4. Then he was a successful soldier. The dullest man in the Alleghany mountains, or in the low lanes of New York and Boston, or the silliest behind the counters of a city shop, can understand fighting, and remember who won a battle. It is wholly needless for such to inquire what the battle was fought for. Hence military success is always popular with the multitude, and will be, I suppose, for some ages in America as everywhere else. Our churches know no God but the "Lord of hosts," "A man of war!"
5. Then he was a southern man, and all our masters must be from the South, or of it, devoted to its peculiar institution. If he had been born in Barnstable county, and owned a little patch of yellow sand at Cape Cod, and had the freeman's hatred of slavery, even Churubusco and Buena Vista would not have given him the votes of the Convention, and his war-horse might have lived till this day, he would not have carried his master to the presidency. He was a slaveholder, as seven Presidents had been before him, holding office for eight-and-forty years. There are some men at the North, chiefly in the country towns, who think it is not altogether right for a man to steal his brother; such men were to be propitiated. So it was diligently rumored abroad in the North, that the candidate was "opposed to slavery," that he would "probably emancipate his slaves as soon as he was elected." I am told that some persons who heard such a story, actually believed it; I think nobody who told it believed any such thing. The fact that he was a slaveholder, that he had lately purchased one hundred and fourteen men, women, and children, and kept them at hard work for his advantage, showed the value of such a story; and the opposite statement, publicly and industriously circulated at the South, that he loved slavery, desired its extension, and hated the Wilmot Proviso, shows the honesty of some of the men at the North, who, knowing these facts, sought to keep them secret.
These seem to have been the chief reasons which procured his nomination and election. It is easy to see that such a man, though as honest as Washington, must be eminently unfit for the high office of President of the United States. He knew little or nothing of the political history of the country, or of the political questions then up for solution; little or nothing of the political men. He had the honesty to confess it. He declared that he was not fit for the office, not acquainted with the political measures of the day, and only consented to be brought from his obscurity, when great men told him he was the only man that could "save the Union." He was no statesman, and knew nothing of politics, less than the majority of the more cultivated mechanics, merchants and farmers. He was a soldier, and knew something of fighting, at least of fighting Indians and Mexicans. If you should take a man of the common abilities, intellectual and moral, the common education, a farmer from Northfield, a skipper from Provincetown, a jobber from Boston, a bucket-maker from Hingham, and appoint him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, with the duty of selecting all his associate Judges, I think he would be about as competent for the office as General Taylor for the post he was elected to. In such a case as I have supposed, the new "Judge" must depend on other men, who will tell him what to do; his only safety would be in relying on their advice. Then they would be the Chief Justice, not he.
Under such circumstances, the leaders of one party nominated him. I must confess such an act, committed by such men, seems exceedingly rash. It was done by the very men who ought, above all others, to have known better. This is one of the many things we have had, which show thinking men how little we can rely on our political chiefs. The nomination once made, the election followed. The wise men told the multitude: "You must vote for him," and the multitude voted. You know how angry men were if you did not believe in his fitness for the office; how it became a test of "patriotism" to believe in him. Now the good man is cold in death, how base all that seems!
When such a man under such circumstances comes into such an office, you do not know whether the deeds which receive his official sanction, the papers published under his name, the speeches he delivers, and the messages he sends, are his or not his. It is probable that he has little to do with them; they are his officially, not personally; he writes State papers by their signature. Some of his speeches were undoubtedly made for him. You know it once happened that a speech, alleged to have been made by him at a public meeting, was sent on by telegraph, and published by the party organ, in one of our great cities, and he was taken sick before the meeting was held, and could not speak at all. That speech betrayed the trick of the administration: it was a speech he had never heard of. From this one act judge of many more. In his arduous office, he must choose advisers, but he wants advisers to advise him to choose advisers. Much will depend on his first step; that must needs be in the dark.
Since this is so, I shall pass over his brief administration with very few words. I do not know how much it was the administration of General Taylor, or how far it was that of his Cabinet. I do not know who made the Cabinet. The messages, in his official term, were as good as usual; but who made the messages? One thing is clear: he promised to be the President of the country, not of a party; to remove no man from office except for reasons not political. Neither promise was kept. It was plain that other elements interfered and counteracted the honest intentions of that honest man. General Jackson rewarded his "friends" and punished his "enemies," men who voted against him. Mr. Jefferson had done the same. But I doubt if the administration of either of these men was so completely a party administration as that of General Taylor. Men were continually removed from office purely for political reasons. The general character of his appointments to office, you can judge of better than I. It seems to me the removal of subordinate officers from their station on account of their vote is one great evil in the management of our institutions. Of what consequence is it whether the postmaster at Eastham or West-Newton, the keeper of the lighthouse at Cape Anne, or the Clay Pounds of Truro, or the district attorney in Boston, or the tide-waiters at Nantucket are "good whigs," or not good whigs?
What shall I say of the character of the man who has left this high office; of him on the whole? Some men can be as eloquent on a ribbon as on a Raphael. They find no difficulty in calling General Taylor "The second Washington." I like the first Washington too much to call any one by that name lightly. General Harrison was the "Second Washington" ten years ago. General Jackson ten years before that. I think there is another "Second Washington" getting ready, and before the century ends we shall perhaps have five or six of this family. But the world does not breed great men every day. I must confess it, I have not seen any thing very great in General Taylor, though I have diligently put my eye to the magnifying glasses of his political partisans; neither have I seen any thing uncommonly mean and little in him, though I have also looked through the minifying glasses of his foes. To be a frontier soldier for forty years, to attain the rank of Colonel at the age of forty-eight, after twenty-four years of service, to become a Brigadier-General at fifty-four, is no great thing. To defend a log-house, to capture Black Hawk, to use bloodhounds in war, and to extirpate the Seminole Indians from the everglades of Florida, to conquer the Mexicans at Churubusco and Monterey, does not require very high qualities of mind and heart. But in all the offices he ever held, he appears to have done his official duty openly and honestly. He was a good officer, a plain, blunt, frank, open, modest man. No doubt he was "rough and ready;" his courage was never questioned. His integrity is above suspicion. All this is well known. But is all this enough to make a great man in the middle of this century; a great man in America, and for such an office? Judge for yourselves.
I sincerely believe that he was more of a man than his political supporters thought him; that he had more natural sagacity, more common sense, more firmness of purpose, and very much more honesty than they expected or desired. Rumors reach me that he was not found quite so manageable as his "friends" and admirers had hoped; that he had some conscience and a will of his own. It seems to me that he honestly intended to be an honest and impartial ruler, the President of his country; that he took Washington for his general model; that he never sought the office, and at first did not desire it, but when he came to it endeavored to deserve well of his country and do well by mankind. But with the best intentions, what could such a man do, especially with such foes, and more especially with such friends.
It is said he was a religious man: sometimes that means that a man loves God and loves men; sometimes that he is superstitious, formal, hypocritical, that he does not love men, and is afraid of God, or of a devil. I do not know in which sense the word is used in reference to him. But it appears to me that he was a man of veracity, honest, upright, and downright too; a good father, a good husband, a good friend, faithful to his idea of duty; very plain, very unpretending, mild and yet firm, good-natured, free and easy. There were many that loved him; a rare circumstance among politicians. He was a temperate man, also, remarkably temperate, and such temperance as his is not a very common virtue in high political and social stations in America, as we all know too well.