Nathaniel Green Taylor

Nathaniel Green Taylor (December 29, 1819 – April 1, 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.

Taylor was born at Happy Valley in Carter County, Tennessee, the son of James Patton Taylor (1792–1833) and his wife, the former Mary Carter (1799–1840). His family was prominent in Carter County. His paternal grandfather, General Nathaniel Taylor (1771–1816), a native of Rockbridge County, Virginia, was among the area's early settlers and the county's first sheriff; he began the construction of Sabine Hill in Elizabethton. His maternal grandfather, Landon Carter (1760–1800), an American Revolutionary War veteran, was the man for whom Carter County was named.

Nathaniel Green Taylor received his education privately before entering Washington College near Jonesborough, Tennessee. He graduated from Princeton College in 1840, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1841. He began his legal practice in Elizabethton, Tennessee in Carter County. He owned slaves.

Taylor married Emmaline (Emma) Haynes (1822–1890), the sister of Democratic politician Landon Carter Haynes (Speaker of the Tennessee House and later a Confederate senator from Tennessee). Two of their six sons, Alfred A. Taylor (1848–1931) and Robert Love Taylor (1850–1912), were each elected to Congress and as governor of Tennessee, as Republican and Democratic candidates, respectively. The remaining seven children who survived both parents included sons James Patton Taylor (1844–1924), Nathaniel Winfield Taylor (1852–1904), David Haynes Taylor (1858–1890) and Hugh Lawson McClung Taylor (1859–1935), and daughters Mary Eva Taylor Jobe (1855–1916), Rhoda Emma Taylor Reeves (1855–1943), and Sanna McClung Taylor Miller (1862–1941).

In 1849, Nathaniel G. Taylor was a candidate for election to the U.S. House of Representatives in the Tennessee First U.S. House, eventually losing the general election to Democrat Andrew Johnson of Greene County.

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.)

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 remainder of the term. Taylor won, and served in the Thirty-third Congress from March 30, 1854 to March 3, 1855. Though Taylor sought re-election in 1855, this time Watkins (now running as a Democrat), won a narrow victory, by 270 votes out of 15,292 cast. In 1857, Taylor ran as the "American" candidate (the Whig Party having broken up) against Watkins. This proved another narrow loss, by 170 votes out of 15,118 cast. Taylor did not run in 1859.

In 1860, Taylor served as a presidential elector for the Constitutional Union ticket of Bell and Everett (both former Whigs).