K. Jack Bauer’s biography considers Zachary Taylor, the 12th U.S. president, a genuine enigma: a Southern slaveholder who opposed extending slavery into new territory, and a cautious career soldier with little apparent interest in politics before he was elected.
Taylor’s sixteen months in office were dominated by disputes over California statehood and the Texas-New Mexico border, and he threatened to personally hang any Southern hothead who moved toward secession over slavery.
He died suddenly in 1850, mid-term. Bauer’s book, the standard biography of Taylor, argues he was a more complicated and more political figure than history has generally given him credit for.
Published 1993
348 pages
$17.15