Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/198

 154 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS than he had ever known. Although Mr. Fillmore did not claim to have discovered any original sys tem of revenue, still the tariff of 1842 was a new creation, and he is most justly entitled to the dis tinction of being its author. It operated success fully, giving immediate life to our languishing 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 instant he could produce the legal authority for every expenditure which he recommended. Sensible that this was a great safeguard against improper 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 United States government. Mr. Fillmore retired from congress in 1843, and was a candidate for the office of vice-president, sup ported by his own and several of the western states, in the Whig convention that met at Baltimore in May, 1844. In the following September he was nominated by acclamation for governor, but was defeated by Silas Wright, his illustrious contem porary, Henry Clay being vanquished at the same time in the presidential contest by James K. Polk.