12. Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor had a long and distinguished military career, followed by a rather short and unremarkable presidency. 

He joined the Army in 1808 as a First Lieutenant and served in the War of 1812.  During the defense of Fort Harrison against an attack by Tecumseh, Taylor and his 50 men held off 400 natives.  As a result of his actions he was given a brevet major rank (he had been promoted to captain in 1810).  He was the first person in the Army to be given a brevet rank (the brevet rank is temporary rank that often comes with more responsibility, but no more pay).  Once the war was over he was reduced back to a captain; this did not sit well with him and he left the Army.  It wasn’t long before he was back in.  Over the course of 40 years Taylor served in the War of 1812 and the Black Hawk War (1832-37), fought the Seminole Indians (1837), and finally served in the war with Mexico.  During the Black Hawk War, he personally accepted the surrender of Chief Black Hawk.  He served with great distinction during wars with the Seminole Indians in Florida.  Eventually he was given command of all the troops in Florida.  By this time he had been promoted to brigadier general.  It was in Florida that he got his famous nickname “Old Rough and Ready”.

It was during the war with Mexico that Taylor gained national fame.  In 1845, President Polk sent Taylor down to the disputed border area between Texas and Mexico.  When Taylor’s men were attacked by Mexican forces Polk told Congress that a state of war existed.  On May 8, 1846, Taylor defeated a Mexican army 3 times the size of his force at Palo Alto.  Taylor’s use of artillery gave him the advantage over the Mexican forces.  Victory brought another promotion, this time to major general.

In September, he again defeated a much larger Mexican force at Monterrey in northern Mexico.  This battle involved fighting in the city literally in hand-to-hand combat in an urban setting.  The Mexican defenders surrendered after Taylor agreed to an 8 week armistice.  He faced criticism for allowing the Mexican army to leave with their weapons and did not get agreement that they would not fight again.  Polk, by this time, started to get uncomfortable with the success and praise that Taylor was receiving.  Even though Polk had pledged not to run for president again he was getting concerned that Taylor might be recruited to run for president from a rival party.  Polk was critical of Taylor after Monterrey, and might have removed him if Taylor wasn’t so popular.  Instead what Polk did was order Winfield Scott to take Mexico City and gave him many of Taylor’s best troops.

The Mexican general, Santa Anna, intercepted a letter that stated that Taylor was left with only about 5,000 men.  Santa Anna determined that he was going to attack Taylor with 15,000 – 20,000 Mexican troops.  This battle took place at the Battle of Buena Vista.  It lasted two days and ended as a huge victory for Taylor.  During the battle, Santa Anna had Taylor’s forces pinned down and sent a message to Taylor requesting his surrender.  The response that was sent back was “Tell him to go to hell!”.  After the battle, as Polk had feared, members of the Whig party began to encourage Taylor to run for president.

Taylor defeated Lewis Cass (Democrat) and Martin Van Buren (Free Soil) in the 1848 election.  With little experience in politics and believing himself to be independent, Taylor did not buy into the entire Whig platform.  He was opposed to the ideas of a national bank, increasing tariffs and spending federal money on internal improvements.  Even though he was a slave holder, he believed that the future states should have the right to decide in their own constitutions if they would allow slavery.  This did not endear him to southern politicians, some of whom began to discuss secession.  He reportedly told 3 southern congressmen speaking of secession, “If it becomes necessary, in executing the laws, I will take command of the army myself, and, if you are then taken in rebellion against the Union, I will hang you with less reluctance than I hanged deserters and spies in Mexico.”

The Compromise of 1850 was being hotly debated when Taylor died.  He did not come out strongly in favor or against the compromise.  I’ll cover this when I write up Millard Fillmore since that is when it passed, but in general, it consisted of 5 majors items: California statehood, Texan claims to New Mexico lands, the Fugitive Slave Law, slave trading in DC, and two new territories (Utah and New Mexico).

His only international accomplishment had to do with a proposed canal across Honduras.  The Clayton-Bulwer treaty was important because it stated that neither the US nor the UK could claim control over any canals built in Central America.

On July 4, 1850, after watching a dedication ceremony for the Washington Monument, Taylor returned to the White House where he reportedly ate a bowl of cherries and drank a glass of milk.  He died on July 9, just 16 months into his term of office.  His cause of death was listed as gastroenteritis.  There has been speculation that he was poisoned with arsenic.  He was even exhumed in 1991 so tests could be run; the results proving that the levels of arsenic in his body were several hundred times lower than a fatal dosage.

 

Fun Facts!

• Zachary Taylor’s son-in-law was Jefferson Davis (his daughter Sarah died from Malaria 3 months after marrying him)
• His only son, Robert, served as a lieutenant general in the Confederate army
• Due to religious reasons, Taylor refused to be inaugurated on March 4th (a Sunday) as stated in the Constitution at the time;  Because the Polk administration had officially ended, and no president or vice president was sworn in, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate (David Atchison)was technically president for a day
• Taylor is the only president that died in office despite being elected in a year ending in a zero, although he did die in a year ending in “0” (1850)
• He is one of only 4 presidents that did not get to nominate a judge for the Supreme Court (William Henry Harrison, Andrew Johnson, Jimmy Carter)
• Taylor was the last southerner elected president until Lyndon Johnson
• Taylor has the 3rd shortest presidency after Harrison and Garfield
• Taylor never voted in an election as he never registered to vote
• He is the last president to own slaves while in office
• During the war with Mexico a controversy arose due to Taylor have two officers working for him of equal rank, but one held a brevet rank.  This led to an issue over which officer had seniority and eventually forced the army to review the brevet rank.

11. James K. Polk

OK, where to start with James Polk…  So far in my reading about each of the presidents none has surprised me with what they accomplished  more than James Polk.  He went into the presidency with very clear objectives and a pledge to only serve one term.  He accomplished all of his goals within the 4 years and died 3 months after leaving office.  For those of you who read my blog on Jefferson you’ll recall that I stated that only one other president added more land to the United States than Thomas Jefferson; that was James Polk.  Through a war and the threat of war he rounded out the remaining territories of the lower 48 states.  He is considered the strongest president between Jackson and Lincoln and is consistently rated in top quartile of US Presidents.  Polk has been called the “least known consequential president”.

Polk was the first of the “dark horse” presidents (others included Pierce, Lincoln, Hayes, Garfield and Harding).  The “dark horse” candidates were generally compromise candidates when two factions of a party have strong candidates and are unwilling to support the other.  The party conventions generally required more than a simple majority to win the nomination.  So while John Quincy Adams received a majority of the votes on the first ballot he was unable to garner the 2/3rds votes required.  On the 9th ballot Polk won the nomination of the Democratic party.

During the campaign against Henry Clay (the incumbent, Tyler, had lost the support of his party and was not re-nominated in 1844) in the regular election, Polk came out strongly for the annexation of Texas and went so far as to suggest that the US might be willing to go to war with England over the Oregon Territory.  The issue of the Oregon Territory led to the rallying cry of “54-40 or fight”.  This referred to the 54 degrees 40 minutes latitude that marks Alaska’s southern border.  Polk ended up settling for the 49th parallel.  On a side note, there is a great book called “How the States got Their Shapes” that explains all of the borders of the states and how they were decided (check out Delaware’s northern border that is a semicircle!).  Where was I…..

During the election, New York became the critical battleground state which Polk won thanks to the 19th century version of Ross Perot.  James Birney, from New York, was able to siphon off enough votes from Clay to allow Polk to take New York.  Of course I don’t think he had the ears or the charts of Perot!  During Polk’s inaugural address he outlined 4 goals for his presidency.

1. Reestablishing an independent treasury system
2. Lowering tariffs
3. Settling the Oregon issue with Great Britain
4. Acquiring California and New Mexico from Mexico

The first two objectives were met without too much trouble.  The Independent Treasury had been established in 1840 after Jackson vetoed the 2nd Bank of the United States.  It was established to store the nations funds and regulate currency.  The system was closed down by the Whigs in 1841.  The Polk administration with the support of the new Democratic majority in Congress reestablished the system in 1846 and it survived until 1913 when it was replaced by the current Federal Reserve system.  Also with the support of the Democrats in Congress, Polk was successful in lowering most tariffs.  Two down, two to go.

Polk believed in the eventual creation of a United States that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.  The phrase “Manifest Destiny” has been used to describe the policy of expansion west ward.  Both the 3rd and 4th goals were thorny at best.

The Oregon territory had been jointly administered by the US and Great Britain.  However, Americans were moving west in droves and staking claims in the territory under the assumption that it would eventually become part of the United States.  Polk put pressure on Great Britain to settle the issue at the 49th parallel.  When Great Britain refused to negotiate due to the rich lands around the Columbia River, Polk switched tactics and returned to the rallying cry of “54-40 or Fight” giving the impression that we was willing to go to war over the issue.  Eventually Great Britain agreed to set the boundary at the 49th parallel.

Now to the issue of Texas.  Texas became a hot topic for a couple of reasons; slavery and territorial disputes both with Mexico and with New Mexico.  So, Mexico fights a war for independence from Spain in the 1820’s.  Due to the low population levels of the Mexican state of Texas the government loosened the immigration laws to encourage settlers.  It didn’t take long before the Americans that were moving west (remember Manifest Destiny) vastly outnumbered the native Mexican population.  In 1835 Texas fought a war for independence against Mexico.  It was during this war that the battle at the Alamo was fought.  I’m not going to spend a lot of time here talking about that war, but it is important to have some background for what’s to come.  Texas gained it’s independence from Mexico (with at least the threat of American intervention from Andrew Jackson).

Now there are two separate but related issues going on in 1846.  Polk was very interested in buying California and New Mexico from Mexico.  At the same time, the US had annexed Texas in the closing days of the Tyler administration.  Polk sent an emissary out to negotiate the purchase of the new land from Mexico.  When the Mexican government, surprised that Polk was not offering some form of compensation for the loss of Texas, expelled the emissary Polk was more than a bit ticked off.  There had been a long standing dispute between Texas and Mexico over the southern border.  Polk decided to send some troops (under Zachary Taylor) down to test the border and to pressure Mexico to accept the offer for California and New Mexico.  What started out as a border dispute turned into the Mexican-American War.  It didn’t take long and instead of buying California and New Mexico we took it.  It has long been considered a black mark on the Polk administration because even at that time the US was a much stronger country than Mexico.  In the end Mexico lost almost 50% of its land area, while the US grew by 33% and added the area of the future states of California, Nevada, Utah and parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.

There was also a dispute between Texas and New Mexico about the border between those states which was ultimately settled in favor of New Mexico.  In part because Texas was viewed as already being big enough.

While the concept of Manifest Destiny was very popular it also fueled the issue of slavery.  While Polk did not believe that slavery could survive in the newly acquire territories he felt that it should be up the population of those areas to decide.  He did suggest extending the line set up in the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to the Pacific.  The issue of slavery continued to create problems and ultimately led to the Civil War 12 years after he left office.  You certainly can’t fault Polk for the Civil War; every time new states were added the issue of slavery popped up.

Polk lived up to his promise and did not run again in 1848.  In fact, as I mentioned he died 3 months after leaving office of cholera that it’s believed he contracted in New Orleans.  Polk is generally given high marks for having set the objectives of administration and achieving them. 

Now for the trivia to impress your friends!

• Polk is the only US President to have served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives
• At the time he was the youngest elected president at the age of 49
• He had the shortest retirement of any US President, 103 days
• He was the youngest president to die in retirement at the age of 53
• He is the first president to have surviving pictures of him when he was president
• Polk was the last of what are considered the Jacksonian presidents
• Polk oversaw the opening of the Naval Academy, the Smithsonian Institution, the ground breaking of the Washington Monument and the first issuance of US Postage stamps
• He sported what was probably the most famous mullet until Billy Ray Cyrus came along
• Graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Served as a US Congressmen from Tennessee from 1825 – 1839. He was 29 when he was elected to his first term
• Served one term as the Governor of Tennessee (1839 – 1841).  In the early years, many states Governors served 2 years terms.
• So, he was the 11th Governor of Tennessee and the 11th President of the United States, coincidence (yeah probably).
• He and his wife are buried on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capital in Nashville

Vital Stats:

• Wife: Sarah Childress 
• Children: None (ironic that Sarah Childress was Childless!) 
• Party affiliation: Democratic Party 
• Presidency: 1844-1848
• Born: November 2nd, 1795 (Pineville, North Carolina)
• Died: June 15th, 1845 (Nashville, Tennessee)