State of the Union Address

The complete addresses of Millard Fillmore (1800-1874), who was the thirteenth President of the United States, serving from 1850 until 1853, and the last member of the Whig Party to hold that office. He succeeded from the Vice Presidency on the death of President Zachary Taylor, becoming the second U.S. President to assume the office in this manner. Fillmore was never elected President in his own right; after serving out Taylor's term he was not nominated for the Presidency by the Whigs in the 1852 Presidential election, and in the 1856 Presidential election he again failed to win election as President as the Know Nothing Party and Whig candidate. Fillmore was born in poverty in Summerhill, New York as the second of nine children and the eldest son. He struggled to obtain an education under frontier conditions, attending New Hope Academy for six months. Fillmore supported slavery in the new western territories taken from Mexico in the Mexican-American War. In his own words: "God knows