Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/175

 F I L F I L 165 in many similar cases, purely legendary and conjectural. That such an ecclesiastic existed, that he was of Irish origin, and that he was venerated in Glendochart and Strathfillan in Perthshire as early as the 8th or 9th century, may be held as certain. There was an ancient monastery in that district dedicated to St Fillan, which, like most of the religious houses of early times, was afterwards secular ized. The lay-abbot, who was its superior in the reign of William the Lion, held high rank in the Scottish kingdom. This monastery was restored in the reign of Robert Bruce, and became a cell of the abbey of canons- regular at Inchuffray. The new foundation received a grant from King Robert, in gratitude for the aid which he was supposed to have obtained from a relic of the saint on the eve of the great victory of Bannockburn. Another relic was the saint s staff or crozier, which became known as the coygerach or quigrich, and was long in the posses sion of a family of the name of Jore or Dewar, who were its hereditary guardians. They certainly had it in their custody in the year 1428, and their right was formally recognized by King James III. in 1487. The head of the crozier, which is of silver-gilt with a smaller crozier of bronze inclosed within it, is now deposited in the National Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. It was secured for them through the exertions of Dr Daniel Wilson, author of the Prehistoric Annals of Scotland. This crozier has attracted much attention among Scottish antiquaries, and its history has been minutely investigated. On the subject of this article reference may be made to Cosmo Innes s Sketches of Early Scottish History, pp. 389-394, 623-6 24; Bishop Forbes s Kalendurs of Scottish Saints, p. 341-346 ; and specially to the Historical Notices of St FiWnis Crozier, by the late eminent antiquary Dr John Stuart, who died while this, his latest work, was passing through the press. FILLMORE, MILLARD (1800-1874), thirteenth presi dent of the United States of America. His family was of English stock, and had early settled in New England. His father, Nathaniel Fillmore, made in 1795 a clearing within the limits of what is now the town of Summer Hill, Cayuga co., New York, and there the future president was born, January 7, 1800. The father went by the title of &quot; the squire,&quot; and served as a justice in the beginnings of the settlements nearest to him, which were very sparsely occupied. Millard, to the age of fourteen, could have shared only the simplest rudiments of education, chiefly from his parents, with slight help from a school. At that age he was apprenticed, for the usual term, to a fuller and clothier, to card wool, and to dye and dress the cloth from the farmers houses. Two years before the close of his term, ho, by a promissory note for thirty dollars, bought the remainder of his time from his master, and entered a retired lawyer s office as a student and helper at the age of nineteen. He, of course, re ceived and accepted the usual honour extended to young men of his proclivities, to deliver the Fourth of July Oration, before lie was twenty-one years of age. In 1820 lie made his way to Buffalo, then only the germ of the present flourishing city, and supported himself as a student in another law office by teaching a school and aiding the postmaster. In 1823 he was admitted an attorney in the court of common pleas, Eris co., and then took up legal practice at Aurora, to which his father had removed. Hard study, temperance, and integrity gave him a good re putation and moderate success, and lie was made an attorney and counsellor of the supreme court of the State. In 182G he married Abigail, daughter of the Rev. Lemuel Powers. Returning to Buffalo in 1830 lie formed a partnership with two lawyers, both after wards distinguished in public life, and became suc cessful at the bar. From 1823 to 1831 he served as a representative in the State legislature, coming in as an anti-mason. In the single term of 1832-4 he was a repre sentative of his district in the national Congress, as anti- Jackson, or in opposition to the administration. From 1836 to 1842, when he declined further service, he re presented his district as a member of the Whig party. In Congress he opposed the annexation of Texas as slave territory, was a warm advocate of internal improvements and a protective tariff, supported J. Q. Adams in maintaining the right of offering anti-slavery petition?, advocated the prohibition by Congress of the slave trade between the States, and favoured the exclusion of slavery from the District of Columbia. His speech and tone, however, were moderate on these exciting subjects, and he claimed the right to stand free of pledges, and to adjust his opinions and his course by the development of circum stances. The Whigs having the ascendency in Congress during the latter part of his membership, he was made chairman of the House Committee of Ways and Means. Against a strong opposition he carried an appropriation of 30,000 dollars for Morse s telegraph, and secured important provisions in the new tariff measures of 1842. He found some supporters of his proposed nomination as a candidate for vice-president in the Whig National Convention at Baltimore. In May 1844, being the Whig candidate for the governorship of New York, he was defeated by Silas Wright. In 1847 he was made comptroller of the State of New York, an office of manifold responsibilities and duties, which he resigned on his election, in November 1848, as vice-president of the United States, Zachary Taylor being president. He presided over the senate ably and impar tially during the seven months of exciting debate and agitation on the so-called &quot; Compromise Measures,&quot; and Mr Clay s &quot; Omnibus Bill,&quot; which, though finally defeated as a whole, substantially succeeded in its general bearing on several matters of intense import to the nation as connected with the subject of slavery. President Taylor died July 9, 1850, and the next day Fillmore, according to the special provision of the consti- tion, took the oath and acceded to the highest office, being then fifty-one years old. The cabinet which he called around him, contained many distinguished men, as Webster, Corwin, Crittenden, Graham, Hall, and Kennedy. On the death of Webster in 1852, Edward Everett suc ceeded him as secretary of state. The president sent a force to protect New Mexico in the dispute as to its boundaries with Texas. The critical matter which gave its historic significance to his administration was that chief one of the class of &quot; compromise&quot; measures, the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law, to make effective a provision of the constitution for the rendition of &quot;fugitives from labour or service.&quot; Being instructed by Crittenden, his attorney-general, that the bill was not inconsistent with the constitutional sanction of the Habeas Corpus, the president signed the bill, and issued a proclamation calling upon Government officials to enforce it. These measures roused the most passionate opposition and animosity, among Whigs as well as anti-slavery men. The attempt to enforce the odious law was restricted by mobs in various free States, and was made, for the most part, wholly ineffectual, the people being resolved to regard it as annulled by the &quot; higher law.&quot; The fact that the president had signed and sought to enforce the law, though he might plead for himself constitutional obligation, and a purpose of patriotic fidelity in the exercise of his best judgment, made a breach between him and his party. But few questioned the sincerity and purity of his intentions, or his own full persuasion that the measures were of vital necessity to pacify the nation. Still, as the result was a sharp and embittered variance among his previous supporters, his administration was regarded as inglorious, if not as a failure.