Zachary Taylor

president zachary taylor
twelveth president of the united states

interesting facts
Zachary Taylor spent his Fourth of July in 1850 eating cherries and milk at a ceremony at the Washington Monument.
He got sick from the heat and died five days later, the second president to die in office.

quotation
"I regret nothing, but I am sorry to leave my friends." - Zachary Taylor's last words.

biography
Zachary Taylor, president for a little over a year, was born to the prominent Revolutionary War leader, Richard Taylor. His father soon became very rich. Despite his family's wealth and prominence, Zachary had little formal education. For a brief period he had a private tutor, but his education consisted primarily of the practical knowledge gained from living on a frontier plantation. As a boy, Zachary helped his father run his plantation, but he did not decide on farming as a career.

Zachary Taylor, however decided on a military career. In 1806, Zachary Taylor received his first military descipline when he joined the militia to defend Kentucky when President Thomas Jefferson sent out an alert about the so-called Burr conspiracy. Former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr had assembled a small private army, apparently to seize land somewhere in the West. However, Burr's army was dispersed and Taylor's unit was disbanded. In 1808, Secretary of State James Madison, a second cousin of Taylor's, secured for him an appointment as lieutenant in the Seventh Infantry. Taylor spent the next 40 years in the service.

In 1810, Zachary Taylor married Margaret Mackall Smith, the daughter of a Maryland planter. The Taylors had five daughters and a son. Ironically, his eldest daughter, Sarah married Jefferson Davis, soon-to-be president of the Confederates.

Taylor rose slowly through the ranks and, until the Mexican War, held a succession of minor commands, mostly on the frontier. In the War of 1812, between the United States and Great Britain, he successfully defended Fort Harrison in the Indiana Territory with only 50 men against an attack of 400 Native Americans led by Shawnee Chief Tecumseh. For this feat he received widespread publicity and was made a major. For most of the years between the War of 1812 and 1831, Taylor served at military posts in Wisconsin, Louisiana, and Minnesota. In 1832 he was promoted to colonel and sent to Fort Crawford (now Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin), where he commanded a detachment of 400 men in the Black Hawk War, a conflict with the Sauk (or Sac) and Fox alliance of Native Americans. In 1840 Taylor was sent to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to command the Southwest Department. This position enabled him to purchase plantation land in Mississippi. Taylor had been a planter and slaveholder since his marriage, but his Cypress Grove plantation, an 810-hectare (2000-acre) tract on the Mississippi River above Natchez, then became his main interest. As the master of more than 100 slaves, Taylor was among the South's most prominent slaveholders. However, his attitude toward slaves and slavery was not typical. He believed that slavery was an economic necessity within the cotton-growing region, but he opposed its expansion to areas where cotton could not be cultivated. Moreover, unlike other large planters of his day, he made no claims that slavery and the plantation system represented a superior way of life. He was a career officer in the Army, but his talk was most often of cotton raising.

Zachary Taylor became a prominent war hero in the Mexican War. In the Battle of Monterey, Taylor began his invasion to Mexico. His volunteer army of 6000 men invaded the city was of Monterey in September 21, 1846 which was defended by 7000 Mexicans. Zachary Taylor's stragegy was ingenious and within days (Sept. 24), his army defeated the 7000 men. Taylor was stranded in northern Mexico with only 5000 men. Learning of Taylor's weakness, the Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna decided to lead his army of 15,000 to 20,000 against Taylor. He hoped that by defeating Taylor and advancing to the Rio Grande, he would force Scott to abandon his invasion of Mexico. On February 23, 1847, Santa Anna's and Taylor's armies met at a hacienda called Buena Vista, just south of Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. The Americans were outnumbered four to one, but Taylor was one step ahead of the enemy. By constantly shifting his troops to meet each Mexican thrust, Taylor turned defeat into a resounding victory. His losses were 267 killed, 456 wounded, and 23 missing. Santa Anna lost an estimated 2000 soldiers. The Battle of Buena Vista ended the war in northern Mexico. When Taylor returned to the United States in November 1847, he was the leading presidential candidate.

In the election of 1848, "Old Rough and Ready's" homespun ways were political assets. His long military record would appeal to northerners; his ownership of 100 slaves would lure southern votes. He had not committed himself on troublesome issues. Millard Fillmore, comptroller of New York, was chosen as his running mate. The Whigs nominated him to run against the Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass, who favored letting the residents of territories decide for themselves whether they wanted slavery which is called Popular Sovereignty.

Northerners who opposed extension of slavery into territories formed a Free Soil Party and nominated Martin Van Buren. In a close election, the Free Soilers pulled enough votes away from Cass to elect Taylor. In the election, Taylor won eight Southern states and seven Northern states, giving him 163 electoral votes to Cass's 127. Taylor did not win a majority of the popular votes. He had 1,360,099, compared to 1,220,544 for Cass and 291,263 for Van Buren. However, because Van Buren took Democratic votes away from Cass in New York, all of that state's 36 electoral votes went to Taylor, who thereby won the election. Thus, Taylor was a minority President.

As President, Zachary Taylor adopted the Spoil System as did Jackson and Washington to a certain extent, awarding offices to party loyalists. As a result, much of his time and many of his problems concerned the demands of unemployed Whig politicians. His administration was marked, however, by his personal honesty and courage, especially in the handling of the delicate question of slavery.

The expansion of slavery in the new territories gained in the Mexican War had been the major concern of Congress since the introduction of the Wilmot Proviso, which would have banned slavery there, in 1846. The demands of two such territories, California and New Mexico, for statehood brought the issue to a head because both territories wanted to be admitted to the federal Union as free states.

President Taylor's position on this issue surprised both his supporters and his opponents. He considered the solution simple. Because California wanted statehood, it should be granted promptly. The president also felt that if the people of California wanted to prohibit slavery, they and not Congress had the right to make that decision. Therefore, compromises and concessions were unnecessary. Taylor's stand drew the support of the Free Soilers and the antislavery or "conscience" Whigs, who were led by Senator William H. Seward of New York.

On the other extreme was a small but vocal faction of Southerners who would accept no changes to the arrangements of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, in which Congress had drawn a line at 36°30' north latitude as the northern limit of slave territory. This line bisected California and would have put Los Angeles and San Diego in slave territory. These so-called diehards, led by Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, talked of seceding from the Union if Taylor's plan was followed. Taylor responded with tough talk of his own. He personally, he said, would lead an army against any state that attempted secession.

In the middle was a group of moderate Whigs and Democrats who were trying to find a compromise. Its leaders were Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and Henry Clay, who had brokered the Missouri Compromise 30 years earlier. As long as Taylor was alive, the moderates' cause was hopeless. However, when Vice President Fillmore succeeded to the presidency in 1850, the moderates got his support for compromise. On July 4, 1850, Taylor stood in the hot sun at the foot of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., listening to patriotic speeches celebrating Independence Day. That night he had an attack of cholera morbus, or acute indigestion, and he died five days later. His last words were, "I regret nothing, but I am sorry to leave my friends."

Vice President Fillmore took the oath of office as president and soon delivered a message to Congress indicating that he was willing to compromise on California. Congress passed the Compromise of 1850, which admitted California as a free state but allowed slaveholders to settle in all the other former Mexican territories. Another concession to the South was a new, stronger Fugitive Slave Law.