Nathaniel Green Taylor (1819–1887) was an American lawyer, farmer, and politician from Tennessee. He was U.S. Representative from Tennessee from 1854 to 1855, and again from 1866 to 1867, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1867 to 1869. He was a Whig, and then an "American" (Know Nothing), before the American Civil War, and became a Unionist during and after the war.
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Taylor was born in Happy Valley, Tennessee in Carter County on December 29, 1819. He was educated in private schools and Washington College Academy near Jonesborough, Tennessee. He graduated from Princeton College in 1840, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1841. He commenced practice in Elizabethton, Tennessee in Carter County.[1]
A Whig, Taylor married Emma Haynes. She was the sister of the Democratic politician Landon Carter Haynes, who was elected Speaker of the Tennessee House and later a Confederate senator from Tennessee. Politically involved, the couple founded a political family: their sons Alfred, the oldest, and Robert, were each elected to Congress and as governor of Tennessee, as Republican and Democratic candidates, respectively.
In 1853, Taylor was one of two Whig candidates for U.S. Representative in Tennessee's 1st congressional district. He lost to Democrat Brookins Campbell, by only 138 votes out of 14,900 cast in a three way race. (3,988 votes went to rival Whig Albert Watkins, incumbent Representative from the 2nd district, who had been moved to the 1st district by reapportionment.)[2]
Campbell never qualified to take his seat in Congress, and died on December 25, 1853. A special election was held in 1854 to fill the resulting vacancy for the remainder of the term. Taylor won, and served in the Thirty-third Congress from March 30, 1854 to March 3, 1855.[1] Taylor sought re-election in 1855, but was narrowly defeated by Watkins (now running as a Democrat), by 270 votes out of 15,292 cast. Taylor challenged Watkins again in 1857, (as an "American" candidate, the Whig Party having broken up). He again lost narrowly: 170 votes out of 15,118 cast.[2] He was not a candidate in 1859.
In 1860, Taylor served as a presidential elector for the Constitutional Union ticket of Bell and Everett (both former Whigs).[1]
During the Civil War, Taylor adhered to the Union cause despite Tennessee's joining the Confederacy. He was a member of a society to relieve the sufferings of pro-Union residents of east Tennessee under Confederate rule. He lectured on behalf of this society throughout the northeastern U.S.[1]
Tennessee was readmitted to representation in Congress in 1866. Taylor was again elected Representative from the 1st district, this time as a Union candidate. This was the party label adopted by President Lincoln and the Republicans in 1864, along with Unionist Democrats such as Vice-Presidential candidate Andrew Johnson (who was from east Tennessee).[2] Taylor served in the Thirty-ninth Congress from July 24, 1866 to March 3, 1867. He was not a candidate for re-election in 1867.[1]
Instead, Johnson, now President, appointed Taylor Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Taylor served as Commissioner from March 26, 1867 to April 21, 1869, when he retired.[1] He took the 19-year-old Alfred along when he went to present-day Kansas in 1867 to try to settle the Plains Wars.[3] Elected chair of the Indian Peace Commission, Taylor negotiated the Medicine Lodge Treaty, by which southern Plains Indians, the Kiowa, Apache and Comanche, agreed to remove to a reservation in Indian Territory in exchange for ceding their traditional lands in present-day Kansas and the region.
Taylor returned to Tennessee and devoted himself to farming and preaching in Carter County. He died in Happy Valley, Tennessee on April 1, 1887, and was interred in the Taylor private cemetery. Nathaniel Green Taylor was the father of two Tennessee politicians, Alfred Alexander Taylor and Robert Love Taylor, both of whom served as U.S. Representative and Governor of Tennessee.[1]
| United States House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Brookins Campbell |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 1st congressional district 1854-1855 |
Succeeded by Albert Galiton Watkins |
| Preceded by Vacant |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 1st congressional district 1866-1867 |
Succeeded by Roderick R. Butler |