To rule a bank, a factory, or a railroad, when the officer is chosen for business and not charity, to command a packet-ship or a steamboat, you will get a man of real talent in his line of work; one that has some history, who has made his proof-shot, and shown that he has some mettle in him. But to such a pass has the business of ruling a nation arrived, that, of all the sovereigns of Christian Europe, it is said not more than two, Nicholas of Russia, and Oscar of Sweden, would have been distinguished if born in private stations. The most practical and commercial nation in the world, possessing at this moment a power more eminently great than that of the Roman empire in its palmy time, has for a ruler a quite ordinary woman, who contributes neither ideas nor organizations, and probably could not administer wisely the affairs of a single shire in the island. In this respect, the highest stations of political life seem to have become as barren as the Dead Sea. In selecting our rulers in America, it is long since we have had a man of large powers, even of the sort which the majority of men appreciate in a contemporary. I have sometimes thought men were selected who were thought not strong enough to hurt us much, forgetting that a weak man may sometimes hurt us as much more than a strong one would.
After all this preliminary, let me now say something of the late President Taylor, only further premising that I am here to tell the truth about him, so far as I know it, and nothing more or less. I am not responsible for the facts of the case, only for the correct statement thereof. There have been men who were not disposed to do him justice; there were men enough to flatter and overpraise him while alive, and there will probably be enough of such now that he is dead. Much official panegyric has there been already, and much more is in prospect. I think I need not be called on for any contribution of that sort. I wish to weigh him in an even balance, neither praising nor blaming without cause. To eulogize is one thing; to deal justly, another and quite different.
Zachary Taylor was born on the 24th of November, 1784, in Orange county, Virginia. His father, Richard Taylor, was a soldier during a part of the Revolutionary War, had a colonel's commission in 1779, and appears to have been a valuable officer and a worthy man. In 1785 he removed to Kentucky, where he resided until his death. He was a farmer, a man of property and influence in Kentucky, then a new country. He was one of the framers of the Constitution of that State; several times in the Legislature, and the first collector of the port of Louisville, then a port of entry.
Zachary, the third son, followed the business of farming until he was more than twenty-three years of age. During his childhood he received such an education as you can imagine in a new and wild country like Kentucky sixty years ago. However, it is said his father took great pains with his education, and he enjoyed the instruction of a schoolmaster from Connecticut, who is still living. Hence it is plain the best part of his education must have come, not from the schoolmaster, but from the farm, the woods, and the connection with his parents and their associates. What a man learns at school, even in Boston, is but a small part of his education. In General Taylor's case, it is probable that things had much more to do with his culture than words. Men nursed on Greek and Latin would probably have called him an uneducated man; with equal justice he might call many a scholar an uneducated man. To speak and write with grammatical accuracy is by no means the best test of education.
Fondness for a military life is natural in a man born and bred as he was, living in a country where the vicinity of the Indians made every man a Quaker or a soldier.
About 1808, volunteers were raised in the West to oppose the expected movements of Aaron Burr, a traitor to his country, a bold, bad man, who had been the candidate of the federalists for the Presidency; perhaps the worst man we had had in politics up to that time. Mr. Taylor joined one of the companies of volunteers. In 1808 he was appointed Lieutenant in the army of the United States, joined the forces, was soon sent to New Orleans, was seized with the yellow fever, and returned home.
In 1810 he was married to Miss Margaret Smith, of Maryland.
In 1811 he was employed in expeditions against the Indians in the Northwest of the United States. Here he was under the command of General Harrison.