The Mexican war was unfortunate for the administration which carried it on, for the political party which caused the war. The success of General Taylor attracted the attention of the people, and the obscure soldier took popular rank before the President of the United States. Unconsciously the vicarious suitor, courting public favor for his master, won good graces for himself. The political party which began the war, was eclipsed by the triumph of its own soldier; and the slave-power which projected the war seems likely to be ruined by the success of the enterprise.
It has been said, that he was averse to the Mexican war which he fought in; I know not whether this be true or false. But if true, it deserves to be remembered in his defence, that the soldier is only an active tool, as much the instrument of his employer as the spade of the workman whose foot crowds it into the ground. The soldier, high or low, must obey the men who have the official right to command him, his free-will merging in that of his superior. If General Taylor had thought the Mexican war unjust and wicked, and in consequence had resigned his commission, he would have been covered with obloquy and contempt in the eyes of military men, and the officials of government. Most of the newspapers of the land would have attacked him, called him a coward, a traitor and a fanatic; their condemnation would have been worth as much as their praise is now. In estimating his character we ought to remember this fact, for few men do more than their office demands of them, or more than public opinion can approve.
Such was the success of General Taylor in war, at the head of a few thousand men, that public attention was turned towards him, and in a few months the obscure frontier soldier was the most prominent man in the nation. In 1848 he received the nomination of the Whig Convention at Philadelphia, for President, and in due time was elected.
His election was certainly one of the most remarkable that ever took place in America. It is worth while to look at it for a moment. There was nothing very remarkable in the man to entitle him to that eminent distinction; if there were, the nation was very slow in finding it out. He was a farmer till about twenty-four years old; then a common Lieutenant four years more. In the next twenty years he got no higher than to the rank of a "Frontier Colonel;" he attained that dignity in fact, at the age of forty-eight. He was not made General till the fifty-fifth year of his age. But for the Mexican war, I suppose he would, at this day, be as obscure as any other General in the United States' army; nobody would think he was the "Second Washington," "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," as his creatures have declared. Other military men have been chosen to the presidency. But Washington was much more than a soldier; in "a time that tried men's souls" to the utmost, he had carried the nation through eight years of most perilous warfare, more by his character than any eminent military skill, and so had become endeared to the hearts of the people as no American had ever been before. General Jackson, at first educated as a lawyer, was a man of large talents, distinguished as a Governor, as a Senator, and as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, before he was elected President, or nominated for that office. General Harrison, a man of small abilities, surely not more than a third-rate politician in Ohio, was yet familiar with the routine of political affairs. He had been a member of the Legislature of Ohio, of both branches of the Congress of the United States, and Minister to Colombia. General Taylor, with an education very imperfect, had passed his life, from twenty-four to sixty-four, on the frontiers and in the army; had never held any civil office; had seldom voted, and though an excellent officer in the sphere of duty he had occupied, did not appear to be the most promising man in the nation to select for its highest and most difficult office. The defence of a log-house in 1812 against a troop of Indians, the conquest of Black Hawk, the rout of the Seminoles, the gaining of half-a-dozen battles in Mexico, at the head of a few thousand soldiers, does not seem exactly an adequate schooling to prepare a common man to lead and rule twenty million Americans with the most complicated government in the world. It certainly was surprising, that he should be nominated for that office; and more so, that the nomination should be confirmed by the people. It is not surprising, that the distinguished Senator of Massachusetts should call this "A nomination not fit to be made;" the wonder is, he deemed it fit to be confirmed. In selecting him for our chief, the nation went hap-hazard, and made a leap in the dark. No prudent man in Boston would hire a cook or a coachman with such inadequate recommendations as General Taylor had to prove his fitness for his place. Had a sensible man on election day asked the nation, "What do you know about the man you vote for?" the people would have been sadly puzzled to seek for an answer. The reasons which led to his selection were partly special, and partly of a general and popular character. It is instructive for us to look at them, now that we can do it coolly.
I suppose this was the special cause of his nomination: The leaders of the whig party thought they could not elect either of their most prominent men. If they went before the people with nothing but their idea,—The protection of property by a tariff, and a Representative of that idea, however able and well trained, they feared defeat; such as they had met with in the last campaign, when the democratic party, with a man almost unknown to the people, a tricky lawyer from Tennessee, had yet carried the day against one of the oldest and ablest politicians in the country. So the whig leaders availed themselves of the temporary popularity of a successful General to give an accidental triumph to their party, and apparently to their idea. That I think was the specific reason which led the politicians to nominate him. Doubtless there were other private reasons, weighty to certain individuals, that need not be touched upon.
But the general reasons, which gave him weight with the mass of the people and secured his election, ought to be stated for our serious reflection.
1. There was no one of the great leaders of either party whom the people had much confidence in. I am sorry to say so, but I do not think there is much in any of them to command the respect of a nation, and make us swear fealty to those men. There were two candidates of the whig party; from one of them you might expect a compromise; from the other you were not certain even of that. The democratic candidate had not a name to conjure with. The free soil candidate—was he a man to trust in such times as these? Did you see your king and chief in any one of those four men? Was any one of them fit to be the political schoolmaster of this nation? What "ground and lofty tumbling" have we had from all four of them?
2. General Taylor was not mixed up with the grand or petty intrigues of the parties, their quarrels and struggles for office. Men knew little about him; if little good, certainly little not good; little evil in comparison with any of the others. Sometimes you take a man whom you do not know, in preference to an old acquaintance whom you have known too long and too well to trust.
3. Then General Taylor had shown himself a rough, honest, plain, straight-forward man, and withal mild and good-natured. Apparently, there was much in him to attract and deserve the good-will of the nation. His likeness went abroad through the country like a proclamation; it was the rude, manly, firm, honest, good-natured, homely face of a backwoodsman. His plain habits, plain talk, and modest demeanor reminded men of the old English ballad of "The King and the Miller" and the like, and won the affections of honest men. I doubt not the fact that General Harrison had once lived in a log cabin, and, other things failing, did drink "hard cider," gave him thousands of votes. The candidate was called "Old Rough and Ready," and there was not a clown in field or city but could understand all that was meant by those terms. Even his celebrated horse contributed to his master's election, and drew votes for the President by the thousand.