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Cornell University Library 1993.MILLARD FILLMORE
AND HIS PART IN
THE OPENING OF JAPAN
An Address delivered before the Buffalo Historical Society,
Friday evening, December 15, 1905
BY WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D. D., L. H. D.
Author of “ The Mikado’s Empire,” and
Pioneer Educator in Japan
Copyright 1906, by Wm. Elliot GriffisMILLARD FILLMORE
AND HIS PART IN
THE OPENING OF JAPAN
BY WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D. D., L. H. D.
In human history it often happens that good men suffer
with the fate of institutions. Associated with or entangled
in tendencies and events, their reputation falls with the pol-
icy which they in good faith upheld. Not until after the
ground is cleared of debris and ruin, and new structures
arise, from which we can view the historic landscape, can
we pass a just judgment on those whose fortunes fell with
the falling structure. Yet, as there is a difference between
reputation and character, so the first may pass under eclipse
only to emerge in brilliancy, while the latter remains for aye.
The personality of Millard Fillmore is but slightly known
to the present generation, because in his public life he rose,
and fell out of national notice, with the Whig party. His
statesmanship, though marked by high qualities, confronted
a problem that seems now to have been absolutely insoluble,
except through an appeal to the sword, so that the issues,
in meeting which he gave his noblest efforts, seem dead and
gone forever, and, with them, in the eye of the unthinking,
Millard Fillmore’s reputation.
To the impartial student of history such is far from being
the case. His character reveals itself as that of a noble
patriot and generous citizen, and as one who did his duty
as he saw it, never shirking it. Only for those who are wise
after the event are shallow criticisms and snap judgments.
ss56;
MILLARD FILLMORE AND HIS PART
The generation that is now coming into active life and the
generations which are to follow will award Millard Fillmore
fust consideration and higher praise. For their verdict upon
his political life, we can afford to wait. In this paper we
propose to outline the career of a typical American, who
after birth in the forest and training on the farm emerged
to national fame and world-wide power. We shall show
especially his part in the opening of an empire long sealed
from the world, but mainly through American action intro-
duced into the family of nations and, with the aid of Ameri-
can political friendship and educational influences, assisted
to an honorable place in the world's council of nations.
Least of all men was Millard Fillmore supercilious in
pride of birth; and yet, neither history nor science permits
us to ignore his ancestry. Genealogists find that the original
family name has been variously spelled, the original form
being Filmer, as, for example, in the case of Sir Robert
Filmer. This political writer of the sixteenth century was
one of the early expounders of the theory of the Divine
Right of Kings, the critic of Milton, Hobbes, and Grotius;
in a word, he was the assertor of a doctrine of which the
Fillmores in America were to be the most uncompromising
opposers with both sword and pen, in opinion and in life.
Coming from England and settling at Ipswich, Mass., in
the seventeenth century, John Fillmore followed the sea.
Captured by pirates, he was impressed on their vessel; but,
refusing to serve them, he made his escape after a daring
uprising, with comrades in the plot, and brought both the
vessels to Boston and the pirates to justice and the gallows,
—all of which is told in the pamphlet printed by his descend-
ants. In later years, he settled near Norwich, Conn., whence
his son, Nathaniel, emigrated to Bennington, Vermont.
During Stark's campaign, Nathaniel Fillmore fought on the
American side, having a part in that victory which some
Vermonters believe was the turning-point of the Revolu-
tionary War. Nathaniel’s son, also named Nathaniel, a
native of Bennington, emigrated to the lake region of New
York, when the greater part of the Empire State was aIN THE OPENING OF JAPAN.
57
forest. He made a clearing in the town of Summer Hill,
then a part of Locke in Cayuga County, and reared a log
cabin. After reaping his first crop, he went back to Ben-
nington and married Phebe Millard, a native of Pittsfield,
Mass. Millard Fillmore, their second child and eldest son,
was born in the log cabin at Summer Hill, Jan. 7, 1800.
The baby boy’s cradle was a sap-trough, for one of the active
industries of the forest was the making of maple sugar, and
such a receptacle was always at hand. From the trees the
pioneers derived not only material for shelter and furniture,
but food and fuel. After the chemistry of fire and leeching
with water, the woodsman won wealth also from the sale of
potash.
The boy Fillmore grew up among the trees and in the
clearings of the beautiful lake region of New York. With
abounding health and a vigorous constitution, that made its
possessor a stranger to disease and weakness all his days,
he inherited a fine manly figure that rendered him notable
in later life. He shared his father’s vicissitudes. Although
the land had been scientifically laid out by Simeon DeWitt
and his young surveyors, yet land titles were uncertain,—
largely through the inexperience and carelessness of settlers
and the rascality of men claiming to be lawyers. Losing
his legal title to the soil, Nathaniel Fillmore moved eastward
to the town of Sempronius, now named Niles, in the same
county of Cayuga, and within one mile of Skaneateles Lake.
ATjQung Fillmore was a real boy. He had an inclination
to vary the routine of form work arid forest-subduing with
recreation in hunting and fishing. His father, however,
taught him that such an avocation became Indians better
than civilized white men, and to this orthodoxy young Mil-
lard became a true convert. Nevertheless, his enjoyment
in nature was intense. In his brief autobiography,1 one of
1. ‘‘Sketch of the early life of Millard Fillmore, by himself, commenced
Feb’y 8, 1871.” The original manuscript, securely wrapped and sealed, was
deposited by Mr. Fillmore in the archives of the Buffalo Historical Society,
with instructions that it should not be opened until after his death, which
were complied with. In 1880 the Autobiography was published by the His-
torical Society, in Vol. II of its Publications.68
MILLARD FILLMORE AND HIS PART
the most interesting writings that has dropped* from his pen,
he tells of his delight in the beauties of lake and stream,
forest and hill. To him the advantages of education were
few, for in the log school houses on the frontier, in that era,
few men could be spared from manual labor. The young
people were usually taught by women having but little intel-
lectual training or resources of learning. Millard Fillmore
never saw a geography or atlas until he was nineteen, and
rarely a book of any sort beyond the Bible, almanac, and
John Bunyan’s immortal story. With this scanty library in
the log cabin home he was well acquainted.
His father inclining to the idea, after bitter experiences,
that replenishing and subduing the earth brought more sweat
on the brow than money in the pocket, advised Millard to
learn a trade. Becoming an apprentice to a wool-carder and
cloth dresser, Millard mastered his craft according to the
rude methods of his time. Meanwhile a library was started
in his village and the boy’s opportunities for learning about
the world through books were handsomely enlarged. In his
moments of leisure, while looking after the wooden machin-
ery, he could utilize his time in perusing such volumes as he
could command. As a reader, he diligently employed the
hours of the night, also, and sometimes of early morning
before the fireplace. When nineteen years of age he began
the study of law with Judge Wood of Montville, N. Y.,
having bought off a part of his apprenticeship by giving his
employer a promissory note, which he later honorably dis-
charged.
Later on, in 1822, after paying his debts to Judge Wood,
he left Central New York and removed to Buffalo, then a
village rising from the ashes of war-fires. From the first,
he had the strongest faith in the future of the city, of which
he was to become the first citizen. He was admitted to the
bar in 1823, but from modesty and other considerations
opened an office at East Aurora, N. Y., teaching school as
well as practicing law. From that time forward, Millard
Fillmore was an exceedingly busy man, alternating his work
of private legal practice with activity in political and publicIN THE OPENING OF JAPAN.
59
executive life. In 1830, making his home in Buffalo, he
former a partnership with Joseph Clary; and later, with
Solomon G. Haven and Nathan K. Hall, established that
law firm which was associated for many years prominently
with the legal history of Western New York. He was sent
by his fellow citizens of Erie County to be their spokesman
in the New York Assembly, from 1829 to 1832. From 1833
to 1835, and from 1837 to 1841, he was Representative from
the State of New York in the Congress of the United States.
At the National Capital, as chairman of the Committee of
Ways and Means, he became virtual leader of the House.
He shared the views of John Quincy Adams on the subject
of slavery and voted chiefly with the Whigs. He also took
the leading part in formulating the tariff of 1842. Thus
brought prominently before the country, he was made the
Whig candidate for Governor of the State of New York.
Confronted as his rival by the very popular Silas Wright,
Fillmore was defeated. Having resumed his law practice,
he was called again to be Comptroller of the State of New
York, when that office was of great importance and power,
the work then done in it being now distributed among sev-
eral bureaus.
The Whig party, not satisfied with having Millard Fill-
more remain in a State office, nominated him on a ticket
with Gen. Zachary Taylor. His duties as Vice-President
were in the old capitol building at Washington. Before the
distinguished representatives of thirty sovereign states, he
appeared as moderator of a Senate, for which John C.
Calhoun had formulated the rule that no Senator should be
called to order for any of his utterances. Millard Fillmore,
having already conquered himself and being a past master in
urbanity, demanded that mutual courtesy should be the rule
of the Senate. In clear and strong terms he enunciated his
convictions and policy as presiding officer, and the Senate
agreed with him, ordering his speech on this subject to be
printed.
At this era in our national evolution, the slave and free
states had each thirty senators, though in the House of60
MILLARD FILLMORE AND HIS PART
Representatives the free states had 139 Congressmen from
the North to ninety-one from the South. The purpose of
the upholders of slavery was to make the involuntary ser-
vitude of the negro a permanent institution in the United
States and to anchor its claims in the constitution. With
this end in view, they were desirous of having California
enter as a slave state, and if possible to annex Cuba and get
Texas divided into four states.
Taylor’s inauguration marked the beginning of a process
of change which in a few years was to destroy the Whig
party and to transform the Democratic party. The Whigs
rejected the principle of the Wilmot Proviso, which was to
prevent the growth of slavery. The Free Soil Democrats
had left the old Democratic party, but, since there were
many pro-slavery Whigs, the old Democratic party became
increasingly more progressively pro-slavery, by accession
from their former opponents. Thus it will be seen that the
Whigs had no compensating gain and their party was
doomed from this time. Its disintegration continued from
its success in 1848, until its anti-slavery successor, the Free
Soil or Republican Party, took its place in 1855.
This era of decay of old party organizations, and the
uprising of new ones was marked by an extraordinary
issue from the mint of language. The coinage of odd and
picturesque names varied according to local feeling and
national exigencies. The wonderful verbal changes and
unexpected political results suggest an exhibition of popular
chemistry, when reactions and precipitants, colors and de-
posits, sublimates and vapors, surprise and bewilder the
spectators. After a Democratic National Convention had
voted down the doctrine that the people of each territory
should prohibit or permit slavery as they pleased, the pro-
slavery Whigs began to preach the doctrine of “Squatter
Sovereignty.” They did not foresee that such a doctrine
would precipitate a battle of compromises. As matter of
fact, the discovery of gold on the Pacific Coast brought to
the front with startling rapidity the burning question. When,
on the 13th of November, 1849, only twenty days beforeIN THE OPENING OF JAPAN.
61
the assembling of Congress, the people of California, immi-
grants of but a few months, made a constitution which ex-
pressly prohibited slavery, the pro-slavery Whigs and the
Democrats alike saw a practical application of this doctrine
of Squatter Sovereignty, which was both surprising and
unwelcome.
In the Congress of 1849, the XXXIst, there were in the
Senate thirty-five Democrats, twenty-five Whigs, and two
Free Soilers. In the House there were no Democrats, 105
Whigs and nine Free Soilers; or, in other words, a Demo-
cratic majority in the Senate; while in the House there was
no party majority, the Free Soilers holding the balance of
power between the two opponents. Howell Cobb of Georgia,
a Democrat, was elected Speaker, not by a majority, but by
the highest number of votes. Henry Clay, just before the
application of California for admission, proposed the Com-
promise of 1850, which covered seven points. The Whigs
and Free Soilers with the extreme southern Democrats
opposed this basis of settlement, but the majority of the
American people accepted the compromise as the best means
for averting civil war and the rupture of the states in union.
The tremendous debate went on through the abnormally
long session, the one so-called Omnibus Bill being divided
into several bills.
While these were under debate, General Zachary Taylor
died and Millard Fillmore was made President on July 9,
1850. The change had no effect upon party contests, for
Millard Fillmore carried out the policy of his predecessor.
Nevertheless he claimed and exercised the right of choosing
his Cabinet officers, and this he did with the idea of having
all parts of the country represented by his councillors. The
tremendous debate continued amid intense anxiety for the
safety of the Union. All the bills in the original Omnibus
Bill were passed after debate of August and September,
California becoming a State of the Union on the 9th of
September, 1850. The adjournment of Congress took place
on the last day of this memorable month, 1850.MILLARD FILLMORE AND HIS PART
The most vital part of the compromise measures was the
Fugitive Slave Law, which was a virtual reenactment of
the law which Washington had signed in 1793, but much
more stringent in its provisions, and when put into practice
at such a time and in such an era was often not only cruel
but inhuman in its methods. The fugitive from unpaid
labor was to be sought out and extradited without trial by
jury; and all good citizens were commanded to aid in mak-
ing arrests and returning the negro to the toil from which
he had escaped. The work of hunting out and returning the
fugitives was begun, but met with instant opposition all over
the North, by and from Democrats, and anti-slavery Whigs
as well as from Free Soilers. It caused the creation at once
of “The Underground Railway/' or concerted system of
assisting thousands of negroes to make their way from
below Mason and Dixon's line toward the North star into
Canada.
This law, against which passion, conscience, poetry, elo-
quence and active intervention protested, was also opposed
in the legislatures of the North, which passed personal lib-
erty laws, which were intended to protect free negroes
falsely alleged to be fugitive slaves.
When this “infamous bill" came up for the approval or
veto of the President, Mr. Fillmore, not liking in it the fea-
ture of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, asked
the opinion of his Attorney-General, John J. Crittenden of
Kentucky, who assured him that it was in accordance with the
Constitution of the United States. Then, in all good con-
science, and hoping it would unite the country and save war,
he signed it in accordance with his oath to “maintain, pro-
tect and defend the Constitution of the United States of
America."
In relation to the legislative department of the Govern-
ment, we may remark concerning the second session of the
XXXIst Congress that although long and tedious, the old
economic questions having disappeared, slavery was still the
burning question, while neither party was ready to commit
itself to a final position. Hence, in reaction from the fur-IN THE OPENING OF JAPAN.
63
nace-like activity of the previous year, little beside routine
business was transacted. When the XXXIId Congress met
there was a Democratic majority in both branches. This
seemed to prove beyond question that the American people at
large were satisfied with the compromise measures, believing
as they did that these had averted war. Had the United
States comprised only the territory between the Atlantic and
the Mississippi, the situation might have remained un-
changed for another generation at least. The question of
slavery was considered as settled and the measures recom-
mended by the administration were mostly supported. How-
ever, in a new country like the United States, the western
half was being developed with startling rapidity, and the
struggle between slavery and its opposers was being trans-
ferred to the region west of the Mississippi river, though
few persons foresaw this clearly.
So popular was Mr. Fillmore, both personally and politi-
cally, that when the Whig National Convention met at Bal-
timore on June 16th it endorsed the Compromise of 1850
and the Fugitive Slave Law almost as fully as the Demo-
cratic National Convention had done in the same city a fort-
night before. Mr. Fillmore received a large vote at the open-
ing of the convention, but General Winfield Scott and
William A. Graham of North Carolina, Mr. Fillmore’s Sec-
retary of the Navy, were nominated for the Presidency and
Vice-Presidency. The Free Soil Democratic Convention at
Pittsburg, in August, denounced slavery, the Compromise
of 1850, and both the Whig and Democratic parties. In
the ensuing election the Whigs carried only four states,
while the Democrats were victorious in twenty-seven.
Pierce and King were elected. It was evident that the Whig
party was destined to die of acute indigestion from having
swallowed the Fugitive Slave Law.
Before we turn from Mr. Fillmore’s political career, we
may note that the Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed, and the
division between Northern and Southern Whigs became
final. The latter portion of the once “grand old party”
became pro-slavery Democrat, while the northern wing64
MILLARD FILLMORE AND HIS PART
soon marched in line with the Republicans. In the reaction
of political views and opinions, a new party had sprung up
which was called the American party, though popularly
named the Know-Nothings. Its great purpose was to have
native-born American citizens chosen to office and to make
difficult the naturalization of foreigners. Such an organi-
zation was almost inevitable in the general flux of old par-
ties, when many veteran voters were too dissatisfied with
their old enemies to ally themselves at once with the ancient
organizations. It came to pass that this obscure party,
which had been more or less local in its operations, became
national for a time, and in 1853 nominated Millard Fillmore
for its Presidential candidate. He accepted the nomination
while in Europe, where, at Paris, with Martin Van Buren,
he paid a visit to Horace Greeley. The latter was going
through the odd and annoying experience of detention in a
French prison, because of some ridiculous debt which a
Frenchman, whose work of art and genius in plaster-of-
paris had been injured during the World’s Fair at the
Crystal Palace at New York, claimed to exist against
Greeley. This visit of Mr. Fillmore to an inveterate politi-
cal enemy showed his generosity of character and kindness
of heart. Furthermore, it was highly appropriate for a
statesman, who in the New York Legislature had been the
strenuous and wise leader in getting the statute in force
which secured the abolition of imprisonment for debt, to do
this eminently Christian act.
All compromise having proved but a temporary dyke
against the surges raised by the increasing political storm,
Millard Fillmore retired to private life, to become the first
citizen of Buffalo, to be the founder of institutions and the
promoter of noble schemes of civic advancement, notably of
this Historical Society, the Buffalo General Hospital and
the Buffalo University. As the dispenser of a gracious hos-
pitality in his charming home, he was known over the land.
He was the host in entertaining his successor (with two
administrations between), Abraham Lincoln. During the
war, without approving of all the details of governmentalIN THE OPENING OF JAPAN.
65
policy, he was a loyal upholder of the Union cause. He
wore the uniform of the Home Guard and was captain of a
company. After a second marriage, which enabled him to
maintain open house for years to a happy throng of guests
and visitors, he ended his mortal career on March 8, 1874.
Unfortunately for history, for his own full vindication from
hostile criticism, or the misunderstanding of ignorance, all
his carefully arranged public and private papers were de-
stroyed by the executor of his only son’s estate.2
Happily, however, Mr. Fillmore’s most enduring works,
which remain after his labors are forgotten, do not need the
witness of his private archives. Testimony from other
sources is abundant and the proofs are overwhelming that
the supreme ambition of our thirteenth president was to
2. “A phenomenal instance of literary vandalism occurred in the city of
Buffalo, early in 1891, when all the valuable letters and documents relating
to the administration of Millard Fillmore were destroyed by the executor of
the ex-President’s only son, Millard Powers Fillmore, whose will contained a
mandate to that effect. Why he should have wished in this way to destroy an
important part of the history of his country, as well as of his father’s honor-
able career, or why any intelligent lawyer should have consigned to the flames
thousands of papers by Webster and other illustrious men, without at least
causing copies of the most valuable of them to be made, is entirely beyond
the comprehension of ordinary mortals.” So writes Gen. James Grant Wilson,
in his book, “The Presidents of the United States,” pp. 259-260. Gen. Wilson
tells of a visit which he made to Millard Fillmore, in the latter’s Buffalo
home, when the ex-President, pointing to a cabinet of papers in his library,
said:	“In those cases can be found every important letter and document
which I received during my administration, and which will enable the future
historian or biographer to prepare an authentic account of that period of our
country’s history.” So far as known, none of these papers now exist.
There is no clause in Millard Fillmore’s will directing the destruction- of
his papers; but in the will of his son occurs the following:	“I, Millard
Powers Fillmore, of Buffalo, N. Y.,	.	.	. particularly request and
direct my executor at the earliest practicable moment to burn or otherwise
effectively destroy all correspondence or letters to or from my father, mother,
sister or me and under his immediate supervision. I hope to be able to do
this before my death.” The will named Delavan F. Clark, of Buffalo, as
executor, and is dated May 2, 1884. It was admitted to probate Feb. 18, 1890,
and letters testamentary were granted by the Court February 24th, Messrs.
Charles D. Marshall, Delavan F. Clark and James H. Madison being appointed
executors. Mr. Marshall states that the executors, in accordance with the
direction of the will, did destroy all of the designated correspondence. He
recalls that it included letters from Edward Everett, Henry Clay, Daniel
Webster and other distinguished contemporaries of Millard Fillmore. No
copies were made.66
MILLARD FILLMORE AND HIS PART
make his country great. He impressed upon the world the
purpose of the American nation, in all its foreign relations,
to do righteousness and to be generous toward the weak.
Of exploration, the enlargement of commerce, cultivation of
friendship with old and new nations, he was an ardent ad-
vocate. While personally active in schemes of humanity,
he was vigorous in suppressing unlawful enterprises. In
China and the North Pacific, in South America, in the Holy
Land, Americans were notably forward in opening new
paths of knowledge or avenues of commerce, but it was
especially in “the discovery of a new nation,” the Japanese,
that Millard Fillmore was most wisely active. Many writers
have claimed for themselves or their heroes, the honor of
“originating” the successful Perry expedition of 1854, but
to none, so much as to President Fillmore, are the honors of
consummation due. Others for half a century or more,
sailors, merchants, whalers, Congressmen, Cabinet officers,
statisticians, commodores and naval lieutenants, men and
women of faith and prayer, philanthropists and waifs, both
American and Japanese, had part in augmenting that satu-
rated solution in history’s beaker, but it was Fillmore that
dropped the fragment that turned liquid to crystals.
Let us look at the American advance in the Pacific and
note the various attempts to lure out of her care the hermit
lady of Japan. In the primeval myth, read in the Kojiki,
Japan’s Book of Origins, the Sun-goddess, enraged at the
pranks of her younger brother, retired in the cave. By with-
drawing her shining presence, she plunged the world in
darkness. Hence it became necessary for the other “gods,”
by means of crowing cocks, blazing fires, the invention of
jewelry, mirror, and works of art, with song and dance
and music, mirth-making Uzume and the noisy laughter of
the kami to make her peep forth. This she did in order to
satisfy her own curiosity. Then the Deity of Strong Hands
pulled away the rocky door and in the flood of her effulgence
all the world was again in light and joy.
This was the ancient way of telling in fascinating narra-
tive and poetical myth of an eclipse of the sun and the originIN THE OPENING OF JAPAN.
67
of the arts. In the modern reenactment of Japan’s drama of
Meiji, or enlightened civilization, on a grander scale and
with historic and literal, rather than rationalistic interpreta-
tion, we shall outline the process of events in their chrono-
logical order. There was first, hospitable Japan open and
sunny. Then came the disturbing foreigners. The political
tricks of the agents of Spain and Portugal and their spiritual
backers in Italy alarmed the Government. The proselyting
of these strangers was according to the methods of the
Inquisition. Their ruthless disturbance of Japanese ways
of life was as the throwing, by the scapegrace Susanoo, of
the reeking pie-bald horsehide on the looms and silken woof
of the Sun-goddess and her virgins. Instantly frightened,
Japan shut herself up as in a cave, barring out all the world.
Long and often, but all in vain, did the men beyond sea,
from Europe and America, display their inventions, sound
their music, and attempt in every way, by threats, bribes
and flatteries to allure out the hermit. Fair Japan kept in
hiding until Matthew Perry’s consummate acting, with the
music of the Marine Band and the dulcet lines of Millard
Fillmore’s love-letter, moved the cave door ajar, so that in
due season Townsend Harris’s strong hands could pull it
wide open and all the earth be flooded with the light of
Nippon. In a large sense of the word, American statesmen,
Webster, Everett, Fillmore, Graham, Kennedy, Perry,
Harris, made modern Japan and gave the Mikado a new
throne and nation.
As early as 1797 the American flag of stripes and stars
was mirrored in Japanese waters, when Captain Stewart
carried for the Dutch merchant at Deshima a cargo to
Nagasaki from Batavia. Again in 1798, Captain Stewart
entered, at Nagasaki harbor, Japan’s loop-hole. When the
flag of the Dutch republic was driven off the seas by
France, the seventeen-starred flag of our country was borne
on the two ships sent annually from Batavia to Nagasaki,
and at least one of the pair sent annually from 1806 to 1809.
Quick to take advantage of openings and opportunities, the
American ship Eclipse of Boston was loaded with Russian68
MILLARD FILLMORE AND HIS PART
goods in 1807 and an attempt at trade made with the hermits
of Nippon. Captain Coffin of Nantucket, in the American
ship Trident, landed, in 1809, on the Bonin Islands, now an
integral part of Japan. After the war of 1812, Commodore
Porter in a letter to Secretary, afterwards President Monroe,
asked for a frigate and two sloops to go on a venture to
Japan to open trade. During the tremendous growth and
expansion of our nation within the next two decades, Japan
was less in the thoughts of our enterprising men, but under
President Andrew Jackson there was a revival of interest
in other nations. As yet we had no representative at the
courts of Africa or Asia; but Edmund Roberts of Ports-
mouth, N. H., who had traded on the coasts of that conti-
nent from which most of mankind's inventions and culture,
and even our Christian religion have come, became our
first envoy in Asia. Setting forth in the sloop-of-war
Peacock, and duly authorized by President Jackson, he
made treaties with the rulers of Muscat in Africa and Siam
in peninsular Asia, and then looked to China and Japan.
He fell a victim to ship disease and found an honored grave
at Macao. His monument was reared by his proud fellow
countrymen, and in the stained glass of St. John's Episcopal
Church at Portsmouth—the city of the Russia-Japan
treaty conference—he is remembered and his achievements
recalled.
During all these years, the shores of both countries were
lined with wrecks and waifs from either distant continent.
The American whaler had chased his prey from Cape Horn
northward to the fogs of the Kurile Islands, and many a
New Bedford sailor became an involuntary tourist in Japan
—often enjoying free rides in prison cages. On the other
hand, Japanese fishermen in junks blown out to sea drifted
to hungry and to thirsty death and both as living men and
as corpses arrived at the Aleutians, the coasts of British
America, California and even at Hawaii. Not a few of them,
landing in Alaska or southward, sunk their identity in the
Indian tribes. Picked up by American or other ship cap-
tains, some of them reaching China, America, or Europe,IN THE OPENING OF JAPAN.
69
were lost to sight, or, learning English, or teaching their
own tongue, have their names recorded and are known to
fame. In 1837 we find the American Captain Kennedy at
the Bonin Islands—then true to its name, meaning No Man’s
Land—where already a mixed non-Japanese colony of
people from America or the Pacific islands had their home.
In this same year, 1837, the American merchant, Mr.
Charles W. King of King & Co. of Macao, fitted out the ship
Morrison, in hope of making a trading voyage to Japan and
to return seven Japanese waifs picked up in Oregon and
Luzon. From these men, Dr. S. Wells Williams had learned
the tongue of Nippon. With them went also Dr. Peter
Parker and Rev. Charles Gutzlaff. In vain was their
mission. They met in Yedo Bay only the spitfire of the
dragon’s mouth. Obedient to their orders, the garrisons of
the Japanese forts, then mounting one-pounder guns, fired
on the Morrison and drove away the philanthropists. At
Kagoshima, in Satsuma, they received the same answer of
fire and iron. The voyage cost the ship owners $2,000 and
the results at first appear naught, but the literature of Japan
shows that the moral effect was great in cheering those native
prisoners of the spirit, who hoped to see their country enter
the brotherhood of nations. Furthermore, the treatment of
the Morrison helped to reveal to themselves what fools the
Japanese, as represented and misrepresented by the Yedo
bureaucracy, were in shutting out the whole world. In a
word, Mr. King and the Morrison hastened the fall of the
Yedo usurpation and the downfall of the Tycoonal system—
the necessary preliminaries of a united nation and the new
Japan.
The year 1845 is a year notable to Americans in the story
of Japan’s opening. On February 15th, General Zadoc
Pratt of Prattsville, Green County, N. Y., in the House of
Representatives, offered a resolution advising the despatch
of an American embassy to Japan and Korea. General
Pratt was chairman of the Committee on Statistics. For
several years, from 1830 to 1847, Mr. Aaron H. Palmer of
New York gave great attention to the collection of informa-70
MILLARD FILLMORE AND HIS PART
tion bearing on American trade with the Asiatic continent,
and the commercial possibilities of developing commerce so
as to include Japan. He published a pamphlet on this sub-
ject which attracted attention in and out of Congress, and
had a powerful influence in awakening attention to Japan
as the unknown factor of the future in the Pacific Ocean.
In this same year, three Japanese fishermen blown far
out to sea were carried by the United States frigate St.
Louis, from one of the Micronesian islands to Ningpo,
China. Afraid of being put to death, these poor fellows
refused to be sent “home.” Thus, Japan’s cruelty, rather,
shall we say, the savagery of the Yedo bureaucracy, was
being more and more exposed to the world. Being itself a
political sham, with a figurehead that was anything but an
“emperor,” the Bakufu had to tell bigger lies on each emer-
gency to cover its previous deceptions. So the “tangled
web” became still more entangled, until the sword of ’68 cut
its Gordian mass. We are not to accuse the Japanese people
of the inhumanity of not receiving their own shipwrecked
sailors and of firing on rescue ships and of defying the whole
world. Hereafter, in this paper we shall use the term Bakufu
—that is, not the true Emperor of Japan, but “the war-
curtain government” at Yedo. Let us note the lying state-
ments officially made in Yedo, for this may enable us to
understand why Millard Fillmore gave Commodore Perry
power, if necessary, to blow the lie to pieces.
We note one streak of sunshine before the storm.
In April, 1846, Captain Mercator Cooper, in the whaling
ship Manhattan, of Sag Harbor, found fifteen Japanese
sailors wrecked at St. Peter’s Island. With seven others
from a junk blown out from Yedo Bay, Cooper reached the
coast of Japan. He sent two of his Japanese guests over-
land to Yedo announcing his coming. The American ship
was met by boats sent by the authorities and the Manhattan
was towed to an anchorage near the city, and Captain
Cooper was courteously treated, receiving books, charts,
water and food, but no encouragement to open trade.IN THE OPENING OF JAPAN.
71
The phenomena of waifs and whalers, statistics and
Congressional resolutions, and the looming necessity of coal
for our cruisers (for we were then beginning a steam navy)
kept on increasing. Even Poughkeepsie, N. Y., which was
then active in the whaling business, furnished her quota of
influences in making the long-barred gates of Thornrose
Castle swing open. In 1845, Captain Baker, of the ship
Lawrence, sailed down the Hudson, into the Atlantic, and
around Cape Horn to her hunting waters of northern Japan,
only to be wrecked amid the fogs of the Kurile Islands.
Seven survivors landed, to be kindly treated by the people
and thrown in prison by officers. Indeed, that was the
normal Japanese attitude under Tycoonism—kind hearts
among the people, impotent dread and heartless cruelty
from officialdom. Japan’s government then was a lie in
intrenchments. After incarceration and ill treatment for
seventeen months, the Americans were sent to Batavia,
Java, in a Dutch vessel.
Sensitive to the rising tide of influence, President James
K. Polk late in 1847 ordered Commodore Biddle, in the ship
of the line Columbus, of ninety guns, and the sloop of war
Vincennes to enter Yedo Bay and deliver a letter to the sham
“emperor,” the Yedo shogun. The Commodore was in-
structed to inquire as to the opening of the ports of Japan
to trade, but under no circumstances to do anything to cause
animosity. The mighty ships were at once and during ten
days walled in with a cordon of junks, lashed stem to stern,
in a circle. Why? To keep the Americans from landing?
Hardly. Japan was clamped and cramped by the laws of
inclusion fully as much as by the iron rules of exclusion.
Rather was it the purpose of stereotyped barbarism to warn
off, under ban of death or gaol, if caught, the inquiring
spirits in Japan itself, who sought knowledge and who hated
with unsleeping hatred their Yedo oppressors. They, un-
speakably more than the aliens, longed to crush Yedo
tyranny and make Japan less a fragile shell and more a
potent nation. Duarchy was doomed.72
MILLARD FILLMORE AND HIS PART
“The defiant expression of the exclusive policy in its
dying hours/’ as Dr. Nitobe stigmatizes it, was a volley of
falsehoods. Below are extracts from the “edict” of the sham
“emperor” in Yedo and the last refusal emanating from the
system, which, twenty-four years later, was to disappear for-
ever in the battle smoke of Fushimi. Before the cannon and
American rifles of patriots who hated, with the hatred of
over two centuries, the whole structure of the Yedo Govern-
ment, duarchy and sham were improved off the face of the
earth, to be quickly followed by belated feudalism.
Here are some of the authorized falsehoods—specimens
of the crop all too luxuriant in the “official” history of Japan.
We quote the shogun’s reply of 1846 with our comment in
brackets:
“We refuse to trade with foreigners because this has been
our habit from time immemorial.” [On the contrary, Japan
was open to trade from ancient times until Iyeyasu, founder
of the Yedo system, shut it off about A. D. 1615.] “It will
be of no use to renew the attempt.” [No, not until Glynn,
Perry and Harris, who will take no refusal, come, or until
wise men rule in Yedo.] “Every nation has a right to man-
age its affairs in its own way.” [Once true, possibly. In the
Yedo sense of exclusion, opposed to Confucius and Mencius,
who said “He who does not rescue the shipwrecked is worse
than a wolf,” to say nothing about Christ, or human soli-
darity and ocean’s dangers, no nation has such a right.] “The
trade carried on with the Dutch at Nagasaki is not to be re-
garded as furnishing a precedent for trade with other
foreign nations. The place is of few inhabitants and very
little business.” [Relatively with Yedo, true; but, as a
general statement, wholly false. So far from being of “no
importance,” this Nagasaki “affair,” of a Dutch merchant
settlement, fertilized for two centuries and a half, the
Japanese intellect, through science, language, the education
of native physicians, the gaining of knowledge, apparatus,
mechanism, etc. Dutch trade was one of the potent elements
in the making of the Japan of today.] “The Emperor.”
[This is a translation of Tai-kun, a usurped title, a shamIN THE OPENING OF JAPAN.
73
and a usurpation, for which, in the gathering storm that
broke in 1868, the inventors or their successors paid dearly.]
“Consult your own safety by not appearing again on our
coast/' [That bombastic warning—a veritable jackass kick
to the supposedly moribund lion of foreign solicitation,
really woke up the king of beasts. Modern commerce, the
nineteenth-century world of coal, of steam, and of human
solidarity, could not be treated thus.]
Unconsciously the Bakufu [Curtain Government, as its
enemies called the Yedo regime] instead of solving, as its
incompetent statesmen supposed, the problem of foreign
intercourse by a silly threat, did but reopen the question in
an acute form, as we shall see.
In the perspective of history, while the pendulum of in-
terest vibrated from eastern to western end of the arc,
from Japanese waifs to the American demand for coal and
commerce, the crisis was hastened by the outbreak of the
Mexican War, which resulted in the inclusion of California
in the possessions of the United States. This extended our
frontier along the Pacific front and was quickly followed by
the discovery of gold and the influx of immigrants by land
and sea, ship and wagon. Japan, the hermit nation, was
confronted with the imminent problem long feared, while
ignored, by the Yedo Bureaucracy, but now uprearing itself
in colossal form. With wise foresight, the friendly King
of the Netherlands sent out two war ships to Japan, strongly
advising the Japanese to receive peaceably and with welcome
the American envoy. Thus his proposals for a treaty, pro-
ceeded a step further in cooperation with American enter-
prise. The special point which we notice about this Dutch
recommendation is that Perry ignored, while Fillmore grate-
fully noted and commended this help from the Dutch—the
one European people in whom the Japanese had retained
confidence.
The insolent word of the Bakufu to Biddle created the
policy of Glynn, Fillmore, Perry and Harris, which in turn
cooperated with interior forces to undermine the Yedo sys-
tem, that for two centuries had overawed the Mikado, for
the making of the new Japan.n
MILLARD FILLMORE AND HIS PART
That moment when Biddle, a commodore in the United
States navy, was insulted by a common junk-man, yet made
no hostile reprisal, but like a good soldier, obeyed his orders,
was the pivot on which events turned. Peaceful measures
were past. Forbearance was no longer a virtue. Biddle
died soon after and the Mexican War broke out. Japan was
forgotten for a while, but Peace came, and then our ship-
wrecked sailors languishing in Japanese prisons, were re-
membered. Nor was the insult to Biddle forgotten by the
officers and sailors of the United States navy. On the next
visit, not Japan but the minions of Yedo officialdom were
to learn what were in both talons of the American eagle.
In one was the olive branch, in the other were the bolts and
arrows of war. The first navy to give Christendom the initi-
ative in defying the Algerian pirates and to rescue without
ransom her sons in Mahometan prisons, the first to challenge
successfully the British claim to rule the seas, was to lead in
breaking Japan’s bars of barbarism forged in Yedo. The
United States was now ready to open another chapter of
advance in the history of civilization. In the dishonor done
to Biddle and the insults to the peaceful wooing by modest
petition of the United States, the Bakufu sounded its own
doom. It gave to the unsleeping “Mikado-reverencers”
their long-awaited opportunity to spring at its throat. We
can now afford to be brief in showing why Fillmore not
only selected Perry as the man for the work in hand, but
backed him with sufficient force to compel respect even from
the pinchbeck “emperor” at Yedo; who, in the eyes of
Japanese patriots, educated by critical and historical scholars,
was but a usurper.
It was in January, 1849, that the Japanese bureaucracy
received more than a hint that the day of their own inclusion
and the exclusion, not of aliens but of their own shipwrecked
people, was nearly over, and that the outside nations looked
upon their insolent refusals, both to take back Japanese
waifs and to open communications, as inhumanity and bar-
barism. Captain Geisinger of the American man-of-war
Peacock was informed by the Dutch superintendent of tradeIN THE OPENING OF JAPAN.
75
at Nagasaki of the imprisonment of American sailors from
the American whaler Ladoga. These men, originally fifteen
in number, had, on account of harsh treatment, deserted in
boats. Drifting to an island near Matsmai, they were seized
and imprisoned. Suspected to be spies, they were harshly
treated, and on trying repeatedly to escape, the rigors of
confinement were doubled, driving one to suicide and an-
other to death by quack’s poison. When their Japanese
guards were told that such cruelty would bring down ven-
geance from the United States, they laughed sneeringly,
one of them saying that Americans cared nothing for their
shipwrecked sailors, for a Japanese in Yedo Bay had in-
sulted an American chief and nothing had been done in
punishment of the outrage.
Lieutenant Glynn, in the little ten-gun brig Preble, was
sent, not to request but to demand their release. If unsuc-
cessful at Nagasaki, he must go to Yedo. The time for olive
branches had passed.
Glynn was the man for the hour. No cordon of guard
boats, lashed together at stem and stern, for him! He
threatened, if such humiliation were attempted, to blow
the imprisoning wall to pieces. He went further by push-
ing on his ship, despite batteries on the bluffs, and the pro-
test of the petty native officers in his cabin, up to the city
of Nagasaki. Demanding the quick delivery of the American
seamen on his deck, he trained his guns on the city. In im-
potent fear of their cold, black, iron noses, the haughty
minions of the Bakufu yielded at once. Glynn’s guns were
too real, and the man was not to be fooled with. He sailed
off, having set a mark for the coming Perry. The effete
bureaucrats in the Tycoon’s capital were mightily impressed.
At home the problem of Japan still commanded attention.
Glynn planned and recommended a diplomatic mission to
Japan; but, being but a lieutenant, his document, even if
written to a Cabinet officer, reached only the pigeonholes at
Washington. In 1848, our Secretary of the Treasury re-
ported that the commerce of Japan, but two weeks by steam
from our western coast, “can be secured to us by persever-76
MILLARD FILLMORE AND HIS PART
ing and peaceful efforts.” Highly advanced in civilization,
containing fifty millions of people [thirty millions then,
fifty millions including Formosa in 1905], the prize was
worth seeking. In August, 1850, Glynn's report of his
Japan experiences was published and whetted interest in
the tantalizing lure. In conversation, in the newspapers,
in Congress and in Cabinet, the question was discussed.
The surcharged solution, with fresh material added daily,
increased in strength towards the point of saturation.
Crystallization could not be far off. Yet who should drop
the solidifying lump ? Should Glynn, McCluney, Geisinger,
Aulick, Perry—all veterans under the flag—lead the “peace-
ful armada”? On Feb. 24, 1851, Glynn wrote to the firm
of Howland & Aspinwall on Chinese trade, the necessity of
a coaling station on the coast of Japan and the hopeful pros-
pect of any Japanese negotiations.
Still the rescue of Japanese waifs far out on the Pacific
continued, as the northern seas grew less lonely and more
populous as the highway of nations. Across this ocean ave-
nue, humanity could afford no such obstacle as a Thornrose
Castle to exist. Not only California, but all the world de-
manded coal. The day of the wind as motor was over. The
hour of steam had come. Japan, rich in the black diamonds
of the new era, held treasures for the race. The rays of
desire to open the treasure-house were converging and fo-
cussing to the burning point. On the 9th of May, 1851,
the brave and veteran sailor. Commodore Aulick, read in
the newspapers of the landing at San Francisco of some
Japanese waifs picked up at sea by Captain Jennings of the
bark Auckland. On the 10th he wrote a letter to Secretary
Daniel Webster calling his attention to the incident as offer-
ing an opportunity of showing friendship and proposing
negotiations with a view to commercial intercourse. Web-
ster sought the advice of the one man who had made the
Japanese yield to the demands of humanity, Commodore
Glynn, and also of Aaron Palmer the statistician. Mr.
Webster drafted a letter to the “emperor” of Japan, which
President Fillmore read and signed. Aulick was clothedIN THE OPENING OF JAPAN.
77
with full powers as treaty maker and set out joyfully, by
way of Brazil, on the new steam frigate Susquehanna.
How the brave sailor came to grief through mild indis-
cretion and much tittle-tattle, and, broken in health, was
recalled from China,—getting his name cleared from stain,
but too late for the glory of the Japan possibilities, is a sad
story. Yet success with his meagre force was problematical.
The story of the Perry Expedition has been often told,
but not the part which Mr. Fillmore had in it. Despite
the wanton posthumous destruction of his papers by his
son’s executor, we have abundant written and personal
testimony that it was Mr. Fillmore that made certain the
choice of Perry and secured to him the force he needed, so
that the Yedo Bakufu did not attempt either defiance or
resistance, but yielded gracefully to peaceful negotiation.
It was Mr. Fillmore, who, after the recall of Aulick and
resignation of both the Cabinet officers most concerned in
the Japan matter, kept up the good work. The President
was really responsible for Perry’s success, through rein-
forcement in diplomatic powers and in the equipment and
prompt despatch of transports, coal, and war vessels. When
Webster, ill and dying, left his portfolio, Mr. Fillmore sum-
moned Edward Everett to revise and emphasize the letter
to the “emperor.” When William A. Graham, Secretary
of the Navy, became, with Scott, who was nominated for
the presidency, a candidate for popular suffrage, and resigned
from office, the journals of the new Secretary, John R. Ken-
nedy, show that President Fillmore’s choice was for Perry
as the diplomatist, while other witnesses, including the tes-
timony of Mr. Fillmore, in private and public, demonstrate
that he persisted in keeping Perry’s force not merely a brace
of ships, or even a squadron, but a real fleet of eight steam-
ers and frigates mounting 230 cannon, besides coaling ves-
sels and transports, having in all over 2,000 men.
In all this, as a matter of settled policy, Millard Fillmore,
as a lover of humanity and an ardent advocate of peace, was
entirely right. He was true to his record. When Mr.
Fillmore was in Congress, during the thirties, the affair of78
MILLARD FILLMORE AND HIS PART
the Caroline, in Canadian waters—when the American flag,
which the writer has seen in the United Service Museum
in London, was captured—took place. For this outrage,
no honorable satisfaction was ever made to the United
States. In the discussion, which, to the discredit of our
country, ended only in verbal boasts, Mr. Fillmore said:
“The best way to avoid a war with Great Britain is to show
that we are prepared to meet her. .	.	. Reasonable
preparations for defence are better than gasconading.” In
short, Washington’s forgotten maxim, “In time of peace,
prepare for war,” was remembered by Fillmore. Japan’s
impotency in 1853 did but confirm this warning and principle.
It is certain that one of the soundest, most convincing and
most often used arguments in the councils of Yedo was the
uselessness, because of the impossibility, of resisting Perry’s
potencies. In the face of a proposition of friendship and
honorable treatment from the United States, refusal, a
repetition of the Biddle incident, or insult was madness.
Hence the treaty.
Today, at Kurihama, fronting Yedo Bay, where the letter
of President Fillmore in its golden casket was delivered to
the Sho-gun’s envoys, a monolith arises in Perry Park bear-
ing a shining and gilded inscription to the glory of Perry.
This is right. With the Mikado as chief donor, and the
Marquis Ito as penman, it tells what the Commodore did.
With equal truth of history might other Americans, who
helped in the grand consummation from 1797 to 1853, be
remembered; but, in such a list, Millard Fillmore’s name
ought to lead them all. On Feb. 2, 1874, in presence of Col.
C. O. Shepherd, ex-consul of the United States to Japan,
Mr. Fillmore, then unconscious that his quick decease was
to follow a few weeks later, modestly asked to state “a few
facts not popularly known.” His words, as reported in the
Buffalo newspapers and American Historical Record,
showed that in 1852 he knew well the reality concerning the
abominable Japanese prisons as they were half a century
ago and the cruelty practiced on American shipwrecked
men made prisoners. The facts are that all the resolutionsIN THE OPENING OF JAPAN.
79
concerning Perry’s expedition “were in full Cabinet coun-
cils, in which there was no difference of opinion, but the
fullest accord.” A great fleet, making a “show of power,
might be deemed a persuader in procuring a treaty.” Perry
was to “use no violence, unless he was attacked.” Thus,
though Perry was “cautioned against making any attack,
he was fully authorized in the event of being attacked by
the Japanese, to use the power of the Government in repell-
ing it, and to satisfy the jealous islanders that they were
dealing with a Government competent and willing to pro-
tect its own citizens.”
As a student of both Japanese and American history, I
cannot but believe that to Millard Fillmore belongs equal
honors with Matthew Perry, for the success of the Japan
Expedition. In this year of the Portsmouth Treaty, let
Fillmore’s name receive fresh lustre reflected from the past;
while for the future, and until some better method is dis-
covered, let the Mikado’s Empire and the American Republic
remember the teaching alike of Washington and Fillmore as
to the best way of avoiding war.
Note—It is my purpose to collect materials for a biography of Millard
Fillmore, showing his place in the history of the United States and of civiliza-
tion; for which I respectfully beg the cooperation of those who knew him.—
Wm. Elliot Griffis.
[Some reminiscences of Millard Fillmore will be found in an appendix
of this volume.—Editor.]