Millard Fillmore (#13)

Millard Fillmore (1800–1874) was the 13th President of the United States, ascending to the office after Zachary Taylor's death in 1850. Born into poverty in a log cabin in New York, he was largely self-educated and rose through the legal profession to become one of the most prominent Whig politicians of the antebellum era. His presidency is most associated with the Compromise of 1850 — a package of legislation he signed into law that temporarily defused the sectional crisis over slavery but included the deeply controversial Fugitive Slave Act, requiring Northern citizens to assist in capturing escaped enslaved people.

Fillmore's signature on the Fugitive Slave Act effectively ended his political career within the Whig Party and accelerated the party's collapse. His most surprising legacy came in foreign policy: he sent Commodore Matthew Perry's expedition to Japan in 1853, which ultimately forced the opening of Japan to Western trade after over 200 years of isolation. After leaving office, Fillmore ran for president again in 1856 as the candidate of the American (Know-Nothing) Party on a nativist, anti-Catholic platform — an episode that further damaged his historical reputation.