to comply with numerous invitations he had received to visit the south. But a severe domestic blow fell upon him, and compelled him to change his plans. He had been out of the Presidential chair but a few weeks. when his beloved wife, who had been for some time an invalid, grew worse and died. She was a wise and excellent woman," has been written by one who knew herself and her husband well; "and in great sorrow, attending her remains, Mr. Fillmore and his son and daughter came home to Buffalo. They came quietly, with as little display as possible, into the house that Mr. Fillmore had lived in since he came to Buffalo, twentythree years before. No goods of the nation clung to him; his hands were clean. Integrity and economy had kept him safe. By his large law business for seventeen years, admirably conducted, he had accumulated a moderate competency, enough for a family of simple tastes and economical habits; he returned from Washington with little if any more estate. than he had when he went there. He lived handsomely in the Presidential mansion, expending very nearly the income of his office, and when he returned to Buffalo he left the ceremonial forms and equipage all behind him. He was cordially received by his old neighbors and fellow citizens, and moved among them as unostentatiously as if his life had always been confined to the city and county of his adoption."

In 1854 Mr. Fillmore was enabled to pay his long-desired visit to the south. He visited all the principal cities of that section and of the newer southwest, and was everywhere received with demonstrations of welcome and respect. In one of the speeches made on that tour he gave utterance to the following expressive sentiment: "Canada is knocking for admission and Mexico would be glad to come in; and, without saying whether it would be right or wrong, we stand with open arms to receive them: For it is the manifest destiny of this government to embrace the whole North American continent."

In the spring of 1855 Mr. Fillmore made a tour of the New England states, and then went on a visit to Europe, where he was received by public men with a degree of attention suitable to the high station he had occupied. The visit was one of keen enjoyment, and although he had never studied art nor formed an acquaintance with the classics, he was a keen observer, and had a strong faculty of understanding men and measures as they came under his vision. During his residence abroad, the University of Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D. C. L., which he modestly declined. He remained in Europe until June of 1856, and was in Rome when the news came of his nomination for President by the American, or better known "Know-Nothing" party, with which he had previously identified himself. As early as January 3, 1855, he had declared himself to a friend on this question in a lengthy letter of which the flowing is an extract :

"While, however, I am an inactive observer of public events, I am by no means an indifferent one; and I may say to you in a frankness of private friendship, I have for a long time looked with dread and apprehension at the corrupting influence which the contest for the foreign vote is exciting upon our elections. This seems to result from its being banded together, and subject to the control of a few interested and selfish leaders. Hence it has been a subject of bargain and sale, and each of the great political parties of the country has been bidding to obtain it; and, as usual in alĮ such contests, the party which is the most corrupt is the most successful. The consequence is that it is fast demoralizing the whole country, corrupting the very fountains of political power, and converting the ballotbox-that great palladium of our liberty-into an unmeaning mockery, where the rights of native-born citizens are voted away by those who blindly follow their mercenary and selfish leaders. I confess that it seems to me, with due respect to others, that as a general rule, our country should be governed by American-born citizens. Let us give to the oppressed of every country an asylum and a home in our happy land ; give to all the benefit of equal laws and equal protection; but let us at the same time cherish as the apple of our eye the great principles of constitutional liberty, which few who have not had the good fortune to be reared in a free country know how to appreciate, and still less how to preserve."

It was an anxious year in

Mr. Fillmore accepted the nomination. politics. The old Whig party had given way, and the Republican and Democratic forces were for the first time to measure their strength in a national conflict. It was a square, open fight between slavery and those who believed it to be a national curse and a wrong against humanity. The American party, based on principles outlined in the above, came into the arena, hopeful at first and looking for a possible future in the breaking up of old party lines. As the conflict advanced and became more severe and earnest, the third party gradually lost in strength until its defeat was a conceded matter even before the day of election was reached. The ticket of which Mr. Fillmore was the head received many votes in various states, and even the electoral vote of Maryland. But Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the great and thrilling drama moved on and on, until it merged itself into the awful tragedy of civil war.

This was Mr. Fillmore's last appearance in public life. On his return from the old world he settled himself to the quiet of home life in Buffaloreading, studying, and giving himself to the company of congenial friends. In 1858 he was again married, to Mrs. Caroline McIntosh of Albany, New York. He identified himself with the social and intellectual interests of Buffalo, aiding in the organization of a historical society that has become one of the strong and useful institutions of the west. When Mr.

Lincoln was on his way to Washington to be inaugurated President, Mr. Fillmore was chairman of the committee on reception.

During the civil war, Mr. Fillmore was an interested observer of events, but said little and took no part; and many believed that his sympathies. were largely with the south. He lived to see the final triumph of the Union, and to see slavery no more a cause of trouble in the nation. died at his home in Buffalo, on March 8, 1874, aged seventy-five years and two months.

He

Of the personal side of Millard Fillmore it may be said that in early boyhood he was frail and somewhat backward in growth, but gained in strength as he grew in years, and attained a vigorous manhood. While he was young in years and serving his first term in the state legislature, it was written of him by a cotemporary observer: "Millard Fillmore of Erie county is of the middle stature-five feet nine inches in height. He appears to be about thirty-five years of age, but it is said he is not more than thirty; of light complexion, regular features, and of a mild and benign countenance. He has all the prudence, discretion and judgment of an experienced man. He is modest, retiring and unassuming. He appears to be insensible of the rare and happy qualities of mind for which he is so distinguished. He exhibits, on every occasion when called into action a mildness and benignity of temper, mingled with a firmness of purpose, that is seldom concentrated in the same individual. He possesses a logical mind; and there is not a member of the house who presents his views on any subject that he attempts to discuss in a more precise and luminous manner. He seldom speaks unless there appears to be an absolute necessity for the arguments or explanations which he offers. As a legislator Mr. Fillmore appears to act with perfect fairness and impartiality. He examines every subject distinctly for himself, and decides on its merits according to the best lights of his own judgment or understanding. As a debater he occupies a very elevated stand in the house. His manner is good; his voice agreeable. Towards his opponents he never fails to evince a most studied delicacy." Another writer speaks of him as follows in 1842, after he had become one of the leading members of the lower house of congress:

"His features, without being very strongly marked, are decidedly expressive and agreeable, and in or out of congress there are few better looking men. His appearance would attract attention anywhere, as his abilities qualify him for any station. In his temperament he is always phlegmatic-is always self-composed, and all his acts are controlled by the dictates of his own judgment. He weighs everything in the most prudent manner-enters into a nice calculation-and is never misled by the promptings of his heart. He is the incarnation of truth and integrity. He is frank, open and manly."

As a public speaker Mr. Fillmore was never classed among the higher few. He was a plain, direct, logical debater, rather than an orator. His address was to the judgment of his hearers rather than to the passions or the heart. Such extracts as have been given from his state papers or letters show that he indulged in no rhetoric for the sake of rhetoric, and that the plainest and most direct expression of his thought was the one that suited him the best. His cast of mind was strong and deep rather than fervent or emotional. As a financial or business man he would have commanded the most eminent success. In all his public and private affairs he seemed to possess a desire for business rather than show. He loved labor, was fond of method, and united a comprehensive mental grasp to great energy and a marked capacity for detail.

Mr. Fillmore was a member of the Unitarian society at Buffalo, and his private life was beyond reproach. It was a favorite remark of his father that the son possessed the shortest creed in Christendom, and that it was comprised in the two words-do right.

A just estimate of Mr. Fillmore's administration ought to be possible now after the question of slavery has been taken out of American consideration forever, and the dissensions it caused rapidly becoming matters altogether of the past. And no estimate can be just without full reflection. on the matters that have been brought forth in what has already been said. The times were full of peril, and woe unutterable was ready to be invoked upon the head of any man north or south who should of his own purpose cast the firebrand into the powder pit that lay deep beneath America's very foundation walls. It was a time when wiser and abler men might well have feared to become the head of the government. It was a load that even General Taylor, himself a southerner and even a slave-holder, was unable to carry without great bitterness of heart and heaviness of soul. He meant to be fair. He meant to give the south that, and that only, which he believed the constitution accorded to them as a matter of primal legal right. He dreaded war, and he lived in the hope that so many wise and able men of that generation shared, that a time would come in which more light would be granted, better counsels prevail, and slavery be eliminated from the land by a process of mutual concession and certain peace. It is but just to say that he and they looked upon the compromise measures as but a breathing place, a ground of truce upon which all contestants might stand for a little time and arrange some settlement of the future. That they only postponed the horrors of war and the travail of labor by which the new America was born, we can see with clearness of vision now, but by what subtle prophecy were they to learn of all that the threatening of the future held in store? There is no injustice more severe than that which condemns an era and fails to take note of the lights and shadows under which that era lay.

Several extracts have been already given from Mr. Fillmore's public papers and addresses, yet they hardly do justice to the many-sided character of his mind, nor illustrate the various directions of thought and comment that were a part of his private and public life. His plan for a bank, referred to in the foregoing, illustrates this point in a remarkable degree. In order to determine this question properly, " to quote therefrom, "several things are to be taken into consideration, and the first is, what is the duty of the state in reference to banking? It would, doubtless, be desirable to create banks which should be able to discharge every obligation, not only to the bill-holder but to the depositors and all others to whom it should incur any liability. But this is impossible. The safety fund, which was intended to provide such security, would have been ample to redeem all the circulation of the banks which have failed, but it has been exhausted in paying depositors and other creditors of the insolvent banks, and is now mortgaged for all it will probably produce for eighteen years to come. Thus, by attempting more than could be accomplished, the legislature failed to secure the bill-holder, which was in its power, and, for the remaining eighteen years that some of these charters have to run, the safety fund yields him no security. . . . It is humbly conceived the duty of the state in this case begins and ends with furnishing a good and safe currency to the people. . . . The comptroller believes that the safest way to make a sound paper currency is to have at all times ample security for its redemption in the possession of the state. In order to make this security ample it should be not only sufficient in amount but should be of such a nature that it might be readily converted into cash without loss. It is not enough that the security be ultimately good or collectible; delay in redeeming the circulation causes it to depreciate, and is almost as fatal to the poor man who cannot wait as ultimate insolvency." In the following suggestion the present National bank system was very clearly foreshadowed: "Should the country remain at peace, it cannot be doubted that the stocks of the United States will be a safe and adequate security. The comptroller would therefore recommend that the law be so changed as to exclude bonds and mortgages from all free banks which shall hereafter commence business, and to prevent the taking of any more from those now in operation, and to require that ten per cent. per annum of those now held as security be withdrawn and their places supplied by stock of this state or of the United States. If this recommendation be adopted, at the end of ten years the whole security will be equal to a six per cent. stock of this state or of the United States, which it is presumed will be ample security for the redemption of all bills in circulation. Could this system of banking be generally adopted in the several states, it can hardly be doubted it would prove highly beneficial. It would create a demand for their own state stocks. The interest paid