In 1857 Justice Curtis dissented from the Court's decision in the slavery case of Dred Scott v. Sandford and resigned as a matter of principle.[100]
Justice John McKinley's death in 1852 led to repeated fruitless attempts by the president to fill the vacancy. The Senate took no action on the nomination of the New Orleans attorney Edward A. Bradford. Fillmore's second choice, George Edmund Badger, asked for his name to be withdrawn. Senator-elect Judah P. Benjamin declined to serve. The nomination of William C. Micou, a New Orleans lawyer recommended by Benjamin, was not acted on by the Senate. The vacancy was finally filled after Fillmore's term, when President Franklin Pierce nominated John Archibald Campbell, who was confirmed by the Senate.[101]

Foreign relations[edit]
Official portrait of Fillmore by George Peter Alexander Healy, c. 1857
Fillmore oversaw two highly-competent Secretaries of State, Daniel Webster, and after the New Englander's 1852 death, Edward Everett. Fillmore looked over their shoulders and made all major decisions.[102] He was particularly active in Asia and the Pacific, especially with regard to Japan, which then still prohibited nearly all foreign contact. 