Third and final installment of examining the obscure Presidents on this long Presidents’ Day weekend. With William Henry Harrison, I played a little bit of “what if” with his presidency and argued that he’s more significant than he gets credit for. With Millard Fillmore, I argued that while not great, he is in no way terrible and deserves a fresh look. Today, with Franklin Pierce, I’m going to argue that he is a legitimately great President. Let’s examine Young Hickory of the Granite Hills.

“Born in poverty, poorly educated, and utterly unsophisticated, Millard Fillmore is one of our most obscure presidents, and one of our worst.” Yikes. This is the opening sentence on the back cover of Paul Finkelman’s Fillmore biography, which is part of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s American Presidents Series. Schlesinger isn’t some nobody, his father is a “renowned” presidential historian and one of the first to come up with a presidential ranking list. Yet, this grade-school level garbage is what passes for historical research. “I don’t know who he is, so he must have sucked.” And you people wonder why I hate the professional historian class so much? This Presidents’ Day weekend let’s give Millard Fillmore a fair shot and examine him under a new lens.

13th President Millard Fillmore