The Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address | Page 9

was one of the
best, and he felt that it was generous to allow him, then and there, to
retrieve his secret loss. Accordingly, he assigned to Colonel Worth in
that assault, what was par excellence the post of honor; and the duties
of which he executed so well and so brilliantly as to eclipse, in that
battle, even General Taylor, himself.
As to General Taylor's relations with his soldiers, details would be
endless. It is perhaps enough to say--and it is far from the least of his
honors that we can truly say--that of the many who served with him,
through the long course of forty years, all testify to the uniform
kindness, and his constant care for, and hearty sympathy with, their
every want and every suffering; while none can be found to declare that
he was ever a tyrant anywhere, in anything.
Going back a little in point of time, it is proper to say that so soon as
the news of the battles of the eighth and ninth of May, 1846, had fairly
reached the United States, General Taylor began to be named for the
next Presidency, by letter writers, newspapers, public meetings and
conventions in various parts of the country.

These nominations were generally put forth as being of no-party
character. Up to this time I think it highly probable--nay, almost
certain--that General Taylor had never thought of the Presidency in
connection with himself. And there is reason for believing that the first
intelligence of these nominations rather amused than seriously
interested him. Yet I should be insincere, were I not to confess that, in
my opinion, the repeated and steady manifestations in his favor did
beget in his mind a laudable ambition to reach the high distinction of
the Presidential chair.
As the time for the Presidential canvass approached, it was seen that
general nominations, combining anything near the number of votes
necessary to an election, could not be made without some pretty strong
and decided reference to party politics. Accordingly, in the month of
May, 1848, the great Democratic Party nominated as their candidate an
able and distinguished member of their own party [General Cass] on
strictly party grounds. Almost immediately following this, the Whig
Party, in General Convention, nominated General Taylor as their
candidate. The election came off in the November following, and
though there was also a third candidate, the two former only received
any vote in the electoral college. General Taylor, having the majority of
them, was duly elected; and he entered on the duties of that high and
responsible office, March 5, 1849. The incidents of his administration,
up to the time of his death, are too familiar and too fresh to require any
direct repetition.
The Presidency, even to the most experienced politicians, is no bed of
roses; and General Taylor, like others, found thorns within it. No
human being can fill that station and escape censure. Still, I hope and
believe, when General Taylor's official conduct shall come to be
viewed in the calm light of history, he will be found to have deserved
as little as any who have succeeded him.
Upon the death of General Taylor, as it would be in the case of any
President, we are naturally led to consider what will be its effect,
politically, upon the country. I will not pretend to believe that all the
wisdom, or all of the patriotism of the country, died with General

Taylor. But we know that wisdom and patriotism, in a public office
under institutions like ours, are wholly inefficient and worthless, unless
they are sustained by the confidence and devotion of the people. And I
confess my apprehensions, that in the death of the late President, we
have lost a degree of that confidence and devotion which will not soon
again pertain to any successor. Between public measures regarded as
antagonistic, there is often less real difference in their bearing on the
public weal, than there is between the dispute being kept up or being
settled either way. I fear the one great question of the day is not now so
likely to be partially acquiesced in by the different sections of the
Union, as it would have been could General Taylor have been spared to
us. Yet, under all circumstances, trusting to our Maker and through His
wisdom and beneficence to the great body of our people, we will not
despair, nor despond.
In General Taylor's general public relation to his country, what will
strongly impress a close observer was his unostentatious,
self-sacrificing, long-enduring devotion to his duty. He indulged in no
recreations, he visited no public places seeking applause; but quietly, as
the earth in its orbit, he was always at his post. Along our whole Indian
frontier, through summer and winter, in