An Available Candidate

A man with bushy eyebrows and sideburns, wearing a military uniform and a flamboyantly plumed helmet, sits atop a pyramid-shaped pile of skulls, holding a blood-tipped sword in his right hand. The caption reads "An Available Candidate: The One Qualification for a Whig President." Historians are unsure whether the central figure in this political cartoon, produced during the run-up to the U.S. presidential election of 1848, is General Zachary Taylor or General Winfield Scott. Taylor was regarded favorably as a Mexican-American War hero and won the Whig presidential nomination (and, eventually, the presidency), but the hat and uniform are more often associated with representations of Scott, was also a popular general of the Mexican-American War and a rival for the Whig presidential nomination. Taylor was nominated at the party's convention in Philadelphia in June 1848.