Millard Fillmore | Spared & Shared 23

The following letter was probably written by the same John P. Foster (1817-1890) of Lynchburg, Campbell county, Virginia, who married, in 1848, to Susan Ann Temperence (“Tempy”) Holt. He was originally from Charlotte, I believe. Later in life he was a farmer. I was unable to find anyone else by this name in the 1850 census. But I also could not establish a link with his uncle, S. B. Foster.

From what I can gather, John was an itinerant watch peddlar/repairman. His letter speaks of the growing agitation between the North & South over the slavery issue and specially refers to Millard Fillmore’s recent message to Congress urging Texasto give up her claims to parts of New Mexico in exchange for $10 million in federal compensation which led to the Compromise of 1850. (see Speech).

T R A N S C R I P T I O N

Fork Union
Fluvanna county [Virginia]
August 11th 1850

My dear Uncle,

With pleasure I now seat myself to address a few lines to you to inform you of my whereabouts, &c.

I got your letter about two weeks ago & was very glad to hear from you & to learn of my friends in that part of the world & to know that you are yet in the enjoyment of good health & as you say—happy, which is far more than I can say. Although my health is as good as it has been for the last two years, I cannot say that I am happy for I am far from it yet. I think that I am as happy as almost anyone could be in my situation. I find my business very good yet. I am doing well as could be expected. I have taken since last November over three hundred dollars [and] have cleared over and above expenses a little over two hundred besides my horse & clothes. I have just one hundred in the bank which pays five percent [interest]. I have in my pocket about over a hundred & as I am a going on to Washington & Baltimore, I think I will lay it out in Lever Watches. I can get $25 for Harrisons which pays very well as it is no expense to sell them.

I want to see you and others of my friends but it is useless to talk about that as I do not expect to do so for a long time. I am now at Mr. Mann’s. He has given up the business & he has given me a recommendation to all of his former customers. I have been out on his route three days [and] got $9.50 and the promise of $5 more when I come around next time. I think my prospect is far better this year than it was last.

The weather is very warm. For several days the thermometer stood at 104 which you know is very warm riding. Yet I stand it far better than I expected. I am now in what is called a very sickly place at this season of the year but it is uncommonly healthy. I do not know of a sick person about excepting some that are always a grumbling year after year as ther are some in every place. We have had no cholera in this section yet. It is at Harpers Ferry, 30 miles west of Washington—a few cases.

As it regards Miss Martha playing [backgammon?], I think she tried to make it appear a little to smoothe on her part by saying that she had but little knowledge of the play. I think she must have played before to have beaten you six times in succession yet I think that she ought to be credited for the same. I would be very happy to take a game with her myself. I think by the time she had beaten three or four times, that the rest would come out mine, but as you know, it is useless to oppose a woman. We must let them have their own way & say you spoke of my pen making me write strangely as it regards Phebe kissing me. It is no more strange than true. yet I don’t think that it bestows much honor on me. But she did it as though she loved it which you know is natural for her.

Give my respects to Marth T. & all others of my old acquaintance except the man that keeps a preparation for pies (_urber). Peaches are very plenty & beginning to ripen & we have a most all kinds of fruit. The wheat crop is a little short. Corn looks very well. Tobacco is small but very high in market.

There is a great stir about the Abolitionist Question which I think is now a going to soon bring the North & South into a quarrel as I suppose you have seen Fillmore’s message in regard to Texas which if he sends a force there, the South will rise. But I hope it will prove otherwise.

I shall be in Washington on the 1st of October. Write me either at Fredericksburg, Virginia, or Washington City. I must now close. Goodbye at present. From your nephew, — John P. Foster

to his Uncle S. B. Foster

The following letter was penned by a self-professed “well wisher” of President Millard Fillmore who advised him that his life was in danger. There were men of “true steel,” he warned the President, who opposed the Chief Magistrate’s stated political position in support of the recently passed Compromise of 1850—with its odious Fugitive Slave Law—and his avowed determination to enforce it with the full force and might of the federal government. Though he personally opposed slavery, Fillmore “had no sympathy for the slave, for free blacks, or for the northern whites who did have sympathy for the slave.” ¹ Fillmore’s defense of the omnibus bill was rooted in his belief that it was the only possible way for the Union to be preserved. He rightfully predicted that it would appease the Southerners but he miscalculated the firestorm it would cause in the North. Where once the average Northerner heard little and cared less about slavery, suddenly it became everyones business and an incendiary topic.

In Amherst, Massachusetts, where this letter was mailed (if not written), the majority of the Whigs shifted their allegiance to the Free Soil Party platform and joined in passing a series of resolutions that included an outright rejection of the notion that citizens should be compelled, by the Constitution, to engage in slave catching or suffer a penalty in failing to do so. A plethora of court cases challenging the law throughout the major Eastern seaboard cities dominated the papers and the daily citizen chatter on courthouse steps.

I have searched without success to find any citizen by the name of Charles Mulligan, Jr.—not only in North Amherst but in Massachusetts—who may have actually been the author of this letter. It is my conclusion that the name was fabricated and that the letter, offered to the President under the pretense of coming from a friend, was actually written by someone who opposed the President. The alleged threat of spies, looking for an opportunity to kill the President if he did not back down from his position in support of the Fugitive Slave Law, was not real, in my opinion. I believe it was only a rather crude and ineffectual attempt to intimidate Fillmore.

Whether Fillmore took the threat seriously or not is difficult to say. No American President had been assassinated up to that date though there was a half-hearted attempt on Jackson’s life in 1835. It seems he took it seriously enough to send the letter back to the deputy post master of N. Amherst asking him if he knew who mailed it. Curiously, he wrote this enquiry in his own hand.

[Note: This letter is from the personal collection of Richard Weiner and was transcribed and published on Spared & Shared by express consent.]

Transcription

Amherst [Massachusetts]
February 26th 1851

President Fillmore
Dear Sir,

Excuse the liberty I take in addressing to you these few lines & take me if you please to be your well wisher while I say to you that I accidentally became aware that it is a notorious fact that by a private meeting in this vicinity, thy life is deliberately premeditated in case you say one word more in favor of that (as they call it) black slave till ² & accidentally, as I before said, I find it to be a notorious fact that eight able-bodied men of true steel (as men) have been chosen to leave for Washington City tomorrow morning as spies to lay in wait for your life in case another move is [made] to favor slavery & only write you this short epistle that you may look out for them.

Yours very respectfully, — Charles Mulligan, Jr.

[docketed at bottom of letter in Fillmore’s own hand]

To the Deputy P[ost] M[aster] at North Amherst

Sir, Can you inform me who wrote the above. Respectfully yours, — Millard Fillmore

Washington City, March 2, 1851

¹ Millard Fillmore: The American Presidents Series: The 13th, by Paul Finkelman, page 102.

² I don’t understand the use of the word “till” here unless there was actually a slave named “Till” who was subject to the Fugitive Slave Law. I could not find any reference in the newspapers that would clear up this confusion. I’m inclined to believe that the author left out a word or two inadvertently.