Zachary Taylor was the first president for which I chose one
of The American Presidents Series books. These biographies are meant to
give the reader an overview of the major events in each presidents’ life and
presidency in a quick, readable volume. John Eisenhower’s “Zachary Taylor” achieved
this goal, however 140 pages was not enough to get a good sense of Taylor and
his times. For that reason, this is likely the last of these books I’ll read
during this project.
Born in Virginia, not far from Montpelier, Zachary Taylor
was a distant cousin of James Madison. Taylor’s family moved west to Kentucky
when he was young, so like Polk and Jackson before him, Taylor was raised on
the frontier. At 23 years old in 1808, he joined the Army. The timing was fortuitous
as the young country was about to go back to war with England in the War of
1812 and many proxy battles would occur on the frontier. Taylor’s gained notoriety
in the Indiana Territory as he heroically defended Fort Harrison against natives
led by William Henry Harrison’s oft antagonist, Tecumseh. Taylor’s performance
ultimately led to his promotion to Major, however when the War ended and the
size of the Army was reduced Taylor was demoted back to Captain. With his pride
wounded he retired from the Army until his rank of Major was returned to him
the next year.
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| Taylor's image seems to fit the nickname "Old Rough and Ready" |
Military life kept Taylor away from his family often and he
was determined that his daughter never marry a military man for that reason. As
fate would have it his daughter, Sarah, would fall in love with and marry an
Army man and Taylor did not approve. Sarah married the future president of the breakaway
Confederate States, Jefferson Davis. Tragically, both contracted malaria
shortly after their marriage. Jefferson got better, but Sarah went quick.
Taylor and Davis would find themselves on the same steamship about 12 years
later in Louisiana as Davis was on his way to marry his second wife, Varina
Howell. The animosity Taylor had felt toward Davis was gone and while they didn’t
agree politically Taylor treated him like a son for the rest of his life.
By the time of the Mexican American War, Taylor was a
General and deployed by President James Polk into contested territory in West
Texas. When Taylor’s troops were engaged he wrote to his Commander in Chief
that hostilities had begun, kicking off the war. Taylor would go on to win victories
against the Mexicans, most notably at Palo Alto and Buena Vista.
During his military career Taylor had never made public his
political leanings however his success during the war with Mexico had turned
him into an American hero. The Whigs needed a viable candidate to challenge the
Democrats and Kentucky senator John Crittenden acted as kingmaker pushing for
Taylor on the 1848 ticket. The Whigs needed Taylor to declare his politics
though. Knowing this, Crittenden deployed three of his aides to Taylor’s Mississippi
home who cajoled him into writing a letter to his friend Captain J.S. Allison.
The publishing of supposed private letters was a standard form of press release
in 18th and 19th century American politics. The Allison
letter served to establish Taylor’s Whig credentials and Taylor and Millard Fillmore
were elected to the Whig ticket at the party’s convention in Philadelphia. As
was customary of the time, the potential nominees did not attend the
convention. Taylor was home in Mississippi and alerted by mail of his
selection. However, more than a month past with no response and party officials
began to get anxious. It turned out that the letter had been sitting at the
Baton Rouge post office. In 1848 postage stamps were yet to be invented and
Taylor had informed the postmaster that he would no longer accept incoming mail
on which postage was due, so the postmaster had thrown the letter from
Philadelphia into a dead letter file.
Taylor’s presidency was dominated by the issue of slavery.
Despite a rush gold-seekers to the California Territory, Congress could not
vote on statehood due to the implications of congressional imbalance between slave
and non-slave states. The organization of the Oregon Territory was engulfed in the
slave issue as well. Meanwhile, Texas had designs on the newly acquired New
Mexico Territory and even threatened secession over the issue prompting one of
my favorite presidential quotes to date: “If it becomes necessary I’ll take
command of the Army myself and if you are taken in rebellion against the Union
I will hang you with less reluctance than I hanged deserters and spies in
Mexico.” Taylor’s desire was not to be questioned, despite Polk’s misgivings as
discussed in the prior post.
Following July 4th festivities in 1850, Taylor became
ill. He would expire on July 9th, less than a year and a half after
taking office. It was likely cholera that killed him, the same ailment that
killed his predecessor James Polk, however rumors persisted that he was poisoned
by pro-slavery Southerners. This has never been substantiated despite testing. It
seems odd that conspiracy theorists would hold that a slaveholder was killed by
those with pro-slavery sympathies. Perhaps, Thomas Hart Benton’s effusive eulogy
can shed some light. Benton was a congressional institution during the
mid-1800s and a Democrat, who owed Taylor no favors in Eisenhower’s words. Benton
said of Taylor:
“His death was a public calamity. No man could have been more
devoted to the Union or more opposed to the slavery agitation, and his position
as a Southern man and a slave-holder, his military reputation and his election
by a majority of the people of the States would have given him a power in the
settlement of these questions which no President without these qualifications
would have possessed.”
Counterfactuals sometimes feel like a cheap attempt to
rewrite history and it feels unfair to Lincoln and the other politicians and
soldiers who gave their lives to preserve the Union to bestow on Taylor any
credit toward that achievement. However, Benton’s words are about a man who
does not get any credit. Taylor remains a president little remembered by
history, in part due to Union soldiers destroying his son’s house during the
Civil War and with it all of his personal papers. Benton’s words give us
insight into the convictions of a president who, unlike his successor Millard
Fillmore, believed that the Union must be preserved without slavery not
preserved by allowing slavery to fester, ignored, in the South. Three
presidents and ten-and-a-half years are all that would separate Taylor’s death
and the first shots of the Civil War in South Carolina, whether the survival
and reelection of Taylor could have altered that remains an unknowable what-if.