ZACHARY TAYLOR, TWELFTH PRESIDENT 1849-1850.
MILLARD FILLMORE, THIRTEENTH PRESIDENT 1850-1853.

Brief Administration of General Taylor; Admission of California; Fillmore as President; Lopez and the Cuban Affairs; Sioux Indians; Kossuth; Sir John Franklin and the Grinnell Expedition; Fishery Question; Death of Clay and Webster; The Telegraph.

ZACHARY TAYLOR, born in Virginia, in November, 1781, before the close of the Revolution, removed in childhood to Kentucky. In 1807, he entered the United States army, and had won distinction in the war with Great Britain, as well as at a later date in the Seminole war and the first campaign against Mexico. His brilliant victories at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, and Buena Vista had made him a favorite with the people.

Although he had never filled any civil position in the Government, great hopes were placed in his integrity and decisive character. He selected as his first Cabinet, John M. Clayton, as Secretary of State; William M. Meredith, Secretary of the Treasury; George W. Crawford, Secretary of War; William B. Preston, Secretary of the Navy; and to the newly erected Department of the Interior he appointed Thomas Ewing.

One of the first questions for consideration was the erection of a State Government in California, a somewhat premature step, but called for by the large number who had already settled in the State, and the constant influx from all parts.

Governor Riley, the military governor of California, called a convention to form a State Constitution, which it did, September i, 1849. When the people adopted the instrument submitted to them by this convention, they elected Peter H. Burnett as Governor. This Constitution excluded slavery from California.

The Legislature at once proceeded to elect two Senators, who hastened to Washington with a petition asking the recognition of California as a State. On the meeting of Congress in December, General Taylor sent in these petitions and recommended action upon them; but intense excitement prevailed through the country. Taking alarm at the hostility manifested by Northern members to the institution of slavery, the Southern members of Congress prepared to secede from the Union. A convention was called at Nashville, January, 1850, to consider the step.

The question of slavery excited violent debates in Congress, which lasted for four months, and resulted in the Compromise Act of 1850, passed on the 9th of September. By this, California was admitted as a free State; the country east of it was formed into Utah Territory, with no limitation in regard to slavery; New Mexico was made a Territory in the same way. At the same time provision was made for the return by the Northern States of fugitive slaves from the South.

But before this act passed, Zachary Taylor passed away. He died, July 9, 1850, of a sudden and painful illness.

MILLARD FILLMORE, a native of Cayuga County, New York, who had risen from the position of an humble mechanic to a high rank at the bar by his own exertions, assumed the duties of the Presidency on the l0th of July, 1850. He did not retain Taylor's Cabinet, but called Daniel Webster to the Department of State; Thomas Corwin, to that of the Treasury; made Charles M. Conrad Secretary of War; Alexander H. H. Stuart, Secretary of the Interior; and William A. Graham, Secretary of the Navy.

Under his administration the questions as to the admission of California were, as we have seen, settled. Utah, made a Territory by the same act, had already been fixed upon by the Mormons as their future abode. In this Territory is a remarkable body of water, known as the Great Salt Lake, resembling the Dead Sea in the saline character of its waters. On this the Mormons began Salt Lake City. Here they commenced cultivating the soil and raising cattle. Missionaries were sent to Europe, who found many to join them in England, Wales, and Norway. They thus increased rapidly in numbers, but being unrestrained by any neighbors, and under no control, they soon introduced many practices at violence with all civilized custom: among others, that of polygamy, by which a man had several wives at the same time. Brigham Young, their prophet and chief, was for a time the Governor appointed by the authorities at Washington, and this confirmed their power. As the Legislature of the Territory was entirely Mormon, and all the judges, there was no means of punishing a Mormon for polygamy, or for many murders which were laid to their charge, sometimes of considerable bodies of emigrants. The difficulties of treating the Mormon question, prevented the admission of Utah as a State, and kept settlers from entering a Territory where they could not feel safe.

During the troubles arising out of the French Revolution, Spain was for a time ruled by a brother of Napoleon, and became the scene of many battles between the English and French. Profiting by the distracted state of the mother country, all the Spanish colonies in North and South America threw off the Spanish yoke, and, following the example of the United States, formed separate republics. Spain was able to retain only Cuba, and Porto Rico, in the West Indies. In these, too, a republican feeling grew up; and in 1851, plans were formed for a revolution in Cuba, with the design of throwing off all dependence on Spain, and making that island a republic.

There were many in the United States who sympathized with the Cubans, and who were ready to join in the attempt, many having seen service in Mexico. President Fillmore acted with decision, and prevented the organization and fitting out of a military force in the United States; but in August, an expedition of four hundred and eighty men, under General Narciso Lopez, a native of South America, who had been in the Spanish service, sailed from New Orleans, in the steamer Pampero, and landed, on the 12th day of August, at Playtas, on the northern coast of Cuba. Leaving a small party under Colonel Cnttenden, of Kentucky, at the landing, Lopez penetrated into the interior, expecting a general uprising of the people. None rallied to his standard. Crittenden and his party were captured by Spanish troops, and shot; Lopez was soon defeated and his men dispersed. He himself, with some of his officers, was taken to Havana, and there garroted, the mode of death used in Spanish parts. Others were condemned, but most of them were ultimately pardoned.

As emigration was steadily pouring to the Northwest, it became desirable to extinguish the Indian title to lands in Minnesota, and induce the powerful nation of Sioux to retire farther westward. By two treaties in 1851, they yielded large tracts of land; but though the Indians thus ceded part of their hunting-grounds, they viewed with jealousy the increase of the whites, and nourished a spirit of revenge.

Among the acts of the first Congress under Fillmore's administration, was one reducing the postage on letters to three cents for any distance under three thousand miles. The experiment of cheap postage had been tried already in England, and found to be equally beneficial to the Government and the people. Another act authorized the Government to send a vessel to bring to the United States Kossuth and other Hungarians, who had been exiled for their opposition to the Austrians. He in fact came over, and for a time excited attention by his eloquence, but the public interest in him soon died away. He was for the time the lion of the day, one of those distinguished foreigners over whom an excitement occurs every few years. The sympathy shown in the United States, and even by the Government, for the Hungarians, had already elicited protests from the Austrian Government. This year witnessed the return of the first Grinnell expedition sent out under Lieutenant De Haven to the Arctic Ocean, to discover and rescue, if possible, Sir John Franklin, an English explorer, who had set out to seek the passage through to the Pacific, but who had not been heard of since 1848. Dr. Kane, who had accompanied De Haven, was sent out in 1853 on a second expedition, by the generous public spirit of Mr. Moses H. Grinnell, but failed to find the lost English navigator. Sir John Franklin had undoubtedly perished amid the northern ice.

An outrage on American shipping occurred at Greytown, Nicaragua, in November, 1851, which showed the English to be actuated by their old overbearing and arbitrary ideas. The American steamer Prometheus was twice fired into by the British brig-of-war Express, and compelled to pay illegal port dues before it was permitted to proceed. The English Government recoiled from any attempt to justify so gross an outrage, and disavowed the acts of the Express. It was the more necessary to maintain a good understanding between the two countries, as violent disputes already existed in regard to the fisheries. By the treaty of 1818, Americans were not to fish within three miles of the shore of the British provinces. On an irregular and much-in dented shore, it became a question how this three miles was to be reckoned. The Americans considered the three-mile line to be one following the coast, and three miles distant from it point for point, while the English drew a line between the most prominent points on the coast, and wished the Americans to be kept three miles beyond that, which would in some cases be five or six miles from the coast. The adjustment of this matter was one of Mr. Webster's last great acts. A mutually satisfactory arrangement of the fishery question was effected by the Reciprocity Treaty with the British colonies.

Henry Clay, long a prominent American statesman representing the South, had died in June, 1852, having resigned his position as Senator from Kentucky. Mr. Webster was now to follow. He died on the 21st of October. These two great men were universally lamented, as all felt that never perhaps in the country's history were such wise and experienced statesmen more needed in the management of public affairs. Webster was succeeded as Secretary of State by the eloquent Edward Everett, one of whose first duties was to reply to the proposal of England and France to join them in a treaty by which Cuba should be secured to Spain. This was a step that America could never take. Everett replied distinctly, "that the United States could not see with indifference the Island of Cuba fall into the possession of any other European Government than Spain." While disclaiming any wish on the part of the United States to wrest Cuba from Spain, he showed that the power of Spain over that island must soon cease, and that, from its very position, America must be free to do what her interest demanded.

In the last session under Mr. Fillmore, Washington Territory was formed out of part of Oregon; money was appropriated to survey a line of railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, so as to bring the two shores of the continent into closer connection.

A wonderful invention, the magnetic telegraph, perfected by Samuel F. B. Morse, an artist and polemical writer, had already been widely adopted. Companies had been formed which extended lines of telegraph to all parts of the country, by which messages were sent over insulated wires with almost the speed of light, making the diffusion of intelligence nearly instantaneous.

In the Presidential election of 1852, there were several candidates. The Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, and as Vice-President, William R. King, of Alabama. The Whigs put forward General Scott as their candidate for the Presidency, with William A. Graham as Vice-President. The Free-soil party nominated John P. Hale, of New Hampshire. Mr. Pierce was elected by a large majority.