Part 5

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 sunshine and storm, like a sleepless sentinel, he has watched while we have slept for forty long years. How well might the dying hero say at last, "I have done my duty, I am ready to go."

Nor can I help thinking that the American people, in electing General Taylor to the Presidency, thereby showing their high appreciation of his sterling, but inobtrusive qualities, did their country a service, and themselves an imperishable honor. It is much for the young to know that treading the hard path of duty as he trod it will be noticed, and will lead to high places.

But he is gone. The conqueror at last is conquered. The fruits of his labor, his name, his memory and example, are all that is left us--his example, verifying the great truth that "he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted"--teaching that to serve one's country with a singleness of purpose gives assurances of that country's gratitude, secures its best honors, and makes "a dying bed, soft as downy pillows are."

The death of the last President may not be without its use, in reminding us that we, too, must die. Death, abstractly considered, is the same with the high as with the low; but practically we are not so much aroused by the contemplation of our own mortal natures, by the fall of many undistinguished, as that of one great and well-known name. By the latter, we are forced to muse, and ponder sadly,

"O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed, That withers away, to let others succeed; So the multitude comes, even those we behold, To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are same that our fathers have been; We see the same sights our fathers have seen,-- We drink the same streams, and see the same sun, And run the same course our fathers have run.

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold; They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come; They rejoiced, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died! Aye, they died. We, things that are now, That work on the turf that lies on their brow And make in their dwellings a transient abode, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain Are mingled together in sunshine and rain-- And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health, to the paleness of death-- From the gilded saloon, to the bier and the shroud, O why should the spirit of mortal be proud?