Millard Fillmore

Millard Fillmore succeeded to the presidency on Taylor's death in 1850 and promptly reversed course, throwing his support behind the Compromise of 1850.

He signed its five measures into law, including the deeply divisive Fugitive Slave Act, which compelled Northerners to assist in returning escaped enslaved people. The compromise postponed civil war for a decade but enraged abolitionists and split his Whig Party, which denied him renomination. He later ran as the candidate of the anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party.

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