biography
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1800–74)
|
| biography:
| US statesman and 13th president (1850–3), born in Summerhill, Cayuga Co, New York, USA. Largely self-educated, he studied law and was admitted to the bar (1832). He became comptroller of New York State (1847) and served in the US House of Representatives (1833–5, 1837–43) as a Whig. Elected vice-president in 1848, he ascended to the presidency on the death of Zachary Taylor in 1850. As president he sent Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan, and tried with little popular success to steer a moderate course through the threatening slavery issue. His support of the Fugitive Slave Law as part of the Compromise of 1850 cost him the Whig nomination in 1852. He ran for president on the Know-Nothing (American) Party in 1856, then retired to Buffalo, NY, where he devoted himself to local affairs. |
|
|
