Fillmore, Millard, Thirteenth President

Autograph letter signed, 3 pages (7 7/8 x 4 7/8 in.; 200 x 123 mm) on a bifolium, Buffalo, 3 March 1862, to S. Chamberlain, criticizing Lincoln's presidency.

Autograph letter signed, 3 pages (7 7/8 x 4 7/8 in.; 200 x 123 mm) on a bifolium, Buffalo, 3 March 1862, to S. Chamberlain, criticizing Lincoln's presidency.
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As Lincoln expanded his war powers, former President Fillmore excoriates him as a "tyrant" who "makes my blood boil."

Although he served several terms in Congress as a Whig from New York, Millard Fillmore often found himself at odds with the anti-slavery majority of the state party, led by William H. Seward. Still, in 1848 he was chosen as Zachary Taylor's running mate, and when Taylor died suddenly in July 1850, Fillmore succeeded to the presidency. He quickly replaced Taylor's cabinet secretaries with his own appointees, who, like him, believed that Henry Clay's compromise acts, including the Fugitive Slave Act, represented the "final settlement" of the slavery issue.

Such reasoning cost Fillmore renomination to the Whig ticket in 1852, as most northern party members preferred a more aggressive anti-slavery policy. In 1856, he accepted the American (or Know-Nothing) nomination for president, largely because he thought that party represented "the only hope of forming a truly national party, which shall ignore this constant and disturbing agitation of slavery."

In retirement, Fillmore closely followed national affairs, and while he supported the Union, he continued to treat slavery as minor irritant, refusing to acknowledge—as the present letter makes clear—that the Civil War was largely about slavery. He deeply resented the role the founding of the Republican party played in the demise of Whigs, and he expressed especial vitriol for Abraham Lincoln, who, ironically, had campaigned tirelessly for the election of the Taylor-Fillmore ticket in 1848.

The letter begins with a lengthy synopsis of the shifting politics of a Buffalo-area newspaper, evidently directed to its publisher. "As you are aware, I subscribed for 'The World' out of friendship for you, and the confidence I felt in Mr. Spaulding, that it would be a high toned conservation paper. When it veered off into Republicanism I was disappointed, but when it took upon itself the accumulated sins of the Courier, I was disgusted, and discontinued it. But in all this my friendship for you has never changed, and although my confidence in Mr. Spaulding has been shaken, yet, I can see that men or circumstances beyond his control, may have compelled him to pursue a course which his better judgment did not approve; and from occasional extracts from the paper which I have seen of late, I am inclined to believe that it has come back on to the ground where it started, and I hope and trust that it may be the means of doing much good. At any rate I am disposed to renew my subscription for another year, and for that purpose enclose my check for $6 to the order of the World. I set so high a value upon the paper that I preserve every number with the greatest care, as a history of the times, and have had the first year neatly bound in two large volumes. My last No. was dated August 6. 1861 and as I renew my subscription I should like to have it date from that time and receive the back numbers."

As Fillmore's letter continues, it becomes clear that the World had veered very far away from the Republican course that has so upset him. But, it seems, Fillmore believed that the editorial policy of the paper could be even more partisan, at least when exposing what he saw as Lincoln's wartime infringements on constitutional rights, especially the President's willingness to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.

"I admire very much the able and independent manner in which the World, has insisted on maintaining the public credit, and resisted the abolition attempts to destroy the Constitution & prevent a reunion of the states, by perverting this war into a war for emancipation—and for reprobating freely the great outrage upon liberty and law, in arresting and imprisoning men in the loyal states without warrant of law. The patience with which this has been submitted to, shows that our people are nearly prepared to receive a master, and submit to a tyrant. It makes my blood boil to think of it. But enough!" Fillmore's perception of Lincoln never moderated; during the 1864 presidential campaign he denounced the incumbent as a military despot and endorsed the Democratic candidate, General George B. McClellan.