Flipping the Whigs

You have to feel a little sorry for the Whigs when it comes to their presidents. They win two elections (in 1840 and 1848) by putting forward popular military heroes; not one, but both of those General-Presidents die in their first terms, leaving behind Vice-Presidents who are less than faithful to the Whig cause. William Henry Harrison's the first Whig President; his successor, John Tyler, is literally expelled from the Whig Party. And Zachary Taylor, Old Rough and Ready, is the second, and K. Jack Bauer chronicles his life in Zachary Taylor: Solder, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest.

Unlike Harrison, who had significant government experience as the governor of Indiana Territory, Taylor has no experience in the world of politics until he moves into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In a time when the Presidency is still something that no candidate claims to want (although reading these biographies, one realizes that they all wanted it so very badly), Taylor manages to be so tight-lipped about his beliefs that both the Whigs and the Democrats think he'd be a viable candidate for their party. Hell, until the election he's in, he doesn't even vote.

Taylor's famous because of his experience in the recently finished and wildly successful Mexican-American War. While it's Winfield Scott who manages to capture Mexico City, Taylor leads the American forces at Buena Vista and routs Santa Anna's 25,000 strong force with a mostly volunteer force of about 4,500. It's the last major victory in northern Mexico, and afterwards, Taylor leaves the war to pursue a political career.

As far as his presidency, goes...well. He's more notable for certain facts more than anything: last Southern President until Lyndon Johnson (!!!), last President to own slaves while in office. He's President when the Compromise of 1850 is being worked out under Henry Clay's leadership, but he dies before it's passed (accordingly, we'll save the Compromise for Millard Fillmore).

There's an interesting postscript to Taylor's story. He's killed by some cherries and milk that he eats during a Fourth of July celebration in DC; it's hot, and he gets cholera from them, dying five days later. But some historians dispute this, and think he was poisoned with arsenic because, most likely, of his moderate stance on slavery. In 1991, with the approval of his descendants and the Jefferson County (Kentucky) coroner, Taylor's body was exhumed and samples taken of hair, fingernails, and tissue. The results showed arsenic levels far too low to have poisoned the President.

Bauer's book is published in 1985, and that's the most recent of the next four books. There's a distinct lack of contemporary biographies about the presidents between Polk and Lincoln. There might be a reason for that.

Here's your party speech about Taylor: "America has often looked to military success for its presidents, and often, they've been successful: Washington, Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower. But Zachary Taylor? Well, he might have managed to use artillery to overcome a massive Mexican force, but he couldn't use grapeshot on Senators like Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Stephen Douglas. I get the feeling that had he been a more successful president, more of a fuss would have been raised over exhuming him, but, as it were, no one gave too much of a damn about one of our least successful presidents, a man felled by bad fruit."

And something to file under "Encounters with Future Leaders": During the Mexican-American War, Taylor is frequently escorted by the Mississippi Rifles, a group of soldiers led by Colonel Jefferson Davis. Davis marries Taylor's daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor, despite ZT's wishes, but she dies just three months later (what is it with the Taylor family and dying unexpectedly?). Davis goes on to be Pierce's Secretary of War, and then, as far as I can tell, he disappears from politics.