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Millard Fillmore - 12th Vice President
Party: Whig
Term: March 4, 1849 - July 9, 1850
Age at Inauguration: 49
Life Span: Jan 7, 1800 - March 8, 1874 [74]
President: Zachary Taylor

  • Millard who, and who is Fillmore were synonymous with the twelfth vice president
  • Picked from obscurity to balance the ticket with Zachary Taylor of Louisiana, the New Yorker was thrust into the presidency upon the death of Taylor in 1850 President Millard Fillmore
  • As vice president he had forewarned Taylor that he would go against the wishes of the president and vote in favor of the 'Great Compromise' bill in front of the senate if the matter should come to a tie
  • The bill would allow California statehood as a slave state
  • Taylor died before passage of the bill, and as president Fillmore signed it into law
    President Natural Death in Office
  • The jokes about Fillmore persist to this day as witness by an organization in Utah, now disbanded, called the
    Millard Fillmorons
  • Following his presidency he may have contributed to his own fate by turning down an honorary degree from Oxford University stating that he did nothing to deserve it, and no one knew who he was
  • He was not renominated for president by the Whigs in 1852