LIFE AFTER THE WHITE HOUSE, PART II
William Henry Harrison died after only a month in office, and was succeeded by his Vice President, John Tyler. At the end of his term, Tyler retired to his estate, Sherwood Forest, where he lived quietly until just before the Civil War. He served as the Chancellor of the College of William and Mary. In February 1861, he led a southern delegation to a hastily convened peace conference of 21 states. The conference rejected the southern peace proposals. At the Virginia secession convention in April, Tyler voted for leaving the Union, and became a member of the Provisional Confederate Congress. In November 1861, he was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, but died in Richmond before taking his seat. The only President to side with the South in the Civil War, Tyler was given a state funeral in Richmond, but in the North no official notice was taken of his passing.
James K. Polk declined to run for re-election in 1848, and retired to his home, Polk Place. He was very sick, and his wife hoped he would regain his health. This was not to be, and he died three months after leaving office.
Zachary Taylor died in office, and was followed by his Vice President, Millard Fillmore. Fillmore failed to capture the nomination of the Whig Party for a full term of his own, and retired to his home in Buffalo, New York. His wife died shortly after he left the White House, and his daughter died less than 16 months later. He later took a 13-month tour of Europe, where he appeared with former President Van Buren in the House of Commons in England. In 1856, he was nominated for President by the nativist American, or Know-Nothing, Party. He was also nominated later that year by the remnants of the Whig Party, most of whose members had left to join the new Republican Party, making the Whig nomination meaningless. Fillmore won over 21% of the vote, but carried only one state. After that he remained active in civic affairs in Buffalo, and hosted President-elect Lincoln when he stopped there on his way to Washington for his inauguration. Fillmore supported Lincoln and the war effort, but came under attack for his earlier support of the Fugitive Slave Law. After Lincoln’s assassination, the outside of Fillmore’s home was vandalized. He also supported the unpopular Reconstruction plans of President Andrew Johnson, but otherwise was
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