Zachary Taylor, the 12th US president, died after serving for a year, with the cause of death debated. He pushed for California’s statehood, which angered Southerners due to the outlawing of slavery. Taylor was a tough military man with a dislike for Native Americans. He was a Whig Party member but acted according to his own conscience. In his personal life, he was married with six children, two of whom supported slavery and one became a Confederate general.
Zachary Taylor was the 12th president of the United States, briefly serving from 1849 to 1850. He was the second president to die in office, and the cause of his death is somewhat debated. Some suggest he had cholera or food poisoning, while others say he died of heatstroke. There has also been some debate as to whether he may have been poisoned on purpose, but little evidence exists to support this theory.
Despite serving as president for a short time, Zachary Taylor pushed through some important legislation, actively encouraging California to seek statehood. In doing so, he infuriated his fellow Southerners, because Californians wrote a constitution outlawing slavery. Zachary Taylor was a slave owner, but he didn’t necessarily want slavery to expand. Members of the Southern United States were so angry at Taylor’s actions that they threatened secession, to which Taylor responded by threatening to hang anyone who truly rebelled against the United States.
This action in the life of President Zachary Taylor is a good example of the kind of man he was. He was decidedly tough, with a 40-year military career before winning the presidency. He was known by his nickname, “Old Rough and Ready,” and seemed to have lightning-fast actions, sometimes of a violent or at least threatening nature. He actually got his nickname from his somewhat disheveled appearance while serving in the army in the 1830s.
In the military, a career that began in 1808 when he was 24, he participated in many major military engagements against the Indians. These included the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, and the Second Seminole War. Zachary Taylor made no secret of his dislike of Native Americans and supported the right of settlers to take Native American land and the right of the United States to force Native Americans off their land. He was a very active military man, becoming a military hero for feats of bravery and success in battle.
In politics, Zachary Taylor was nominally of the Whig Party, but his presidency disappointed Whig politicians. Zachary Taylor would refuse to be guided by Whig guidance, acting according to his own conscience and only passing Whig legislation with which he personally agreed. Because of Taylor’s Whig allegiance, and while he was still serving in the military, President Polk kept him for posts that were far from the focus of politics. Polk was also disturbed by Taylor’s appearance and his unusual grooming of men.
In his personal life, Zachary Taylor was married to Margaret Mackall Smith. Together they had one son and five daughters; two died in infancy. Two of Taylor’s sons would surely ignore their father’s more modest stance on slavery. Her daughter Sarah Knox Taylor married Jefferson Davis, the future president of the Southern Confederacy. Unfortunately she died only three months after her marriage. Richard Taylor, President Taylor’s youngest son, would become a noted Confederate general during the Civil War.
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