Today marks the anniversary of the birth of someone in whose career I’ve often found inspiration: Millard Fillmore (1800-1874), born on this day 205 years ago. He’s best remembered (actually, he’s poorly remembered) for two reasons: first, his unusual name; and second, his succession to the Presidency on the death of Zachary Taylor in July 1850. (His quirky name is the only thing that keeps him from being the most forgotten of our Presidents; you might call him the Alabama to President Pierce’s Mississippi.)
He deserves a third footnote in history for his role in the campaign of 1856 as the nominee of the American Party, in its first and only foray into national politics. The American Party is better remembered by its nickname, the "Know-Nothing Party," which was not (as you might expect) a sardonic comment on its candidate’s future lack of fame but was taken from the response "I know nothing" that its members gave when asked what they and the party were doing. Mr. Fillmore rejected the party’s anti-Catholic, anti-immigration platform and carried only Maryland.
Mr. Fillmore’s obituary (here) contains some interesting highlights of life on the frontier. Although he apparently never attended any school, acquiring the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic at home, he was admitted to the bar in Erie County, New York when he was 23, began his political career five years later, and rose in 20 years to be Vice President and then President.
His obituary also refers to "fillibustering expeditions to Cuba," using the word not in its modern sense (with one "l") of an extended speech made to delay legislation but a foreign expedition.
As he became president because (it was said) Zachary Taylor had eaten unwashed cherries on July 4, 1850, from which he had contracted cholera or food poisoning, it’s perhaps significant that Mr. Fillmore’s last words were that his nourishment was palatable.