Millard Fillmore: Biography of a President by Robert J. Rayback

Author:Robert J. Rayback [Rayback, Robert J.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Dioscuri Books
Published: 2017-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14: Warfare: The Bolt of the “Silver Greys”

ALMOST immediately after hearing of Taylor’s death, Fillmore’s family had set out from Buffalo for Washington. They arrived too late for the simple inauguration ceremony but their presence helped the new and harassed President over the personal hardships of the first weeks. Amid the fearful responsibilities that had been thrust upon him, it was comforting to have close at hand those whom he loved and who loved him. Mrs. Fillmore, unfortunately, was ailing and could not take on the duties of the First Lady without help. But her comely, talented daughter, not yet out of her teens, turned to the task with an inborn felicity and graciousness that did credit to her parents. Young Millard, already a lawyer in his own right, became his father’s private secretary and did yeoman service in the post.

His family, however, was the President’s only comfort. Elsewhere, even though he had won the battle in Congress, there was no respite from anxiety. If he had expected the Compromise measures to establish peace automatically, he was mistaken. Though reduced in intensity, the problems were still with him. Free-soilers and fire-eaters alike redeployed their forces to widely scattered sectors on the home front and now, in guerilla fashion, sniped at the settlement. The Chief Executive’s work was cut out for him. If he were to be true to the high resolve that the crisis of July 9 had forged in his soul, the fight for sectional peace must now be carried to the home front. He must persuade the guerillas to accept the Compromise as a permanent part of the American scene. He had little time to prepare for battle on this front, for even as he was signing the last measure, his old enemies in New York threw down the gauntlet of challenge.

For over a year, Weed and Seward had waged open, merciless warfare against Fillmore. They had persecuted his friends and had maligned him as an ingrate. All this they had done because, mistakenly, they had regarded the Vice-President as Seward’s chief rival for the Presidency and Weed’s chief rival for mastery of the state party. During those fifteen months Fillmore had fought back with persistent stubbornness and had rallied to his cause both upstate and New York City interests. But Weed had been confident that Seward’s intimacy with the Administration ultimately would wreck whatever influence Fillmore might still retain.[586]

Then the fatal news of July 9 flashed across the nation, and the high spirits of the editor of the Albany Evening Journal tumbled into depression. The man Weed and Seward had tried to crucify commanded the entire force of the federal government. In their imagination they saw the axe of revenge fall. They expected to see heads roll and their appointees, whose confirmations they had not had the courage to push in the face of Fillmore’s position in the Senate, dismissed in wholesale lots. The future looked somber and uninviting, and in their fright, they impulsively struck out against the Administration.

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