Was President Millard Fillmore an Anti Catholic?

I suppose for years I assumed he was because he ran on the "American" or more commonly known as the KNOW NOTHING PARTY. It appears that history is a lot more complex especially for a man that enrolled his daughter in a Catholic school and made generous donations for the construction of Catholic churches . In fact he even had a personal audience with the Pope.



It appears that Fillmore , an ex whig) was looking for a party to take over to help save the Union. That is Millard Fillmore needed to find a new party that could be used as vehicle out of which to fashion a nationwide pro-Union party. It is striking that as the Know Nothing Nominee he barely mentioned Catholics or immigrants at all.



Any way this is a period of interesting history and Elektratig has done a series of posts on the Know Nothings, Filmore, and the Catholic issue



All are worth reading to get a overview of the situation but particular as to President Filmore and Catholics