I’ve no idea if Pres. Fillmore ever visited Whitewater. That’s Millard Fillmore, the political disaster: supporter of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Know Nothing Movement, and a thorn in Lincoln’s side during the Civil War.
Simply put, Fillmore would be a hard sell to anyone looking at his record honestly. That’s why historians rank him as a failure.
How could one turn that perception around?
The right way would have been to persuade Fillmore, during his career, not to have made so many disastrous mistakes. That is, the best outcome would be for Fillmore not to have had a career as bad as Fillmore’s.
There’s another – decidedly worse way – to flack Fillmore to future generations: simple declare him a success, and publish a really big portrait of him.
Like this:
Are you now persuaded and over-awed?
Where once was a political wreck do you now see only COMPELLING AUTHORITY to which, by God, you must DEFER and YIELD?
Did Fillmore’s mediocre career and proposals become, upon your seeing his large portrait, now INFALLIABLE and BEYOND QUESTION?
No, of course not: that sort of groveling before authority is unsuited to a free people. Fillmore was just a man (and a middling one at that).
Just a person, as we all are: the same was true of Governor Doyle, is true of Governor Walker, and will be true of our next governor.
Just one more person, visiting the town.