[46] Fillmore organized Western New York for the Harrison campaign, and the national ticket was elected, and Fillmore easily gained a fourth term in the House.[47]
At the urging of Clay, Harrison quickly called a special session of Congress. With the Whigs able to organize the House for the first time, Fillmore sought the Speakership, but it went to a Clay acolyte, John White of Kentucky.[48] Nevertheless, Fillmore was made chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.[4] Harrison was expected to go along with anything Clay and other congressional Whig leaders proposed, but Harrison died on April 4, 1841. Vice President Tyler was elevated to the presidency; the onetime maverick Democrat soon broke with Clay over congressional proposals for a national bank to stabilize the currency, which he vetoed twice and so was expelled from the Whig Party. Fillmore remained on the fringes of that conflict by generally supporting the congressional Whig position, but his chief achievement as Ways and Means chairman was the Tariff of 1842. The existing tariff did not protect manufacturing, and part of the revenue was distributed to the states, a decision made in better times that was now depleting the Treasury. 