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.
In 1812 he was made Captain, and had the command of a block-house and
stockade called Fort Harrison, on the Wabash river, soon after the
declaration of war against England. This place was attacked by a strong
body of Indians. Captain Taylor with less than fifty men, defended it
with vigor and success. In consequence of his services on that occasion,
he was promoted to the rank of Brevet Major. During the rest of the war,
he continued in service on the frontiers, and seems to have done his
duty faithfully as a soldier.
After the war was over, in 1815, the army was diminished to a peace
establishment, and Major Taylor reduced to the rank of Captain. In
consequence of this, he withdrew from the army, but, after a few months,
returned, and was then, or subsequently, restored to his former rank as
Major. For several years he was employed in such various military
services, in the west and south-west, as must be performed in a time of
peace. In 1819 he was made Lieutenant-Colonel. In 1832 he became
Colonel, and in that year, with a command of four hundred men, he served
under General Atkinson, in the expedition against the Sacs and other
Indians led by the celebrated Black Hawk. Afterwards he was intrusted
with the command of Fort Crawford, where he remained till 1836, when he
was ordered to Florida, to fight against the Seminole Indians.
It was here that he made use of the bloodhounds to hunt the poor savages
from their hiding-places in the woods. You know what Mr. Pitt once said
of the Spanish use of this weapon in the sixteenth century, but the
animals imported from Cuba, where they had been trained to hunt runaway
slaves, were of no value when put upon the track of red men. I do not
know who originated the scheme of employing the bloodhounds. It has
often been ascribed to General Taylor, and with good reason, I believe,
has it been denied that he was the author of that plan. It was of no
great honor to the nation, let who would invent it; and few men will be
sorry that it did not turn out well.
It was thought Colonel Taylor displayed a good deal of skill, in
contending with the Indians in Florida, and, accordingly, he was made
Brevet Brigadier-General, in 1838. After finishing the conquest of the
Indians, he left Florida, in 1840. It is said that fighting against the
Indians is a good school for a soldier. General Taylor served long at
this work, and served faithfully. In the Florida war, his conduct as
General is said to have been noble.
In 1840, he was made Commander of that portion of the American army in
the south-west of the United States, and in 1841, removed his family
from Kentucky to Baton Rouge, in Louisiana, which has since been his
home. In 1845 he was ordered to Texas, and had command of the "Army of
Occupation," and subsequently of the "Army of Invasion." In the war
against Mexico, it is thought by competent judges that he displayed a
good deal of military skill. He was beloved by his soldiers, and seems
to have won their confidence, partly by success, partly by military
talent, but also in part by his character, which was frank, honest, just
and unpretending. I have heard of no instance in the whole war, in which
cruelty is chargeable upon him. Several anecdotes are related of his
kindliness, generosity, and openness of heart. No doubt they are true.
War is a bloody trade; it makes one shudder to think of it in its
terrible details; but the soldier is not necessarily a malignant or a
cruel man; that bloody and profane command, so well known, uttered in
the heat of conflict, when the battle seemed to waver, does not imply
any peculiar cruelty or ill-will. It is only one of the accidents of
war, which shows more clearly what its substance is.
I am no judge of warlike operations and of military skill, and therefore
shall not pretend to pass judgment on matters which I know I do not
understand; I shall not inquire as to the military value of the laurels
he won at Resaca de la Palma, at Monterey, and at Buena Vista. But, in
our judgment, we ought to remember one circumstance: that is, the
inferiority of the Mexicans. They were beaten, I think, in every
considerable battle throughout the whole war; no matter who commanded.
General Scott landed at Vera Cruz, captured the city, and the far-famed
Castle of St. Juan d'Ulloa, garrisoned by four thousand three hundred
and ninety soldiers, and the American loss amounted to thirteen men
killed, and sixty-three hurt! General Scott took possession of the great
port of the nation, with less than twenty thousand soldiers, with only
about fifteen thousand troops; marched nearly two hundred miles into the
interior, fighting his way, and garrisoning the road behind him,
sometimes even subsisting his army in the country which he conquered as
he went on; and finally took the capital, a city with nearly two hundred
thousand inhabitants, with less than six thousand soldiers. Suppose an
army of that size were to land at Newburyport, with the intention of
marching to Worcester, not two hundred miles, but only fifty or sixty,
how many do you think would ever reach the spot? Why, suppose the
American men did nothing, there are women enough in Massachusetts to
throw every soldier into the Merrimac!
I do not believe that this inferiority of the Mexican arises so much
from the superior bravery of the Americans; almost any male animal will
fight on small provocation; your Mexican male, as well as your American,
on as small provocation, and as desperately. But the American soldier
was always well armed, furnished with every thing that modern science
makes terrible in war; well clad, well fed, well paid, he went
voluntarily to the work. The Mexicans were ill armed, ill clad, ill fed,
often not paid at all, and sometimes brought to fight against their
will.
The difference does not end here: the main reliance of the Mexican
government, the regular soldiers, the Presidiales, were men who seemed
to have most of the vices of old garrison soldiers, with most of the
faults of new recruits; or, as another has said, himself a soldier in
the war, "All the vices engendered in a garrison life; all the
cowardice which their constant defeats by the Indians had created; all
the laziness contracted in an idle monotonous existence, and very little
military skill." The new levies came unwillingly, and were often only
"food for powder." On the American side was a small body of veteran
soldiers, low and coarse men--it is the policy of America to have the
rank and file of our army in peace composed usually of such--but full of
brute courage; accustomed to all sorts of hardships and exposure; under
a discipline rigorous and almost perfect; wonted to danger, and weaned
from fear; careless of life almost to desperation; full of confidence in
their commander, and of contempt for their foe. The volunteers brought
with them the characteristic ardor of Americans, their confidence of
success, their contempt of toil and of danger; familiar with fire-arms
from their youth, they soon learned the discipline of the camp.
You see what a difference this makes between the two armies; but the
chief superiority of the American soldiers was this--they came from a
country where there is a complete national unity of action. So the
government could trust the army, and the army the government; the
soldiers had confidence in their commander, confidence in their country,
confidence in their cause; while the Mexicans had no national unity of
action, the people little confidence in the government, the government
as little in the people; the nation but little trust in the army, and
the army little in the nation; the soldiers had great fear of the enemy,
little faith in their officers, and the officers little in their men.
Did you ever see a swarm of bees when the queen bee was dead, and moths
had invaded the hive? The Mexicans were much in the same state. The
result was what had readily been foreseen: at the battle of Buena Vista,
on the one side, there were twenty-one thousand five hundred and
fifty-three Mexicans; on the other, four thousand seven hundred and
fifty-nine American soldiers, of which only four hundred and seventy-six
were regulars. Yet the American loss, in killed, wounded and missing,
was but seven hundred and forty-six, while that of the Mexican army was
nearly two thousand men lost. If the Mexicans had done the same
proportionate execution, every American would have been killed long
before night.
All these things ought to be taken into account, in making up our mind
about the difficulty of the enterprise. Still, after this allowance is
made, it must be confessed the American invasion of Mexico was a
remarkable undertaking, distinguished for its boldness, not to say its
rashness, and almost unparalleled in the history of modern wars. It
certainly did require great coolness, courage, and prudence, on the part
of General Taylor, to conduct his part of the expedition. He had those
qualities, but it has not yet been proved or shown to be probable, that
he had the nobler qualities which make a great General. The kind of
warfare he was engaged in, does not bring to light the high qualities of
a man like Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick the Great, or Napoleon. Perhaps
General Taylor had them, but they did not appear.
* * * * *
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.
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.