Northerners and
Southerners disputed sharply whether the territories wrested from Mexico should
be opened to slavery, and some Southerners even threatened secession. Standing
firm, Zachary Taylor was prepared to hold the Union together by armed force
rather than by compromise.
Born in Virginia in 1784, he was taken as an
infant to Kentucky and raised on a plantation. He was a career officer in the
Army, but his talk was most often of cotton raising. His home was in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, and he owned a plantation in Mississippi.
But Taylor
did not defend slavery or southern sectionalism; 40 years in the Army made him
a strong nationalist.
He spent a quarter of a century policing the
frontiers against Indians. In the Mexican War he won major victories at
Monterrey and Buena Vista.
President Polk, disturbed by General Taylor's
informal habits of command and perhaps his Whiggery as well, kept him in
northern Mexico and sent an expedition under Gen. Winfield Scott to capture
Mexico City. Taylor, incensed, thought that "the battle of Buena Vista opened
the road to the city of Mexico and the halls of Montezuma, that others might
revel in them."
"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. 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.
In protest against Taylor
the slaveholder and Cass the advocate of "squatter 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.
Although Taylor had subscribed
to Whig principles of legislative leadership, he was not inclined to be a
puppet of Whig leaders in Congress. He acted at times as though he were above
parties and politics. As disheveled as always, Taylor tried to run his
administration in the same rule-of-thumb fashion with which he had fought
Indians.
Traditionally, people could decide whether they wanted
slavery when they drew up new state constitutions. Therefore, to end the
dispute over slavery in new areas, Taylor urged settlers in New Mexico and
California to draft constitutions and apply for statehood, bypassing the
territorial stage.
Southerners were furious, since neither state
constitution was likely to permit slavery; Members of Congress were dismayed,
since they felt the President was usurping their policy-making prerogatives. In
addition, Taylor's solution ignored several acute side issues: the northern
dislike of the slave market operating in the District of Columbia; and the
southern demands for a more stringent fugitive slave law.
In February
1850 President Taylor had held a stormy conference with southern leaders who
threatened secession. He told them that if necessary to enforce the laws, he
personally would lead the Army. Persons "taken in rebellion against the Union,
he would hang ... with less reluctance than he had hanged deserters and spies
in Mexico." He never wavered.
Then events took an unexpected turn.
After participating in ceremonies at the Washington Monument on a blistering
July 4, Taylor fell ill; within five days he was dead. After his death, the
forces of compromise triumphed, but the war Taylor had been willing to face
came 11 years later. In it, his only son Richard served as a general in the
Confederate Army.
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