On July 10, 1850, Vice President Millard Fillmore became the 13th president of the United States. President Zachary Taylor had died the day before, on June 9th, from a very bad intestinal problem that had started on the Fourth of July. Becoming president like this gave him the nickname His Accidency. He was the 2nd man to have the presidency after a president’s death. John Tyler had become president in 1841 after William Henry Harrison had died of pneumonia after being president for only 30 days.
As vice president, Fillmore had quietly supported slavery legislation and slave-owning interests, even though President Taylor had been against slavery. During Fillmore’s presidency, he and Congress voted in the Fugitive Slave Act (1850), making it a crime to help slaves who were running away and trying to escape to free territories. As white settlers fought against the Native Americans, Fillmore voted in one-sided treaties that made Native Americans move onto government reservations, and this killed millions of Native Americans through the disease and starvation and wars that came. With the loss of support of the northern anti-slavery states, Fillmore was not re-elected as president in 1852, so he retired and was on various legal and historical committees until he died in 1874.
