President Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor was an American military officer and politician who was the 12th President of the United States, serving from 1849 until his death in 1850, probably of a gastrointestinal infection. Born in Virginia in 1784, he grew up on a plantation in Kentucky. While he became a career officer in the Army, his talk was most often of cotton farming. His home was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and he owned a plantation in Mississippi.

Yet Taylor did not defend slavery or southern secession; 40 years in the army had made him a strong nationalist. He had not committed himself on troublesome issues, hence the Whig Party nominated him to run for president, counting on his long military record appealing to northerners, and his ownership of 100 slaves attracting southern votes. In a close race, with slavery at issue, Taylor defeated the Democrat candidate Lewis Cass and the Free Soil Party’s Martin Van Buren. Taylor himself championed that individual States’ laws were to decide on the question of slavery. The last President to own slaves, he was succeeded after only 16 months in office by his vice president, Millard Fillmore.