Millard Filmore was not a great president. But… In 1831, Fillmore engineered the passage of New York’s first bankruptcy law, which eliminated debt imprisonment (and freed debtors already in jail) and established rules for discharge of debtors. As Millard’s biographer Robert J. Rayback tells it, Fillmore maneuvered himself into the chairmanship of a special committee, carefully drafted a bill, with help from a fellow Anti-Mason in the state senate, that would appeal to both debtor and creditor interests, and pushed the bill through the legislature by allowing the Democrats — who had a three-to-one majority — to take credit for it. I have no idea why I decided to start reading about Millard Fillmore at 1AM on a Sunday. But I did. And now we’ve all learned something. 

Millard Filmore was not a great president. But…

In 1831, Fillmore engineered the passage of New York’s first bankruptcy law, which eliminated debt imprisonment (and freed debtors already in jail) and established rules for discharge of debtors. As Millard’s biographer Robert J. Rayback tells it, Fillmore maneuvered himself into the chairmanship of a special committee, carefully drafted a bill, with help from a fellow Anti-Mason in the state senate, that would appeal to both debtor and creditor interests, and pushed the bill through the legislature by allowing the Democrats — who had a three-to-one majority — to take credit for it.

I have no idea why I decided to start reading about Millard Fillmore at 1AM on a Sunday. But I did. And now we’ve all learned something. 

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