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454 original system of revenue, still the tariff of 1842 was a new creation, and he is most justly entitled to the distinction of being its author. It operated successfully, giving immediate life to our languish- ing industries and national credit. At the same time Mr. Fillmore, with great labor, prepared a digest of the laws authorizing all appropriations reported by him to the house as chairman of the committee on ways and means, so that on the in- stant he could produce the legal authority for every expenditure which he recommended. Sensi- ble that this was a great safeguard against im- proper expenditures, he procured the passage of a resolution requiring the departments, when they submitted estimates of expenses, to accompany them with a, reference to the laws authorizing them in each and every instance. This has ever since been the practice of the government.

Mr. Fillmore retired from congress in 1843, and was a candidate for the otiice of vice-president, supported by his own and several of the western states, in the Whig convention that met at Bal- timore in May, 1844. In the following September he was nominated by acclamation for governor, but was defeated by Silas Wright, his illustrious contemporary, Henry Clay, being vanquished at the same time in the presidential contest by James K. Polk. In 1847 Fillmore was elected comptroller of the state of New York, an ofRce which then in- eluded many duties now distributed among other departments. In his report of 1 Jan., 1849, he sug- gested that a national bank, with the stocks of the United States as the sole basis upon which to issue its currency, might be established and carried on, so as to prove a great convejiience to the govern- ment, with perfecit safety to the people. This idea involves the essential principle of our present sys- tem of national banks.

In June, 1848, Millard Fillmore was nominated by the Whig national convention for vice-presi- dent, with Gen. Taylor, who had recently won mili- tary renown in Mexico, as president, and was in the following November elected, making, with the late occupant of the office, seven vice-presidents of the United States from New York, a greater number than has been yet furnished by any other state. In February, 1849, Fillmore resigned the comptrollei*- ship, and on 5 March he was inaugurated as vice- president. In 1830 Calhoun, of South Carolina, then A'ice-president, established the rule that that officer had no authority to call senators to order. During the heated controversies in the sessions of 1849-'50, occasioned by the application of Califor- nia for admission into the Union, the vexed ques- tion of slavery in the new territories, and that of the rendition of fugitive slaves, in which the most acrimonious language was used, Mr. Fillmore, in a forcible speech to the senate, announced his deter- mination to maintain order, and that, should oc- casion require, he should resume the usage of his predecessors upon that point. This announcement met with the unanimous approval of the senate, which directed the vice-president's remarks to be entered in full on its journal. He presided during the exciting controversy on Clay's "omnibus bill " with his usual impartiality, and so perfectly even did he hold the scales that no one knew which policy he approved excepting the president, to whom he privately stated that, should he be re- quired to deposit a casting vote, it would be in favor of Henry Clay's bill. More than seven months of the session had been exhausted in angry controversy, when, on 9 July, 1850, the country was startled by the news of President Taylor's death. He passed away in the second year of his presi- dency, suddenly and most unexpectedly, of a vio- lent fever, which was brought on by long exposure to the excessive heat of a fou)'th of July sun, while he was attending the public ceremonies of the day. It was a critical moment in the history of our country when Millard Fillmore was on Wednesday, 10 July, 1850, made president of the United States. With great propriety he reduced the ceremony of his inauguration to an official act to be marked by solemnity without joy ; and so with an absence of the usual heralding of trumpet and shawm, he was unostentatiously sworn into his great office in the hall of representatives, in the presence of both houses. The chief justice of the circuit court of the District of Columbia — the venerable William Cranch, appointed fifty years before by President John Adams — administered the oath, which being done, the new president bowed and retired, and the ceremony was at an end. Mr. Fillmore was then in the prime of life, possessing that which to the heathen philosopher seemed the greatest of all blessings — a sound mind in a sound body. The accompanying vignette portrait was taken at this time, while the large steel engraving is from a pic- ture made some twenty years later. Of Fillmore's keen aji] ireci;ition of the responsibility devolving on him we have the evidence of letters written at that time, in which he says he should despair but for his hunrble reliance on God to help him in the honest, fear- less, and faithful discharge of his great duties. Presi- dent Taylor's cabi- net i mmediately re- signed, and a new and exceedingly able one was select- ed by Mr. Fill- more, with Daniel Webster as secre- tary of state ; Thomas Cor win, secretary of the treasury ; William A. Graham, sec- retary of the navy : Charles M. Conrad, secretary of war ; Alexander 11. II. Stuart, secretary of the in- terior ; John J. Crittenden, attorney-general ; and Nathan K. Hall, postmaster-general. Of these, Mr. Webster died, and Messrs. Graham and Hall retired in 1852, and were respectively replaced by Edward Everett, John P. Kennedy, and Samuel D. Hub- bard. Stuart, of Virginia, is now the sole sur- vivor of the illustrious men who aided Mr. Fill- more in guiding the ship of state during the most ap]ialling political tempest, save one, which ever visited this fair land. It is not the writer's wish to I'eawaken party feelings or party prejudice or to recall those great questions of pith and mo- ment which so seriously disturbed congress and the country in the first days of Fillmore's admin- istration, but yet, even in so cursory a glance as we are now taking of his career, some comment would seem to be called for in respect to those pub- lic acts connected with slavery which appear to have most unreasonably and unjustly lost him the support of a large proportion of his party in the northern states. Whatever the wisdom of Mr. Fillmore's course may have been, it is impossible to doubt his patriotism or his honest belief that he was acting in accordance with his oath to obey the constitution of his country. The president's dream was peace — to preserve without hatred and