Alfred A. Taylor - Political Life

Political Life

Alf Taylor was elected to the Tennessee state legislature as a Republican starting in 1875.

In the 1886 gubernatorial election Alf Taylor was nominated as the Republican candidate, and the Democrats proceeded to nominate his brother Bob Taylor as their candidate. The electoral contest was known as the "War of the Roses", after the event in English history in which the related York and Lancaster families fought for the English crown. Robert's supporters wore red roses, while Alfred's backers sported white roses. The two men traveled the state together, debating publicly at every stop and often sleeping at night in the same bed. Robert Taylor won the race, at a time of Democratic political dominance in the state.

Two years later in 1888, Alf Taylor was elected to the United States House of Representatives; he was re-elected for the next two terms as well, and served from 1889 to 1895. He supported the "McKinley Tariff and the Lodge Federal Elections Bill, a measure to protect African-American voting rights with federal supervision." He continued to support Republican politics between his time in Congress and his 1920 nomination for governor. Although the state as a whole was predominantly Democratic, Taylor's native East Tennessee was ardently Republican.

After leaving Congress, Alf Taylor and his brother Bob went on the lecture circuit, popular in the late nineteenth century, billing themselves respectively as "Yankee Doodle" and "Dixie." They both also did farming in between.