12 Zachary Taylor 

 

Because nobody has a clue how to use an apostrophe, which is especially obvious on Presidents’ Day, we here at the Press took it to mean that we get to choose which president to honour each year, which we’ve been doing since 2006.  This year, the unanimous choice is Number 12, Zachary Taylor (no relation to Taylor Swift, even though AI has a hard time seeing anything entered as “Taylor” from being anything other than “Swift”).

 

Zachary Taylor, who made the presidency an even dozen, comes in number three on presidents to serve the shortest terms, dying after serving only one year, four months, and five days.  (First is William H. Harrison, who only made it 31 days, followed by Garfield, who served 6 months and 15 days before being reincarnated as a cat).  Whereas Garfield was shot and Harrison died from pneumonia he contracted after a lengthy inauguration address, Taylor probably died of acute gastroenteritis he contracted after eating contaminated raw fruit during a Fourth of July celebration.  Just gives ya the willies to think about it.

 

So, yeah, there’s not a whole lot to say about Taylor’s presidency, or for that matter his entire life.  Taylor was born on born on November 24, 1784 (the last president born before the Constitution was adopted), into a lot of Virginian plantation money.  He joined the military in 1808 and became a career Army officer, quickly climbing the ranks.  He first saw action in the War of 1812.  He earned the nickname “Old Rough and Ready” in the Black Hawk War (1832) and the Second Seminole War (1837-1840).  It was in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) that he became a national hero, which catapulted him into politics.  Even though he really had no political ambitions, and no clear political stand, he was chosen to head the Whig Party in the 1848 Presidential election.  And he won, becoming the first president elected without having held any previous political office, not even dogcatcher.

 

Taylor’s campaign was pretty much just keeping the Union together, which has been an overriding theme in American politics for... well... always.  From the start, in one way or another, Slavery has been on just about every ballot, and it truly still is.  How does anybody come to terms with owning another human when such a thing is so odious, but so profitable?

 

So here’s the deal:  When we won the Spanish-American War, we won a whole lot of real estate, like California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, parts of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas.  You’re going to need more than one tank of gas.  That’s the entire Southwestern United States and then some.  And whereas it was nice to have so much new land, the question became whether it was to be divided into Slave states or Free states (as was the same question with every new state before Slavery was ended).   

 

Should the balance shift in the Senate and Congress in either direction, it could mean the political end of the other side.  The South was especially afraid that a shift in the North’s favour would mean an end to Slavery, which meant their economy would be ruined.  A lot of industries that were dependent on cheap labour (such as cotton) would lose a lot of money.  That’s probably why places like Puerto Rico are still not states, because if one place alone were added, it could shift the political balance.  But here’s a thought:  If Canada really were added as our 51st state, I dare say it would be a very Blue state.  Two more Democratic Senators and a whole bunch of Democratic Congressmen would probably shift the power immediately.  I can’t see Greenland being a Red state, either.  But I digress. 

 

Even though Taylor owned slaves (up to 300 at any given time), and even though he was the last president to own slaves while in office, he opposed expanding slavery to the newly acquired land, probably because he saw it as so divisive.  Imagine a president actually trying not to be divisive.  As a effort to stop a civil war, he came up with the Compromise of 1850.  Well, he died on July 9, 1850, before it took effect, but it did keep the Union together, if only for a little while.  The Compromise of 1850 saw California enter the Union as a Free state and then each succeeding state would allow the white men to vote on slavery, which is a bit like having the foxes vote on eating the hens, but once again I digress.

 

William Fillmore, Taylor’s vice president, took over the presidency on Taylor’s death.  Fillmore served out the remainder of Taylor’s term, which meant that he wasn’t president for too terribly long, either.  Though he ran for the office in his own right in 1852, he lost, as he did again in 1856.

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