Without taking part in politics, he had been a close observer of events, and his prolonged services at frontier posts had afforded the leisure and enforced the taste for reading.

He knew not only the public measures, but the public men of his time closely and appreciatively.

He surprised a member of his cabinet on a certain occasion, by objecting to a proposed appointment on the ground that the man designated had voted for Benton's expunging resolution at the close of Jackson's administration, -- an offense which the President would not condone.

The seven members of his cabinet, actively engaged in politics all their lives, had forgotten an important fact which the President instinctively remembered.
Long before General Taylor's death it was known that Mr.Fillmore did not sympathize with the policy of the administration.

He had been among the most advanced of anti-slavery Whigs during his service in the House of Representatives, and was placed on the Taylor ticket as a conciliatory candidate, to hold to their allegiance that large class of Whigs who resented the nomination of a Louisiana slave-holder.