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Erfahren Sie mehr über den zwölften Präsidenten der USA, der im Mexikanisch-Amerikanischen Krieg zum Nationalhelden wurde und 1850 starb. Lesen Sie über seine militärische und politische Karriere, seine Sklavenfrage, seine Außenpolitik und sein Nachleben.
Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was the 12th president of the United States, serving from 1849 until his death in 1850. Taylor was a career officer in the United States Army, rising to the rank of major general and becoming a national hero for his victories in the Mexican–American War
- Overview
- Early life and military service
- Presidency and death
- Cabinet of President Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor (born November 24, 1784, Montebello plantation, near Gordonsville, Virginia, U.S.—died July 9, 1850, Washington, D.C.) 12th president of the United States (1849–50). Elected on the ticket of the Whig Party as a hero of the Mexican-American War (1846–48), he died only 16 months after taking office.
Taylor’s parents, Richard Taylor and Mary Strother, migrated to Kentucky from Virginia shortly after Zachary, the third of their nine children, was born. After spending his boyhood on the Kentucky frontier, Taylor enlisted in the army in 1806 and was commissioned first lieutenant in the infantry in 1808. In 1810 he married Margaret Mackall Smith (Margaret Taylor), with whom he had six children. His daughter Sarah Knox Taylor married Jefferson Davis, the future president of the Confederate States of America, in 1835, and his son, Richard Taylor, fought in the Civil War as a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army.
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Taylor served in the army for almost 40 years, finally advancing to the rank of major general (1846). He commanded troops in the field in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War (1832), and the second of the Seminole Wars in Florida (1835–42), in which he won promotion to the rank of brigadier general for his leadership in the Battle of Lake Okeechobee (1837). In 1840 he was assigned to a post in Louisiana and established his home in Baton Rouge.
Having thus won the north of Mexico, Taylor emerged as a hero and began to be seen by Whig politicians as a possible presidential candidate. At the Whig Party convention in 1848 Taylor gained the nomination on the fourth ballot. He defeated the Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass, in the general election, winning the electoral college vote 163 to 127.
Taylor’s brief administration was beset with problems, the most perplexing of which was the controversy over the extension of slavery into the newly acquired Mexican territories. By 1848 Taylor had come to oppose the creation of new slave states, and in December 1849 he called for immediate statehood for California, whose new constitution explicitly prohibited slavery. Southerners in Congress, who feared a permanent majority of free states in the Senate, fought bitterly against the proposal, and the controversy was not finally resolved until September of the following year (two months after Taylor’s death), with the adoption of the Compromise of 1850. A further problem was the revelation in mid-1850 of financial improprieties on the part of three members of Taylor’s cabinet. Deeply humiliated, Taylor, who prided himself on honesty, decided to reorganize his cabinet, but before he could do so he died suddenly of an attack of cholera. He was succeeded by Millard Fillmore.
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The table provides a list of cabinet members in the administration of President Zachary Taylor.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
29. Okt. 2009 · Learn about Zachary Taylor, a career military officer who became a war hero and a Whig president in 1848. He faced the sectional crisis over slavery and died suddenly in office in 1850.
Learn about the life and legacy of Zachary Taylor, who served as president from 1849 to 1850 and fought in the Mexican-American War and the War of 1812. Find out how he handled the slavery issue, the Free Soil Party, and the secession threat.
2. Apr. 2014 · Known as a national war hero for his battles in the Mexican War, Zachary Taylor served in the U.S. Army for nearly 40 years before he was elected as the 12th president of the United States in...
Zachary Taylor war der zwölfte Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten. Er amtierte vom 4. März 1849 bis zu seinem Tod und war nach William Henry Harrison der zweite Präsident, der während seiner Amtszeit verstarb.