Number 14: Franklin Pierce

Years in office: 1853-1857
Pre-service occupations: lawyer, general, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator
Key events during his administration: Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), “Bleeding” Kansas (mid 1850s), Gasden Purchase (1853)

Presidential rating: Failed and unpopular

ESSAY

A basic necessity of presidential campaigns in mid-1800s was the campaign biography. These books told the tales of the exalted candidates in glowing terms, and highlighted their virtues, offices, accomplishments, beliefs, positions and family life. (These self-serving bios are still done today, but the all-encompassing web site is starting to take over.) Most were fair-to-poorly written and quickly forgotten, but some were actually quite good. You can still find some in better university or large-city public libraries.

Franklin Pierce was fortunate: one of his campaign bios was written by his good friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. While his life of Pierce doesn’t match The Scarlet Letter or House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne contributed an admirable book to the campaign of the everyman candidate, the promising Young Democrat from New Hampshire. Hawthorne said of his friend after the election of 1852 that “I have come seriously to the conclusion that he has in him many of the chief elements of a great ruler…He is deep, deep, deep.”

For 150 years, history has disagreed.

When I told a friend I was reading a biography of President Franklin Pierce, his response was “Who?” He was serious. Franklin Pierce is probably the most forgotten of all the forgotten presidents. He’s not very well known, he has no policies or doctrines named after him, he set no precedents, and he left no enduring legacy that anyone today can remember.

He was chosen as a unity candidate and nothing more. Yet he was president during a time of tremendous upheaval, presaged only by the bloody decade about to follow. Franklin Pierce, the mild man from New Hampshire, surrounded by personal tragedy, at first was the toast of his party and the country, passed into political obscurity and alcoholism, unlamented by the Democratic Party.

What happened? Is his reputation really deserved? (One latter-day biographer says no.) And what lessons of leadership can we learn from the politician-lawyer-general?

Every man’s friend
Franklin Pierce was not a primary mover and shaker.

He was likable and charming, and he was devilishly handsome. His charm was partly built on an unfortunate tendency to agree with the last person he spoke to. As a young lawyer, he proved able in the courts and could turn a jury with his charm. In New Hampshire, Pierce mastered state politics, helping to turn his state into a Democratic Party stronghold.

But he wasn’t known so much as a leader than as a party man. Instead of becoming a well-known orator or statesman, he did yeoman’s tasks and built a reputation as a reliable vote. He built a network of friends and contacts by working more behind the scenes. Pierce became known as a Democratic party hatchet-man: a disciplinarian called upon to keep straying members in line.

From the late ’20s to early ’40s, Pierce served in various state offices and then in Congress. But he declined the nomination of governor of New Hampshire, and then, curiously, to become attorney general under President Polk. (That had more to do with personal problems, which lead him to leave Washington for a while. See below.)

During this period, Pierce built upon his belief in Union, handed down by his Patriot father, a soldier under Washington. Equally important, as a New Hampshire politician, Pierce developed a strong opposition to agitators and reformers of all kinds. Crusaders, regardless of the cause—slavery, alcohol, Catholics, immigrants—were troublemakers to Pierce because they threatened the Union. They threatened, to his Jacksonian understanding, the founders’ intent that state matters, including slavery, would and should be handled by the states, and agitators were the real internal threat to the nation.

Union and opposition to agitators/reformers is critical to understanding Pierce the president, because the attitudes he fostered in New Hampshire would guide him in the White House. His most recent biographer, Peter Wallner, explains the critical importance of this understanding:

“While his charm and kindness were so sincere as to be unquestioned by his friends, his political principles were equally sincere and ready to be applied to whatever crisis he would face as the nation’s chief executive. His experience battling reformers of all types—temperance crusaders, anti-Catholics, nativists, and antislavery proponents—had convinced him of the intolerance, selfish motives, and divisiveness of their causes. To Pierce, single-issue politicians who inflamed the emotions of voters could only lead to disorder and, ultimately, disunion. Pierce stood for tolerance and acceptance of the common man of whatever ethnic or religious background. He believed in Christian ecumenicalism against Protestant evangelicalism. He stood for law and order against chaos and lawlessness. To him, the Constitution was supreme, and there could be no higher law in a civil society. The Democratic Party was the only national institution
standing between civil peace and civil war.

“Pierce believed these things so deeply he was willing to sacrifice his own popularity to the benefit of his party… In all of his thinking the moral issue of slavery played no part, as antislavery agitation was associated in his mind with personal attacks, local church schisms, and the intolerance of people who looked down on the common man while claiming moral superiority. It was this dogmatic absolutism, he thought, that led to defiance of the law and order, threatened destruction of the Union, and the abandonment of the manifest destiny of the nation that Pierce accepted unconditionally. In Pierce’s mind, slavery was the price, a regrettable one to be sure, that people must pay for their safety, their prosperity, and their freedom.” (Wallner, P. 257)

While searching for the “why?” of the Pierce presidency, I think I finally understood, thanks to Wallner. If you keep “Union and tolerance” in mind, the Pierce presidency makes a lot more sense.

The unity candidate
In 1852 the Democrats were in as bad a condition as the Whigs. The two parties were coming apart over slavery politics. For the Whigs, the only man who could have saved the party fortunes that year wasn’t seriously running. President Fillmore, who could have held the party together, had decided enough was enough, and wasn’t truly seeking re-election. The Whigs would settle on nominating General Winfield Scott, which did nothing for the party’s unity and actually fractured it even more. (The only Whig presidential successes had been through popular generals, but Scott was nowhere near as popular as Harrison and Taylor had been.)

Meanwhile the Democrats, hungry to regain the White House, searched for a man who could unite the numerous factions of an obviously splintered party. There were those flirting with the Free-Soil party, which stood opposed to slavery’s expansion. There were “Hard shell” Democrats who adhered to Jacksonian principles above all else. There were two Pennsylvania factions, one under James Cameron, the other under James Buchanan. There were the Young Americans, led by Stephen A. Douglas, who felt it was time to push the old party leaders out the door and seek a more aggressive expansion of American interests in the West and around the world. And that was just in the North.

In the South, there were of course hard-core states rights men who abhorred any compromise with the North, whom they viewed as all abolitionists. And there were more moderate Southerners who favored compromise. And there were some who looked to the West but without slavery.

Each faction had a favorite candidate, but none of them could deliver the presidency; each was more likely to alienate a crucial block elsewhere, especially in the South, where, thanks to the 3/5s rule in the Constitution, no president could be elected without Southern support.

That’s where Franklin Pierce emerged as the unity candidate. Pierce’s ability to seemingly satisfy all people made him the perfect choice to run as the Democratic standard-bearer in 1852. With a unity candidate to rally around, the Democratic machine first created by Martin Van Buren cranked up again. Pierce was quite appealing, and he had a war record, too. It was no match for Scott’s, of course. But it does merit some mention.

During the Mexican War, Pierce volunteered for service as a private. Elevated to colonel, he held the rank of brigadier on Scott’s Mexico City campaign. His service was not so distinguished, however, due to an unfortunate series of accidents. On one occasion, his horse bolted and threw him, and he fainted from the pain. Pierce returned to duty for the final assaults on Mexico City, but while leading his men through a swamp, he twisted his ankle—and fainted again. Naturally, the Whigs hooted in delight over the fainting general.

Lest you think his service amounted to nothing, Pierce did lead a 2,500-man column from Vera Cruz to Mexico City, during which he fought off six attacks from Mexican forces. But General Pierce wasn’t a “War Hero”—nothing like the caliber of Generals Taylor or Scott.

However, the Whigs never warmed to General Scott as a candidate, and many stayed home rather than vote for him. Whether or not that made a crucial difference is debatable. The campaign itself was rather lackluster, as both sides agreed on the issues: support the Compromise of 1850 and leave slavery to the states. Much of the campaign press, therefore, involved mudslinging.

In the end, the popular vote was close, but Pierce won an electoral blowout by winning all but four states. Finding a unity candidate worked quite well for winning the White House.

But governing from the White House? That was something quite different.

Tragedy and alcoholism
Franklin Pierce’s personal life played a role in his presidency. For one, Pierce had troubles with alcohol. One of the reasons why he at first resisted the call to higher office, and eventually fled Washington, was his weakness for drink. Politics then was often conducted in conjunction with the fruit of the vine, and Pierce, knowing his problem, eventually left the Senate rather than be continually put in situations where his vice would harm him.

His wife, Jane, was deeply spiritual and a temperate, which didn’t help him much either. She also didn’t approve of her husband’s political ambitions. Jane was often ill from tuberculosis and wasn’t happy in the White House. Although he adored his wife and she loved him, their marriage was strained. Their happiness, it seemed, was wrapped in young Benjamin, their only child of three that had lived.

But two months after the election of 1852, the Pierces lost Benjamin. They were on a homebound train when the train wrecked shortly before their station. Before his parents’ eyes, 11-year-old Benjamin was crushed to death under a passenger car.

Jane Pierce never truly recovered. Pierce’s inaugural was a somber occasion, with most of the formal celebratory activities being cancelled. You can even detect Pierce’s pain in his inaugural address.

(The Pierce administration began seemingly surrounded by death: outgoing President Fillmore lost his wife weeks after leaving the White House, and Vice President William King died in April. He was not replaced.)

While I’m no psychoanalyst, the death of his only remaining child shortly before he assumed office had to have weighed heavily on Pierce. How much of a factor Benjamin’s death played during the Pierce years is a matter of debate, but it’s possible that the event may have sapped some of the enthusiasm from the president.

A stumble over a strong cabinet
President Pierce assembled a cabinet that was designed to please all factions of the party, instead of one that resembled his own views. Pierce chose men from North, South and the old West. But his choices were curious, odd and ultimately failed to satisfy the tenuous party unity.

Each faction believed that they were the one that got Pierce elected, so they were the ones that deserved the lion’s share of appointments. Naturally, they were disappointed. Right away, Pierce was in trouble, and he lacked the commanding personality to make headstrong would-be kingmakers agree to his decisions.

It wasn’t a good start, and it shook faith in the new administration.

However, his cabinet functioned remarkably well, and combined was a far stronger cabinet than any of the previous several cabinets. In fact, as of this writing, the Pierce cabinet remains the only cabinet to stay intact throughout an entire administration. The cabinet sometimes fought fiercely with each other, but it served Pierce and the country well. It’s odd that Pierce receives no credit for it.

Each cabinet officer was a strong leader of his department, and worked hard to deal with problems against an obstinate Congress. For example, Postmaster General James Campbell fought a long, but ultimately losing, battle with Congress to streamline postal services, eliminate its $2 million deficit and get rid of Congressional privileges. Treasury Secretary James Guthrie yanked federal funds away from private banks and placed them in the federal treasury per law. And Secretary of the Navy James Dobbin tried to get Congress to authorize a further modernization of the fleet by switching over to steam, stepping up training and increasing the ranks of young officers. Congress balked, but finally added new sloops at the end of Pierce’s term.

The most notable cabinet members were Jefferson Davis, the firebrand from Mississippi, as secretary of war and William Marcy as secretary of state, a skilled politician who had last served as Polk’s able secretary of war.

Davis was a pigheaded man who would see only one point of view—his—and no other, and that view was the Southern view. He did moderate his speech somewhat, but he saw everything through a Southern lens. He was especially keen to have the transcontinental railroad have a specifically southern route. However, he was an able secretary of war, and with Pierce’s support, expanded the Army by four regiments among other improvements. Davis’ tenure is also notable for his interesting experiment to use camels as pack animals in the southwest. The “camel corps” was ridiculed, especially by those who favored mules and horses, but the camels worked well and Confederates actually used some in New Mexico during the war.

Davis also served as the one cabinet officer on who Pierce most relied; the president would sometimes meet with Davis late at night on the sly, so it wouldn’t seem to prying eyes that he overly favored the South.

Pierce could have easily recovered politically from the initial cabinet stumble. But two events, one foreign and one domestic, turned Northern Democrats and much of the rest of the North against him, and left many Southern Democrats alienated as well. Midway through his term, the president was in serious trouble.

The domestic event is complicated, so I’ll deal with the foreign event first.

Democrat expansionism
The Pierce record of foreign policy was actually respectable except for one thing. Pierce continued the policies and sentiments of his predecessors by continuing to explore opportunities for expanding American influence and trade in Central and South America and across the Pacific. He had two notable successes in this regard.

First, Pierce’s ministers succeeded in purchasing a section of land from Mexico called the Gasden Purchase, as part of Secretary Davis’ designs for a southern railroad route to California. This section of land, which forms all of present-day southern Arizona and the panhandle of New Mexico, was actually a disappointing purchase for the president. He had wanted something much larger, including large portions of northern Mexico, including the state of Chihuahua and Baja California. Mexico at first was open to the idea, because post-war Mexico was near economic collapse. But the antics of an American “filibuster” (the term for an adventurer and would-be conqueror) named William Walker helped poison the deal when he tried to set up his own empire in Baja.

The treaty finally went through as we know it today. Pierce was disappointed with the final result, and his critics were unhappy that it ever even happened. Free-Soilers and abolitionists charged that it was just more territory to satiate the slave power’s expansion plans. Regardless, the Gasden Purchase marked the final expansion of the contiguous United States. A transcontinental railroad would be built through there, but not for another two decades.

Pierce also had a minor foreign policy success in the acquisition of several small Pacific islands, including the Christmas Islands and Midway. The reason? Guano. Incalculable tons of the stuff was white “gold” as fertilizer, and Pierce ordered the raising of the Stars and Stripes on any island where there was no claim.

There was also Secretary of State Marcy’s “dress circular” to all foreign offices, stating that American ministers could wear anything they wanted to, i.e., dress like an American, not as a foppish foreigner. Some ministers were aghast, but James Buchanan, appointed minister to the Court of St. James, approved. And so did many of Pierce’s normal critics.

If we could leave the Pierce foreign policy at that—even including the troubles with Great Britain in Central America—we could declare it a modest, if not spectacular, success. But we can’t. There is Cuba and the Ostend Manifesto. For decades, the plantation class looked southward to expand slavery: Central and South America and especially Cuba. The huge island 90 miles off the American shore just had to become a Unites States possession, some believed. Many Northerners wanted nothing to do with Cuba, fearing that seizing Cuba would expand slavery—regardless of what was happening on the island itself (Cuba was in the midst of throwing off slavery).

The Pierce administration heeded the counsel of southerners, especially Davis, that Spain could be persuaded to let go of Cuba. The U.S. minister to Spain, a hapless and tactless Young America and slavery proponent named Soule, made no secret of his desire to acquire Cuba. In 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska act was starting to shred America, Soule, James Buchanan and another diplomat composed the Ostend Manifesto while in Europe that ostensibly said that the United States should buy Cuba from Spain, or failing that, take it, as it rightfully belonged under American control. The three diplomats sent the document back to the secretary of state, but the contents were soon made public.

Outrage ensured. Northern politicians of various factions—even some Democrats—newspapers and general public, already unhappy over Kansas, believed this was further proof that Pierce was a pro-Southern stooge. The administration had blundered badly, and it wasn’t even an official document (it had only been signed by three diplomats and not actually been presented to the Spanish government). Nevertheless, Spain, France and Great Britain registered their displeasure, and both president Pierce and Secretary Marcy had to disavow the document and any further attempt to get Cuba.

It was a major embarrassment Pierce didn’t need. At about the same time the Cuba plans fell apart, President Pierce was attaching his administration to a dangerous idea that wound up destroying his presidency—and wounding the country.

Stephen A. Douglas wrecks the Compromise “peace”
Nothing showed the weakness of President Pierce more than the imbroglio over Nebraska and Kansas. To his credit, Franklin Pierce did have peace on his mind. Like his predecessors, Pierce looked to compromise to hold the Union together. But conditions were changing, making a compromise like 1850 unworkable, and the very nature of the next big argument over slavery expansion/containment required strong leadership, not just compromise. If Pierce had been president in an earlier era, his approach might have worked.

Unfortunately, Pierce’s approach was too one-sided, and he placed all of the blame on one side.

What made this whole mess worse was that it didn’t have to be done. The Compromise of 1850 was necessary because it dealt mainly with the fallout from the Mexican War. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, however, was more of a battle of choice instead of absolute necessity.

Stephen A. Douglas, the leader of the Young Americans, put fourth a bill for organizing the Nebraska territory by dividing it into two states. Douglas, like many politicians of the time, sought to have the lands settled for building the transcontinental railroad. So far, so good. But then Douglas and his allies, including Missouri’s Sen. Atchison, threw in a boner: settlers would be left to decide whether slavery was allowed.

As you can imagine, this “popular sovereignty” doctrine caused a firestorm. While not exactly repealing the Missouri Compromise, which forbade slavery west of the Mississippi and north of Missouri’s southern border (except for Missouri itself), it effectively rendered the 1820 compromise “null and void.” Pro-slavery forces, at first wary of popular sovereignty, then cheered—as did anyone else who believed the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. But Free-Soilers, abolitionists and Northern Whigs damned the bill, saying it was yet another sop to the slave power.

Pierce may have dismissed abolitionists as a dangerous crusading fringe group that threatened the country’s peace—and in truth, abolitionists were a fringe group, right up until emancipation in 1863—but he failed to grasp that the dynamics of slave politics had changed drastically in a short time. Abolitionists attacked the immorality of slavery, which in turn caused an automatic defensive reaction among the planter class. But the Free Soilers, who were not fringe crusaders, opposed the expansion of slavery because they didn’t want the competition with slave labor in the territories nor did they appreciate the negation of the Missouri Compromise.

President Pierce, despite his belief that the Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional, had to be persuaded to support the bill by Secretary Davis and other Southerners. Eventually he came around. The president expended a lot of political capital working to get Kansas-Nebraska passed into law. He wasn’t the lead, however; Douglass was. Pierce and Marcy used every bit of cajoling and promising they could to get Democrats to agree to the bill. In the end, they won, and it was a significant legislative victory.

But the cost of that victory was enormous.

“Bleeding” Kansas
Democrats took hits throughout the North in the elections of 1854 due to the unpopularity of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Fugitive Slave Law and a rising discontent with a president who seemed to side with the slave power on every issue.
Pierce didn’t help himself when he appeared ready to give money to railroads and land to veterans but vetoed in 1854 a very popular and bipartisan bill in support of Dorthea Dix’s hospitals for the indigent insane. The president used his veto on constitutional grounds, but his lack of consistency made even his supporters start to back away.

Then the troubles started in Kansas. Because popular sovereignty operated on the principle of majority rule, whoever arrived in Kansas in sufficient numbers first would organize the state. Pro-slavery settlers from Missouri poured over the border while Free-Soilers and abolitionist settlers were just getting underway.

It would be an incorrect impression to say that Bleeding Kansas was nothing but a massive, bloody battle between slave and free, because the majority of people really wanted nothing to do with either side and just wanted the land. (A lot the land itself was not yet in government hands, e.g., “secured” from Indians!)

In short, pro-slavery settlers succeeded in organizing elections first, and, illegally aided by Missourians crossing the border, created a pro-slavery government. Slavery was permitted and no one was allowed to say otherwise. Anti-slavery forces cried foul and tried to set up their own government. The question of the legitimacy of the pro-slavery government did not trouble President Pierce, who recognized their government and appointed a pro-Southern man as territorial governor.

Violence began in 1855. Most incidents were isolated until May 1856 when Border Ruffians (pro-slavers) “sacked” Lawrence by attacking and burning a couple of Free Soil businesses and homes. One day later, a South Carolina Congressman named Preston Brooks viciously attacked Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner with his cane on the Senate floor over a harsh speech Sumner had given that insulted Brooks’ cousin. In response, John Brown and his sons murdered five pro-slavery settlers at Osawatomie, Kan. Sporadic violence continued until 1859, then renewed in 1861 when the big war began.

President Pierce refused to recognize the free state shadow government and repeatedly blamed them and Eastern Free-Soilers and abolitionists—and only them—for the violence. He even sent in federal soldiers to block the shadow government. Both of Pierce’s territorial governors were committed pro-southerners who sided with the pro-slave Kansas government on every decision. Only his third governor, appointed far too late to do Pierce or Kansas any good, was largely fair to both sides.

Pierce’s one-sided approach to the troubles in Kansas hurt his already damaged reputation. It was the ultimate proof that the president was completely pro-southern and played into the hands of the slave power. That’s not how the president viewed himself, of course. He saw himself as maintaining law and order—though I wonder if his ministrations in Kansas would have been different had a free-soil government organized first, one that outlawed slavery.

Pierce’s refusal to disavow the pro-slavery Kansas government, even after a congressional committee declared the initial election illegitimate, was yet another serious misstep. Through Bleeding Kansas, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, with its unnecessary popular sovereignty and equally unnecessary repeal of the long-settled Missouri Compromise, Franklin Pierce destroyed his presidency.

He believed he was standing on principle, but it was principle, I believe, that was founded in quite a remarkably skewed view of “tolerance.” By believing that the pro-slavery forces were the ones who stood for law and order and only the Free Soilers and abolitionists were the lawbreakers, Pierce set himself up to fail in Kansas.

Larry Gara writes:

“Nearing the end of his term, the lame-duck president took a more even-handed approach that helped calm the storm, but it was too late to rehabilitate Pierce’s personal reputation. “Bleeding Kansas” came to symbolize the failures of the administration. The majority of Americans saw the president as, at best, incompetent. Some, including old friends, judged him more harshly. B.B. French, his former secretary, commented in July 1856 that Pierce was “in rather bad odor, and will stink worse yet before the 4th of next March.” At that point the president could no longer please anybody. Even a wise and highly skilled leader would have had great difficulty. Pierce was neither. He failed to understand the forces at work in the country, and tried to perpetuate the policies of the past rather than confronting the problems of his own time. Jacksonian democracy had run its course. The fundamental changes at work in all aspects of American life required a degree of political adjustment that the president from New Hampshire could neither understand nor implement.” (Gara, p. 126)

1856 and decent
The presidential election of 1856 was one of the most critical elections in America’s history. “Most critical election ever” seems to be tossed about freely every four years, but in this case, it was true.

The political scene was shattered in 1856. The Whigs no longer existed as a national force, and barely registered anywhere. The American Party, which had won seats in some state houses and in Congress, would enjoy a brief moment this year with former President Fillmore as its standard-bearer before quickly fading forever. And there was a new party in town: the Republicans, made up of former Whigs, Free Soilers, abolitionists, less stringent Know-Nothings and ex-Democrats. Already holding seats in Congress, the new party was organized for one primary purpose: stop the expansion of the slave power. It was a purely sectional party—Northern and upper Western—and its strength was a major threat to the South. Its official platform, though not taken totally at face value by most Republicans, was an all-out attack on the Pierce administration, and included a promise to deal harshly with Pierce and his allies if the Republicans were elected.

The attacks were rarely repeated by Republicans but became a major part of the Democratic campaign as evidence of the extremism of the new party; either way, they stung Pierce badly. His final message to Congress was in part a rebuttal to the Republican platform, and, as usual, blames sectionalists and other extremists for all of the problems.

By then, however, Democrats had turned their backs on the president: Although he made a strong showing at the convention, President Pierce was rejected for a second term by the Democratic party. Instead, they chose Pennsylvanian James Buchanan, a former senator, secretary of state and Pierce’s minister to England. Buchanan, of course, won that November.

Following his enforced retirement, Pierce became bitter and would often turn to drink. When the war began, Pierce refused to support the North or the Lincoln administration. He called the war unnecessary and an assault on property and people. He was referred to as a traitor, and when his correspondence with his old friend and now Confederate president Jefferson Davis was revealed in 1863 during the Vicksburg campaign (after Davis’ Mississippi plantation was captured), Pierce’s personal reputation was destroyed.

He died in 1869 from cirrhosis of the liver.

Final assessment

Franklin Pierce was a good man who probably should not have been president—or, at least, not president during a time of tremendous upheaval. It’s possible that I may revise what I’ve written here after reading the second volume of Wallner’s book (see Resources), but I doubt it. History seems to have gotten Pierce right—but maybe not for quite the right reasons, though.

Larry Gara, in his 1991 volume for the University of Kansas’ American Presidency Series, advances what is the standard accepted belief on Pierce, and it is a powerful argument. In attempting to reach a new agreement that totally negated what had come before—the Missouri Compromise of 1820—Pierce and Douglas thoroughly and completely misunderstood—or missed entirely—the growing anger in the North over catering to every whim of the slave power. In attempting to appease the South and holding to a rigid standard that slavers were following the law in Kansas and Free-Soliers and abolitionists were in the wrong, Pierce alienated much of the North.
Pierce left the White House in March 1857 convinced he had done all that he could, and it’s possible he was right. His final message to Congress, though, underscores his inability to see just what was going on in the country. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—grasp that many Northerners were now opposed to slavery either from a moral standpoint (the minority view), or for political reasons or personal reasons.

Eminent historians of the antebellum era, most notably David M. Potter (The Impending Crisis) and William R. Freehling (The Road To Disunion), remain unimpressed with President Pierce’s performance, and it is hard to disagree. (Freehling barely mentions Pierce as a factor in the Kansas-Nebraska Act in volume 1, except as someone easily rolled, though he used different words.)

But Peter Wallner wonders if there was something else at work that made the situation simply impossible for Pierce: The collapse of the second party system (the disintegration of the Whigs and the building divisions between Northern and Southern Democrats), the increasing sectional hostility—turning into hate—were factors that worked against Pierce. Wallner argues that Pierce was a strong Unionist who saw all forms of agitators and reformers as the real enemies, not the slaveholders of the South. The Union could be held together through strength of unity, not division.

So why did the “law and order” and “Union-above-all” approach work for Taylor and Fillmore but not for Pierce? The former two were compromising from a position of strength and, more importantly, neutrality. They had the reputations and political strength to see the compromise through, and were working to solve a sticky problem stemming from the fallout of the Mexican War. And the Compromise of 1850 only built on established precedence. Even the Fugitive Slave Law did that, but it fueled unintended fires. Pierce, on the other hand, sought to thoroughly undo established precedent and create an entirely new template by repealing the Missouri Compromise and embracing Douglas’ notions of popular sovereignty.

Instead of removing the slave question from the purview of Congress and putting it back to the states, the Kansas-Nebraska act wrecked the Pierce presidency, destroyed what was left of the Whigs, divided the Democrats, gave birth to the Republican party and inflamed the agitation over slavery worse than the Fugitive Slave Law and Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

And I’m not even sure it was a bold gamble on Pierce’s part, because he wasn’t the lead: Stephen A. Douglas was, along with a couple other senators and congressmen. President Pierce was a supporter—the best man, if you will, not the groomsman. So I can’t even give him credit for boldness that failed.

In the end, Franklin Pierce was a man promoted beyond his station. A brilliant lawyer, an excellent New Hampshire party operative and a good Democratic party soldier, he should never have become president.

Final assessment: Failed and unpopular

Resources
My first primary resource was Larry Gara’s The Presidency of Franklin Pierce (1991), part of the University of Kansas’ American Presidency Series. (As noted in the previous entry on Millard Fillmore, Gara is yet another historian who believes there was a complete split between the Taylor and Fillmore presidencies over the Compromise of 1850, even though Elbert Smith, writing about both men in the same series a few years earlier, proved otherwise!)

My other resource was Peter A. Wallner’s Franklin Pierce: New Hampshire's Favorite Son (2004), part one of a planned two-part biography. The first volume takes Pierce up to the first day of his presidency. It remains to be seen whether Wallner will be as favorable toward his subject as he was in volume one, but so far I remain unconvinced that history has gotten Pierce that wrong.

Note: It’s a small world: The Bush family originally hails from New Hampshire. Barbara Pierce Bush, wife of George H.W. Bush and mother of George W. Bush, is a direct descendant, great-great-granddaughter of James Pierce Jr., who was a fourth cousin of Franklin Pierce. George H.W. Bush himself was a great-great-grandson of Pierce’s fifth cousin on Pierce’s mother's side.

Illustrations

All illustrations are in the public domain and taken from the Library of Congress Photographs and Prints Division unless otherwise noted.

1. Franklin Pierce in a daguerreotype taken by Matthew Brady

2. Gen. Franklin Pierce, designed and engraved on steel by W.L. Ormsby, N.Y.

3. A less “glorious” and more typical photograph of Pierce in his officer’s uniform

4. Jane Pierce.

5. Social qualities of our candidate. The Librrary of Congress description for this lithograph states: “Reports of his alcoholism haunted Democratic candidate Franklin Pierce during the 1852 campaign. The matter is taken up here with mocking reference to the Maine Liquor Law of 1851, a landmark prohibition measure first passed in Maine and subsequently adopted in several other states. An obviously inebriated Pierce leans against a large tree at right, holding a bottle out toward a man who passes on horseback. The man holds a document “Maine Liquor Law” and carries a barrel of “Hard Cider” on his saddle. He wears a wide-brimmed hat and a drab outfit, indicating that he is a Quaker, among the chief supporters of the temperance movement. Quaker: “Friend that tree looks as if it was old enough to stand alone—Thee need n’t hold it up any longer.” Pierce: “You have the advantage of me, stranger.—My name is Frank Pierce & I’ll stand as long as this tree will stand by me! I’m granite all over! give us your hand--Will you take a horn? I’ll give you a toast—Here’s confusion to all Maine Liquor Laws. An owl perched on a branch of the tree hoots twice. The Quaker’s barrel of “Hard Cider” has a double meaning: it alludes to an earlier (and successful) Whig presidential candidate, William Henry Harrison, and casts doubt on the Quaker’s temperance commitment.”

6. A somewhat fancy hand-colored lithograph of the 14th President of the United States.

7. A portrait of Pierce produced for the 1852 campaign.

8. Official White House portrait (White House Historical Association)

9. Stephen A. Douglas, “Young American”

10. John Brown

11. John L. Magee created the rather romantic lithograph Southern Chivalry – Argument versus Club in 1856, depicting Rep. Preston Brooks' attack on Sen. Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate.

12. Forcing slavery down the throat of a freesoiler. The Library of Congress description of this 1856 editorial cartoon says: “The artist lays on the Democrats the major blame for violence perpetrated against antislavery settlers in Kansas in the wake of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Here a bearded “freesoiler” has been bound to the “Democratic Platform” and is restrained by two Lilliputian figures, presidential nominee James Buchanan and Democratic senator Lewis Cass. Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas and President Franklin Pierce, also shown as tiny figures, force a black man into the giant's gaping mouth. The freesoiler’s head rests on a platform marked “Kansas,” “Cuba” and “Central America,” probably referring to Democratic ambitions for the extension of slavery. In the background left is a scene of burning and pillage; on the right a dead man hangs from a tree.

13. President Pierce sometime during his term

Number 12: Zachary Taylor

Years in office: 1849-1850
Pre-service occupations: general, plantation owner
Key events during his administration: California gold rush begins (1849), Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850), Compromise of 1850 (completed just after his death), cornerstone laid for Washington Monument (1850), his death

Presidential rating: Neither successful nor unsuccessful (e.g., right down the middle), and somewhat popular

ESSAY

Old Rough ‘n’ Ready, Zachary Taylor, governed just like his moniker: rough, but ready. Taylor was not a politician, nor was he a highly educated man. His schooling, as it were, came from almost 50 years of fighting Indians and Mexicans—and winning friends with both. A slave owner, Taylor bought a cotton plantation that became his home, but he was no die-hard defender of slavery.

If any man was less prepared for the office of the presidency than Zachary Taylor, I am unaware of who it was. Essentially, the man was a cult of personality: a war hero sought out by the Whigs to be a presidential candidate for no other reason than he was a Whig and a war hero—and an extremely popular one at that. The two previous war heroes elevated to the presidency had some government experience. Taylor had absolutely none.

But as the more popular of the two Whig generals who won the recent unpopular war with Mexico—unpopular to Whigs, that is—Taylor’s fame, appearance and character seemed the perfect antidote to the dour, suspicious and cranky Democrat president, James K. Polk.

Taylor is another one of the “forgotten” presidents between Jackson and Lincoln. Being the second president to die in office has contributed to Taylor’s forgotten status—people remember firsts, but not seconds. His abbreviated term was largely undistinguished, but it wasn’t terrible, either. In fact, Taylor threatened one action that gives further credence to what Lincoln would actually do one decade later.

He wasn’t a brilliant man or a deep thinker; but he was practical, a top-notch general, and his actions in Texas and northern Mexico helped win that war. Much of his life revolved around his career in the military, punctuated by periods as a gentleman farmer (e.g., plantation owner).

So, why in the world did the Whigs choose him to be their standard-bearer in 1848? And better yet, why did he win—and how good were his 16 months in office?

Frontier soldier
Zachary Taylor came of age in Kentucky, and he called Louisville home early in life. He entered the army as an officer before the War of 1812, thanks to his father’s connections. He was actually in William Henry Harrison’s command, but missed the Tippecanoe campaign because he had been called east to testify on some matter.

During the war, Captain Taylor was kept busy with recruiting and manning forts. He saw action on a few occasions against Indian tribes allied with the British. On one occasion, Taylor was in charge of Fort Harrison up the Wabash River, which he successfully defended against superior numbers. Later in the war, he was tasked with an expedition up the Mississippi to establish an outpost at Rock Island, but fierce Indian opposition turned him back.

He was called east to join a new regiment, but the war ended before it was formed. Congress immediately reduced the size of the army, and Taylor, miffed that other officers were promoted over him, resigned and went home to farm—only to be invited back to the Army in 1816 as a major.

Later Taylor would bounce between Louisiana and the upper Mississippi, serving in the Black Hawk War—a sad, misunderstood affair that for want of a translator might have ended peacefully. Rising to colonel, Taylor revealed a certain fussiness in his character, as well as roughness. It’s an odd combination, really. He fussed over his rank—a frequent pastime in the small antebellum army—but actually managed to steer clear of the army politics that bedeviled other officers. Wherever he went, he tried to bring his family. They lived well, but in the field, Taylor would live as roughly as his men.

During this period, Taylor developed a serious disdain for militia and volunteers, considering them worthless as soldiers. Taylor also developed a perchance of disobeying—or, more delicately, ignoring—orders with which he disagreed. For example, when ordered to rejoin his command in Wisconsin while he was in Louisiana on other duties, Taylor took his sweet time, using the excuse of ice on the Mississippi. He never faced disciplinary action for his fudging and hawing, but when it mattered most in Mexico, it almost cost him everything.

His long, dull army career would be punctuated by his service during the Seminole war in Florida, where Taylor would fight—and win—the conflict’s only pitched battle. His actions in Florida actually had a real chance to bring the Seminole war to a conclusion, but the commander-in-chief of the Army came to Florida and literally messed things up. Taylor got so disgusted he demanded a transfer out.

To sum up his army career prior to 1845: he served. It was largely solid, and he earned his rank and respect. He also developed an almost unique skill of detachment when dealing with the various Indian tribes, a skill that served him well as president. Taylor had the ability to deal with Indians as equals, contemporaries, instead of enemies; he could see things from their point of view, and turn potentially bloody situations into peaceful encounters. His diplomatic skills with the tribes averted two different Indian wars when he was president.

But Taylor was in the right place at the right time when in 1845, President Tyler sent him to command the Army of Observation in Louisiana in case of hostilities over the annexation of Texas.

Family and plantation master
Other than gaining senior rank, with its good pay and benefits, Taylor found another bonus from his army life: he set down roots the rich farmland in upper Louisiana. He purchased a plantation and had it managed in absentia.

Taylor was truly interested in the plantation, but unlike other slave owner presidents, he wasn’t a die-hard slave power/states rightist. More on that below.

His family life was for the most part good, as well. His wife, Peggy, loved setting up house wherever duties took him (and she was able to join him). They lived in style whenever they could, too, which may seem odd for an officer on the frontier.

Peggy bore him six children: one son and five daughters. Two daughters died from fever in infancy, and another married Jefferson Davis over her father’s objections. Taylor objected not so much to Davis but to Davis’ profession—an Army officer. Despite his own career, Taylor wished his daughters to marry outside the Army. Davis solved the problem by resigning, and Taylor removed his objections. But the daughter died three months later. Another daughter, Mary, served as White House hostess due to Peggy’s ill health.

The son, Richard “Dick” Taylor, became famous in his own right as a Confederate general.

War!
As with Taylor's pre-war service my intention is not to give a blow-by-blow history, but rather illustrate Taylor's character. He grew angry over slights against him, but this time, someone was definitely out to destroy him. He was calm and deadly in battle and magnanimous when the fighting stopped. Those qualities served him as president, but few historians until late have recognized those qualities in his presidency and given him due credit. (The United States Military Academy's official map of Taylor's Mexican War campaigns is an excellent tool for following the action.)

After the annexation of Texas, Taylor’s renamed Army of Occupation set off by boat and land for Corpus Christi, Texas. His force had about 2,000 men total, all Army regulars, which accounted for about one-fourth of the entire Army at that time. After a period of training, boredom, more training and more boredom, Taylor finally received orders in February 1846 to move south to the Rio Grande, the southern end of Texas but 100 miles inside land that Mexico claimed.

An uneasy feeling settled over the American and Mexican camps during April, with Taylor under the impression—and orders—that he was there to defend American soil from Mexican invasion, and Mexican forces believing Americans were the invaders (they believed the 1836 treaty at San Jacinto, which ended the Texas war of independence, was null and void, and hence Taylor’s starting point at Corpus Christie was the southern extent of American soil). The ball finally went up in early may when a force of 1,600 Mexican soldiers attacked an American patrol, killing 16 Americans. Taylor responded forcefully, per his orders.

By some accounts, Taylor had initially bungled by leaving his supplies mostly unguarded 30 miles away at Port Isabel, while building a largely impregnable fort (Fort Texas) across from Matamoras, but without much supplies. Regardless, Taylor left for the coast for his supplies while leaving a sufficient force at Fort Texas. On the way back, American and Mexican forces collided for the first time, forcing Taylor to cut his way through to Fort Texas.

Taylor won these opening battles of the war—Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma—largely through superior artillery. The Mexicans quit the immediate area and Taylor finally entered what was indisputably Mexican territory after the formal declaration of war.

Militia reinforcements were rushed to Taylor, but it was fall before the two sides seriously clashed again.

Monterrey, crossing the president and Buena Vista
Gen. Taylor crossed the Rio Grande and peacefully occupied Matamoros. He then moved west, eventually investing the Mexican city of Monterrey, where his reinforced army fought a bruising battle against Gen. Ampudia’s numerically superior forces. Once again American artillery proved decisive, as good emplacement allowed American troops access to the fortress city, where heavy hand-to-hand street fighting commence. The bitter battle of Monterrey (Sept. 21-23) was a draw, and cost Taylor 531 casualties to Ampudia’s 367.

Exposed far inside enemy territory, still facing a superior force and with the real probability of one more attack wrecking his army, Taylor negotiated a two-month armistice with the beaten Ampudia in exchange for the Mexican retreat from Monterrey. He let the Mexican army simply withdraw. President Polk exploded in anger when he heard the news, and demanded that Taylor resume hostilities. Taylor had no authority to negotiate an armistice (though Scott’s orders actually said that he could do so if the situation warranted) and believed Taylor should have taken the whole lot prisoner. Regardless of the actual situation thousands of miles away, the cost in blood and the victory, the dour Polk privately raged at Taylor. Publicly, he said nothing, but his feelings were now clear: he had it out for Taylor. Polk would have Gen. Scott command the campaign against Mexico City, and leave Taylor languishing with a depleted force in northeastern Mexico. Polk was becoming aware that, due to Taylor’s successes, he was being thought of as a presidential candidate—and Polk did not like that one bit.

Necessity forced Gen. Scott to strip down Taylor’s army, and place Taylor on the defensive. But Taylor actually ignored the War Department’s orders to return his army to Monterrey and instead occupied Saltillo, a city more favorable than Monterrey. His defense was that a Mexican force was moving to engage him—which, in fact, there was. (Scott and Taylor had believed the Mexicans would move to engage Scott and leave Taylor alone, but they were wrong.) Gen. Santa Anna was heading toward Taylor’s army with at least 20,000 men, and Taylor, having already lost most of his veterans to Scott’s army, now numbered around 4,500—most of them untried volunteers.

He fell back to Buena Vista, and after politely turning down Santa Anna’s demand for surrender, battle was joined Feb. 22-23, 1847. In what really was a near-run thing, Taylor and his subordinates whipped Santa Anna’s forces and scored a stunning victory. American forces suffered 267 dead, 456 wounded and 23 missing, while Mexican forces suffered 549 dead, 1,039 wounded, 1,800 missing and 294 captured. Santa Anna falsely declared victory and went back to Mexico City to prepare to meet the new American threat, but the truth was Taylor had thrashed him soundly, and there were no more clashes in northeastern Mexico for the remainder of the war.

Taylor, however, had fought his last—and greatest—battle.

Fame and the Whig candidate…
Taylor never actively sought the White House. His candidacy was truly grass-roots. Rough and Ready clubs and Taylor clubs began not long after his victories in Texas. Taylor at first was even astonished that he was being considered, and held to his opinion that military men did not belong in the White House.

But when it became clear to him that he was being sidelined in the war for the crime of being a Whig—and for crossing Polk—Taylor let it be known that he was not disallowing the possibility. But, he also said, if a better man were to be nominated—Clay, perhaps—he would support him. Taylor would be perfectly content to spend a few more years in the Army at a quiet post and then retire to his plantation. If duty took him to the White House, so be it. If elected, then he’d serve as best he could. If nominated and not chosen, he’d go home. Taylor really didn’t care that much—definitely not with the fevered intensity of most who seek the office, that is.

But rather than risk backing the aging famed compromiser Henry Clay once more, or someone else who had strong stands on the issues of the day, the Whigs chose the war hero—the public blank slate. Taylor, based solely on his public image, would be their man. After all, it had worked eight years earlier. And with Martin Van Buren gathering disaffected Democrats and some Whigs under the new Free Soil party, promising to draw more Democrats than Whigs, and the Democrats selecting the unexciting Polk ally Senator Lewis Cass, Taylor seemed to be their sure bet to win the White House.

Taylor was counseled by his closed friend Kentucky Sen. John Crittenden, as well as his brother, Colo. George Taylor, to keep his political pronouncements quiet, and after a couple of potential embarrassments, he did.

During the 1848 convention, Clay made a final attempt to get the nomination, but the Whigs determined that the Great Compromiser was finished as a presidential candidate and chose Taylor. Die-hard abolitionist Whigs and Free-Soilers, furious at having to support a slave owner, started their own party and nominated Martin Van Buren as their candidate. Taylor, for his part, didn’t even campaign—both because it was still the custom of the day, as campaigning was done by proxy and through newspapers, but also because he was still on active duty. In the end, the popular Taylor beat the Democrats’ Lewis Cass and Free Soiler Van Buren to become the 12th president of the United States—even though he really didn’t want the job.

…but not a Whig president
The election of Zachary Taylor should stand as the shining example of who not to elect. The Whigs chose Taylor as their standard-bearer because he said he was a Whig. And Taylor had declared he was a Whig…but that was it. He was counseled on keeping his mouth shut on specifics, and told not to give his thoughts on what he believed beyond vague generalities. Many Whigs, therefore, simply assumed Taylor held the same beliefs, and a Whig president would naturally pursue a Whig agenda. Much to their astonishment, embarrassment and horror, Taylor proved to be no Whig (or Democrat, for that matter).

So Taylor simply told the truth as he saw it: he would be a president above party, and be president of the entire nation. He would defend the right of the South to have slavery and he would defend the right of the North to attack it—and he would fight extremists on both sides.

But after the inauguration, when Taylor started making decisions and talking about his plans, it wasn’t what Whigs wanted to hear: Taylor had no intention of bringing back a national bank (Taylor declared it dead) or restoring the tariff to 1842 levels—the two biggest Whig pet causes. Of course, Taylor bears some blame, because he could have told them this beforehand. But they weren’t interested in listening.

Quite simply, by choosing Taylor as their man in 1848 because he was incredibly popular, and not because he really stood rock solidly for major Whig causes, they wrecked their party. The coming fight over slavery, which would rend northern and southern Whigs, sealed the deal. Taylor was, in fact, the last Whig elected president. They would field candidates in 1852, ’56 and ’60, but for all intents and purposes, the party was on the way out and would be dead by the time the cannons roared at Fort Sumter.

Taylor’s cabinet
Taylor’s cabinet would not be a Whig-pleaser, either. They felt that the novice Taylor should have a strong, recognized voice in his cabinet, like Daniel Webster was as secretary of state for Harrison and Tyler. But to their dismay, Taylor chose men below the top tier of public notables. It proved to be a mixed lot. His secretary of state, John M. Clayton, was a nationalist who, with Taylor, would set a course for American interests that would be felt for the next 50 years. But Clayton had too many personal problems to be of too much use.

The best was his attorney general, Reverdy Johnson. His secretary of war, George Crawford, the former Georgia governor, would cause some embarrassment later over an old claim stretching back to the country’s founding. The entire cabinet resigned/was fired after Taylor’s death.

The biggest problem with Taylor’s cabinet is that not one of them had any strong connection with Congress, and Taylor himself did not understand or appreciate the necessity of having allies in Congress. This created such a lack of communication and cooperation between the White House and Congress that Whigs felt alienated. Even Henry Clay noted that:

"I have never before seen such an administration. There is very little co-operation or concord between the two ends of the avenue. There is not, I believe, a prominent Whig in either House that has any confidential intercourse with the Executive.” (K. Jack Bauer, p. 265)

Meanwhile, Democrats sneered that Taylor had chosen a cabinet that could easily control him. But such was not the case. Taylor delegated duties as he had done in the field, and solicited their advice when so desired, but he was his own man. His biographer Elbert Smith writes that:

“Long before he had been elected president, Taylor had stated the basic convictions from which he did not deviate during his brief term in office. If he and most of his cabinet were a harmonious group on important policies, it was because they agreed on what should be done and not because strong advisors had captured the mind of a weak and ignorant president. Indeed, on the subject of Texas and New Mexico, Taylor’s belligerence went far beyond that of his advisors. No one had to let Taylor be Taylor; no one could have kept Taylor from being Taylor. He was neither weak nor modest, and no had always been one of his favorite words.” (Smith, pp. 62-63)

Thousands of office-seekers

The Taylor administration quickly found itself besieged with literally thousands of office-seekers. Except for the 30 days of Harrison, and then the term of the pseudo-Whig Tyler, the Democrats had held the White House since 1829—and hence all of the thousands of appointed offices all across the country. Whigs eagerly awaited the spoils of office: post offices, collectors, judgeships, etc.; and so did Democrats, who believed Taylor when he said he wanted to be a president above party.

Immediately, Taylor was in trouble.

How could he satisfy everyone? In truth, he couldn’t. Taylor—like all other presidents—relied on his cabinet members to recommend office-holders, just as he had relied on friends and political patrons to recommend cabinet officials. But the whole process was wearying and dispiriting, and brought false charges of disingenuousness against Taylor.

Some historians have made hay over the fact that Whig and Taylor supporter Abraham Lincoln was overlooked for an office, but in truth the fault lay with Lincoln’s tardiness. And on an interesting note, Democrat Nathanial Hawthorne lost his office, but used his newfound time to write The Scarlet Letter.

A canal treaty 50 years before its time
President Taylor and Secretary of State Clayton pursued a treaty with Britain that laid important groundwork for the next century. It would take much space to explain the background, but essentially, first Polk’s then Taylor’s minister to Nicaragua were searching for a way to gain treaty rights for the construction of a canal in Central America to cut down on the debilitating, expensive and often deadly travel around South America. Britain was the chief rival/obstacle/potential partner, and the nations south of Mexico were still in turmoil following the revolutions from Spanish rule some 20 years earlier.

In the end, Clayton and Sir Henry Bulwer-Lutton negotiated the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, which called for neither party to exercise control over the areas or countries (Nicaragua, Costa Rica, etc.) where a proposed canal could be built, meaning no colonies, forts or anything else that would make one side suspicious of the other’s intents. In other words, strict neutrality. Although disputes over the treaty started almost immediately, it remained generally in force until 1902.

Taylor’s thinking in pressing for a canal and urging the diplomatic groundwork is a stunning achievement for an administration that is usually consigned the status of failure.

The new decade
On James K. Polk’s last day in office, he authorized the creation of the Department of the Interior, taking interior matters away from the Treasury and the Indian Bureau away from the War department. The new department came into being in Zachary Taylor’s administration, and he named Thomas Ewing of Ohio as its first head. (Ewing, by the way, was the foster father for William T. Sherman.) Unfortunately, Ewing started an unwholesome process of making it a patronage department. Nevertheless, for good or ill, Indian affairs would now have an exclusive department focus.

In the meantime, gold had been discovered in California during Polk’s final year, starting a new craze that added a fevered impetuousness to the rush to move west. The gold rush and the 49ers was one of the main reasons why Taylor encouraged California to move immediately to statehood.

During this decade, the fight over slavery finally came fully into the sunlight as a personal battle. Long gone were the days where merely the institution was assaulted as a lamentable evil; abolitionists now attacked slave owners directly as being morally deficient for holding human beings in bondage. Slave owners fought back with a vengeance, for example passing laws in Virginia demanding that the North leave slavery alone and calling on defense against northern “aggression.”

Taylor was attacked by fellow slave owners for daring to have as a friend the anti-slaver William Seward (who would gain lasting fame as secretary of state under Lincoln and Johnson). Seward, a New York Whig, helped the administration with the voluminous appointments in the Empire State, for which Taylor was immensely pleased. But to die-hard southerners, an anti-slavery agitator had to be shunned at worst or held at arm’s length at best—never embraced as a friend. This seemingly ridiculous and petty affront to southern honor cost actually Taylor support.

(Side note: Taylor turning more to Seward instead of his own vice president, also a New Yorker, naturally upset Millard Fillmore, which I’ll deal with in the next entry.)

In fact, the Democratic press viciously and even insanely attacked Taylor almost from the very start of his presidency—which may seem like no big deal in that age of the openly partisan press. Their attacks are so incredibly outrageous that they have to be read to even be believed, and many of the Taylor bashing rantings are not too dissimilar from some of the incredible Bush hating rantings of today.

But Taylor, a ferocious fighter who made peace with Indians and Mexicans when there was no need for fighting, would make friends with who he damned well pleased—and his enemies could go hang themselves for all he cared.

The politics of slavery
Slave-owner Taylor had made it quite clear that he would not be slavery’s die-hard champion. While he would not press for the elimination of slavery in any fashion, the president believed, quite firmly, that slavery had no business expanding into the new territories. In his uninspired inaugural address, he weirdly even asked the people to just not talk about slavery (not an auspicious start to his presidency).

But when Taylor got his footing, he made clear that he believed that the nation no longer need fear the expansion of slavery because of nature: geography had set the limits on slavery. The climate of the new territories from Mexico was inhospitable to the slave system, so why even argue over it? Taylor even said that the Wilmot Proviso, a northern-state pushed bill designed to outlaw slavery in the new territories, was totally unnecessary for the very same reason. It was an argument over nothing!

But the lines were already drawn, the passions were high, Taylor’s exasperations were a little naïve and, simply put, Southern defenders of slavery were throwing a huge tantrum. Speaking as if all Southerners were slave owners and just loved the system, the old states-rights warrior John C. Calhoun, near death, threw what I can only charitably call a hissy-fit. He organized a Southern-only convention to create a highly paranoid “Southern Address” that accused the northern states of conspiring to destroy slavery and states’ rights concerning slavery going all the way back to the foundation of the country! (It was utterly ridiculous, and to their credit, nearly half of the attendees refused to sign.)

Calhoun’s final speech to Congress in early 1850 was so full of paranoia and hate against the North that it just defies belief, and many of his fellow Southerners, including Taylor, thought so, too. But those who sided with Calhoun were a dangerous lot, and believed that any slight against the South, whether real or, most likely, imagined, was the gravest insult and grounds for secession. The president thought they were off their rocker.

Southerners were also mad at Taylor for urging California and New Mexico to bypass the territorial stage and immediately seek statehood. California, newly flush with the discovery of gold in 1848, had a population explosion and was essentially lawless. By not wanting the land to remain under military control, Taylor gave his approval to the formation of a state government, which Californians did at the end of 1849. But their constitution banned slavery. Again, southerners were furious. How dare they! Now, Taylor could have counseled that they deal with slavery after passing a constitution, which would have mollified the states rights champions. But they were outraged that it happened before the fact—despite the fact that transplanted Southerners helped make the constitution!

Next, Texas, a slave state, was trying to gobble up much of the New Mexico territory (which included present-day Arizona). President Taylor would have none of it, and said he would keep the peace between the two states, even using United States troops to defend New Mexico. Taylor vowed—and this is key—that the latter had been won from Mexico and would remain as it was no matter what claims Texas made on it.

Most Taylor biographers neglect or completely misunderstand Taylor’s desire to keep New Mexico away from Texas, and interpret his stance in the upcoming Compromise of 1850 as pure obstructionism.

Some outraged southerners threatened secession, raising the specter of the nullification crisis of 20 years earlier. Texas, which was full of southerners, threatened to take by force from New Mexico what it believed was rightfully Texas land. Taylor once again proved to be his own man by explaining exactly what he would do to anyone who committed the “treason” of secession, or lead aggression against a territory in defiance of the federal government. In early 1850, Taylor exploded in anger after meeting with two Georgian congressmen in the White House. The two men had been early Taylor supporters, but now they demanded that Taylor drop his support for California’s admission as a free state. Taylor refused, and said he would support constitutional law. As the two stormed out, Hannibal Hamlin, the future vice president to Abraham Lincoln, found Taylor extremely agitated. Hamlin recalled that,

“…with an expletive I shall not repeat here, he said, with an emphasis that I shall never forget, that if they attempted to carry out their schemes while he was president they should be dealt with by law as they deserved and executed.”
(Smith, P. 104)

When Hamlin left, Whig editor and New York power-broker Thurlow Weed came in, and found Taylor still extremely agitated. He recalled Taylor saying he actually told the two Georgia congressmen that

“…if it became necessary, in executing the laws, he would take command of the army himself, and … if they were taken in rebellion against the Union, he would hang them with less reluctance than he had hanged deserters and spies in Mexico.” (Smith, P. 140)

Weed’s quote is probably embellished, because he added a third person to the scene who later swore he wasn’t present, but the quote is still passed off as authentic. Nevertheless, both quotes, with Hamlin’s being the more reliable, expose just how much Taylor was ready to fight for Union should it have become necessary. And that angered southerners even more.

Compromise
But it never came to secession. The Great Compromiser, Henry Clay, proposed one final bill that dealt together with the great issues of the day: California, Texas and New Mexico, slavery in the capitol, fugitive slaves, and more. The president was happy with the thought of compromise, but believed, as did Clay’s old foe, Democrat Senator Thomas Hart Benton, that the issues should be dealt with separately—particularly because Taylor was keen to defend New Mexico from Texas no matter what.

In the end, a compromise was worked out—the Compromise of 1850—which, with the benefit of hindsight, we know was only a temporary cease-fire. However, Taylor wouldn’t live to see it. The compromise was still being debated when Taylor died suddenly midway through his second year in office.

Under the combined bill:

• California would become a free state,
• New Mexico would become a territory,
• Texas’ debt would be assumed by the United States government in exchange for dropping claims to New Mexican territory,
• Slavery in the remaining areas won from Mexico would be decided by “popular sovereignty”,
• the slave trade would be abolished in Washington, D.C., and
• the “fugitive slave act” would become the law of the nation.

The last odious part of the compromise let slave masters go anywhere in America to hunt for, and take back, escaped slaves.

Taylor’s ultimate role in the compromise is usually and uncharitably described as being an obstacle, as incapable of stopping the dead Calhoun and his allies, or intensely jealous of Henry Clay. But none is really true. He didn’t stand in its way at all, though his cabinet was not enthusiastic about it. Taylor, above all else, sought to keep the union together—and the omnibus bill seemed like the way to solve the current massive sectional crisis. It was Taylor’s inability to form allies and voting blocs in Congress damaged his abilities to sway the debate, and subsequently damaged him in history’s judgment. In addition, everyone tried to take credit—Clay, Daniel Webster, the South’s irascible Sen. Henry Foote, etc.—and paint the dead Taylor as someone who had been in the way.

But Elbert Smith says,

"He looked beyond his own immediate interests as a large slaveholder, recognizing that slavery could not be expanded, and tried to check unrealistic Southern demands that could only multiply Northern opposition to the institution itself. Instead, however, revisionists have made the compromise efforts the centerpiece of his administration and accepted the accusation of Taylor’s enemies … that he was an obstacle to its achievement. Supporters of the omnibus bill … defended him against the charge, and … insisted throughout that Taylor would support any compromise that did not give New Mexico to Texas. Their views, however, somehow escaped serious consideration by historians, including Taylor’s friendly biographers…

…The sudden removal of Taylor—by Providence, the Almighty, fate, or America’s usual good luck—just in time to enable Clay, (Stephen A.) Douglas, and Fillmore to save the Union was another illusion too exciting to bear closer examination.” (Smith, p.258)

It wasn’t exactly Taylor’s finest hour, but history has done a great disservice by getting Taylor’s role utterly wrong.

Death
During the July 4, 1850, dedication of the laying of the Washington Monument, President Taylor took ill. He downed a whole pitcher of water, and took in some iced milk, cherries and cucumbers, but never loosened his clothes under the oppressive heat. Back at the White House, the old general finally loosened his clothes, but remained ill.

His condition worsened, and five days later, on July 9, he was dead.

We don’t quite know why he died. It may have been acute gastroenteritis. Possibly chloera. The immediate cause was probably a heat stroke. Some have speculated that he was poisoned, and in 1991 his body was exhumed and autopsied. Traces of arsenic were found, but only the normal amount found in all people, far less than a fatal dose. But assasination seems really far-fetched.

A stunned nation watched as Millard Fillmore assumed the presidency (and thanks to John Tyler nine years earlier, the succession happened effortlessly). Filmore would replace Taylor’s entire cabinet, and quickly make Taylor’s presidency his own presidency.

Final Assessment

Zachary Taylor wasn’t a successful president—but neither was he unsuccessful. He’s been long thought a failure, or a nonentity, but Elbert Smith argues that during his 16 months in office, Taylor charted a steady course through the middle of the hotheads on both sides at the start of this most turbulent of decades. Like Ulysses S. Grant a generation later, Taylor’s presidential reputation fell into the hands of his enemies, and their word on him was “final.” He was a “failed” president because they said he was, regardless of the facts and regardless of what Taylor actually accomplished and attempted to do while in office.

As it were, Taylor’s desire to be president of the entire country and not remain beholden to just the slave interests cost him dearly, as did his honest friendship with the anti-slavery power-broker Seward. Enemies considered him weak because he relied on others for appointments. Well, who else did? Every other president, that’s who! In short, Taylor’s refusal to be a tool made him a “failure,” not the actual facts. In his affairs with Indian tribes and foreign nations, Taylor was skillful and deft. In matters of domestic policy, Taylor charted a course designed to placate both sides of the slavery divide, making him a facilitator of the Compromise of 1850, not an obstacle as has long been charged. Taylor even tried to get the hotheads of the north and south to see the obvious: slavery just wouldn’t work in the southwest; so, fighting over expanding it there was just stupid. But few listened to him.

Taylor’s willingness to treat secession as treason was exactly the same reaction as Jackson’s, and even more blunt than Lincoln’s. Taylor was ready and willing to destroy secession—but it’s long forgotten, because the Secession Crisis of 1850 never happened, replaced, as it were, by the Compromise of 1850. Would Taylor have slapped down an actual session crisis like Jackson? Or would he have dithered like Buchanan and let it develop until it was past the point of return? It’s more than likely he would have done the former.

Zachary Taylor, one of America’s finest soldiers, deserves much better than being remembered as a presidential failure. He was a military hero, and a hero president, and it’s good that writers of history are finally taking note.

Final assessment: Neither successful nor unsuccessful (e.g., right down the middle), and somewhat popular (but not with the political class, and definitely not with the abolitionists)

Resources

The majority of information on Zachary Taylor is usually found in collections on the presidents or in books on the Mexican War. The American Presidents Series entry has not yet been released, but it is written by John S.D. Eisenhower, author of So Far From God: The U.S. War With Mexico, 1846-1848. Again, I highly recommend reading that book, both for its historical value and for the fact that it is simply one of the best books on any subject you’ll ever read—non-fiction or fiction. If you want to understand America and Mexico together, you need to read this book.

I also wasn’t able to get a hold of Elbert Smith’s brand-new 2007 biography, Zachary Taylor: The Hero President, in time for this study, but I was able to use his earlier work, The Presidencies of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore, part of the University of Kansas’ American Presidency series. Apparently, his general thesis remains unchanged. (If you haven’t guessed by now, I have been making heavy use of books from the public library systems of St. Louis County and St. Louis City for this study.)

Also for this study, I used the ponderous and plodding Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest (1985) by K. Jack Bauer. Smith disagrees with Bauer’s conclusions, as do I.

Illustrations
All images are public domain and found in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division unless otherwise noted.

1. A daguerreotype of Zachary Taylor, probably taken for the 1848 campaign. I think it’s the best likeness of him.

2. Taylor and his faithful horse, Old Whitey

3. Margaret “Peggy” Taylor

4. Battle of Palo Alto, May 8th, 1846. Battle of Resaca de la Palma, May 9th, 1846. Lithograph by Klauprech & Menzel after Ange Paldi, 5th Inf., U.S.A.

5. US troops marching on Monterrey during the Mexican-American War, painting by Carl Nebel. Published in the 1851 book The War Between the United States and Mexico, Illustrated.

6 Storming of Independence Hill at the Battle of Monterey. September 1846. Copy of lithograph by Kellogs & Thayer, ca. 1847. National Archives and Records Administration. John S.D. Eisenhower, in So Far From God, took particular note of a similar image made most likely by the same artist, depicting the same street fighting in Monterrey. “This picture is remarkable for its realism at a time when artists in the United States usually depicted battle scenes in largely formal terms.” Compare this 1847 lithograph to the next image.

7. "A little more grape Capt. Bragg"—General Taylor at the Battle of Buena Vista, Feby 23d, 1847. This rather fanciful depiction of the battle of Buena Vista was created as a campaign poster. It depicts a real incident, where Taylor instructed one of his artillery captains to step up his fire (which helped win the battle), but it also shows Taylor wearing a full general’s uniform, which he almost never did. Taylor favored buckskin and jeans and a slouch hat—chosen for comfort, not style. His casual disdain of military pomp would impress young Ulysses S. Grant, who would emulate his hero’s style during the Civil War.

8. An anti-Whig campaign poster, which truthfully depicts the sole reason for selecting a Mexican War hero as presidential candidate. Taylor is not actually the general depicted, but the sentiment sit fit when Taylor was tapped to be their champion.

9. A standard campaign poster depicting Taylor and his running mate, New Yorker Millard Fillmore.

10. An extremely rare and damaged picture of Taylor’s cabinet. The president stands at center.

11. An idealized portrait of Taylor created for the campaign

12. The United States in 1850, after the compromise took effect. Map is courtesy of courtesy of Florida’s Educational Technology Clearinghouse. Credit: http://etc.usf.edu/maps/

13. Official White House portrait of President Zachary Taylor (White House Historical Association)

14. A somewhat comic yet sympathetic portrayal of the culminating episode in the flight of slave Henry Brown "who escaped from Richmond Va. in a Box 3 feet long, 2-1/2 ft. deep and 2 ft. wide." In the office of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, the young Brown emerges from a crate as several figures, including Frederick Douglass (holding a claw hammer at left) look on. Details of Brown's escape, whereby he had himself shipped via Adams Express from Richmond to Philadelphia, were widely publicized in a narrative of his ordeal published under his own name in 1849. The box itself became an abolitionist metaphor for the inhumanity and spiritual suffocation of slavery. It is shown on an undated broadside published in Boston. (Library of Congress description.)

15. Clay, Fillmore, Calhoun, Webster in the Senate, 1850. Henry Clay (presenting his compromise), Millard Fillmore (presiding), John C. Calhoun (right of Fillmore), and Daniel Webster (head in hand) in the Senate, 1850. Created by Peter Rothermel in 1850.

16. Matthew Brady took this daguerreotype of Zachary Taylor in 1849

17. Taylor on his death bed, in the White House, July, 1850.