12) Zachary Taylor - Old Rough and Ready

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.

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 18^th and 19^th 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 4^th festivities in 1850, Taylor became ill. He would expire on July 9^th, 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.

10) John Tyler – The Accidental President

John Tyler’s presidency was a unique one that challenged the young democracy and the resiliency of its Constitution. Tyler assumed the presidency in 1841 following the death of William Henry Harrison, 126 years before the adoption of the 25^th Amendment to the Constitution, which would spell out the order of succession to the Presidency. Upon Tyler’s ascendency to the executive there were some, most notably Henry Clay, who asserted that Tyler was acting president only, devoid of authority to serve out Harrison’s term. Tyler rejected this idea and was ultimately granted legitimacy by Congress. The Tyler Precedent would define presidential succession until the Cold War.

In a time of bitter partisanship and splintering political parties, Tyler’s politics didn’t fit neatly in either of the major political parties of the day. The early part of his political career as a member of the House of Representatives, Virginia House of Delegates, Governor of Virginia, and the US Senate Tyler was a Democrat. Despite his party affiliation, Tyler often found himself at odds with the preeminent Democrat of the day, Andrew Jackson. Like Jackson, Tyler did not support the Bank of the US, however he didn’t agree with Jackson’s decision to strip the bank of its deposits. He also agreed with Jackson that South Carolina should not nullify Federal Law, however Tyler was a strict believer in state’s rights and the force with which Jackson came down on South Carolina didn’t sit well with Tyler. Tyler would fall

in with the nascent Whig party, found his way onto the Whig ticket in the 1840 Presidential election as William Henry Harrison’s running mate, and was President of the United States upon Harrison’s death shortly thereafter.

The Tyler / Whig love affair was short lived. Before his first year in office ended Tyler had vetoed two banking bills favored by Henry Clay and the congressional Whigs. All but one of his cabinet members resigned and Clay dubbed him “The President without a party.” Whig newspapers heaped vitriol on Tyler for the duration of his presidency.

The legacy of Tyler’s presidency is the annexation of Texas. Tyler worked hard to shepherd annexation legislation through congress and coordinate with the Texan government. This work was disrupted by the USS Princeton disaster wherein the newly built ship’s main gun backfired during a celebratory cruise down the Potomac. Thomas Gilmer and Abel Upshur, Tyler’s secretaries of the Navy and State, respectively died along with four others in the disaster. Both Gilmer and Upshur had been key players in annexation effort. Despite their differences, Tyler appointed John Calhoun to fill the position at State, and Calhoun helped devise a joint resolution of congress to back annexation just before Tyler left office.

Tyler once again identified as a Democrat after his break with the Whigs. He agreed, for the sake of the party, not to seek reelection and back James Polk. Polk angered Tyler by never living up to the unspoken agreement to repay some Tyler men through patronage.

Tyler is not highly regarded by historians. To his supporters he was unwavering supporter of state’s rights, however in the mid-19^th century supporting state’s rights was a euphemism for supporting slavery and when the Civil War came around Tyler ended up on the wrong side of history.

Photo of Tyler and Monroe's gravesite,
courtesy of http://www.presidentsgraves.com

In retirement, Tyler initially opposed war. He presided over the “Peace Convention” which proposed to President James Buchanan that slavery be prohibited in the North, that slavery be continued in the South, that questions involving slavery in the South be resolved by Federal courts according to common law, and that any new states decide on slavery themselves. Tyler changed his tack after the Senate overwhelmingly rejected these proposals. He now believed that if the South presented a united front, by seceding from the union, war would be avoided. He was wrong. Tyler lived long enough to see shots ring out at Fort Sumter, his home state of Virginia secede, and the Confederates triumph at Bull Run. Tyler likely died believing that the South could defeat the Union troops. Interestingly, Tyler is the only US president who was not buried under the American flag. In an attempt to galvanize Southerners, Jefferson Davis ordered a grand burial for Tyler, under the Confederate flag, next to James Monroe’s grave.

9) William Henry Harrison - Old Tippecanoe

William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, was in office for 31 days. Harrison was the first Whig to serve as president of the United States. The Whigs were a motley crew consisting of anti-Masons, national Republicans, and anti-Jackson Democrats. While there wasn’t a common platform to hold the Whigs together, they employed rhetoric and the press deftly. The election of 1840, in which Harrison defeated the incumbent Van Buren, was one of little substance. Oliver Perry Chitwood, John Tyler’s biographer, pointed out that the Whig press successfully framed Harrison as a rugged frontiersman while painting Van Buren as an aristocrat. In reality Van Buren was largely a self-made man, as you may recall from the prior post, and Harrison was a scion of Virginia gentry. Harrison’s campaign slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too” was one of the most successful and enduring in American history.

There are contradictory accounts about Harrison’s death. The author, Robert Owens, tells the story you often hear; Harrison delivered a long inaugural speech in bad weather, contracted pneumonia, and died shortly thereafter. Chitwood tells a different story, which I’m more inclined to believe given the timeline. Chitwood says that Harrison’s inauguration took place on “beautiful day.” It wasn’t until March 24^th, 20 days after the inauguration, that Harrison contracted pneumonia. This makes the story that Harrison contracted his illness during the inauguration difficult to reconcile.

Owens’ book, Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer, was the first I read during this project that wasn’t a biography. I didn’t realize it when I picked the book up, but it’s really an account of Harrison’s time as governor of the Indiana Territory and his role in 19^th Century American Indian policy. The book spends very little time discussing his childhood and even less discussing his post-Indiana work.  While this was a bit of a divergence from the “presidential biography” tact, the book was still interesting and I certainly learned about a little known president.

Harrison’s father, Benjamin, was governor of Virginia, he was a leader in the House of Burgesses, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. When Harrison applied to join the Army, Washington himself approved the application likely due to his friendship with Benjamin.

Harrison’s most famous military conquest was his role in the Battle of Tippecanoe. Owens tells a story not as glorious as one might expect. Harrison’s Indian adversaries attacked at night in an attempt to kill Harrison. Harrison likely escaped because his customary gray horse ran off earlier that day and he was riding another. Harrison’s men held off the Indians, but suffered dozens of deaths and injuries. Initial criticisms of Harrison’s ill preparation were quickly suppressed as Andrew Jackson defended his actions. 

Like Jackson, Harrison became involved in Aaron Burr’s failed attempt to split the union. Burr conspired with General James Wilkinson whom Harrison had served under at the beginning of his Army career. Wilkinson requested that Harrison send Burr to Congress as Indiana’s representative, a request that he didn’t oblige.

President Thomas Jefferson wrote to Harrison in 1803, which was early in Harrison’s tenure as governor, instructing him to acquire as much Indian land in the Mississippi Valley and to keep this plan secret. Jefferson wanted to secure the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in the event that France (i.e. Napoléon) were to militarize their newly acquired Louisiana Territory. A common refrain in American history education is the story of unfair treaties that the American settlers coerced Indians in to in order to give legal cover to the subjugation of Indian land. Harrison’s time as Governor of Indiana is a case study in this practice. The common tactics seemed to be: (i) When possible negotiate with a tribe on friendly terms with the Americans, these tribes often had tenuous claims on the land that Americans were negotiating over. (ii) Institute an annuity system whereby the tribes were paid over time. This secured the dependence of that tribe on the American government and served as leverage over the tribe’s leadership. (iii) Try to structure payment for land to include farm equipment and/or livestock to help in the “civilizing” of the tribes.  The idea of protecting the Western border from France was to become a moot point soon as the Louisiana Purchase was completed by Jefferson’s administration later in 1803.

While Harrison's time in the highest office was brief, the role he played in the West is an important chapter in American history. Harrison was a slaveholder and a proponent of slavery and worked to institutionalize it in the Indiana Territory, a battle he lost as the country slowly marched toward a Civil War whose first shots would ring out 20 years, almost to the day, after Harrison's death.

8) Martin Van Buren - The Little Magician

Only 43 men have held the title of President of the United Sates at the time of this writing, so naturally there are firsts in every presidency. Martin Van Buren, I would argue, was the first pure politician to rise to the presidency. Before assuming the presidency Van Buren served in the Senate, as Governor of New York, Secretary of State, minister to the United Kingdom, and Vice President. It isn’t the long list of offices that makes Van Buren the first ‘pure politician’; Jefferson, Monroe, and Quincy Adams had similar resumes; it was Van Buren’s work forming modern Democratic Party that gives him that title.

Born about 100 miles north of New York City in the Hudson River town of Kinderhook, Van Buren grew up in an isolated, Dutch village. Much of Washington Irving’s writings are set in Van Buren’s New York. Like his future mentor, Andrew Jackson, Van Buren’s life was marred by tragedy. Van Buren’s mother, father, and wife all died over a three-year span leaving him with four sons, aged two to eleven, to raise on his own.

Van Buren helped to build the Albany Regency, one of the first political machines in the young republic. At a time when communication over long distances was difficult the Regency crafted a system to maintain party discipline wherein the governor and senators sent policy to the caucus in the state legislature that informed the partisan press. Circuit judges also played a roll in spreading the party line as they rode the circuit around New York. The Regency began to give Americans a more positive image of political parties, which were beginning to be seen as a force for good that facilitated political engagement and curbed corruption.

As a luminary of the Regency, Van Buren worked to intertwine the powerful northern and southern states of New York and Virginia. This required a flexibility that would stay with him throughout his political life. Van Buren’s flexibility is most notable in his support for slavery at a time when New York’s abolitionist movement was swelling. Van Buren was of a class of politicians who believed that maintaining the union justified the status quo on slavery, a position he later abandoned when it suited him.

Van Buren’s presidency was unspectacular. He spent the majority of his single term attempting to deal with the Panic of 1837, a consequence of both European financial pressures and Andrew Jackson’s heavy-handed economic intervention. Van Buren’s main objective was to secure an independent treasury bill, reversing the policy of depositing federal funds into state banks. Van Buren’s quest for an independent treasury served to split the Democratic Party that he had worked so hard to build. When the bill passed, three years into Van Buren’s term, it had little practical effect as it merely legislated a practice that had been in effect for a year.

In his reelection campaign William Henry Harrison handily defeated Van Buren. That Harrison excited the electorate with his log cabin imagery and Tippecanoe slogans was evidenced by an increase in the popular vote from 1836 to 1840 from 1.5 million to 2.4 million. Van Buren would again seek the Democratic nomination in 1844 but lost to James Polk. In 1848, he ran as a member of the Free Soil Party which opposed slavery, he failed to carry a single state.

The career politician was often regarded as a shrewd manipulator, nicknamed The Little Magician, Van Buren flip-flopped on a number of issues including the Erie Canal (originally opposed), Jackson’s bank modifications, and slavery. It was Van Buren’s work to form the Democratic Party, and modern party structure in general, which is Van Buren’s lasting legacy.