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Lot 30
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President Millard Fillmore’s Own Signed Congressional Directory
President Millard Fillmore’s Own Signed Congressional Directory
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Description:

Millard Fillmore
Washington, DC, ca. 1851
President Millard Fillmore's Own Signed Congressional Directory
Signed book
MILLARD FILLMORE, Signed Book, Congressional Director for the Second Session of the Thirty-First Congress of the United States of America (Washington, DC: Gideon and Co., 1851). 66 pp., 5" x 7.75". Boldly signed on cover; some edge tears; string bound with glued on front cover; includes "maps" with location of each senator and representative's seat in their respective chambers.

This intriguing artifact of Millard Fillmore's presidency is a Congressional directory for the second session of the 31st United States Congress. The first session had begun in March 1849 with Vice President Millard Fillmore as the presiding officer of the United States Senate. The death of President Zachary Taylor and Fillmore's succession to the Presidency in July 1850 placed him in a different relationship with Congress.

The second session of the 31st Congress sat from December 2, 1850, to March 4, 1851. It began with 62 Senators, of whom 35 were Democrats, 2 were Free Soil, and 25 were Whig. Democrat William R. King of Alabama served as president pro tempore of the Senate throughout the session. In the more closely divided House of Representatives, there were 230 members, of whom 114 were Democrats, 105 were Whigs, 1 was a Know Nothing, 9 were Free Soilers, and 1 was an Independent. In December 1849, the House selected Democrat Howell Cobb of Georgia as Speaker, after a marathon of 63 ballots. Cobb left the House in March 1851 and won election as governor of Georgia.

This directory includes such famous Senators as Henry Clay, David R. Atchison, Jefferson Davis, Lewis Cass, Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Frémont, Hannibal Hamlin, Sam Houston, and William H. Seward, many of whom played pivotal roles in the Civil War a decade later. Prominent Representatives include John Bell, Andrew Johnson, Horace Mann, Alexander H. Stephens, and David Wilmot.

Among the important legislation passed by the Second Session of the 31st Congress were the California Land Act and the Limitation of Liability Act, both passed on March 3, 1851, at the end of the session.

This directory provides a list of all of the members of Congress by state, in which boarding house or other accommodation they lived, a list of the members of the committees of each house, lists of officers of the Smithsonian Institution, other public officers, and foreign diplomats living in Washington, and a list of American ministers and consuls residing in foreign countries.
Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) was born in a log cabin in western New York. Largely self-taught, he later read law with several lawyers before being admitted to the bar in 1823. He married Abigail Powers in 1826, and they had two children. He represented New York as a Whig in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1833 to 1835 and again from 1837 to 1843. He returned to his law practice, and in 1846, helped found the University of Buffalo and became its first chancellor. While Fillmore served as state comptroller in 1848, the Whig Party selected him as the vice-presidential running mate for Mexican War hero Zachary Taylor. When the Whigs won the election, Fillmore became vice president in March 1849. As vice president, he presided over the Senate during the contentious debates over the Compromise of 1850, which Fillmore favored. When President Taylor died suddenly on July 9, 1850, Fillmore became the 13th President of the United States. Although the Compromise of 1850, as proposed in a single bill by Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, failed to gain enough support to pass, Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois pushed through the provisions as five separate bills, and President Fillmore signed them as they reached him. His support of the Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise made him unpopular with many northern Whigs. In 1852, Fillmore lost the Whig nomination to Mexican War hero Winfield Scott, whom Democrat Franklin Pierce easily defeated in the general election.

Fillmore's wife died just weeks after Pierce became president, and Fillmore returned to New York, where a year later, his only daughter died. After spending a year in Europe and the Middle East, Fillmore was the presidential candidate for the American Party in 1856. He garnered more than 21 percent of the popular vote but won only the state of Maryland in the Electoral College. In 1858, he married widow Caroline Carmichael McIntosh (1813-1881). Although he supported Stephen Douglas, the northern Democratic candidate in the election of 1860, like Douglas, Fillmore was a strong supporter of the Union and supported Lincoln's efforts to preserve it.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 5" x 7.75"
  • Medium: Signed book

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