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Taylor began his trip to Washington in late January. On his journey he encountered bad weather, delays, injuries and sickness before he finally arrived on February 24. He met with President James K. Polk, and the latter described Taylor in his diary as someone who was "without political information" and "wholly unqualified for the station" of President. Taylor spent the following week meeting with the leading members of his party before meeting with Clayton to finalize the selection of his cabinet.
Taylor's term as president began Sunday, March 4, but his inauguration was not held until the following day because at the time Sunday was considered a day of rest. In his inaugural address the following day, Taylor described his proposed governing style as one that would show deference to Congress and one open to compromise, declining assertive executive action. During the summer of 1849, Taylor toured the northeastern U.S., to familiarize himself with a region where he had not spent much time before. During the trip he suffered from gastrointestinal illness and he returned to Washington by September.
At the beginning of Taylor's term, Congress was wrestling with questions concerning land acquired from Mexico during the recent war. Three major territories were acquired by the U.S. after the Mexican War: California, New Mexico, and Utah. There was debate over which of the acquisitions would achieve statehood and which would remain federal territories. The question of their slave status threatened to bitterly divide Congress. Although he was a slaveowner himself, Taylor showed no particular bias toward the southern faction of Congress which sought to maintain its right to slavery. His major goal was sectional peace, preserving the Union through compromise. As the threat of Southern secession grew, he sided increasingly with antislavery northerners such as Senator William H. Seward of New York, even suggesting that he would sign the Wilmot Proviso to ban slavery in federal territories should such a bill reach his desk.
Taylor expressed the view that the best way forward was to admit California as a state rather than a federal territory. The California Gold Rush was underway at the time and California's population was rapidly increasing. Taylor sent Congressman Thomas Butler King to California to determine if statehood was feasible. He knew that Californians would almost certainly adopt an anti-slavery constitution. King found that a constitutional convention was already underway, and by October 1849, the convention unanimously agreed to join the Union and to ban slavery within their borders.
The territory acquired from Mexico was under federal jurisdiction, but the Texans claimed a swath of land north of Santa Fe which they wanted as part of their state. Taylor wanted to keep this land as a federal territory, but he eventually supported for New Mexico. The Texas government threatened military action to support its claim to the territory, but they backed down when Taylor refused to give in on the issue.
In the Utah territory, The Latter Day Saint settlers had established a provisional State of Deseret, an enormous swath of territory, but they had no support for recognition by Congress. Taylor considered combining the California and Utah territories, but instead opted to organize the Utah Territory. To alleviate the Mormon population's concerns over religious freedom, Taylor promised they would have relative independence from Congress when it came to practicing their religion, despite being a federal territory.
Taylor's only State of the Union report to Congress was made in December 1849. He suggested several adjustments to tariff policy, but the big issue on everyone's mind was the sectional crisis facing Congress. Taylor reported on California's and New Mexico's applications for statehood, and recommended that Congress approve them. He ended his remarks with a sharp condemnation of secessionists. But Southern legislators were upset with Taylor's proposal for the admission of two free states.
Taylor was content to give Secretary of State John M. Clayton significant responsibility for foreign policy. Both supported German and Hungarian liberals in the revolutions of 1848, but felt it best to do little in the way of aid. The administration arranged for two ships to assist in the United Kingdom's search for a team of British explorers led by John Franklin, who had gotten lost in the Arctic.
During 1849 and 1850, Narciso López, a Venezuelan radical, led repeated missions known as "filibustering expeditions" in which volunteer soldiers attempted to conquer the island of Cuba. López asked American military leaders to support him, but Taylor and Clayton refused. They issued a blockade, and later, had López and his supporters arrested. This group was later acquitted by southern juries who supported their endeavors. Taylor also confronted Spain, which had arrested several Americans on charges of piracy. The Spanish surrendered these men to US authorities.
The Taylor administration's leading accomplishment in foreign policy was the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty of 1850. Both nations had proposed a canal through Central America. The construction of such a canal was decades away from reality, but for several years, Britain had been seizing strategic points in Central America, especially on the Mosquito Coast on the eastern coast of present-day Nicaragua. Negotiations were held with Britain that resulted in the Treaty. Both nations agreed not to claim control of any canal that might be built in Nicaragua. The treaty promoted development of an Anglo-American alliance in the eventual construction of such a canal.
Senate Majority Leader Henry Clay was a leading voice as Congress debated the issue of statehood for California and New Mexico. Clay developed a proposal, known as the Compromise of 1850, which called for statehood for California, giving it independence on the slavery question, while the other territories would remain under federal jurisdiction. This would include the disputed parts of New Mexico, although Texas would be reimbursed for the territory. Slavery would be retained in the District of Columbia, but the slave trade would be banned. Meanwhile, a strict Fugitive Slave Law would be enacted, which would override northern legislation which had restricted Southerners from retrieving runaway slaves.
It was a tense time as Congress negotiated and debated the issue. Secession talk increased. In response, Taylor threatened to send troops into New Mexico to protect its border from Texas, with himself leading the army. Taylor also promised that anyone "taken in rebellion against the Union, he would hang with less reluctance than he had hanged deserters and spies in Mexico." Clay's proposal ultimately could not pass, due to extreme views on both sides. A new compromise would come about during the administration of Taylor's successor, Millard Fillmore.
Though Taylor's administration was brief, it encountered on scandal known as "the Galphin affair". Before joining the Taylor cabinet, Secretary of War George W. Crawford had served as a lawyer who was involved in a fifteen-year case, representing the descendants of a colonial trader whose services to the British crown had not been repaid at the time of the American Revolution. The British debt to George Galphin was agreed to be assumed by the federal government, but Galphin's heirs only received payment on the debt's principal after years of litigation. Taylor's Treasury Secretary William M. Meredith signed for the payment in April 1850. This payment included a legal compensation of nearly $100,000 to Crawford. When it became known that two cabinet members had brought about the transfer of a large sum from the public treasury to one of them, a House investigation resulted. The investigation cleared Crawford of any legal wrongdoing, but it was an embarrassment for the government.
With the problems of possible secession and other issues on his desk, Taylor attended an Independence Day celebration on July 4, 1850, where he reportedly consumed raw fruit and iced milk. The function was a fund-raising event at the Washington Monument, which was then under construction. Over the course of several days, Taylor became severely ill with an unknown digestive ailment. His doctor "diagnosed the illness as cholera morbus, a term used at the time to describe a multitude of intestinal ailments. Several of his cabinet members had come down with a similar illness. Fever ensued and Taylor's chance of recovery was small. The "treatment" he received from his doctors may have worsened his condition. He was given ipecac, calomel, opium, and quinine (at 40 grains per dose), and was bled and blistered as well.
On July 8, is is recorded that Taylor told a medical attendant:
"I should not be surprised if this were to terminate in my death. I did not expect to encounter what has beset me since my elevation to the Presidency. God knows I have endeavored to fulfill what I conceived to be an honest duty. But I have been mistaken. My motives have been misconstrued, and my feelings most grossly outraged."
Taylor died at 10:35 p.m. on July 9, 1850. He was 65 years old. Taylor was interred in the Public Vault of the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., from July 13, 1850, to October 25, 1850. His body was transported to the Taylor Family plot where his parents were buried on the old Taylor homestead plantation known as "Springfield" in Louisville, Kentucky.
Taylor's death was seen by some as suspicious. Rumors began to circulate that Taylor was poisoned by pro-slavery Southerners. These rumors persisted into the 20th century. In the late 1980s, Clara Rising, a former professor at University of Florida, persuaded Taylor's closest living relative to agree to have Taylor's body exhumed so that proper medical testing could take place to determine the cause of Taylor's death. His remains were exhumed and transported to the Office of the Kentucky Chief Medical Examiner on June 17, 1991. Samples of hair, fingernail, and other tissues were removed, and radiological studies were conducted. The remains were returned to the cemetery and reinterred, with appropriate honors. Neutron activation analysis conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory revealed no evidence of poisoning, as arsenic levels were too low. The analysis concluded Taylor had contracted "cholera morbus, or acute gastroenteritis". At the time Washington had open sewers, and his food or drink was though to have been contaminated.
Zachary Taylor's tenure in office was too brief to give a true indication of the type of president that he would have become. However during his time in office he demonstrated a firmness in his support for keeping the union together, a willingness to intervene militarily to prevent secession and a a desire to prevent the further spread of slavery despite being a slaveholder himself. Despite expressing a willingness to be deferential to congress, he was nobody's puppet. He was his own man both when it came to choosing his cabinet and when it came to having his own ideas as to the future of the country.
Some historians, including some of Taylor's biographers, portray him as a simple-witted old man lacking in any sort of substance. This caricature does not match the reality of Taylor's accomplishments and his pronouncements. He was able to scratch out military victories time and time again, despite being out-numbered, despite having his enemy know that he was out-numbered and despite a lack of support from his President. He was firm in his vision for the future of the nation, and was strong enough to stand up to such powerful politicians as Henry Clay. Perhaps his status as a political outsider made it easy for him to be mocked by Washington's movers and shakers. But I can't help believe that if Zachary Taylor had been permitted to live out a full term, he might be remembered today as one of the strongest and most effective leaders of his generation.
Tomorrow: James Monroe