavery, discrimination, Jim Crow, or Civil Rights. This is good since these issues should have always been a focus in our country’s somewhat flawed history. It’s always a bit sad, though, when we read how slow progress has always been. With Millard Fillmore being President during the controversial decade of the 1850s, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the slavery topic is a very hot one in this bio. To cut to the chase, Fillmore was like many of his counterparts: he was against slavery but didn’t want to rock the boat too hard as to alienate roughly half of the country. The biggest topic of his presidency, The Compromise of 1850 (actually initiated by his predecessor) can be looked at in one of two ways. One spin is that it ‘delayed’ the Civil War by about 10 years, but the upshot of this is that slavery was in place for that much longer. Could the Civil War ever have been prevented? Some might think so, but as bloody as it was, it achieved the goal (in a roundabout way) to finally end slavery. So the fact that Fillmore was able to postpone such an event might not necessarily be viewed as a good thing in hindsight.
Perhaps the biggest strike against Fillmore was in his post-presidency days, he was a big advocate of what was known as ‘Nativism’. This essentially was a movement to restrict the rights of foreigners and recent immigrants (strangely, Catholics in particular). Again, history isn’t pretty in many places, so one probably shouldn’t be too judgmental of such sentiments, but in hindsight, such feelings are a bit distressing.
I also enjoyed this book because it gives a good overview of why and how the Whig political party came into existence. Since Fillmore was right in the middle of this particular era, the author does his due diligence to educate his readers on the key players and their motivations for this new faction. We then read about how the short-lived Whig party eventually morphed, to a degree, to the new Republican party that appeared around the late 1850s. The main lesson is that having at least two political parties with different views is often inevitable, but also necessary.
There was also a very enjoyable chapter on the country’s desire to bridge the two oceans via a canal to aid in travel and trade. History shows us that this wasn’t accomplished until the 1910s, but it was still very interesting to read the initial thoughts, plans, and obstacles of the originators of the idea.
So in conclusion, I would advise one not to wholly trust what they read in these pages about the man nor the times because of its obvious conflicts with the most accepted theories and recollections. On that note, however, I’m interested to find the opposing view that is presented as well and as interesting as what Rayback has done here. Based on that, I’d have to give this retrospective 5 stars out of 5 stars.
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Millard Fillmore Biography of a President Robert J Rayback Books Reviews
Rayback sets up a promising premsie for the book. One in which the traditional view of Fillmore as a "weak and pompous president" is challenged and a more fully explored Whig party is presented. Rayback asserts that Fillmore's was truly a statesman and the popular view held is manipulated by his enemies, Thurlow Weed and William Seward. However, his arguments fall flat, the work comes across as a biased account of the presidency, and Fillmore, in my opinion, still comes across as a very weak leader.
What I think Raback does do successfully, however, is relate the circumstances that caused the disintegration of the Whig Party and ushered in the Republican Party. Additionally, Rayback does explore some interesting aspects of Fillmore's career his role in the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, the inner-party fighting between Fillmore and Weed, the exploration of a canal through Latin America, shortening travel between Asia and America, and what may be the turning point of separation of Church in State as we know it today. The reader can't help but understand a little more why we are marching towards the Civil War as well.
Rayback's writing style is descriptive and he certainly has a good command of the Enghlish languate. However, I felt each chapter was about 10 pages too long.
Overall, I think this contributes to our exercise of building our knowledge of American history but would not recommend this to the casual reader, as it took quite a bit of focus for me to finish.
The author finds no fault with Fillmore. His villains are the "fire eaters" and "agitators" who are the northerners who opposed slavery and didn't want it spread to the territories and opposed the Fugitive Slave Act. His heroes are the southerners who only wanted their "property" back and the right to expand slavery outside of the south--good, decent god fearing folks. Fillmore's predecessor, Zachary Taylor, a slave-owner himself, was quite willing to have a showdown with the south to stop the expansion of slavery--yes, it might have led to the Civil War ten years earlier, but in the long run that was the only way this country was able to free itself from the evil of slavery. Fillmore did all he could to prevent war and in doing so he consistently sided with the south. Fillmore’s last attempted act as president was to address the slave issue. He believed shipping blacks to Africa was the best solution and they could be replaced by immigrant Asians. So his solution is to ship away one minority and then enslave another!? He was at the start of the series of weak presidents of the 1850's (including Pierce and Buchanan) who did much to to placate the south and yet the south would give nothing in return. The book is
not well-written and also in many places quite tedious. Fillmore was on the side of bigots for all of his professional career (including his run in 1856 with the anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant 'know-nothings') and yet the author makes a hero out of him. I just don't agree with his thesis.
Millard Fillmore, the U.S.A.’s 13th president, is generally viewed by many historians as one the all-time worst. Curiously, you would never have fathomed that after reading this biography. Interestingly, the author alludes to this fact in this book’s introduction. He claims that whatever history has taught us about this man, more scrutiny is required. He then paints a very flattering portrait of the man throughout the entire book. For someone like me who doesn’t know much about Millard Fillmore, who should I believe? The author? Or the masses? Whoever the masses may be.
So it’s very easy to be critical based on the author’s treatment of his subject matter. But before anyone judges, they should do their own homework and not frame their opinion based on what others have told us. What is undeniable to me, is that this is a very well-written book that held my interest throughout. I admit I was a bit skeptical since (according to ) the author doesn’t have any other published works. I’ve also learned that ‘older’ books tend to hold my interest less. Perhaps that’s an unfair generalization, but most biographies older than 50 years are a bit of a challenge for me when it comes to holding my interest (this book was written in 1959).
This book seemed to be the perfect length. Being that Millard Filmore served as president for less than one term (he succeeded Zachary Taylor after his death and was never elected again), one shouldn’t expect too lengthy of a narrative. Conversely, this isn’t a carelessly written volume designed to fill a gap that can be digested over a weekend. We read just enough about his youth, his early law career, his political beginnings, his ‘accidental’ presidency, and his waning years. To be honest, I would have liked to have read a tad more about his life after the presidency, but perhaps sources for the author were rare and/or unavailable.
I’m learning that any biography of any United States president focuses heavily on slavery, discrimination, Jim Crow, or Civil Rights. This is good since these issues should have always been a focus in our country’s somewhat flawed history. It’s always a bit sad, though, when we read how slow progress has always been. With Millard Fillmore being President during the controversial decade of the 1850s, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the slavery topic is a very hot one in this bio. To cut to the chase, Fillmore was like many of his counterparts he was against slavery but didn’t want to rock the boat too hard as to alienate roughly half of the country. The biggest topic of his presidency, The Compromise of 1850 (actually initiated by his predecessor) can be looked at in one of two ways. One spin is that it ‘delayed’ the Civil War by about 10 years, but the upshot of this is that slavery was in place for that much longer. Could the Civil War ever have been prevented? Some might think so, but as bloody as it was, it achieved the goal (in a roundabout way) to finally end slavery. So the fact that Fillmore was able to postpone such an event might not necessarily be viewed as a good thing in hindsight.
Perhaps the biggest strike against Fillmore was in his post-presidency days, he was a big advocate of what was known as ‘Nativism’. This essentially was a movement to restrict the rights of foreigners and recent immigrants (strangely, Catholics in particular). Again, history isn’t pretty in many places, so one probably shouldn’t be too judgmental of such sentiments, but in hindsight, such feelings are a bit distressing.
I also enjoyed this book because it gives a good overview of why and how the Whig political party came into existence. Since Fillmore was right in the middle of this particular era, the author does his due diligence to educate his readers on the key players and their motivations for this new faction. We then read about how the short-lived Whig party eventually morphed, to a degree, to the new Republican party that appeared around the late 1850s. The main lesson is that having at least two political parties with different views is often inevitable, but also necessary.
There was also a very enjoyable chapter on the country’s desire to bridge the two oceans via a canal to aid in travel and trade. History shows us that this wasn’t accomplished until the 1910s, but it was still very interesting to read the initial thoughts, plans, and obstacles of the originators of the idea.
So in conclusion, I would advise one not to wholly trust what they read in these pages about the man nor the times because of its obvious conflicts with the most accepted theories and recollections. On that note, however, I’m interested to find the opposing view that is presented as well and as interesting as what Rayback has done here. Based on that, I’d have to give this retrospective 5 stars out of 5 stars.
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