American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 13.1 Millard Fillmore

Episode Date: February 23, 2019

We move on to one of the lesser known presidents in US history. But was this man overlooked? does he deserve more spotlight? ... Probably not. But we are doing them all, so he gets his episodes! 

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, let's fill part one. Hello and welcome to American Presidents Totalus Rankium. I am Jamie. And I'm Rob. You sound unsure there. I had to double check. I think I'm good. You're good. Am I good? Yeah. Are you in your new glasses? I am in my new glasses. I'm noticing them now. Oh, yeah. Now I've sat down.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. And we are ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Trump. And this is episode 13.1, Millard Fillmore. Never, ever heard of him. Well, I was about to say not many people have, but actually he's got a bit of a cult following as being the least known US president. So because of that, quite a few people have heard of him because he's so little known. But yeah, it doesn't surprise me, shall I say, that he's not high on your radar.

No. I mean, many aren't, but this one particularly. I've heard of Zachary Tate. I've heard the name at some point. I heard of Polk at some point. Well, you'd think you'd remember a Millard, wouldn't you? Or Millard. Yeah, well, yes, a note on that.

I have been saying Millard in my head, but I received a notification over Twitter that apparently it's pronounced Millard. So that's what we're going to go for. Not Millard in my head, but I received a notification over Twitter that apparently it's pronounced Millard. So that's what we're going to go for. Not Millard. Not Millard. Not how it looks. No. But if it is Millard, I apologise. Anyway, should we start? Yeah. Yeah. Right. You're going to be happy, although I bet you've forgotten. Start with a white screen. So I said do it white because it started with black, didn't it? Yeah. Yay! He said I had to start with snow. Yeah, and that was a month ago.

That was a month ago. I remembered. Right, okay. So, black writing on the white screen, January the 7th, 1800. Oh, yeah. Cayuga County, New York. I'll bet you're saying that wrong. Cayuga. It sounds a bit like Cayuga, which I'm

guessing how they all pronounced it back then Cayuga Anyway, slowly get some definition into this white some shadows start to appear you realise you're looking at a field of snow and then, in fact, you start to realise that you can see footprints in the snow

now pan up, follow the prints you're following them? Yep It's dusk, by the way. It's getting dark. You see a log cabin sitting on a sloping field surrounded by trees. Because it's getting dark, the light from inside the cabin is spilling out into the snow slightly.

It's a nice scene, isn't it? Yeah, it's pretty. And then you hear a woman screaming. Oh. Yeah, cuts through the evening air. Like a knife through a cliche yes like one of them so keep panning slowly in uh the type of screaming uh becomes recognizable birth giving birth giving yes you've got it not stubbing toe yeah stub mother there's a subtle difference and you're able to deduce this yeah yeah good

so yeah now that you've reassured yourself that this is a perfectly natural scream uh cut inside not not the pregnant woman no good god no no as in camera camera camera yes cinematic term yeah yeah anyway we're inside the cabin it It's a new cabin, but a poor cabin. You can tell this isn't fancy. Basically logs that still have the bark on just put together. Yeah, the mice still living in the trees. It's a woodpecker on its side looking a bit annoyed. Yeah.

Covering its ears with its wings. Yeah. Anyway, the mother's in the bed. The midwife is with her. And in the only other room in the cabin is the father holding a small girl in his lap. Is that Millard? Things look tense. I'm not giving it away.

Things look tense. Everything goes silent for a while. Just like that. And then all of a sudden you hear the wail of a baby. Mwah! The father and the girl look very relieved, and then the midwife comes in holding the baby it's a boy she cries the father comes over and looks at his son and then looks at his wife through the

single doorway it's a son we shall name him millard millard millard Millard Millard But with an A R D At the end Okay But people will keep saying Millard That doesn't matter No Millard No

And then that conversation fades out And it goes to black Yeah And then the words Millard With a cross And then Millard Fillmore

Comes up on the screen And there you go Excellent We've officially started Oh brilliant It says born in 1800 Born in 1800. Turn of the century.

That is right. Whilst deciding what exciting event happens in his life, I could focus on at the start. I chose his birth. And even then, that's not exciting. Oh, yeah, nothing happened. No. Although, come on, be fair. Poor Log Cabin, not a Virginian aristocrat.

Yes. There is that going for him. Fair point. Yeah. Right, come on, be fair, poor log cabin, not a Virginian aristocrat. Yes. There is that going for him. Fair point. Right, come on, let's get some background to his family, shall we? That's the magpie. Is there a magpie? The one that was on the trunk of the tree that had been used. Oh, it was that magpie.

I was pitching like a hummingbird. I meant woodpecker. It's a bird. It's a bird. They weren't ornithologists, they don't know. No, they don't. Just some random bird. It's a bird. They weren't ornithologists, they don't know. No, they don't. Just some random bird. Right, background on the family.

Millard's mother was Phoebe Millard. Phoebe's a nice name. Phoebe is a nice name. What do you notice about her surname there? Oh, it's Millard. Yes. Ah. Yes. We'll get into that in just a second. But before that, Phoebe was born in 1780.

She was the daughter to a doctor in Bennington, Vermont. At the age of 16, she married the son of a nearby farmer, Nathaniel Fillmore. And within a year, their first child was born, a daughter called Olive. Oh, that's the little girl. That's the little girl. There you go. Filling in the details. However, things were not going well for the newlyweds.

The land that they had was not ideal for farming. Middle of a forest. It's not great. Yeah, halfway up the volcano. Yeah, Nathaniel and his brother Calvin were looking for other opportunities. So when an agent from the state of New York came along and offered cheap tracts of land in New York, the brothers went for it.

Just have an image of this this guy big twirly mustache slightly torn suit twitching his eye got a great deal for you great farmland best farmland ever buy it buy it buy it both men go for it sounds like a shit opportunity idiots yeah both men moved their families and found to their dismay that the land was heavily populated with trees and had a lot of clay in the soil. Still, the two men got to work clearing the land. Make the most of it, they thought. Shortly afterwards, their first winter, Phoebe, who's now 20 years old, gave birth to her second child, a son, and named him after her maiden name, Millard,

which apparently was fairly common in New England at the time. That's why you've got some weird names then. Yeah, clearly. Because in my wife's family there's a McAllard. Becky really likes, so she wants to use that as a middle name, if we ever have children. McAllard? No, just Callard,

not McAllard. Just Callard. But if it's a middle name, you could have children mccallard no just callard not mccallard just callard but if you if it's a middle name you could name your child muck mccallard and then it could be mccallard yeah yeah mccallard old oh that's a horrible oh yeah mccallard mccallard right in what should jamie call his unborn child yeah yeah we'll get that sorted. Anyway, celebrations. Definitely. Congratulations. Now I can't believe you have this. No, no. Anyway, celebrations were short-lived.

Yeah, they've got another child, but there's something worse than clay and trees cropping up. And that is the fact that it turned out this land had been badly surveyed and dodgy land titles had been given. And both brothers suddenly lost the land. Turns out that guy with the moustache and the dodgy suit wasn't on the level. What, Honest McKay? Yeah, I know. He had it written on his wagon and everything.

I am honest. Buy it, buy it, buy it. So Nathaniel... What am I, a horse? It's a cat. Nathaniel, Phoebe and the two children were forced to move and they rented a farm in the nearby village. Not owning their own land at this time

is a sign of their fortunes declining. Yeah. As the young Millard grew, he started helping out on the small farm. Occasionally he would go to school as and when he was able to. But times were tough and often there was little if anything to eat on the table in the evening.

By the time Millard was approaching his teens, Nathaniel realised his son needed a trade if he was to have any hopes in the world. Lawyer? Oh, no, no, come on. Oh, yes, too poor, yeah. This is a poor little family, this is. Of course. Yeah. So, if he could get apprenticed, then there'd be one less mouth to feed, because he'd be away.

And send money back as well. win win yeah now having one less mouth to feed is a very important fact because the family had grown to six children by this point yes and soon reach nine it's a lot that is a lot not much to do in that little cabin long winter winter nights. That's true. Anyway, another consideration of Nathaniel was the War of 1812, which was about to break out. Nathaniel wanted his son doing something that was not signing up for the army. Yeah. Yeah, let's get him apprentice. It's the best thing for him.

So it was decided he would become a clothmaker. Exciting. Yes. A man paid the family a small sum and then took the teenage boy with him to a nearby town to work in the textile mill. Yay! I imagine he'd be really

enthusiastic about it. Yes! He's looking at me for shoes! Until he sees it. No, even then, just like he's over the moon with this. Yeah, that doesn't last long if he was. Oh, okay. Well, just think, he's come from a one-bedroomed wooden log cabin where they've got six other kids that's basically he's living in

the same hut that charlie from charlie and the chocolate factory used to live yeah but but you know the parents have four other children apart from him and olive he's seen things oh dear yeah okay maybe moving out of that cabin. It's a good thing. Yeah. Despite your insistence that he was very excited, this was long hard work and Millard quickly grew to despise being there.

Oh, fair enough. Yeah. Although there was some respite when his previous schooling allowed him to occasionally work on the books. Okay. He much preferred that. Because he can write and read. Yeah. And do numbers. That said, it soon became clear to Millard that he didn't have enough education and he could not read as well as he needed to, to escape this life from the mill. He realised unless he did something, this was his life, plotted out in front of him. So he purchased a dictionary with his pitiful wages and he would

sneak looks of it whenever he could during the day. That's really challenging, though, because you can't read very well, and you're trying to find out what words mean, but you don't know what they say. You can't read the definition. You're there sewing all the buttons on, occasionally just looking down. Ostentatious.

Ostentatious. Word for the day. Belligerent. Apt. Aardvark. Do you think he went through alphabetically oh i just randomly picked a word i really hope so yeah so by the time he's president what word we get what he probably stood on c wouldn't he oh what a word a day it depends how big the dictionary is i suppose there's gonna be a couple of thousand words in there yeah tens of thousands we'll have to work it out at some point. Yeah. Anyway, he's got his dictionary, and he's still making his cloth.

At some point, he has to move mills, so he's further away from his house than he used to be. As in he moved, not the mill. Oh, okay. Yeah, but close. Yeah. And once he was in his new mill, he joined a library. Again, spending a good chunk of his money to do so. And whenever he could, he would read. Obviously got bored of just doing one word a day.

I'm going to two. And then 1819 hit, which I'll forgive you for remembering, but this was one of those panics that we've covered before. Yes, where the economy crashed due to Van Buren? No, this is Monroe. Monroe, that was the one. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, this is Monroe's economic bubble

during the era of good feeling that quickly came to an end. And one casualty of this was the mill that Fillmore worked in. Oh, damn it. The mill temporarily shut down. With no work and no money, Millard had to walk 100 miles home. That's a heck of a walk. Stick and handkerchief over his shoulder. Dictionary in the other.

Dictionary in the other hand. Just walking past people, just hearing muttering. Constantinople. Copulation. Once home, he was determined to do anything to get out of that mill. I mean, the mill's temporarily closed, but it will open again at some point, Once home, he was determined to do anything to get out of that mill. I mean, the mill's temporarily closed, but it will open again at some point, and he's apprenticed to the mill.

So he can't just leave. He's legally obligated to go back, and he doesn't want to go back. So he enrolls in a local academy that had just opened, and it was there that he met one of the teachers, a young woman two years his senior, called Abigail Powers. Good name. It is a good name. She was a window to another world for Millard. Educated, well-spoken, he fell for her immediately.

Basically, really fancied his teacher. Only two years older, though. Yeah, but still his teacher. She lent him books, inspired him to learn, and generally was a good influence on him. His mother and father, meanwhile, were impressed by this attitude by their son. Look at him, he keeps going off to school every day. He's so keen to get there. This is

what all young boys need to inspire them to go to education, is just a teacher they fancy. Usually versus a PE teacher, isn't it? That clearly was for you. Anyway, his mother and father, impressed with this attitude,

started to look for ways to help young Millard. Perhaps, just perhaps, their son could become a lawyer. Ooh. Yeah, I mean, he's learning those words and stuff. Yeah, maybe he could do this. Nathaniel managed to get in contact with his landlord, who happened to be a county judge. He was a man named Wood.

And he was able to persuade Wood to take Millard on as a clerk. A couple of months in, Millard had thrown himself into this clerking job. And to make more money, he was also teaching the occasional class at the academy, which had the bonus of meaning that he could still hang around Abigail.

Occasionally. Yeah. So as you can imagine, things are looking good. And then the mill reopens. Aww. Yeah. Millard was, as I said, legally apprenticed there, so he was forced to go back. Damn it.

However, he'd made such a good impression on Wood that Wood agreed that if he was able to buy his way out of his apprenticeship, he could study law with him. So Millard worked for three months in the school to raise money and was helped out by a loan by Wood, and at last he was indeed able to buy his way out of the mill. Nice. However, what at first seemed a dream come true soon became a grind.

Millard was still earning next to nothing learning to be a lawyer and uh soon became very weary of wood's tyrannical ways how he saw them anyway because wood deemed it inappropriate for a student of law to be charging for legal work because he's a student fair point yeah you charge less so you know i'm only students i won't charge you as much as a regular qualified one but you know that's pretty much millard's thinking yeah yeah yeah i mean he's struggling financially and a bit cash on the side yeah yeah what then found out that millard had charged a local farmer for some legal advice and uh the two fell out oh dear yeah what demanded that millard swear never to do such a thing again.

Millard refused and stormed out and returned to his family farm. Disgraced. It was a good job. Things were going well with Abigail, though. Otherwise, things would have been very depressing. At this point, Nathaniel decides to move the whole family once more. This time, they move near to Buffalo.

So a small village near Buffalo. For those not in the US, Buffalo is still in New York State, but it's like right in the top left on the border with Canada. Right. Where you can literally touch Canada if you reach across the river. Oh, okay. Yeah. Now obviously this removes him from Abigail,

but Millard was not about to lose her. He proposed to her. With the promise that while he was away, he would make something of himself. Abigail accepted. And the Fillmores moved to the village just outside Buffalo. So he's got a plan. He's going to make something of himself. Return, get Abigail, be happy.

Promise when I come back, I will be present. Not quite, but that kind of bullshit not bullshit determination yes yeah spirit yes spunk it's the word he used yeah far too often people got to stare out anyway his mother and father stayed in the village, but Millard soon moved into Buffalo proper. Once in Buffalo, he taught at another school to raise money and then soon found himself a law firm in which he could learn. So he raised funds and he purchased lots of clothes so he could look the part. He realised that it's not necessarily what you do or even what you say.

It's how you look that gets you places. So he dressed like a lawyer and he was soon treated like a lawyer. That's why I dress like a doctor. Yes. It's great. Four operations is my name. And also handy discounts and shops. Exactly.

Free haircuts. Yes. Anyway, apart from the clothes, he was, of course, also acting the part. He was 21 by this point and he turned into a very serious young man. He was said to have kept his thoughts to himself, and he was curious and studious. Sure enough, he soon passed the bar, earlier than usual, as he managed to impress enough people to secure early admission at the age of 23. I'm here to do my exam.

You look fantastic. You passed. Yeah, yeah. Good man. What shiny buttons you have. That a dictionary, Andrew, I am. It unactively is. Indubitably. Anyway, once passing the bar, he got out of Buffalo immediately.

It's like, literally that day, he just ran. I'm out of here. Thank you, bye. He later claimed that he was intimidated by the lawyers in the city, although he probably looked forward to being his own boss and not have anyone push him around anymore. So he set up an office in the village his parents lived in, the only lawyer in the village, so he could make his own way.

His law practice started to grow, slowly but surely, and he spent his earnings on books. He built up a library. Most importantly, however, he was able to go back and see Abigail. When he had left, he was on a promising path, but things were far from certain. And now he was a lawyer with his own practice and a selection of very nice suits.

Abigail was impressed. Oh, you have made a something of yourself. You could be president one day. They wed in February 1826, and they moved back to the village where Millard was set up. Abigail got a job as a teacher, and Millard was soon able to hire his own clerk, a young man named Nathan Hall,

who becomes a lifelong friend. And for the first time in his life, Millard's able to stop running or chasing dreams. He's able to just stop for a bit, look around him. Is that when the regrets kicked in? What have I done? Well, he starts getting interested in politics. Like you do when you've got not enough to think about.

You stop thinking, where am I going to get my food from tonight? And you just start thinking about the bigger picture. Now, a couple of years before, John Quincy Adams had won the presidency and Jackson had lost. And this pleased Millard. He supported John Quincy Adams, but he was too busy trying to be a lawyer to really get involved. However, things were not going well for Adams, as we saw in his episode, and the fever for the next election was already heating up. It looked to many like that military demagogue Jackson was gaining a lot of support and could well win the next election. This, however, is not what was getting Millard's attention. Instead, it was a man called William

Morgan. William Morgan was a stonecutter and a bricklayer who had recently disappeared. Oh, yeah. Presumed dead. Presumed even more dead when a body that looked suspiciously like him was found in the river. Holding a brick. Yeah, and a hammer. Yeah. It was rumoured that the Freemasons had murdered him.

Freemasons? The Freemasons. So, very, very brief background on the Freemasons had murdered him. Freemasons? The Freemasons. So, very, very brief background on the Freemasons, because they've kind of been around since the start, and Washington was a member of the Freemasons, but it's never really been important enough to go into it. I'm not quite sure what they are. Well, yeah, I've had to do a bit of looking into it.

My uncle was a Mason. Really? Yeah, well, Freemasons emerged from the medieval guild of stonemasons or at least that's the theory. Guilds were obviously by nature very secretive. They didn't want to share the secrets of their craft. Yeah. So you'd join up to the guild, they'd regulate the trade and you kept things secret. It's like an internal sort of policing isn't it I guess? Well yeah yeah. Now over time some of these guilds moved into what were essentially secret societies that would meet as a lodge the lodge is the unit of of mason's

now you had to be male and you usually have to believe in a higher being it doesn't matter what but as long as there's a higher being involved freemasons usually claim that their organizations is attempting to better humanity. So lodgers have, and still do to this day, contribute to charity and fund research and stuff. But let's be honest and simplify the whole thing here. It's a secret group that you get to turn up to and feel like you're part of something important. It's got a secret handshake, you've got passwords. It's a bit like those clubs you used to make up

in private school yeah yeah you go into the tree and don't let derrick come in yeah yeah don't teach him the password no you need yeah i got a little secret password i guessed it what do we do now no i'm in yeah it's pretty much that it's it's an excuse for a bunch of men to get together drink brandy and feel important a bit bit like hosting a podcast, in a way. Yeah, yeah, pretty much, yeah. Now, because Freemasons are sworn to help other members, it turns inevitably into an old boys' network. Just within the last decade in this country, for example,

there was a parliamentary inquiry into the police, the Met, over fears that high-up Freemasons were promoting other members over non-members. Yeah, which obviously stops women from being promoted because women largely aren't allowed in. As you can imagine, in groups like this, there's no problems. It's people getting together and discussing things and just having a nice time. However, when you get members who are also in high-up positions in their normal lives, the potential for corruption

suddenly is very, very high. Yeah. And that's what was worrying many people in New York State in the 1820s. There were substantial rumours that Andrew Jackson was a Freemason, because he was a Freemason. And there were also many of the Democrats that were starting to split from the Republican Party that were also identified as being Freemasons. There was a worry that this movement that Andrew Jackson and Van Buren were starting

was just a Freemason push to take over the government. Anyway, back to William Morgan, who I mentioned at the start. The dead guy. The dead guy. Not only had he been a stonecutter and a bricklayer, but in his spare time he loved nothing more than going down to the lodge, stating his password, and drinking and conversing with other members of the local Freemasons.

That's brilliant. However, it would appear that he fell out with at least one lodge and then threatened to write a book exposing all the secrets of the Masons. Oh, like the special handshake. No. Yeah. That took years to develop. I did. I went down a bit of a hole with this. I was reading an article from literally last month.

One of the leading Freemasons in this country was talking to the BBC about how Freemasons are persecuted and how they shouldn't be because there's nothing sinister about them They're not a secret society and then he was asked what the handshake was and he just went I'm not allowed to say We're not a secret society we just not allowed to give you any detail yes, you just have your plans I can't tell you anything Could you tell us any of your plans? I can't tell you anything. But we're not evil, though. No, we just collate in large groups and wear robes.

Yeah. Nothing suspicious about this at all. Flammy, flammy torches. Let's be honest, there probably is very little sinister going on, but you can understand why people get suspicious oh it's hilarious yeah yeah you really can anyway so morgan's going to expose this and tell everyone what's been going on in the local lodges and he very unfortunately drowned yes well shortly afterwards before he unfortunately drowned he was suddenly arrested for stealing a shirt and a tie. It was a clear attempt to keep him in debt as prison, so he could not publish a book.

Morgan's publisher paid off the debt, though. They realised this was a good book. It's like, let's get him out of prison so he can keep writing it. But then Morgan was arrested for not paying a $2 tavern bill, and then suddenly he disappeared. Yeah. The publisher published the book anyway, despite the attempts to set his publishing house on fire. Nothing sinister. No, no, not at all.

And then the story soon became famous within the state, because obviously, of course, that's quite a story. As you can imagine, anti-Masonic feelings grew, and Millard was right there with them. He got involved in what was known as the National Republican Convention, which is the forerunners to the Whigs. And then, in 1828, he became the delegate to two separate anti-Mason conventions. It's around this time his son, Millard, was born. Oh. Yeah. His second and last child, Mary, was born a couple of years later. Anyway, he was elected to the state's assembly for three terms, and while he was there, he was able to push through reforms on debtors' prison,

most realising how ridiculous it was that if you were in debt, you were thrown in prison, so it was impossible for you to repay the debt. Yeah, it doesn't really make sense. It's a hangover from an old English law, where it was rich landowners just refusing to pay the debt. Yeah, it doesn't really make sense. But it's a hangover from an old English law, where it was rich landowners just refusing to pay the debts. Who was it? It was I was watching

Becky Sharp? What was it called? It's not called Becky Sharp, it's something else. But there's a main character in it written in the 1700s, and that has one of the characters get thrown into debtor's prison, and has to wait for their family to buy them out. Yeah, so Millard's working on getting rid of that he and abigail then moved to buffalo where millard declined to run again as he no longer would have been representing the same region so he'd like

crossed a boundary so he decided not to run again he continued to practice law and sat on many civic committees and generally his standing in the community grew but soon enough he was back into politics and this time he won a seat in the House of Representatives. National politics. I hear that's quite an important thing. Oh, yes. Now, by this point, the short-lived anti-Mason party was dying out.

It was a flash-in-the-pan political movement, that was. They already died at the same time. But nothing sinister. No, not at all. The Whigs were becoming a thing by this point. So during his time as Congressman, he became more Whiggish as time went on. He was also sworn in to the Supreme Court Bar, which isn't actually that tricky to do once you're a member of Congress.

Still vote, isn't it? Yeah, it's another feather in your cap, isn't it? So things were looking good for Millard. But despite this, he didn't seek re-election in 1834. He officially quit the anti-Mason party and went back to Buffalo and practised law some more. Yeah. Yeah. He wanted to

run as a Whig, but realised that if a Whig and an anti-Mason candidate ran, it would split the vote and hand the Democrats a victory. Yes. So, he just doesn't run. Still, not long afterwards, he had his chance, and he was soon back in the House, this time officially as a Whig, and he spent three terms opposing the Democrats in the House.

However, it was internal Whig fighting that dominates a lot of film most time. It's probably time to introduce someone who's been in the background for about the last six episodes or so. Thurlow Weed. What? Thurlow Weed. With a Harry Potter person? It is a Harry Potter person.

Weed is essentially to the Whigs what Van Buren was to the Democrats. Okay. A hugely influential figure from New York who worked behind the scenes to help unify the emerging Whig party. At a local level, he fought against Van Buren's Albany Regency, if you remember that. At a national level, he helped the nomination of Harrison and Taylor. Yeah, he's never really been a big enough part of the story for me to justify including him. Yeah. But just know he's been around for a few episodes, working away in the background.

And he comes up a bit more in this story, so I'm introducing him now. Okay. Now, the reason why he comes up is because Fillmore and Weed really did not agree on many things. For a start, Weed was very anti-slavery. Oh, no. And so it begins. Fillmore obviously was no slave owner.

He came from a poor family from the North. But he did not publicly have an opinion on the slave trade. Right. Never really talked about it. Nothing to do with him. When the nominations came up for the governor of New York, Fillmore threw his support behind one candidate. Weed went for one of Fillmore's Buffalo rivals, a man named Seward.

Make a note of Seward as well. Seward. Yeah. So you've got high-up Whig Weed, but you've also got local rival Seward. And Seward and Weed get on well together. Okay. And they don't like Fillmore. Fillmore suspected that Weed and Seward were working behind the scenes to deny him certain jobs.

Mainly because they were working behind the scenes to deny him certain jobs. Seward also was as anti-slavery as Weed and was working to eradicate any laws that cooperated with slavery in other states. Fillmore openly did not want to push the slavery issue, seeing it as unnecessarily divisive. Just don't talk about it and eventually it'll go away. Yeah, essentially. Seward saw this as not good enough. We need to actively fight against slavery. Still, Fillmore did do well in Congress

and he ended up running the Ways and Means Committee, one of the more powerful committees. While he was there, he was able to fight against the reduction of tariffs. After all, fight against the reduction of tariffs. After all, the Whigs liked their tariffs. In 1842, he declared he would be stepping down. By this point, he was openly fighting against Seward and Weed for control of the New York Whigs. He'd risen in the party. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot of infighting going on. One argument erupted from children praying in school. What? Yeah. Well,

actually, this argument's really about immigration, but it was the children praying in school that was the catalyst. I'll explain. Because at this time, all children were required to pray daily in school from a Protestant Bible. Also, at the time, the largest number of immigrants into the country were Irish Catholics. Catholics, yes. By quite a large degree. Yeah. The Catholics, understandably, wanted their children to use a Catholic Bible instead of a Protestant one. Makes sense.

But Seward was all for this. Yeah, of course you want to use a Catholic Bible. Go for it. Fillmore was not. In fact, he was in the large group of Americans who thought that these immigrants were a danger to the ways of American life. The irony gong just banging behind at that time. These immigrants were invading the country, they were lazy, and at the same time they were taking up all the jobs. The typical kind of nonsense you hear. Just a few Native Americans

standing to the side of their arms falling looking very angry at that. Yes. Huh? Yeah. Huh? The potato famine hit Ireland not long after this and Irish immigration soared. This is about the time my great-great grandmother came over from Ireland

to Britain, to Scotland because of that. Well, there you go. So my family's part of this. Well, in no way whatsoever. Well, part of the Irish emigration, definitely. If you use all your imagination here, I mean, you're going to have to really use your powers of the mind to summon up what this might look like.

But you might be able to picture how many in the United States reacted to immigrants coming into the country. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you got that. You got that. I've got it. Yeah. Causing all the problems, weren't they?

Apparently so, yeah. All the queues in hospitals, all the cars on the road. Yeah. Or horses, sorry, on the road. Yeah, let's just say things haven't changed. And that was all happening back then just to Irish Catholics. Anyway, Fillmore had other things to think about, other than the Catholics coming along,

because he had decided to run for vice president. Oh, okay, that was fast. Yeah. It's like, this seems to come out of nowhere. He suddenly decides, I'm going to go for vice president. Why not? He is high up in the Whig party by this point. He's well respected by many Whigs.

And also he really hates Weed and Seward. So maybe this is just a chance to do a one-up on them. A na-na-na-na-na thing. Yeah. I mean, he's a big enough name in the party for it not to be ridiculous. Yeah. But he's hardly a forerunner.

It's a surprising move. And yet again, he comes across Weed and Seward, sure enough. Seward announces he's going to throw his name in the ring as well. Ooh. Yes. However, he dropped out really early, so Weed decided to attempt to make Fillmore the New York governor instead of vice president.

Damage limitation. Yeah. Fillmore saw through this sudden support immediately i'll quote here i'm not willing to be treacherously killed by this pretend kindness do not suppose for a minute that i think they desire my nomination for governor so he was suddenly getting support from weeds followers but he realized that was just them trying to stop him running for Vice President. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, the election coming up was the 1844 election that we know Polk would eventually win over Clay. Yeah. That's the dark horse race. Yes. But at this time, Clay looked like the better bet. Everyone's expecting Clay to win this. Now, if you remember, Clay's a southern slave-owning Whig, so Fillmore was hoping him being northern and non-slave-owning would help balance the ticket. Being a northerner, he hoped, meant that anti-slavery voters would trust him

more, and the fact that he'd never done anything against slavery meant that pro-slavery voters wouldn't mind him either. He's a blank slate. That can be worrying, man. Well, yeah, he guessed completely wrong. Southerners simply didn't trust Northerners regardless, even if they not overtly pushed against slavery. And those in the North knew him well enough to realise that he was a Conservative who would not help erode slavery. So he realised he had little support here. He became a very distant third in the Whig convention.

Oh dear. Yeah. However, the publicity and the lukewarm support of Weed meant he was able to run for governorship soon afterwards. However, his refusal to talk about slavery lost him a lot of votes. The War of Mexico was about to start, and Fillmore opposed it, being a Northern Whig, but he would not be drawn into the issue of the war with Mexico was about to start and Fillmore opposed it, being a Northern Whig, but he would not be drawn into

the issue of the war or the annexation of Texas when it linked to slavery. He just would not talk about the issue. Mr Fillmore, would you like to ask me a question? La la la la la la la, I can't hear you fingers in my ears, la la la. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, he'd happily talk

about how the war was a waste of money and how innocent lives could be killed. But the moment anyone mentioned that the war was just a way to expand slavery, he'd just clam up immediately. And that's not the only thing hurting his chances, because he openly pushed his support for mandatory Protestant Bibles in schools. And then courted the following of anti-Catholic groups. Now, as we know from experience, gaining support through attacking a minority can indeed be effective as a political strategy. Yeah.

Yeah, but Fillmore seemed to forget one important thing, and that's New York City was in New York. And New York City at this point had a lot of Irish Catholics in it. Especially standing up on a stage in New York City at this point had a lot of Irish Catholics in it. Especially standing up on a stage in New York. Massive crowd of people saying, I blame all the Irish. Blame them all. They cause our troubles.

They're putting the expenses up on food. Nowhere to live. Taking all your jobs. Just silence. Cricket chirping in the background. Glassham! Yeah. he lost badly oh yes yes yes he did not do well after losing and if we're down to meet let's lose a feckin eye as well well after losing this run for governorship he blamed his loss on and i quote foreign catholics

oh and sorry and abolitionists. It's those damn Irish Catholics and people who want to end slavery are conspiring against me. So he's doing the typical loser politician thing of blaming something else because they're just terrible. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, he openly campaigned against these groups of people.

And then blamed them for not voting for him. Why did you vote for me? Anyway, he went back to practice law. He got involved in politics, but not voting for him. Yeah. Why did you vote for me? Anyway, he went back to practice law. He got involved in politics, but not as a candidate this time. He would just support people he knew, try and get jobs. Texas was annexed. The Mexican War started.

Fillmore helped his old clerk. If you remember Hall, he was now elected to Congress. He helped his election. And mainly, Fillmore attempted to make sure that weed did not dominate the party in New York. It became like his hobby. So he threw his weight behind anyone who weed didn't. During a governor race, Fillmore wanted to help another man by ciphering votes from a weed and sewered-backed candidate.

And he did this by running himself in the first round with the idea of backing out in the second round. Thin the crowd a bit with your big name and then step away. This almost backfired when he almost won outright in the first round. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Well, he was one vote from winning a post that he didn't want. Oh, dear. In fact, if his own campaign manager

had voted for him he would have got the job that's brilliant yes anyway the tactic worked splitting the vote knocked out the others for contention and then they rallied behind the candidate that film was supported so he'd beaten the seward weed faction which is what he wanted anyway buoyed by this success he then ran for the position of controller of the state yeah which sounds very nice especially when it uses the uh spanning c-o-m-p t-r-o-l-l-o-r controller controller nice yeah it's basically the head of finances and auditing in the state it's a very exciting job. Was that where they were computing? Yes, I'm guessing they must have.

Yeah, same word. Anyway, he not only won this position, but he won in a landslide. Yeah, with all the Whigs backing him. Fillmore seemed to have found a calling. Finances seemed to suit him. He even closed his law firm and sold his law books and moved to the capital of New York State, Albany. Law for dummies. Yeah, he got rid of that. Actually, the sale of his books does give us a small tale. After haggling with a man named

Solomon Haven over the sale of these books, they could not come to an agreement of the final price. In the end, Fillmore pulled out a coin and suggested that they flip the coin over whose price they should go for. So he pulled out his coin, he tossed it in the air, and then Haven suddenly shouted for Fillmore to stop. And I'll quote here, Mr. Fillmore, you've been spending the last three weeks down in Albany with a political gang of cunning politicians just long enough to learn their tricks i want to examine that scent to see that you've not got a double header turned out the coin was real no okay yeah this film was not exciting enough to have a fake coin about this person unfortunately uh he also won the toss but it just goes to show you that people didn't necessarily trust him he was a politician oh yeah

exactly anyway polk's term was drawing ever closer to an end here and Taylor's name started circulating the Whigs. Fillmore started to think again about the possibility of running for Vice President. In the North, many Whigs were very nervous about Taylor as we saw in his episode. Yes, he claimed he was a Whig

but he was also a southern slave owner who had literally nothing on record in regards to his views. So what if he was another Tyler? They worried. Fillmore, however, saw this as an opportunity. Just as he thought he could balance out Clay's ticket, he figured he could balance out Taylor's. So he starts to prepare. Sure enough, when Taylor won the nomination in the Whig convention that year,

it became clear that a Northern Whig would be needed. Not only that, the fears that Taylor, it became clear that a Northern Whig would be needed. Not only that, the fears that Taylor might turn out to be a Tyler meant that the vice president would have to be a lifelong committed Whig. Not just a nobody, no one's heard of. Yeah, yeah. One that opposed slavery, but not so much as to offend the South.

So Fillmore put his name forward with 14 other people. However, only four were in with a chance. This was Abbott Lawrence from Massachusetts, Thomas Irwing from Ohio, and two from New York, Fillmore and Seward. Ooh. Oh, yes.

Deathmatch. Now, to begin with, Lawrence would have been everything that those in the South disliked about Northern Whigs. Yeah. He was a millionaire factory owner. However, his factories were textile factories, which meant that he had close ties to cotton production.

So he was actually the most pro-slavery candidate. Even if Florence not balancing the ballot was not enough, Florence had also upset many leading Whigs previously, who let it be known that this man was not up for the job. Irving, however, was the most experienced candidate. He'd been a senator and also the Secretary of Treasury under Harrison and Tyler. So he's got experience. He's got the chops.

Oh, yeah. I can do stuff. Well, he was definitely the most obvious choice. He was the one everyone was going for. He was supported by a majority of people. However, just before the balloting, a message was delivered. Irving wanted to withdraw. Ooh.

Yeah. It was pretty much a reaction of everyone around. I hope. Remember, they didn't attend their own conventions. They sent them to do it for them. Yes. Yeah. Many were surprised in the convention,

but nonetheless, his name was indeed removed. It was only after the ballot that it was discovered that Irving knew nothing of this note whatsoever. It had been delivered by a local political rival of his. Which is ingenious. That's brilliant. I mean, terrible for, like, democracy. Yeah, it's terrible.

But an amazing move of this rival. You've got to admire that in a way. Yes. Yeah, apparently when Taylor dies only a year and a half into his presidency, Irwin was furious because he realised that he would have been president. Yeah. And he was so annoyed by this for the rest of his life. Yeah, well, you would be, wouldn't you? Well, you would be.

Anyway, so that leaves Fillmore and Seward. There's a very good chance that Seward's only running here to split the New York vote and ruin Fillmore's chances. Seward and Weed feared the elevation of a Whig politician that differed so much to them on issues such as slavery and the Irish Catholics. However, the tide was turning against Seward. There were many in the Whig party by this point who wanted to use the anti-Catholic feeling to their advantage. And Fillmore had a track record of going after the immigrants. Not only that, but Seward was firmly anti-slavery. And Seward had recently fought a case in the Supreme Court defending a man named John Van

Zandt, who's, I'm guessing, the great-great-great-grandfather of Bruce Springsteen's guitarist. For all those Bruce fans out there, you'll get that reference. Okay. Yeah, you just need to nod. All right. Yeah. Anyway, John Van Sant had aided slaves to escape one day, like a decent person would, I imagine.

Yeah, so would try to help him out in the Supreme Court. He lost the case, but his name was now howled up as a beacon of hope in the abolitionist movement nice yeah uh he was therefore hated in the south yeah so with one candidate to pro-slavery one to anti-slavery and one mysteriously gone uh that just left by default fillmore oh me he appealed to many in the south because he was Seward's rival. They hated Seward in the South. So who's this man that Seward hates?

Fillmore. Okay, we'll give him a go. He'll do. He appealed to many in the North because of his anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic rhetoric, which was growing by this point. And that held him back before, but the tide was turning with that, and he was starting to gain some traction. Anyway, some mud was thrown at Fillmore during the election.

Southern Democrats accused him of being an abolitionist and had helped runaway slaves escape to Canada. Fillmore was appalled at this slander. I'll quote here, This is too infamous to justify a denial. I should soon think of denying the charge as robbing a hen house. Anyone who knew him, he seemed to say, would know that he would never even think to help a fugitive

slave. He also wrote about this time that although slavery was definitely an evil, national government had no power to intervene. Just remember that the national government could not supersede states when it came to slavery. Just remember he said

that. Anyway, the election came and went, and as we've seen, Taylor won. Fillmore spent his time setting his affairs in order in Albany, and then headed for the capital for Taylor's inauguration. Abigail, who was not well at this time, went back to Buffalo. So Fillmore goes on his own. He arrived in Washington the day before Taylor's speech. He met Taylor for the very first time. Ah, hello! Hi, I'm going to be

your vice president. If Fillmore had hoped for a large role in Taylor's government, he was going to be disappointed. Soon after Taylor was sworn in, it became very clear that there's just no place for the vice president. Because Taylor had managed to find a New York politician who could act as his confidant and his advisor.

Someone who was really switched on, seemed to know the lay of the land in New York. Care for a guess who it is? Nope. It's Seward. Oh! Yeah. Taylor liked the man. He had national presence, connections. He had been New York governor twice. He knew York wigs like the back of his hand, and he was also friends with Weed, an important person to know. Fillmore, on the other hand, although he was a leading wig in New York, was a stranger to most in Washington and had very little to offer. So, Fillmore became very lonely. I mean, he was the vice president, but he was cut off from everyone. Abigail came to stay with him for a while, but then soon left due to her illness. You can just picture Fillmore just sat in a hotel room.

But I'm the vice president. And I have literally nothing to do. What do vice presidents do? Even now, I'm trying to think, what's Pence do? Try to get people to applaud Trump, and then they don't, and he looks embarrassed. Topical. For those listening in the future, that just happened.

Wow, it's not a real job anyway, is it? As Fillmore is finding out. Anyway, Taylor's presidency plays out as we have seen. California, New Mexico, and the Futuristic Slave Act were all the major issues of the day. Clay was attempting a compromise that was

being debated hotly in the Senate and in the House. As Vice President, here you go, here's one thing he did, he presided over the Senate, and he was shocked one day when Senator Foote drew a pistol on Senator Benton, and then the two were separated by the rest. Now, as we saw in Taylor's episode,

this compromise that Clay's been working on would allow California into the Union as a free state, leave New Mexico as a territory, ban the signing of slaves in the capital, but not banning the owning of them, and most importantly, allow the Fugitive Slave Act to go through. Now remember, that's the one where it would become compulsory

for all people in the United States to report fugitive slaves. Yeah. By law. Yeah. Yeah. Now, the president wasn't happy with this. The Fugitive Slave Act was seen by many as a step too far. This is federal government enforcing all states to be complicit in the slave trade. Fillmore, however, thought that this compromise was a way forward. In his opinion, it was the only way to get through the deadlock that was afflicting the government at the time. One day, he informed the president that if his vice president vote had to break a

tie in the Senate, he would vote for the compromise against the president's wishes. Things started to deteriorate between the president and Fillmore. Henry Clay announced one day that the president's opposition to the compromise would lead the country, and I quote here, to bleed more profusely than ever. Sentiments that Fillmore fully agreed with. And who knows where this falling out would have led. Because shortly afterwards,

Taylor ate some cherries, drank some milk and died. Yes. And suddenly, the most obscure vice president to date found himself as the president of the United States. Yes! That's what he said yes that's what he said that's what he said and there you go that is that's film or from birth to presidency normally when you hear these episodes you get an idea straight away of like oh i'm not going to like this person for what their moral reasons or whatever him i quite i quite liked him to start

with you know good oh yeah i mean go get her I liked him less and less as you went through the episode. Yeah, it's when he hit adulthood. He turned into a right arse. People talk about sides of history and where they're going to fall. Phil Moore's not landing on the right side at the moment, is he? Absolutely not, no. I'm not going to give the next episode away, but this will come up in his presidency.

Excellent. Yes, it will. He's got a deal with it now, hasn't he? We have a new president who has risen to prominence by espousing anti-immigrant views to try and gain popularity. Yep. Who, although doesn't really talk about the slave trade, doesn't seem to have a problem with it expanding.

Yep. Yeah, and we have a country that's very much going in a different direction. We'll see how he does. Yeah. Yes, we will. There's a reason why he's one of the more obscure presidents. Oh dear. Yeah.

That and also the fact that at the moment, let's face it, his silver screen score's not looking good, is it? No. No. This will, I'm guessing, be the shortest episode we've done so far, and we managed to get all the way up to his presidency. We've recorded for less than an hour. An hour and ten minutes.

An hour and ten minutes. Yeah. Well, we will see how he does next time. We will. Until then, please send us reviews. Talk to us on Twitter, Facebook, all the good stuff. Oh, we're a year old. Yay!

Yes. Happy birthday, Rob. Yeah, yeah. This podcast has been going on for a year. How nice. Yay. We started on President's Day. Oh, we did, didn't we?

Yeah, which we didn't know President's Day was a thing. No. We're British. It was just a bizarre coincidence that our anniversary is President's Day. I'd like to say we planned it. We didn't. No. Yeah.

So there we go. Well done, us. And thank you for listening to us for a year. And until next time, all we need to say is goodbye. Goodbye. Mr. Smith, Mr. Joseph Smith, a word, please. Yes, I'm sorry, who are you? I'm Thomas Felch. Yes, I have a few questions for you.

Questions? What are you, some kind of newspaper reporter? I am, yes. I believe you're a member of the Freemasons. Is that correct? Oh. Well, I can neither confirm nor deny. Well, I can neither confirm nor deny. Well, could I question you on what you may have heard about the Freemasons? A wonderful, lovely group of chaps. Nothing sinister about them. Sorry.

Any ideas on what they sort of get up to? Do they have a goal, these Freemasons, that you have heard of? Yes, no, we do charity work. We? They. Oh, I mean, I have heard. Charity work and, good thing, bake cakes for orphans and poppies. Oh, sorry.

I've got a cough. I, I, yes. Do you believe the Freemasons may have an issue with transparency? Oh, no, no. Our sinister cloaks are very opaque. Don't you think the

growing public anger and resentment towards your group, sorry, the Freemasons, would be nullified if there was more transparency and you're more open

about your practices and what you believe and also what you actually do. Oh, you wouldn't want to know what we do. Because it's so lovely. Yes, look, I'm not very comfortable talking about this, to be honest. William was a naughty boy and he got what he deserved. I mean, I have nothing to say about that matter. Yes, anyway, I'm leaving now.

Well, okay. Thank you very much for your time. Have a safe journey home. Oh, I'm sure I will. A very safe journey. Oh, well, thank you. No, no. Have a safe journey.

Thank you. Get him, lads! And she was the daughter to a physician in Bennington, Vermont. Say that word again, the doctor one. I never can get that, can I? Physician.

Physician. Physician. Physician. Physician. As I was typing this into my notes, I'm going to mess that word up. I always mess that word up. Physician. Physician. Physician. As I was typing this into my notes, I'm going to mess that word up. I always mess that word up. Physician. No. No. Why can I never say this word?

Go on. What is wrong with you? Physician. Physician. Physician. Pho. Pho. Zish.

Zish. Un. Un. Physician. Physician. Physician. Un. Physician. Physician. Un. Un. Physician. Physician. Physician. Un. Physician.

Physician. No. Physician. Physician. Physician. Physician. Physician. Not physician.

Physician. Yeah.