Monday, July 5, 2021

Dead Presidents Podcast Episode 13 - Millard Fillmore & Top 5 Embarrassing Political Blunders

Millard Fillmore was a compromise vice presidential nominee who backed into the White House upon Zachary Taylor's sudden death. The nation was in the middle of a sectional crisis and a bitterly-divided Congress was about to send Fillmore some legislation cobbled together in a desperate bid to avert civil war.  His signing of the controversial Fugitive Slave Act may have helped resolve the crisis, but it would become a dark cloud that plagued his presidency. Tasked with holding together not just a fracturing Union but his own fracturing Whig Party, Fillmore did his best to reconcile the increasingly irreconcilable elements of antebellum America.  Also: Our Top 5 Embarrassing Political Blunders counts down some of the biggest bonehead moves and unforced errors by which presidents have shot themselves in the foot.

Dead Presidents Podcast Homepage (with links to access the podcast on your favorite podcast app!)






We're very proud of all of our wonderful Episode 13 sponsors:
H.F. Bailey’s Gothic Hall Bowling Saloon – Buffalo Morning Express & Illustrated Buffalo Express (Buffalo, NY) – July 24, 1850

Thomas and Deborah Seaver – Orleans County Gazette (Irasburgh, VT) – May 3, 1851

Deborah Seaver responds – Orleans County Gazette (Irasburgh, VT) – May 3, 1851

Rum for sale – Richmond Dispatch (Richmond, VA) – January 19, 1853

Stanton’s hemorrhoidal ointment – Vermont Journal (Windsor, VT) – May 2, 1851

Reward for cemetery desecrators – The Alton Telegraph (Alton, IL) – April 23, 1852

Reward for barnburner – Vermont Journal (Windsor, VT) – May 2, 1851

Astrologer C.W. Roback – State Indiana Sentinel (Indianapolis, IN) – June 19, 1851

Guns and Pistols for sale – The Alton Telegraph (Alton, IL) – April 23, 1852

Married People’s Ball – Buffalo Evening Post (Buffalo, NY) – January 24, 1851