Millard Fillmore

Nearly ninety years passed after Millard Fillmore's death before a full-length biography of the thirteenth president appeared. Robert J. Rayback's book fills that gap with a close look at a man whose career included leading two political parties, one at its start and one near its end.

Rayback does not treat his subject as a hero to be praised. He examines Fillmore's errors of judgment, including his support for the Fugitive Slave Act, and argues that these were outweighed by his moral opposition to slavery and his concrete actions against it. The book also defends Fillmore in places, and its account of the Whig politician Thurlow Weed and his rivalry with Fillmore is part of that argument.

The book is written as a portrait rather than a sweeping account of its era. Much of its research draws on manuscript collections in central and western New York. Readers from that region will find it especially relevant, though it is not mainly a local history and tells the story of a national career. The notes do not cite some other manuscript collections of Whig figures closely connected to Fillmore.