Millard Fillmore



"Taylor's death led to the presidency of a man whose name has since become synonymous, in American history, with the term "Millard Fillmore": Millard Fillmore."

" 1. The Earth did not crash into the Sun."

- Dave Barry Slept Here

Not many Americans know much about Millard Fillmore, except that he was once President of the United States (the 13th), and that he had a ridiculous name. Lots of jokes have been made about this.

President Fillmore was not elected: He ascended from the vice presidency to the presidency upon the death of President Zachary Taylor from milk and cherries. A few months into his term he helped create the "Compromise of 1850," an agreement that was widely considered to have staved off Civil War. Ultimately though it may have done more harm than good, as many felt that it legitimized the slave states and allowed them time to build up their militaries (although it should be noted that the northern states also gained more army-building time from Fillmore's compromise, so it might have cancelled out the south's efforts, but then again that could just mean it guaranteed the Civil War would be bigger and bloodier for both sides).

After that, the only really notable thing about Fillmore is that he was the one who sent Matthew Perry (not that one) (yes, that one) to open Japan to trade with threats of violence, though Perry didn't actually arrive there until after Fillmore was out of office. So you have Millard to thank for the entirety of Rurouni Kenshin and that one episode of Samurai Champloo if nothing else. Other than that, he basically kept the seat warm in the White House while the country shuddered closer to the Civil War. While getting the Compromise of 1850 passed at all in the face of such a hostile political environment was arguably the biggest single achievement of any Whig President, Fillmore is generally regarded as a worse President than Taylor, since he actually did less in nearly three years (even including the Compromise) of office than Taylor did in just over one. He ultimately proved to be the last President from his party.

After leaving office, Fillmore tried again for the Presidency in his own right in 1856 as part of the "Know Nothing" party. While he did put in a very credible performance for a third-party candidate, he split the vote and helped ensure the election of James Buchanan, under whose watch the country fractured and Civil War became inevitable. In retrospect, that was probably a case of Nice Job Breaking It, Mr. President.

Travel writer Bill Bryson did at one stage bemoan the fact that Fillmore had "become so celebrated for his obscurity that he is no longer actually obscure".

Fillmore was not the first president with a running water bathtub. H. L. Mencken made that up for a lark and people believed him.

A one-minute biography can be found here.


 * Graceful Loser: His reaction to losing the Whig election for governor of New York, believing honorable defeat better than dishonorable victory.


 * A commercial featuring "unheard of President's Day sales" and Millard Fillmore bath soaps.
 * Yorick (yes, that Yorick) mentions "a brilliant Millard Fillmore joke" in The Skull of Truth, a novel in Bruce Coville's Magic Shop series.
 * Mallard Fillmore is a political comic strip pitting a duck that is also a reporter somehow against cross-eyed Strawman Liberal version of major politicians despite that fact that he's supposed to be a local reporter. Funny to the right and unfunny to the left. Also incredibly unfunny to the center, Libertarians and to those who just don't care about politics. It doesn't really have anything to do with Millard Fillmore except for the name and total lack of amusement.
 * A different (and older) Mallard Fillmore was the President of the United Species of America in the short-lived but fondly-remembered '80s animal superhero series Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew from DC Comics. When the Zoo Crew got a revival in 2007, DC apparently didn't want to do the legal tango with the above comic strip, so Mallard was replaced by an Expy: Beneduck Arnold.
 * Likewise in the "shares a name" department: Fillmore.
 * Fillmore Junior High School in the television series The Brady Bunch.
 * The 1980s sitcom Head of the Class took place at the fictional "Millard Fillmore High School".
 * In an episode of Johnny Bravo, Johnny (in a partially delirious state) speaks to a statue of Millard Filmore.
 * The play Pacific Overtures is about the forcible opening of isolationist Edo era Japan to trade in the 1850s (during Fillmore's presidency) by a small fleet of America ships and the after effects. During the scene of negotiation between the Japanese and Americans, the Americans pompously announce that they are there by order of their great leader, President Millard Fillmore, then (at least in the version I saw), pause and slowly turn towards the audience for just a second in an obvious Lampshade Hanging.
 * One You Don't Know Jack game included a question on Millard Fillmore, calling him the most boring subject they had available. (Apparently his last words were "The nourishment is palatable".)
 * There's a book entitled Yo, Millard Fillmore! whose purpose is to provide students with a ridiculously elaborate mnemonic for listing the US Presidents in order. It works for some, but not others.
 * According to Jon Stewart's America (The Book), Fillmore had a pair of magical talking cats who advised him on foreign policy.
 * In Louis Sachar's book Chicken Trek, one of the main characters listens to a band called "Millard Fillmore and the Dead Presidents", whose music is implied to be terrible.
 * Since Fillmore's life and presidency were so spectacularly unimpressive, it is far more interesting to present creative interpretations of history (i.e. lies) to spice up the story. George Pendle's book The Remarkable Millard Fillmore sets the record straight: did you know that Millard Fillmore was friends with Edgar Allan Poe, Alexis de Tocqueville, Davy Crockett, Samuel Morse, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Dorothea Dix? Or that he was present at the battle of the Alamo (in drag) and the assassination of Lincoln (in drag)? Or how about the time he traveled to Japan and defeated the emperor's champion sumo wrestler, discovered the source of the Nile, began the legend of Zorro, or waged a one-man campaign to rescue fugitive slaves? All this while unraveling a Freemason conspiracy with the help of space-faring American Indians.
 * One episode of the 1990s series Ghostwriter featuring some Time Travel to the 1930s included a ritter brush salesman who went by the name of Millard Fillmore Smith (in retrospect, one vital detail of his character should have been immediately obvious).
 * In a Mad Magazine parody "A High School Yearbook for Average Clods" (in issue #216) the school is named after Fillmore, because he "serves as an inspiration for the mediocrity that anoyone of us can achive, if we really put our questionable mind to it."
 * One of the major powers in The Five Star Stories is known as the Fillmore Empire. Appropriately enough, they often come into indirect conflict with the somewhat Edo-themed Amaterasu Kingdom Demesnes.
 * He was in the end credits for Airplane!.
 * He is mentioned in the song-and-dance-number "mediocre Presidents" that was performed in Springfield Elementary School
 * In the movie Kick-Ass the high school seen is Millard Fillmore H.S. (what about the comic, anyone know?)
 * In All in The Family the high school Edith went to was named after Fillmore.
 * In Superman Secret Files 2009 Pete Ross, in a flashback to when he was president, muses over the important things that previous presidents did and then adds "of the others, Millard Fillmore gave the White House a library".
 * In Decades of Darkness, Fillmore is twice elected Vice-President of the Republic of New England, but his lack of charisma means he loses when he tries for the presidency itself.