Millard Fillmore: Biography Of A President

by Robert J. Rayback

In that era of American politics all newspapers were party organs and their editors were party hacks. Only rarely did an editor attain high political stature.

When Fillmore was growing into manhood the modern political party did not exist. No tightly organized hierarchy of authority from the national central committee down to the precinct leader directed the thinking of rank and file. No one acquired a party at birth. Unheard of was the idea that a political party would go on indefinitely through the generations, like a great living organism, with a life apart from its members. The idea that loyalty and fealty were owed to a political party just as a citizen owes them to a nation was unknown.

In the 1820’s Americans conducted their politics in ways which were as closely related to Old World palace intrigues as they were to organized twentieth-century political action. Innumerable small factions made up the parties. Seldom were these factions as large as a state and rarely did they cross state borders. Usually each consisted of one man’s personal followers. What he desired, so did they; and his desires might change from year to year.

“Wars will occur until man changes his nature; and duties [would be] imposed until man ceases to be selfish.”

When James K. Polk won the Presidential election, Fillmore prophetically saw “a cloud of gloom” hanging over America’s future, and prayed: “May God save the country; for it is evident the people will not....”{381}