Before his presidency, Taylor had been a soldier in the US army for 40 years, and even rose to the rank of general (General Zachary Taylor). These years in the army made him a strong nationalist. Taylor won the election of 1848 by a narrow victory. While Van Buren failed to carry a single state, he polled an impressive 290,000 votes (10% of the total), and the Free-Soilers (Free-Soil Party) elected ten members to Congress. The emergence of the Free-Soil Party as an important political force signaled the inability of the existing parties to contain the political passions slavery was creating, and was an important factor in the collapse of the second party system late in the 1850s. By the time Taylor took office, the pressure to resolve the question of slavery in the far western territories had become more urgent as a result of the finding of gold in California. Almost immediately, hundreds of thousands of people form around the world began flocking to California in a frantic search for gold. The California migrants (known as “Forty-Niners”) threw caution to the winds, and left everything for gold. Although Taylor was in office during the time of the ideal beginning of the Compromise of 1850, but he died before it was implemented, on July 9th, 1850.