The Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address

by Abraham Lincoln

He could not even wait for the adjournment of Congress to begin his stump speaking. Following the bad example of the rest of his colleagues, he obtained the floor on the 27th of July and made a long, brilliant and humorous speech, upon the merits of the two candidates before the people.—(Abraham Lincoln: A History, vol. i, p. 279.)

This was Lincoln's noted "coat-tail speech," in which he paid his respects to General Cass, the candidate of the Democrats.

Immediately after the adjournment of Congress, Lincoln went to New England, where he delivered speeches in favor of Taylor, and opposing not so much the Democrats as the Free-Soilers, whose hostility was weakening and threatening to defeat the Whig Party.

Lincoln fully expected that Taylor when elected would remember and reward him for this service. What Lincoln wanted, inasmuch as he was not permitted to return to Congress, was an appointment as General Commissioner of the United States Land Office in Washington. To his bitter disappointment Taylor did not appoint him, but gave the position to Justin Butterfield, of Chicago, who was said to have been favored by Daniel Webster.

Although Lincoln's chief activity in the Taylor campaign was outside the State of Illinois, it happened that he delivered one notable stump speech for Taylor in the city of Chicago. It was while he was on his way back from the East, coming in part by the Great Lakes, and making his visit to Niagara, that he stopped in Chicago, Friday, October 6, 1848. The "Evening Journal" announced that "Hon. A. Lincoln, M.C., from this State, and family, were at the Sherman House." The same issue called upon the friends of Taylor and Fillmore to rally that evening at the Court-House and hear Mr. Lincoln on the issues of the campaign. "The notice is short," said the "Journal," "but Old Zack's soldiers are all minute men." The papers next day announced that although there was scant notice, only six hours, the Court-House was overcrowded, and adjournment had to be taken to the park, where Lincoln spoke for two hours in what the editor declared was one of the best political speeches which the editor had ever heard or read.

When General Taylor died, it was eminently fitting that Lincoln, as the one Whig member from Illinois of the last Congress before the election of Taylor, should have been invited to deliver the Eulogy upon him. His arrival in Chicago, two days before the death of President Taylor, furnished a convenient opportunity for the people of the city to hear him. If Lincoln had any feelings, as he may well have had, that General Taylor did not sufficiently recognize Lincoln's activities in the campaign that led to his election, the address portrays nothing of his disappointment. Though the address was hastily prepared in the midst of duties which kept him more or less busy in court, he accepted the invitation gladly and improved the occasion to the satisfaction of his hearers.

In a number of respects the address of Lincoln presents points of interest. First of all, it is notable in its biographical character. It presents in outline a fairly complete account of the life and service of General Taylor. Lincoln doubtless availed himself of such biographical data as the campaign had recently produced and which Lincoln found at hand in Chicago after the invitation had been received by him to deliver the address.

It is noteworthy that in speaking of Taylor's invasion of Mexican territory, Lincoln takes pains to state that he did it under orders. It was this fact that enabled Lincoln and other Whigs who were opposed on principle to the Mexican War to support Taylor for the Presidency. They were particular to explain that he performed that act as a soldier, under orders, and that the Polk Administration was responsible, and not their own candidate. In this address Lincoln did not enlarge upon that fact, but he did not fail to state it.

His favorable comment upon the fact that Taylor had not engaged in dueling is the more notable because Lincoln had himself been an unwilling participant in what had threatened to be a duel—a fact of which he was never very proud.

It is notable that he speaks of Taylor's freedom from ambition to be President until the position came within the range of possibility, and then became possessed of a "laudable ambition" to secure the position. Lincoln had not as yet precisely an ambition of that character, but there always lurked in his mind the possibility that he might rise to that high position. Even in 1848, when he had not been reëlected to Congress, and had been disappointed in his remaining political ambition, he still thought the desire to become President a "laudable ambition."