ASIDE: Jefferson Davis - President of the Confederacy

Had he been born half a century earlier maybe Jefferson Davis would be remembered more like his namesake, Thomas Jefferson. He had a storybook presidential upbringing. Born in 1808 in western Kentucky, Jefferson was the tenth of ten children. His father moved the family nearly 600 miles to Louisiana shortly after Jefferson’s birth and then again, less than a year later, to Mississippi. When Jefferson was seven, his father decided he needed a proper education and sent Jefferson on a 500-mile trip to a Catholic boarding school in Kentucky without telling his wife. On the trip Jefferson spent several memorable weeks at the Hermitage. General Andrew Jackson was a bonafide American legend fresh off of his victory at New Orleans.

Jefferson’s older brother, Joseph, was a major force in his life and became a surrogate father.  Joseph encouraged Jefferson to continue his education. Jefferson attended Transylvania University and West Point, where he was a middling student. Jefferson was a West Point contemporary with his future general Robert E. Lee, though the two were not close. He did become close friends with Albert Sidney Johnston and Leonidas Polk, who would also go on to serve as generals under Jefferson.

After graduating from West Point Jefferson was stationed in Wisconsin. It was true frontier territory. The commanding officer at the fort was future president Zachary Taylor and Jefferson soon fell in love with his daughter, Sarah. As discussed in the post about Taylor, he did not want his daughter marrying an Army man due to the family pressures of military life. Jefferson resigned from the military and married Sarah. Malaria struck shortly after the wedding killing Sarah.

Jefferson and Varina's wedding photo. There's something
about this photo I find intriguing.

Joseph was a wealthy planter with thousands of acres of land along the Mississippi River near Vicksburg. Joseph gave his brother some land where he built his plantation, Brierfield, in the years following Sarah’s death. Jefferson met and married the much younger Varina Howell during these years. The age difference, tension between Varina and Joseph, and Jefferson’s military service would strain the early years of their marriage. However, the two were devoted to each other and her ability to raise their children and advocate for her imprisoned husband in the years after the war are admirable. Her life as a writer living in New York after Jefferson’s death seem interesting. I intended to learn more about Varina following the president project.

Joseph encouraged his brother to pursue politics and was elected to the House of Representatives during the Polk administration on his second try. Less than one year in to his term the Mexican War broke out. Davis resigned his seat to serve as a colonel much to Varina’s vexation. In Mexico, Davis led the Mississippi Rifles who would famously be the first to breech the walls of Mexican stronghold, “the Tannery”, at the Battle of Monterrey. The Rifles also fought gallantly at Buena Vista. In short, the war could not have gone better for an up-and-coming Democratic politician. Davis was appointed to Mississippi’s vacant Senate seat upon his heroic return home and then won reelection. At this point the Compromise of 1850 was the hot-button issue de jour and David bitterly opposed it. Davis hated the legislation’s implicit abandonment of the Missouri Compromise, but the real reason he could not support the Compromise of 1850 is that it would admit California as a free state throwing off the senatorial balance between free and slave states. Shortly in to his elected term as Senator he resigned to run for governor of Mississippi and his candidacy was to serve as a referendum on the Compromise of 1850. Jefferson lost narrowly as his opposition successfully labeled him a secessionist despite Davis’s painstaking parsing of the difference between the right to secede and the need to secede. No one could know at the time how this portended the future.

Following his gubernatorial defeat, Davis worked to get a Democrat back in to the White House campaigning for Franklin Pierce. When Pierce defeated General Winfield Scott he rewarded Davis with a spot in his cabinet as Secretary of War. As secretary, Davis worked to modernize and increase the size of the Army that would go on to defeat his Confederate troops a decade later. Davis also played an important role acting as liaison between Pierce and the congressional supporters of the regrettable Kansas/Nebraska legislation.

Davis returned to the Senate after the Pierce administration ended as the country careened toward Civil War. In a period of escalated congressional rhetoric, Davis was by no means a fire-eater (the nickname given to nineteenth-century Southern secessionists). He did not believe that South Carolina should secede on its own and he did not believe any state should secede until no hope of peace remained. In his last address to the Senate he said that Republicans had forced upon the South a choice it did not want to make.

Davis returned home to Brierfield and awaited word from Montgomery, Alabama where delegates from six slave states were meeting to draft the specifics of what would become the Confederate States of America. Davis was a relatively easy choice for President given his military acumen, knowledge of government, and history of political moderateness. The Confederate government mostly mirrored the United States government, however the Constitution “clarified” the protection of slavery and importance of states’ rights.

The conventional way we tend to think about the Civil War is that the Confederates got off to a hot start knocking the Union on to its heels before the Union was able to gather itself, find a suitable leader in Ulysses Grant, and then take the fight to the South. At least that’s how I think about it. While this is the general pattern it’s a decidedly Northern perspective. The prospects were not nearly so rosy despite early victories at Bull Run and Ball’s Bluff. Davis’s Confederacy had about 40% of the North’s population, which was really about 30% when only White males between the ages of 18 and 45 were counted. The Confederates had about 10% of the North’s industrial capacity and about half of the railroad density of the North (rails that were primarily manufactured in the North and Great Britain). Davis also had a hard time dealing with the financial constraints of war. Very little internal financing was ever raised through bonds and there was no serious attempt at taxation until it was too late. The Confederacy instead turned to the financial tool of failed regimes throughout history, printing money. In 1861 prices were rising and by 1862 there was severe inflation that would only worsen throughout the war.

Davis in his presidential
years.

As a wartime president Davis had to be a more reactionary than proactive executive. Many of the initial Confederate soldiers were on 1-year enlistments and the Army began to deplete as the war dragged in to its second year. Davis pressured Congress to pass a law requiring 18 to 35 year-old white males to serve; this was later raised to 45. This was the first national conscription law in American history. Another law passed by Congress, the “20 Negros law,” stipulated that there must be at least 1 white male for every 20 slaves on plantations. This gave rise to cries of “a rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight.” While Lincoln is often criticized for his suspensions of habeas corpus Davis also utilized this, though far more conservatively than his Northern counterpart. The last aspect of his presidency that I found particularly interesting was the attempts at a social safety net. Realizing the hardship of war and the need to keep Southerners ideologically united, Davis advocated a 10% in-kind tax on surplus agriculture to be distributed to soldier’s families as well as assistance to those who lost property to the government for military purposes.

A discussion of Jefferson Davis is not complete without discussing slavery. When I compared him to Thomas Jefferson in the first paragraph I said that had he been born earlier, perhaps he would be remembered differently. The fact was that Davis lived in a time when much of the country no longer felt slavery could be tolerated and his views towards blacks remained barbaric. Davis believed that slavery was “the most beneficent form of government that has been applied to those who are morally and intellectually unable to take care of themselves.” Davis believed that slavery was “a moral, a social, and a political blessing.” The other side of this is that, as far as Southern slave-owners went, Jefferson and his brother Joseph seem to have been benevolent. In a rare arrangement, Jefferson’s most trusted slave, James Pemberton, managed his other slaves during Jefferson’s frequent time away from Brierfield. Joseph would sell his plantation to one of his slaves, the remarkable Benjamin Montgomery, after the war.

With the Army of the Potomac breaking through General Lee’s lines, the Confederate government had to abandon their capital of Richmond. It was April 2^nd, 1865. Davis’s government retreated 145 miles southwest to Danville, Virginia. When Davis was informed of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, eight days later, the government retreated farther to Greensboro, North Carolina where they were not particularly welcomed and worked out of railroad cars. It was in Greensboro on April 13^th that Davis read the terms of surrender at Appomattox and realized that it was definitely over. Davis’s political family now moved on as fugitives and were forced to camp out during the week-long trip to Charlotte. In Charlotte he learned of Lincoln’s assassination. On April 26^th Davis’s crew retreated on another week-long trip to Abbeville, South Carolina staying in private homes along the way. Davis’s group began to break apart as Union troops advanced. There was no longer any pretense of organized government as Davis and a small group headed toward Washington, Georgia where Varina was. Davis and his Secretary of Treasury even assumed false identities on this leg of the retreat. Upon reaching Washington, Davis learned that Varina had already left. He decided to pursue her group. The two groups met around May 7^th and would be captured, two days later, in the woods of South Georgia.

Davis spent about two years imprisoned at Fort Monroe in Virginia. Notable advocates of his were Caleb Cushing, Franklin Pierce, Jerimiah Black, and Horace Greeley. Once freed, Davis made several attempts at employment both in Europe and America, including briefly serving as president of Carolina Life Company. Davis didn’t involve himself in politics post-imprisonment, however he was the subject of much political mud-slinging including barbs from a young Teddy Roosevelt who compared him to Benedict Arnold.

Davis as an old man.

Davis’s last public speech was to a group of young men in Mississippi City and it is a fitting way to move on from the Civil War presidents. In the speech, an 80-year old Davis told the young men, “…the past is dead. Let it bury its dead, its hopes and aspirations; before you lies the future – a future full of golden promise; a future of expanding national glory, before which all the world shall stand amazed. Let me beseech you to lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feelings, and to make your places in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished – a reunited country.”

Those words are a worthy legacy to leave behind.

14) Franklin Pierce - Poor Pierce

With nearly two feet of snow covering the ground out my window, it seemed like an appropriate time to sit down and write about our only president from the Granite State.

Roy Nichol’s biography of Franklin Pierce was one of the more enjoyable during this project so far. I’ve said before that the presidents leading up to Lincoln were the ones I dreaded. I thought I may get bored of the project and give up. However, this well written and researched book is a fascinating way to both learn about an obscure president and provide context to some events leading to the Civil War whose names you remember from history class.

While not a prerequisite for the presidency, Pierce was also born in a log cabin. He grew up in New Hampshire as one of Benjamin and Anna Pierce’s eight children. Benjamin was a veteran of the Revolutionary War where he fought at Bunker Hill. He also served as Governor of New Hampshire. Legend has it that while Franklin was a schoolboy in New Hampshire a speaker came and told his class that if the children aim high in their studies the future President may be sitting in that very room.

Benjamin sent his son north to Bowdoin College in Maine where Franklin did not sufficiently focus on his studies. When his junior year began class rankings were released and Franklin learned he was last in the class. With prodding from classmates Franklin dedicated himself to his studies, rising to fifth in the class by graduation. Franklin made a lifelong friend while at Bowdoin who went on to gain more lasting fame. The author Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, was a lifelong defender of Pierce even dedicating one of his final works, Our Old Home, to Pierce against the advice of his publisher.

After college Pierce moved to Hillsborough, New Hampshire and began learning law. He involved himself in local politics and was elected to the state legislature, eventually being voted speaker. His constituents then elevated him to the United States Congress where he served in the House during Jackson’s administration. He was a “devout hero-worshiper” of Old Hickory and did a great deal of fighting Jackson’s Bank Wars in the House. In the House Pierce would help to draw up the “gag-rule” which John Quincy Adams famously fought against. Pierce’s work on the gag-rule, which effectively barred debate of slavery in the House, and his disdain for abolitionism, which he saw as a grave threat to the Union, were early signs of Pierce’s states’ rights leanings which tarnished his image in posterity.

Like true Jacksonians, New Hampshire Democrats believed in office rotation and their senators typically served only one term. Pierce’s turn came in 1837. In an otherwise unremarkable Senate career, Pierce had to confront slavery again when he voted against a proposal to table a bill to abolish slavery in Washington DC. This vote came despite his dislike of abolitionists as his association with the gag-rule was giving material to abolitionist at home who claimed that Pierce was suppressing their First Amendment right to petition.

While a member of the House, Pierce married Jane Appleton. This was an odd choice as Jane was “shy, retiring, frail… with strict ideas of propriety.” She was also extremely devout. If you took the opposite of each of the preceding attributes you would have a fair description of Franklin. Jane did not like Hillsborough, so the family relocated to Concord. Their first child died in infancy and their second died as a toddler, their third, Benjamin, became an obsession for Jane and Franklin. Jane did not like Washington and was often ill, she spent much of his Senate term back in Concord. When his term ended, Pierce returned and established his law practice. This was a rare happy period for the Pierces. From 1842 through the first half of 1847 Pierce was the most prolific trial lawyer in Concord. Pierce, who battled alcoholism, was not drinking during this period. Jane also seems to have been happy and relatively healthy during these years. Pierce remained active in politics and became a local “party boss”. The surprise election of James Polk in 1844 was a fortuitous turn for Franklin who benefited from patronage as Polk named him district attorney for New Hampshire.

The Battle of Chapultepec, not as magestic when you're laid up with
Montezuma's revenge.

Then came war with Mexico. Growing up with a military hero father, Pierce longed for battle glory and volunteered immediately. He was promoted to Brigadier General, this was likely political given his limited military background, and given a command. Pierce labored to pull together recruits given the unpopularity of the war in New England, but by May 1847 he was ready to set sail. Pierce did not find glory in Mexico. He would find himself in three battles. At the Battle of Contreras, he was injured. The story that stuck with him from the war was when his horse threw him at Contreras a regular yelled to Pierce’s friend, Major Truman Ransom, “take command of the brigade, General Pierce is a damned coward.” This story was repeated by political enemies throughout his career. Again he was injured at the Battle of Churubusco and then finally at Chapultepec, where Ransom lost his life, Pierce was laid up with diarrhea and unable to participate. He held out hope that he would fight at the ultimate battle in Mexico City, however he arrived just in time to see the Mexicans surrender.

Back in New Hampshire Pierce resumed law and politics, the election of Zachary Taylor was a disappointment, however New Hampshire voted Democrat in no small part thanks to Pierce’s efforts. By the time the election of 1852 rolled around there was some talk that Pierce was a potential candidate, he demurred publicly. While he was by no means a major player on the national stage, the Democratic Party was fraying over slavery and Pierce’s Northern routes and Southern sympathies made him an attractive compromise candidate. Pierce was nominated on the 35^th ballot of the Democratic convention. Pierce defeated fellow Mexican War general Winfield Scott and won the presidency.

Shortly after his election, tragedy struck when a train that Pierce, Jane, and Benjamin were on derailed. Everyone on the train walked away except for Benjamin, who was decapitated in front of his parents. The Pierces went into a state of deep morning, a state that Jane would never exit. Soon thereafter Jane learned that Pierce had sought the presidency more than he let on to her. This was something difficult to forgive given how opposed she was to returning to Washington.  It is likely that Pierce entered the White House to assume his duties in a state of depression.

Shortly into his presidency, Pierce traveled to New York for the World’s Fair. He wanted to preach states’ rights and the importance of securing the Union. Pierce was sick much of the trip and a letter from a congressman to James Buchanan reveals how Pierce was coping:

“I deeply, deeply, deplore his habits. He drinks deep. My hearts bleeds for him for he is a gallant and generous spirit. The place overshadows him. He is crushed by its great duties and he seeks refuge in…”

The most memorable chapter of American history from the Pierce presidency was the signing of the Kansas/Nebraska Act which created the two states. The act called for popular sovereignty in the two states. Opponents of the act called this a repudiation of the Missouri Compromise, supporters said the Compromise of 1850 already nullified the Missouri Compromise. Proponents of slavery and abolitionists alike began piling into Kansas in hopes of swinging the vote. The ensuing clashes, dubbed Bleeding Kansas by John Fremont’s failed Republican bid for president in 1856, stained Pierce’s legacy and hurled the country closer to Civil War.

Pierce was not nominated by the Democrats in 1856. He had become so unpopular throughout the North that during the mid-term elections the Democrats lost every free state except California and New Hampshire – this after carrying every Northern state but Vermont during his election.

Pierce loathed the Civil War. He had focused his presidency on trying to keep the Union together and he believed the war to be senseless. He blamed abolitionists for the death and destruction. However, when Confederate plans to attack Washington were revealed, Pierce spoke on the need to defend the country “at all hazards” and he never justified the secession of the South. This did little to change public perception of Pierce. He inability to hide his disdain for Lincoln didn’t help public perception. He called Lincoln a tool of the abolitionists: “to the extent of his limited ability and narrow intelligence their willing instrument for all the woe which had thus far been brought upon the country…”

In late-1863 Jane died, the next spring Hawthorne died, in the summer political enemies circulated an old letter Pierce had written to his then Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, purporting to show that Pierce supported secession. The next spring came Lincoln’s assassination and Pierce’s depression and alcoholism began to take hold. His liver held out for four more years while he remained somewhat involved in political issues of the day and became involved in the church.

Pierce's life was tragic and his presidency was unsuccessful. However, it is important to understand his times as the prelude to the Civil War and it is important for one studying the presidents to understand the man, as it is a painful lesson in the burden of the office.

13) Millard Fillmore - The Compromiser

Millard Fillmore marks the halfway point of the stretch of this project I was least excited about. I had pegged the four presidents leading up to Lincoln, of which I knew little about, as a dull period leading up to the Civil War. Taylor served as a nice surprise, filling in gaps about the goings on during the Mexican American War. Fillmore’s story has some color on the development of the Whig Party but, like Martin Van Buren’s story, it is largely focused on nineteenth century New York state politics which can get dry.

A statue of Fillmore that stands outside
Buffalo's imposing City Hall.

Like Andrew Jackson and Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore was born in a log cabin. Fillmore grew up on an unproductive farm in New York’s Finger Lakes region, his family then moved west to the Buffalo region in Fillmore’s late teens. It was there, in East Aurora, NY, that Fillmore made his mark as a lawyer. He went on to form a law practice with Nathan Hall and Solomon Haven. These men were instrumental in Buffalo’s development, particularly in education. Hall, who would serve as Fillmore’s Postmaster General, helped institute Buffalo’s fist free public school system and Fillmore was instrumental in the founding of the University of Buffalo. Hall would begin his own law office when Fillmore’s duties no longer allowed him to focus on the practice. The new firm went on to train future president Grover Cleveland. That two U.S. presidents came from essentially the same law practice in western New York is an interesting bit of presidential trivia.

Fillmore came of age at a time when Thurlow Weed was building the Whig Party’s base in New York. Fillmore rose through its ranks serving three terms in the House of Representatives and then running unsuccessfully for governor. Weed and Fillmore often battled due to what the author portrayed as Weed’s repeated backing of the other major New York Whig of the time, William Seward, often at Fillmore’s expense. After losing the bid for Governor, Fillmore was elected as the state’s Comptroller.

It is ironic that Fillmore ended up on the Whig ticket with Zachary Taylor in the election of 1848. Taylor was a slaveholding Southerner so to deliver the North in this tenuous period of American history the Whigs needed an anti-slavery Northerner. Fillmore fit the bill. The irony is that Taylor’s anti-slavery views and opposition to slavery in the newly acquired southwestern territories would soon be apparent. Further, when Taylor died and Fillmore assumed the reigns of the presidency he backed Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas’s efforts to broker a compromise between North and South. The compromise was viewed by many as strengthening the protection of slavery. What became known as the Compromise of 1850 was structured as a series of bills whereby:

• Texas surrendered its claim on New Mexico.
• California was admitted as a non-slave state.
• Utah and New Mexico were allowed to choose whether or not they wanted slavery to be  permitted (it was known both were unlikely to permit the practice).
• The slave trade, but not slavery itself, was outlawed in Washington DC.
• The Fugitive Slave Act was strengthened.

Given the political climate in which everyone was focused on the newly acquired Western territories, the likely abolition of slavery in these lands gave Southerners a sour feeling about the Compromise. Northerners were not happy with the strengthening of the Fugitive Slave Act which required law enforcement, even in jurisdictions where slavery was outlawed, to assist in the capture and return of runaway slaves. This had not been the practice in many Northern municipalities where a blind eye was turned to the efforts of abolitionists to aid escaped slaves. Northern abolitionists flouted the new law. A particular incident in Boston where the arrival of escaped slaves William and Ellen Crofts was loudly celebrated forced Fillmore to take a stand. Fillmore announced that he was prepared to use Federal troops to intervene and the Crofts were quickly and quietly moved to London.

It is important to keep in mind that Fillmore’s actions, both supporting the Compromise and his willingness to use force to protect it, were taken at a time when segments of the South were preparing for disunion. While history may remember Fillmore as a feckless doughface, he was attempting to save the Union. Fillmore’s anti-slavery credentials had been sufficient enough to get him on the ticket with Taylor as a sop to the abolitionist wing of the Whig party so branding him a lackey to slaveholders is lazy analysis.

Fillmore’s domestic failings are surely his presidential legacy. However, he did have a notable achievement in foreign policy when he sent Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan. Japan had been a closed society up to this point and America wanted to trade with them, particularly for their large supply of coal which could fuel new coal-powered ocean liners. Perry was successful in opening Japanese ports giving Fillmore a key diplomatic victory.

Fillmore may not have intended to run for a full term. Friends who had tried to convince him to run later said that he did not want to. The endorsement of party leader Henry Clay, on his death bed, finally convinced him to run. Fillmore did not receive the nomination, on the 53^rd ballot General Winfield Scott was nominated and he would go on to lose to another Mexican American War General, Franklin Pierce. But that is a story for the next post.

The Whig Party began to fracture following the defeat of General Scott. Perhaps the correct way to phrase it is that existing fractures could no longer be ignored after Scott’s defeat. The Whig party split largely over the issue of slavery into the Know-Nothings and the modern-day Republican Party. The Know-Nothings were a short-lived anti-Catholic / anti-immigrant party of which, unfortunately, Millard Fillmore joined and represented in the Presidential election of 1856. The Republican party would find presidential success in 1860 when Lincoln’s election raised the drumbeat of secession to fruition.

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.

11) James Polk - Young Hickory

The eleventh president was another that I did not know what to expect from. The subtitle of Walter Borneman’s book, “The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America,” set lofty expectations.

Polk was born in current-day North Carolina and moved to Tennessee as a child. His childhood wasn’t easy. Life on the American frontier was difficult enough, but various illnesses made it even more challenging. By the age of 17, Polk’s parents resolved to send him to Philadelphia to seek the care of Dr. Philip Syng Physick, “the father of American surgery.” Polk could go no farther than Danville, Kentucky.  A Kentucky surgeon removed urinary stones in what must have been an excruciating and terrifying experience. Fortunately, Polk’s health was finally improved, but the primitive surgery is likely the reason he never had children.

Polk hitched his political wagon to the giant of Tennessee Democratic politics, Andrew Jackson, as a young man. Polk served seven terms in the US House of Representatives, making it to the Speakership, before running for governor of Tennessee. While Polk won his first campaign for governor, he lost the next two elections to James “Lean Jimmy” Chamberlain Jones. Lean Jimmy was a Whig showman of little substance and Polk’s losses to him were huge political disappointments and may have ended a less ambitious politician’s career.

The revival of Polk’s career came in the form of a political misstep from Jackson’s protégé, and a master politician in his own right, Martin Van Buren. Polk’s aim was to run as Van Buren’s vice president. However, Van Buren’s equivocation over Texas annexation was a betrayal that Jackson couldn’t forgive; Jackson threw his considerable weight behind Polk for President in 1844. To ensure support from all factions of the splintered Democratic Party, Polk promised to serve only one term. Polk got the Democratic nomination and thanks to an antislavery third party candidate splitting the vote in New York, he squeaked out a win in the general election over perpetual Whig candidate Henry Clay.

Polk would indeed transform the presidency, as the title suggested. He fundamentally strengthening the office into the strong executive we know today. Polk showed evidence of his iron will early when he laid down the ground rules for his cabinet members. Cabinet members would have to a) sign a pledge to support the Democratic platform, b) resign if they decided to run for president, and c) not vacation outside of Washington. Polk would be the first president to reaffirm the Monroe Doctrine by declaring “people of this continent’s right alone” to control the Oregon territory which was jointly held with England.

Where Polk truly transformed the presidency was over the United States’ claim to the Southwest. Polk wanted to force Mexico to accept the United States’ right to Texas and gain control over New Mexico and California. Mexico’s refusal to negotiate was making it seem that they would be convinced only by force. Polk prepared to demand that Congress declare war, ostensibly over Mexico’s refusal to deal with an American envoy. What Polk didn’t know was that Zachary Taylor’s troops had already been engaged by Mexican soldiers in contested West-Texas territory. Polk received a gift prior to approaching Congress. A memo from General Zachary Taylor reached Washington stating that “hostilities may now be considered as commenced.” With that information, Polk went to Congress and told them the war had already begun, they had better accept it. Between the House and the Senate, the total debate time was less than a day and a half. From that point forward the Executive has assumed war making powers from congress, fundamentally strengthening the office of the president.

Polk’s four years in office were dominated by western expansion and the Mexican American War. By the time he left office, the United States had added modern day Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Montana. There is no question that Polk transformed the nation. Acquiring the land was one thing, but adding new states was another. Mid-nineteenth century American politics was completely dominated by slavery and the addition of new “free states” was unacceptable to Southern politicians who were increasingly feeling marginalized and unwilling to upset the balance between free and slave states in congress. The “peculiar institution” dominated national issues, it was becoming evident to prescient politicians that secession was a matter of time.

Polk upheld his pledge not to run for a second term. Lewis Cass ran on the Democratic ticket and in an ironic twist, a third party candidate split the New York vote again, but this time gave the election to the Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor. Despite the fact that Taylor had served as a general under Polk, he did not think highly of him. Polk wrote that Taylor seemed, “a well-meaning old man… uneducated, exceedingly ignorant of public affairs, and of very ordinary capacity.” Polk turned the reigns over to Taylor fearing that Taylor would unwind the land gains Polk’s administration had achieved. The fear proved unfounded, however Polk would not live to be proved wrong. Just 103 days after leaving office, Polk died of cholera. A long tour of the South on his way home to likely did not help.

The America and the office of the presidency that Polk left behind were much different than what he had inherited from John Tyler. Politically, however, slavery remained a ticking time-bomb that would explode in a mere twelve years.