Your polite note of yesterday, requesting for publication a copy of
the address on the life and public services of Gen. Taylor, is
received; and I comply with the request very cheerfully.
Accompanying this I send you the original manuscript.
Your ob't serv't
A. LINCOLN
Messrs. L. C. KERCHEVAL
R. J. HAMILTON
As was fitting, the committee turned over the manuscript to "The
Journal," a Whig paper, and "The Journal" undertook to furnish the
address to its readers on Saturday, July 27. It found itself under the
necessity however, of printing only part of the address in that issue,
and apologized with a statement that postponement of the remainder was
due to illness among its workmen. On Monday the address was printed
complete. The type used in the Saturday issue remained standing and the
remainder of the Eulogy was set up, and joined to it.
My attention was called to this report by Hon. Edward W. Baker, of
Barry, Illinois, who having undertaken to discover in the Chicago
Historical Society another matter relating to Lincoln, in which we were
both interested, found this address and reported it to me, with an
inquiry whether I had knowledge of it. I made search of the daily papers
of the period and found not only the address, but the correspondence and
notable items as here given.
Lincoln must have been glad of this opportunity to speak out of his
heart his words of sincere admiration for a man whom he had helped to
elect President of the United States. From the outset Lincoln had
believed in Taylor, while many other Whigs refused to support, or
supported with languid interest, a candidate who was a slave-holder and
who had borne a conspicuous part in the Mexican War.
Taylor was nominated by a Whig Convention, which met in Philadelphia,
June 7, 1848. The party was so divided that it could not put forth a
distinctive platform. Even an attempt to unite upon an expression
concerning the Wilmot Proviso was regarded as so divisive that it was
not permitted to come to a vote. The real platform was General Taylor,
and his popular nickname, "Old Rough and Ready." Although Taylor was no
politician and a stranger even to the ballot-box, he regarded himself as
a Whig, but he took pains to explain that he was not an "ultra Whig."
Daniel Webster called him "an ignorant old frontier Colonel," but not
only Webster, but Clay and Seward, joined in his support. Many a Whig
who voted for Taylor accepted him as the choice of two evils. Lincoln,
however, was enthusiastic in his support of the nominee. He went into
the campaign, as Nicolay and Hay remind us, with "exultant alacrity."
They say:
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 reelected to
Congress, and had been disappointed in his remaining political ambition,
he still thought the desire to become President a "laudable ambition."
We note in the oration one or two studied attempts at eloquence, such as
characterized the earlier oratory of Lincoln, but which disappeared
wholly from his later and more chaste style. The description of the
mutual solicitude of the garrison of Fort Brown and the party of
soldiers outside the fort, and of the relief that was succeeded by a cry
of "Victory," must have been dramatic, and it shows at its best that
earlier vein of Abraham Lincoln's studied attempt at oratorical effect.
One of the most interesting because most characteristic qualities of the
address is the appreciation of the magnanimity of General Taylor, as
exemplified in his treatment of Colonel Worth. This I regard as one of
the best things in the address, because it was an example of what was
best in that bluff and sensible and generous old soldier, Zachary
Taylor, and because it was so nobly characteristic also of Abraham
Lincoln. Lincoln emphasized that quality in Taylor, because he
unconsciously sought out in him what was most truly like to his own
noble nature.
Orations by one President upon another are none too common in American
literature; and this by Lincoln upon Taylor is of value in its estimate
of the best in Taylor as discerned by one in whom the same quality was
worthily present. Lincoln would have done for Worth what Taylor did. He
treated in similar fashion the men who opposed him.
One feature of the oration has remarkable interest. It appears to have
been the only address of Lincoln's in which he made use of his favorite
poem,--
"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"
This poem he quoted so often to his friends that some of them supposed
him to have been its author, but so far as a search of his published
works can show, he did not use it in any other formal address.
Lincoln often inquired of his friends whether any of them knew the
author of this poem. So far as is known, he never learned. Herndon, in
his lecture which has served as the basis of all the literature
concerning Lincoln and Ann Rutledge, informs us that, after the death of
Ann, Lincoln formed an attachment for this poem. It has been affirmed
that he learned it from Ann. I have inquired of Mrs. Sarah Rutledge
Saunders, surviving[1] sister of Ann Rutledge, whether her mother knew
this poem and taught it to her daughters, Ann included. She replied:
Yes, Mother knew the poem, "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be
proud." But she did not teach it to Lincoln. The girls and Mother
learned it from Lincoln. They always called it Lincoln's song.
[Footnote 1: Mrs. Saunders was living when this Introduction was
written, but died May 1, 1922.]
The first allusion made to this poem in any of Lincoln's letters, that I
have seen, was in April, 1846, when he was writing some verses of his
own, and comparing them with those of another budding poet, William
Johnson. Johnson had sent to Lincoln a poem which he had written, a
parody upon Poe's "Raven." Lincoln had never read the "Raven," but he
sent to Johnson some lines of his own, composed after his visit to his
old home in Indiana in the fall of 1844. Subsequently, in September,
1846, Lincoln sent him additional lines suggested by the same visit. It
is in the letter of April 18, 1846, that Lincoln refers to the poem, "Oh
why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" He says:
I have not your letter now before me; but from memory, I think you
ask me who is the author of the piece I sent you, and that you do
so ask as to indicate a slight suspicion that I am the author.
Beyond all question, I am not the author. I would give all I am
worth, and go in debt, to be able to write so fine a piece as I
think that is. I met it in a straggling newspaper last summer, and
I remember to have seen it once before, about fifteen years ago,
and this is all I know about it.
The statement that he first had seen the poem about fifteen years before
1846--that is, about 1831--carries his acquaintance with it back to the
period of his friendship for Ann Rutledge, and it is not at all
improbable that she learned it at the same time.
After Lincoln had become President, he is said to have made one or more
copies of this poem for personal friends; but I have not seen any of
these copies. It would be interesting to know whether he ever knew the
whole poem.
Literary critics have not shared his high estimate of the composition.
In general they have esteemed it a rather mediocre piece. But its
rhythm is accurate, and its rhyme is good, and its plaintive sentiment
accorded with the melancholy of Lincoln and of his social environment.
It is not the only poem of no great literary merit which became popular
in that period; and it would have been forgotten with the rest but for
the association of its lines with the name of Abraham Lincoln. He gave
to it and its author their chief claim to immortality.
During his Presidency, Lincoln said:
There is a poem which has been a great favorite with me for years,
which was first shown me when a young man, by a friend, and which I
afterwards saw and cut from a newspaper and learned by heart. I
would give a good deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been
able to ascertain.
The author of the poem, "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"
was William Knox, who was born at Firth, in the parish of Lilliesleaf,
in the county of Roxburghshire, in Scotland, on the 17th of August,
1789, and who died at the age of thirty-six. From his early childhood
he wrote verses, and he attained sufficient prominence to win the
attention of Walter Scott, who encouraged him and loaned him money. What
he might have done had he lived, we do not know; but this is the only
poem of his that has any claim to distinction, and that not for its own
outstanding merit, but for its association with Abraham Lincoln.
Knox's earliest volume, "The Harp of Zion," was published in 1825, and
does not contain this poem. What appears to have been an inclusive
volume of the poems of Knox was published in London and Edinburgh in
1847, and bore the title "The Lonely Hearth, The Songs of Israel, Harp
of Zion, and Other Poems." This includes the poem which bears the title
"Mortality." It is interesting to recall that it has sometimes been
printed with the title "Immortality." To that title, however, it can
bear no claim.
It will be of interest to compare the poem in its entirety with the
stanzas which Lincoln quoted on the occasion of his oration in memory of
the deceased President, General Zachary Taylor.