Month: March 2025

Abraham Lincoln stood at the podium in the U.S. House of Representative chambers on July 27, 1848. His topic – the presidential question. Notwithstanding the negative reaction to his previous “spot resolutions” speech, Lincoln was still considered an effective speaker and thus was called upon to help convince people that Zachary Taylor was the correct choice as the Whig nominee for president. Lincoln had strongly supported the nomination of Taylor over the aging Henry Clay, previously Lincoln’s beau ideal of a statesman. He even spoke at the nominating convention in favor of Taylor.

Like many Whigs, Lincoln, the one who had so bitterly questioned the rationale for the onset of hostilities with Mexico, realized that winning the next presidential election would mean signing on the great military hero of that war. It was General Zachary Taylor and his troops that first put pressure on Mexico at the beginning of the war, and Taylor’s definitive win over Mexican President and General Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista that led to the war’s end. Taylor seemed to be the only person the public was interested in hiring to be the next chief executive. If the Whigs did not get Taylor to run for them, the Democrats would.

The move seemed decidedly hypocritical. Whig leaders had rightfully gained a reputation in opposition to the war, even though Whigs like Lincoln continued to vote for weapons and resources for the troops. Most Whigs felt the war was a cynical attempt to gain more land onto which slavery could be spread. The inveterate John Quincy Adams, who after his single term as president had toiled nearly two decades in Congress fighting the Slave Powers, was one of fourteen House “irreconcilables” who had voted against the war declaration prior to Lincoln’s arrival in congress.

Further complicating matters was that Henry Clay had offered a fervent antiwar speech in Lexington, Kentucky, which Lincoln witnessed on his way to Congress. Lincoln recognized that the speech would condemn the Whigs to oblivion if they picked Clay instead of Taylor. Ever the vote counter, Lincoln wrote a friend that “Mr. Clay’s chance for an election, is just no chance at all,” going on to enumerate which states Clay likely could not carry. Based on his read of public sentiment, Lincoln noted, “in my judgment, we can elect nobody but Gen. Taylor.”

It took a while for the Whigs to talk Taylor into being their nominee. He was a southerner and a slaveholder, for sure, but nevertheless was not a fan of expanding slavery into the western territories, now doubled in size after the Mexican War. With both parties vying for him to lead their ticket, Taylor at first said he would only agree if he could do so “untrammeled with party obligations or interests of any kind,” the sort of divine elevation that George Washington had enjoyed after the Revolutionary War. Both the Whigs and Democrats quickly disavowed him of that politically naïve delusion. Outgoing President Polk went so far as refer to Taylor as “well-meaning” but also “uneducated, exceedingly ignorant of public affairs, and, I should judge, of very ordinary capacity.” Still, the public wanted him, both parties wanted him, and he had to pick one. Eventually he agreed to sign on with the Whigs, finding them slightly less objectionable than the conservative Democrats of the South. Now it was time to sell him to the Whig party faithful.

Lincoln was headed to New England.

[Adapted from my forthcoming book]

[Photo credit: Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons, unknown, possibly Maguire of New Orleans]

Coming in February 2026: Unable to Escape This Toil

Available now – Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.