Zachary Taylor (Rough and Ready)

After his close re-election in 1852, despite initial unwillingness to run, he managed to push through his agenda for the Western Territories; dubbed the Western Compromise, it banned slavery in the 3 new States formed from the Compromise, and shrunk the territory claimed by the State of Texas. After being singed on May 14, 1854, several prominent pro-slave extremists from the American South began to push for succession from the union which continued to cause tensions in Congress, and led to a major crisis through the winter of 1854 to the summer of 1855, only to be diffused slightly by a small scale slave revolt which called for the intervention of federal troops.

After leaving office to his successor, Winfield Scott, he spent his remaining months on his plantation in Virginia, where he would die on August 25, 1857 just following the beginning of the American Civil War.