A nice little book on a little known President.

books:

	• Zachary Taylor: The 12th President, 1849-1850 (The American Presidents) John S. D. Eisenhower, Arthur M. Schlesinger Times Books, 2008 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

A nice little book on a little known President.

John Eisenhower is a favorite author of mine. This is my forth book I have read by him. In this book, Eisenhower details the little known story of our 12th President, old Rough and Ready. Taylor may have been able to placate the South if he had lived longer. However the war and the stresses of office may have caused his health to worsen, and he died after 16 months in office. The miserable Millard Fillmore took his place, and then a succession of bad Democrats (Pierce and Buchanan). Eisenhower details the rise of this humble man who was both a soldier and farmer. His rather humble personality masked a shrewd man in both military and civilian politics. He assumed the office because people generally loved him.

This is a nice short read on our 12th President by a great author. I learned a great deal about Taylor and his place in the American Presidency.

for more information click here

Just the right size

If you have don't have too much time to devote to President Taylor. This is the book for you. Only here and there the author wrote more than I wanted to know.

for more information click here

A splendid little book

Eisenhower handles Taylor's military career and his exploits in the Mexican War very neatly and offers selections from other Taylor biographers like Hamilton and Bauer to aid his case and offer the casual reader alternate windows into the life. A very neat summary of a very brief administration, Eisenhower's account never seems rushed or unduly cursory. The books in the American Presidents series vary wildly in quality. This particular volume is not a breath-taking small gem like Hans Trefousse on Hayes or a specialist treasure like Ira Rutkow's book on Garfield, but Eisenhower nevertheless provides a splendid small book on an unfortunately overlooked president.

for more information click here

Super American

Another home run in the superb American President's series. John Eisenhower paints a picture of Zachary Taylor that leaves us wishing he was among today's candidates for President. Had he lived, he may have been able to head off the Civil War, we will never know. In short, a great biography of a great man.

President Taylor and his Virtues

To bring perspective to this year's eventful presidential campaign, I have been reading several volumes of the American Presidents Series edited by the late Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and Sean Willentz. Each volume consists of a short biography of one of our presidents, prepared by a scholar with a particular interest in him, together with an assessment of his achievements. There is much to be learned in these short books about American history and about the nature of leadership.

The series covers the great and important presidents, such as Washington, Lincoln. Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, together with the lesser-known and less successful presidents. This recent volume in the series by John Eisenhower explores one of the shorter and more obscure presidencies, that of Zachary Taylor. Taylor (1784 -- 1850) was the twelfth president of the United States. He served only 16 months (1849 -- 1850) before dying in office. Even though Taylor's time in office was short and uneventful, Eisenhower's book suggests that he has something to teach in our difficult days.

Taylor was born in Virginia but lived from his early years in Kentucky. Although not highly educated, Taylor became wealthy, owned several plantations, and was a slaveholder. Through mid-life, his life oscillated between military service and his plantation, including the desire for time with his family. Taylor earned a reputation in the War of 1812 and in several Indian wars. But his early military career had many long idle stretches. Taylor's life shows a certain restlessness.

Taylor's fame catapaulted with his success in the Mexican War, as he won impressive victories at Palo Alto, Monterrey, and Bueno Vista. He became a national hero even while quarreling with General Winfield Scott and with President Polk.

Taylor had not been politically active, but as a military hero, he let it be known he was interested in the presidency. But he distrusted political parties. Nominally a Whig, he would not commit to the party until forced to do so by a group of party leaders as a condition to the presidential nomination. When he identified himself as a Whig in a lengthy letter, Taylor was careful to note that he would consider himself a president of the people and would not mindlessly follow a party line. Taylor became president when he defeated the Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass.

The Washington insiders of the day probably believed that with his military backgound and political inexperience, Taylor would be malleable. And Southerners assumed that Taylor would be faithful to their cause. Taylor was himself a Southerner and a slaveholder.

Both the insiders and the Southerners underestimated Taylor. The new president did not support the extension of slavery although he had no intention of abolishing it in the states where it already existed. Taylor fought for the admission of California and New Mexico -- the prizes of the Mexican War -- as free states. With the impending admission of California as a free state, Congress, led by Taylor's fellow-Whig Henry Clay proposed a series of compromises to placate the South, including a strong Fugitive Slave Law. These compromises were enacted only after Taylor's death.

As with some other military leaders who achieved the presidency, Taylor made some poor choices for his cabinet which led to scandals at the time of his death. Taylor's administration had one solid achievement in foreign policy, the Bulwer-Lytton treaty with Britain which contemplated joint American-British control of a canal to be built through Central American. This joint project was never realized, but the treaty possibly averted a war.

As Eisenhower points out, Taylor's achivement lies in his stubborn independence. As did John Quincy Adams before him, Taylor took seriously his goal to be a president for an entire nation and not for a political interest group. Against expectations, he courageously tried to limit the spread of slavery while allowing it to remain in the states which already had it. Eisenhower points out that Taylor, had he lived, might have been the last president with the opportunity to avoid the Civil War.

With his short term, Taylor is remembered more for his military exploits as "Old Rough and Ready" than for his presidency. Eisenhower believes he is underrated as a president. But, Eisenhower concludes, "such judgments [as to the rating of a president] are relatively unimportant. For Taylor deserves to be remembered for something more important: he was a man of the Union, one who placed the interests of the Union as a whole above that of his own section of the country." (p.140)

In his independence and stubborness, Zachary Taylor's presidency showed the virtues of purpose,nationalism and unity. Thus, regardless of the outcome of our impending election, it would be valuable for our new president and for Americans to work towards instilling a spirit of patriotism, unity, and common purpose, regardless of political ideology, in meeting the difficult problems we face. This is the significance of Taylor's presidency as explained in Eisenhower's fine study.

Robin Friedman

for more information click here

The rough-hewn general who rose to the nation?s highest office, and whose presidency witnessed the first political skirmishes that would lead to the Civil War

Zachary Taylor was a soldier?s soldier, a man who lived up to his nickname, ?Old Rough and Ready.? Having risen through the ranks of the U.S. Army, he achieved his greatest success in the Mexican War, propelling him to the nation?s highest office in the election of 1848. He was the first man to have been elected president without having held a lower political office.

John S. D. Eisenhower, the son of another soldier-president, shows how Taylor rose to the presidency, where he confronted the most contentious political issue of his age: slavery. The political storm reached a crescendo in 1849, when California, newly populated after the Gold Rush, applied for statehood with an anti- slavery constitution, an event that upset the delicate balance of slave and free states and pushed both sides to the brink. As the acrimonious debate intensified, Taylor stood his ground in favor of California?s admission?despite being a slaveholder himself?but in July 1850 he unexpectedly took ill, and within a week he was dead. His truncated presidency had exposed the fateful rift that would soon tear the country apart.

for more information click here

hot