Zachary Taylor

Taylor entered office at a moment of acute crisis. The territories gained from Mexico reopened the explosive question of slavery’s expansion. A Louisiana slaveholder himself, he nevertheless opposed the creation of new slave states and insisted that California and New Mexico be admitted promptly under their own free-state constitutions. When Southern leaders threatened secession, he made clear he would treat it as rebellion and use force if necessary to preserve the Union.

His presidency lasted only sixteen months. On July 4, 1850, after attending a ceremony at the unfinished Washington Monument, he fell ill and died five days later. His death removed a firm obstacle to compromise; within weeks Congress passed the Compromise of 1850, which postponed the final reckoning over slavery for another decade.

This biography follows Taylor from his Virginia birth and Kentucky frontier childhood through the long apprenticeship of the Indian wars, the triumphs and controversies of the Mexican War, the improbable campaign of 1848, and the brief, consequential months in the White House. It is the story of a soldier who became president almost against his will, and of the fragile Union he sought to hold together at the edge of civil war.