Dialogues with Greco, "On Zachary Taylor"

...and cherries and milk...

Greco: Suvian, if I were to ask you what was probably the most decisive issue in America in the mid-nineteenth century, what would you say?

Suvian: That would have to be the slavery issue.

Greco: Agreed. And there was also the issue of how to deal with slavery in the newly acquired territories of that time, namely California and New Mexico. The question of whether slavery should be allowed in those new territories or not was a hotly contested one.

Suvian: And those newly acquired territories were a result of the U.S. winning the Mexican-American War, were they not?

Greco: That's right. But remember, the size of California and New Mexico today is completely different from what it was in those days--combined together, California and New Mexico basically comprised everything west of the Rio Grande all the way out to the Pacific Ocean, a huge territory that we have come to think of as "the West" in the American psyche.

Suvian: I see.

Greco: And if I were to ask you who the hero of the Mexican-American War was, what would you say?

Suvian: Hmm...let's see...that would probably be a former president...

Greco: Yes, and his name was Zachary Taylor, who soon after that war became the twelfth president of the U.S. in 1849. Though a slaveholder, he was against the extension of slavery into the newly acquired territories, and this made him unpopular with his Southern constituency, whose interests he directly threatened.

Suvian: How so?

Greco: Those in the South who wished to see the extension of the slavery system into the new territories saw it as a direct threat to their interests that the president did not support such a policy. And it wasn't only from the South that Taylor received opposition. His own vice-president, Millard Fillmore, was against it, favoring, along with many others in Washington, a more concessionary approach to the issue. In fact, Fillmore was a vehement supporter of the Compromise of 1850, a bill seeking resolution that heavily acquiesced itself to slaveholder interests.

Suvian: And did the bill go through?

Greco: Before answering that, first let it be known that as long as Taylor was alive, the bill would never go through, because he was staunchly against it. But it was eventually passed...

Suvian: How's that?

Greco: On July 9th, 1850, Zachary Taylor died mysteriously of an acute onset of gastroenteritis, supposedly as a result of eating too many cherries and drinking too much milk after the previous July 4th celebrations. Less than a month after his death, the bill went through.

Suvian: Are you saying there's a relationship between the passing of the bill and Taylor's death? Or more generally, between his anti-extensionist stance and his death?

Greco: I'm saying that to even consider such a notion causes a severe case of cognitive dissonance, both for those relegated the authority to define history (the intellectuals), and for those who come to rely on that history to define their experience of who and what they are (the masses). Any investigations into possible foulplay have been met with derision by professional historians and America's intellectual sweetheart, The New York Times. Taylor's death was officially attributed to gastroenteritis, which is actually a set of symptoms, not a cause, and as such, leaves the question of his death unanswered.

Suvian: So cognitive dissonance functions to keep the flow of thought within acceptable boundaries, and one effect of that is not being able to consider possibilities outside of those boundaries...

Greco: Yes, and remember it is largely the intellectual's job to define those boundaries for us...you can think of intellectuals as a kind of "secular priesthood", if you will.

Suvian: I see. And so with regard to the death of Zachary Taylor, are you saying that he was poisoned?

Greco: I fear that question will forever remain a mystery, my dear Suvian. But the circumstances surrounding his death provide us with an excellent example of cognitive dissonance in action--cherries, milk, and all.

In closing, let us not forget the precept of Occam, namely that from a given range of explanations, the simplest is usually the best.