Political contributions were not as simple as donations. In a conventional sense, political contributions, or campaign donations, were free support provided by supporters of presidential candidates to the candidates they supported.
All citizens in the country could donate to candidates whose demands and political views were in line with their own, hoping that they would succeed in the election.
However, ordinary people usually donated a few dollars, or even just a few cents.
Although there were many ordinary people who donated in the country, the total amount of donations from these ordinary people usually only accounted for a small portion of the candidates' campaign funds. The real bulk came from capitalists!
The political contributions made by capitalists to presidential candidates were not charitable donations, but an investment behavior, and they had to pay attention to returns.
After the candidates received the political donations, they would repay the financial backers with political benefits after taking over the government, allowing the financial backers to benefit from it.
In other words, the capitalists who provided large amounts of funds to presidential candidates all had their own demands, and they needed the candidates to fulfill their demands after they were elected.
And this sudden huge donation made Zachary Taylor a little dignified. He didn't know what the other party would ask for.
He told himself in his heart that if the other party's request violated the interests of the citizens and the country, he wouldn't agree even if he didn't want the funds.
Hearing Zachary Taylor's inquiry, Tom met his inquisitive gaze and replied in a neither servile nor overbearing manner.
"General Taylor, our boss's money is not a political contribution, but a free donation to support your presidential campaign. He has no demands."
Tom's words made Zachary Taylor stunned. He thought of all possible answers, but this was the only one he didn't think of.
"Why?"
Zachary Taylor couldn't help but ask in confusion.
Tom smiled slightly, looked at Zachary Taylor, and said slowly.
"Our boss said, thank you for taking care of Viktor and James for the past two years."
"It's him!"
…
In the end, things turned out as the Whigs had expected. The Mexican-American War had just ended, and the greatest hero of the war, Zachary Taylor, had a huge influence in the hearts of the people. Coupled with the advantages mentioned earlier, the internal operations of the Whigs, and the large amount of campaign funds from New York, Zachary Taylor successfully defeated Lewis Cass and was successfully elected as the twelfth president of the United States.
After Taylor took office, he first dealt with the Cuba issue.
The slave owners in the southern United States had long coveted Cuba, seeing it as a new source of slave labor. President Polk once wanted to buy an island in Cuba from Spain.
In 1849, Southern Expansionists and slaveholders supported a Cuban adventurer in organizing an expedition near New Orleans to foment a rebellion in Cuba, which would later be annexed to the United States as a slave state.
President Tyler, fearing that this would cause great dissension at home, issued a proclamation on the question of Cuba on August 11, 1849, declaring that it was the duty of the United States government to uphold the treaty and to prevent its citizens from encroaching upon the territory of a friendly nation. He warned American citizens not to take part in the illegal activities of an armed expedition against Cuba.
The expeditionary team's plan thus collapsed and died in the womb.
This was Zachary Taylor's first confrontation with the slave owners of the southern plantations.
In fact, Zachary Taylor himself was actually a slave owner in the southern plantation. For his own benefit, he should have supported this instigation against Cuba, but a slave owner was only one of his identities.
For the past forty years, he had spent most of his time in the army, and the huge cotton plantation was only one of his properties. He didn't spend too much effort on it, and he was far less harsh and cruel to his slaves than other slave owners.
Now that he had become the president, he had to consider the interests of the country. The war with Mexico had just ended, and what he should do now was to digest the gains of this war, not continue to be greedy and invade. This was not good for the stability and development of the country. The ones who really benefited were the southern slave owners who urgently needed a large number of slaves to expand the scale of their plantations.
Zachary Taylor's actions caused dissatisfaction among some southern planters, who believed that he had betrayed the south and sided with the northerners.
At this time, Zachary Taylor was faced with another big problem.
After the Mexican War, the United States had acquired California, New Mexico, Utah, and other lands.
The southern plantation slave owners and the northern bourgeoisie had long been engaged in a fierce struggle over the issue of slavery.
As early as 1790, the federal government, in order to resolve interstate border disputes, drew a Mason – Dixon line between Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. After 1804, this line became the dividing line between the free and slave states in the eastern part of the United States.
North of this line was the free state, where slavery was not allowed, and south of this line was the slave state, where slavery was allowed.
By 1819, there were 22 states in the United States, and the number of slave states and free states was equal, so they had equal seats in the Senate. The southern plantation slave owners and the northern bourgeoisie maintained a balance of political power, and together they controlled the direction of development and political decisions of the United States.
But in 1819, the Missouri Special District, which had existed slavery during the French period, applied to join the Union.
Thus, there was a dispute in Congress about whether Missouri should join the Union as a free state or a slave state.
At the end of the same year, the northern region asked for Maine to join the Union as a free state.
In the end, Congress reached the Missouri Compromise in 1820. Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state joined the Union, maintaining the "balance of power" in the Senate, and the boundary between the free and slave states was set at latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes north.
When Zachary Taylor became president, the northern states were in a period of high anti-slavery sentiment.
After the Mexican-American War, the large tracts of new land, whether to join the Union as a slave state or as a free state, had become an important factor in the expansion of the conflict between the northern and southern states.
The most pressing issue facing Zachary Taylor was the status of California and New Mexico.
California asked to join the Union as a free state, and New Mexico also asked to be a free state. These demands immediately heated up the struggle between the northern and southern states.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
