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EULOGY,

LIFE AND CHARACTER

GENERAL ZACHARY TAYLOR,

DELIVERED AT THE AFRICAN CHURCH,

On the 10th of August, 1850,

OLIVER P. BALDWIN, Esa.

SENIOR EDITOR OF THE RICHMOND REPUBLICAN.

PUBLISHED BY REaUEST.

RICHMOND:

PRINTED BY PETER D. BERNARD.

H^ 1850.

• Bis

CORRESPONDENCE,

Richmond, August 15, 1850. To Oliver P. Baldwin, Esq.

Dear Sir, — The undersigned, a Committee of the Citizens of Richmond ap- pointed for the purpose, respectfully request that you will furnish a copy of your Oration upon the Life and Character of General Taylor, delivered at the African Church, for publication.

In performing this duty, we cannot forbear to express our high admiration of your oration; its touching eloquence; its justice to the illustrious dead; its high moral lone, and its fervid patriotism.

With great respect.

We are your friends, &c. &c, JAMES LYONS, ARCHIBALD PLEASANTS, SAM'L D. DENOON, S. MAUPIN, R. G. SCOTT, Sr. WM. H. MACFARLAND, WM. F. RITCHIE, JOHN WOMBLE, J. E. HEATH, JAMES BOSHER, W. C. CARRINGTON, J. M. DANIEL, W. S. TRIPLETT, WM. F. WATSON,

Rich7no7id, August 15, 1850. Gentlemen:

In compliance with your request, so expressive of kind and complimentary sentiments, the Eulogy delivered at the African Church upon the Life and Cha- racter of Gen. Taylor, is placed at your disposal.

Of the kind feelings which prompted those sentiments, I am deeply sensible. Be pleased, gentlemen, to accept my gratelul appreciation of them, and of the courteous manner in which your request has been communicated. Very respectfully, &c.

O. P. BALDWIN. Messrs. James Lyons, Archibald Pleasants,

Sam'l D, Denoon, and others^ Committee.

EULOGY.

It is a sad and impressive scene by which we are this day surrounded. Gay banners droop in sorrow ; music breathes notes of woe and lamentation ; cannon boom with a solemn voice ; and toHing bells and sable habiliments add to the melancholy grandeur of the spectacle. It seems but as yesterday, that those banners flouted the breeze as proudly as if they felt upon them the south- ern gales of 1846, burthened with victory; it seems but as yes- terday that that music rang an inspiring march, and every bugle note and every deep-toned drum gave forth almost human notes of joy and exultation ; it seems but as yesterday that those grim cannon appeared to recognise a Master's footstep, as their iron throats sent forth a shout of Welcome to the Thunderer of the Rio Grande. And now, how changed ! Oh, vain and fleeting world ! Oh, breath of human Honor, unstable as the bright cloud that glows in the sunrise, then fades with the morning's breath ! Well might a celebrated French orator, pronouncing the funeral oration of a deceased monarch, lay his hand upon the cold brow of departed Royalty and exclaim, "There is nothing great but God!"

These insignia of woe, these saddened looks and melancholy sounds, proclaim that a heavy affliction has been visited upon our people. The Head of our nation has fallen ! It is for this we wear these weeds of woe, these badges of vassalage to the great King of Terrors. Death, wherever he appears, is a solemn and an awful visitant. Show me the poorest and the darkest hovel in all this land, and Death shall make its meanest couch more pain- ful— its palest cheek more wan — and its deepest midnight more sombre, as it steals some cherished light from the hearth-stone to rekindle it in distant worlds. But when Death thus speaks from some humble and broken household shrine, few men heed or listen to his voice. It is only when he mounts the high eminences of power and place, that mankind are roused to the vanity of all earthly things. When the humble wild flower that decks the car- pet of the forest is withered in the sun's hot rays, the traveller's

eye scarce notes its disappearance and drops no tear upon its grave. He is only awakened to wonder and to fear when some majestic tree, long the monarch of the wood, whose leafy top had caught the first rays of sunrise and beneath whose broad arms man and beast had long found shelter — some tree which for ages had battled with the tempest and nodded defiance to the thunderbolt, only at last to be devoured by envious worms — comes down with a sudden crash, and makes the very earth quake in its downfall. Yes, true it is, if Death crushes the weak, he does not spare the powerful. In the crowded assemblage of a national anniversary, amid the clan- gor of arms and the stirring blasts of military music, rides a Hero upon whose grey locks Fame has planted her brightest coronet, and whose voice in the battle has controlled its fiercest tides. Not a flag which does not seem to float more proudly in his presence ; not a soldier's heart which does not beat with a new impulse at the mere mention of his name. Wherever he moves, he is the centre of ten thousand eyes. Young men gaze with burning en- thusiasm upon his bronzed and war-worn cheek ; old men wonder to see the vigor of youth beneath the weight of years ; mothers point out to their children one whose fierce valor could appal the savage of the wilderness, yet whose affectionate simplicity could win the love and confidence of a child. Behold him ! Renown in Arms, Princely Fortune, Exalted Station, Domestic Happiness, a Spotless Name, Vigorous Health, the Love of Mankind, a Na- tion's Hopes — all, all are his I What an enviable lot seemed this to every admiring spectator ! Yet, could the eyes that gazed have been opened like those to which the prophet Elijah revealed the spiritual world, they would have beheld moving in that bril- liant throng, and by the side of its central attraction, another rider, mounted on a pale horse, his lance upraised, and his cold glance fixed upon the hero whom he had spared in a hundred battle-fields, until men thought him invulnerable to the shafts of fate. He sum- mons him to yield, and he who had never surrendered to man, meekly replies, "I am ready," and submits to his only Conqueror. Suddenly, and with scarce any premonition, the announcement flies over the country that the President is dead ! So sudden, so unexpected was that awful event, it seemed rather like the fatal stroke of the battle-field than death upon a peaceful bed. Asto- nishment and gloom sat upon all men's faces. Of the grief of his friends, it is unnecessary to speak. The tears of political friends and foemen flowed in a kindred stream. At his grave, a bereaved

nation, forgetting party and section, bends its head in woe and lamentation. If aught could have added to the seventy of the shock, it was the critical period of our public affairs at which it occurred. The death of the President, at such a time, was as if in the midst of some heavy gale, a strong cable which held the ship of state to her anchors had parted, and left her to drift upon an unknown sea or a rock-bound shore. Men stood still with amazement and apprehension. The storm has not yet ceased, and the darkness of the future is only rendered deeper by those light- ning flashes of anger and discontent which rise from every quarter of the horizon. Yet, let us never despair of the Republic ! Let us hope, hope ever, hope to the last, that the clouds may pass away, revealing to us once more our national banner, with every star entire upon the war-worn flag, and blazing more brightly in an atmosphere made purer and clearer by the agitation of the elements.

The duty has been imposed upon me, fellow-citizens, of pro- nouncing an eulogium upon the character of the departed Presi- dent. That is a task which I find already prepared to my hands. The life of General Taylor is his best eulogium. I shall best per- form my duty by briefly referring to a few incidents of that life, with which all are so familiar as to forbid the necessity of a de- tailed review.

Zachary Taylor was born in Orange county, in this State, in 1784. He inherited from his father. Col. Richard Taylor, the heroic spirit of the Revolution, and inhaled with his first, breath the pure and bracing atmosphere of the early morning of our national day. His father removed to Kentucky at a period when the agriculturist of that State could scarcely ensure the result of his labors, unless the gun stood beside the plough, and when even the child found his path to the school-house menaced by fierce savages. It was under the influence of such a state of things, and among a people marked by the simplicity, the frankness, and the homely virtues of farmers, and the courage and tact of war- riors, that the boyhood and youth of Zachary Taylor were passed and his early character formed. To these peculiar circumstances of his education may perhaps be traced the marked character- istic, by which he was ever afterwards distinguished, of devotion to the pursuits of Agriculture and of Arms. Remarkable in- his youth for energy and force of character, and animated by the gallant spirit which he had inherited from his Virginia ancestry,

and which had been developed and strengthened by the scenes of his early life, he obtained from Mr. Jefferson, in 1808, the com- mission of Lieutenant in the Army of the United States. In the four years which ensued he enjoyed no opportunity of displaying peculiar military talents, or rendering distinguished services. At this period of his life, in comparative obscurity and inaction, it would have required indeed the vision of a prophet to behold in the western wilderness, before the feet of this humble and unas- suming young man, a path which was to terminate upon the proudest steep of military glory and the highest pinnacle of official power. Such an event appeared as improbable to human reason- ing, as was the idea to the brethren of David, when they scornfully advised him to attend to his few sheep in the wilderness, that he, the ruddy-cheeked shepherd boy, should be selected by Heaven to vanquish the Philistine giant, and afterwards, conquering all the enemies of his country, to sit, a potent monarch, upon the throne of Saul. So soon, however, as an opportunity presented, the young Lieutenant, by his spirit and energy, attracted attention, and in the early part of 1812 was promoted to a Captaincy for his services on the frontier. The last war with Great Britain opened before him a wide field of active employment, in meeting the savages who then poured down in a flood upon our borders. Doubtless, a youthful soldier, emulous of notoriety, might have desired to figure upon a more conspicuous arena, and with foemen worthier of his steel. But, in his youth, as in his age, the path of Duty was the path of contentment to Zachary Taylor. It was his glory to make an obscure region illustrious by great deeds, and to illumine the shadows of a western wilderness with the sunlight of a heroic and faithful mind. You well recollect his glorious de- fence of Fort Harrison, on the Wabash, a little stockade, the only protection of the white settlements in its rear, which he successfully defended with forty men against fifteen hundred warriors. Never did man display more coolness, judgment, perseverance, presence of mind, and more of that quality which has been styled by another great soldier, ^^Two d clock in the morning courage" than did Taylor, roused to meet these hordes of savages, amid blazing fires, the shrieks of women and the appalling war-whoops of the maddened foe. His conduct on this occasion elicited from Gen. Hopkins, in his despatch to Gov. Shelby of Kentucky, the high compliment, that "the firm and almost unparalleled defence of Fort Harrison by Capt. Taylor has raised for him a fabric of cha-

9

racier not to be increased by eulogy," and was rewarded by the brevet rank of Major from President Madison, the first brevet rank conferred by the Executive in the war of 1812. It is need- less for me to dwell upon the services of Major Taylor in the Black Hawk war, in which his gallant and successful conduct won for him the rank of Colonel in the First Regiment of Infantry ; nor upon his arduous labors and heroic conduct in Florida, where he gained new honors, bringing the war virtually to a close by the sanguinary engagement at Lake Okee-Chobee, (a battle which has been pronounced by high military authority "one of the best fought actions known to our history,") and fully justifying the opinion of his government, as lately expressed by Mr. Webster in his speech in the Senate, "that there was no man in the service more fully uniting the qualities of military ability and great personal prudence than Zachary Taylor."

The Florida war, in which Col. Taylor had been promoted for his services to the rank of Brevet Brigadier General, had now ceased, and years passed without again demanding his active exertions. In the command of a division of the army in the Southwest, and amid the seclusion of his farm, he was passing what seemed to be the close of a faithful and well spent life, with but little prospect of again unsheathing the sword which he had worn so long and so well. In 1845, the year which preceded active hostilities with Mexico, he had passed more than three- score years, and had reached a period when most men begin to weary even of the common toils of life, and to desire and expect nothing in existence but quiet and repose. No one could have thought that, in the winter of years which spread before his feet, a harvest of glory was to be reaped which would throw into the shade the flowers of his spring and the fruits of his autumn ; that, amid the snows of age, his old hand would gather such evergreens of fame as have rarely decked youthful brows. No one could have imagined that the old Eagle, gone to his nest seemingly to repose and die, was once more, disturbed by the clamor of the storm, to soar from his eyrie, and dart upward, amid the thunder and the tempest, with a wing so bold and a flight so majestic, that it would dazzle even youthful eyes to follow him in his sunward career. Yet such was the spectacle which, with pride and amaze- ment, we have all beheld. The 28th of March, 1846, found Gen. Taylor with a small army of 2,600 men, on the Eastern bank of the Rio Grande. The scenes which followed are fresh in the 2

10

memory of every American. Who is there that does not remem- ber the emotions with which he heard that the commander of the American forces had marched from Fort Brown to secure his military depot at Point Isabel, and that an immense force of the enemy had crossed the river? Would he be attacked on his march to Point Isabel ? Or would the enemy await his return ? Could he contest the ground successfully against such immense odds of well-disciplined soldiery, numbering a force nearly as large as the whole standing army of the United States? Such were the questions which every man in this country asked with almost trembling solicitude. In Europe, when the news arrived of the critical position of our small forces, there was ill-suppressed exultation. Americans, it was said, had pursued the paths of trade and commerce for thirty years, until they had become enervated and unfitted for the hardy employments of war. Such were the apprehensions of friends and the exulting hopes of foes, while for a time a cloud of suspense hung over the movements upon the Rio Grande. But who shall forget the hour when that cloud lifted from the battle-field, and through its broken masses the sunlight fell upon the American banner dancing in victory, while by its side, stern and fixed as some rugged rock which repels without an effort the ocean wave, stood a grey old warrior, calmly surveying the flying columns of the foe as in their headlong haste they fur- nished a Mexican commentary upon the American text — "/ shall fight the enemy in ivhatever force they oppose my march."

The prestige of the brilliant victories of Palo Alto and Resaca was felt throughout the whole subsequent war, and imparted that feeling of invincibility to the American troops and of inferiority to their enemies, which inspired the one and palsied the other in every"subsequent conflict. The report of the battles soon reached Europe, and, instead of the sneers with which malicious and envi- ous lips were prepared to greet the tidings they anticipated, the warmest commendations were bestowed upon American skill and valor by the first soldiers of Britain, France and Russia. Senator King of Alabama (then in Europe) in his late handsome tribute to Gen. Taylor in the Senate, said that his gallantry was appreciated by the first military men of Europe, and that "the great Duke of Wellington declared, as Napoleon had declared of him on a cer- tain occasion, "General Taylor is a General indeed." I will not detain you, fellow-citizens, by details of the extraordinary victory over the mountain fortress of Monterey, the Quebec of Mexico,

11

nor dwell at length upon that battle of Buena Vista, which is pic- tured in indelible colors upon all our minds, and which was the crowning glory of his victorious career. It is a battle which stands by itself and will long stand by itself upon the annals of warfare. There have been examples of small numbers of men triumphing against odds as great, but they were the disciplined few against the undisciplined many. In the battle of Buena Vista the advantages of numbers and discipline were both on4he side of the Mexicans. Left without a single regiment of regular infantry, General Taylor found himself at the head of four thousand volun- teers, and a few companies of regular artillei-y, menaced by a splendid host of twenty thousand regulars. His condition filled the public mind of the whole country with something more than doubt and solicitude — with apprehension and alarm. The most rational hope which we all could entertain was, that he had been able to make the best of his way back to Monterey, the natural strength of which position would enable him to hold out against superior numbers until relief should arrive. True, it was a little mortifying to our national pride, to think that necessity should compel such a step, yet that were better than annihilation, and we consoled ourselves with the reflection, that even Napoleon and Wellington had been sometimes compelled to retreat ; and that, after all, a well conducted retreat requires great military skill, and does not necessarily impair military honor. But Zachary Taylor was never the man to awaken a doubt in the minds, or bring a blush on the cheeks of his countrymen. Like that great orator of Massachusetts, who so lately faced the enemies of the Constitution in the Capital of New England, Zachary Taylor might have said, "/ take no step backwards^ Instead of retiring, he advances be- yond Saltillo, and plants himself upon Buena Vista, as firm and self-sustained as the mountains above his head. Seen upon a holi- day celebration of the 22d of February, Zachary Taylor may have appeared to a careless spectator an ordinary man. But when deeds were to be done, which could make even the birth-day of a Washington more memorable in the tide of time, the true qualities of Taylor were developed and his giant proportions revealed. Never before was the birth-day of the Father of his Country cele- brated with such ceremonies. As the last rays of its sun fell upon the glittering uniforms of the Mexican troops, Zachary Taylor looking inwardly upon his own heart, and outwardly upon the up- right forms, the brawny arms, the resolute lips, the lion-like eyes

m

of the little band by which he was surrounded, felt in his inmost soul that nothing under the broad canopy of heaven is impossible to a true man and a true soldier, except to desert the flag of his country. It cannot be doubted that the presence and the influence of General Taylor gained the battle of Buena Vista, the most won- derful victory of modern times. Honor to the men of Mississippi, Kentucky and Illinois ; honor to the devoted Artillery ; honor to those heroes who fell upon the field wrapped in the garment of un- dying fame— to Clay, Hardin, McKee, Yell, Porter, Lincoln,— honor to the men of North and South, of slave State and of free, who fought and died, as Heaven grant that Americans ever may, shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart; but honor, immortal honor, to him, the central diamond of that circle of bright gems whose glance inspired and whose soul pervaded that gallant host, making each man breathe the atmosphere of a ThermopylEe and feel the spirit of a Leonidas. It has been said that Virginia, ever foremost in council and in field, had no representative in that greatest of American battles. If so, it was not the fault of her gallant sons, who hastened with patriotic devotion to the shores of Mexico, but only arrived in season to share the hardships without the laurels of service. Virginia must therefore be content with having furnished to the battle of the 22d of February the great soldier by whom it was achieved, and standing beneath that arch of glory, one end of which rests upon Yorktown and the other upon Buena Vista, be content with her share of fame.

I have thus hastily sketched the military career of General Tay- lor, a career, which, in developing the greatness of his mind and the virtues of his heart, awakened the tide of popular admiration and gratitude which carried him to the Presidential Chair. It is due to the occasion that at least a brief survey should be taken of a character which deserves to be held up as a model to men in public and in private station.

You would at once perceive, if, like the soldiers of Europe, you knew General Taylor only by his military career, that he was, as they pronounced him, a great General. You would say that while one victory might be gained by accident, yet, it could not be that by accident a man should, in a military life of forty years, win every battle which he fought, and, in almost every case, against fourfold numbers. You are impressed, as were Wellington and Soult, with the sagacity, the stern decision, the amplitude and ferti- lity of resources, the immovable firmness of the American warrior.

13

You discover that he had that invaluable faculty in a comnnander, the power of imparting to his men the most perfect confidence, so thai they believed in his invincibility as fully as the Mahometan in Destiny. Never vv^as this fact more strikingly illustrated than at the battle of Buena Vista, vi^hen the cry of " Old Zach's coming," fell with an electric shock upon friends and foes, and changed the whole fortunes of the day. Such was Taylor as a soldier. I do not claim for him the colossal and enterprising genius of Napo- leon. He was what an American soldier should be, a soldier of defence, not of aggression. Yet, I do not suppose it exaggeration to say, as has been said in substance by the military men of Europe, that neither Csesar nor Napoleon could have accomplished more, with the limited means at his command, than did General Taylor in the Mexican war, and especially at Buena Vista. It is possible that General Taylor, if placed at the head of the French Empire, might never have conceived an undertaking as gigantic as that of the invasion of Russia. Yet I am sure that 1 do but justice to his character when I suppose that, if he had been at Waterloo, he would have closed that day more gracefully, if not more victori- ously, than Napoleon, by perishing at the head of that gloriuus in- fantry, which, in the last hour of disaster and destruction, gave back this answer to the imperious summons to yield, — " The Old Guard can die, but cannot surrender."

Let me pass from the skill and courage of the soldier to some of those moral qualities which so beautifully tempered the blaze of military genius. Great as was Taylor at the head of armies, he was greater still in his fortitude and his spirit of self abnegation. If he was splendid in the glory of the warrior, he was sublime in the humility of the man. Singularly destitute of selfish ambition he used no efforts to obtain posts of distinction which were to other men the chief objects of desire. During his long military career, he rarely visited that federal city where he afterwards occupied the chair of the Presidency. He was not one of those butterflies which hover in the garden of a court, admiring their own beauti- ful colors and living on the soft perfume of sickly adulation. He faithfully performed his duty on the frontier, with a pure purpose to serve his country and not himself. It never entered into his ho- nest and straight forward soul to suppose that he was going to Florida or to Mexico to serve the cause of Zachary Taylor. So that the flag of his country were victorious, his highest aspirations

14

were satisfied. We look with admiration upon Taylor in the battle-field, but he presents a spectacle of moral grandeur after the battle of Monterey, in the uncomplaining dignity with which he bore the loss of his veteran troops. There are few men who would not have given vent to querulous complaints, upon seeing their best soldiers removed, and their own triumphant career threatened with a sudden and disastrous eclipse. It must have been indeed a sad spectacle to that veteran eye, as it rested upon the soldiers of Palo Alto, of Kesaca, of Monterey, — those stern faces, that compact co- lumn, those gleaming bayonets, upon which he was looking per- liaps for the last time. Yet, sad as was the sight, and bitter the deprivation, General Taylor maintained his calm and manly port. He employed himself, not in lamentation over his limited means, but in making the most of them. He found volunteers, and con- verted them into regulars. His cheerful, practical, faithful spirit, aroused the profound respect of his countrymen, as had his battles their wonder and admiration. They realized the truth of the sen- timent, that while "pigmies are pigmies still, though perched on Alps," yet, " pyramids aie pyramids in vales." True it was, that at this period there seemed a deep twilight over General Taylor's fortunes, but it was the twilight which preceded the morning, — not the night, — and from its shadows the Sun of Buena Vista rose to irradiate the whole Heavens with a light which should never fade from the eye of man.

If now we turn to other traits of character, we find in addition to the courage and skill of the soldier, and the firmness, disinte- restedness and modesty of the man, kindly qualities of heart which awaken our deepest sympathy and love. And here appears at once the vast superiority of Taylor over most of the great war- riors of ancient and modern times. With them, success was the great object without regard to the individual suffering by which it was attained. In him the rugged features of valor were softened by the tender impulses of compassion and benevolence. If he seemed a man of iron in the strife of battle, he was a Good Sama- ritan in the hour of victory. Behold him at Monterey arresting the impending bolt of destruction, lest it should crush defenceless women and children in its descent. In his own simple language to the War Department, " The consideration of Humanity was present to my mind." See him upon the Rio Grande often relin- quishing his own couch and accommodations to the sick and the wounded, and sending to the Hospital the choice luxuries of ice

15

and wine which a friend had presented for his own table. View him on the field of Buena Vista searching for his wounded foemen, and putting forth every energy for their comfort and relief; be- hold him in the streets of Saltillo, listening compassionately to the story of a poor Mexican woman, whose house had been despoiled by lawless men, offering her pecuniary relief, and proposing him- self to adopt her fatherless child. Glorious old Chieftain ! When thou appearest at the bar of God, leaving behind thee in this vain world all the military laurels which clustered so profusely upon thy brow, it will not be as the victorious and the faithful soldier that Heaven shall smile upon thy soul ! In that great hour, amid the solemn stillness of the universe, soft voices of widows and of orphans shall plead for thee with the widow's and the orphan's God, and from the dread tribunal of the Almighty shall that ma- jestic voice be heard which unbars the golden gates of Heaven — "I was sick and he visited me; naked and he clothed me." "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."

This man, thus wonderfully combining greatness and simplicity, strength and gentleness, firmness and modesty, justice and benevo- lence, courage and humanity, exhibited through his whole life the influence of one controlling principle, which moulded and gave expression to his whole character and career. This was a stern sense of Duty which took no counsel of interest, of passion, or of any earthly motive. The only question with him was, What is the Right? If he ever hesitated, it was that he might discover the path of Right, but when found, he pursued that path wherever it might lead. It might conduct him through the wilderness of Indiana, the snows of the North-West, the swamps of Florida, or the ravines of Mexico, but ever and every where his guide was Duty, and he followed that stern leader as faithfully as if every step had been strewn with flowers, and as if he could have fore- seen that, at the end of his toilsome journey, and at an hour when he could only have expected the obscurity of the grave, she would suddenly lead him to the most towering eminence of all this world, and, striking from his shoulders the pilgrim's burthen of pain and self-denial, plant upon his brow a victorious crown amid the plau- dits of all mankind.

Yet then, even then, the novel and dizzying honors of his exalted condition could not shake the solid structure of that self-poised soul. He did not, like many men who rise to sudden fortune, forget the friends of his early Ufe. Into the hall of state and

power, he carried those old companions, Modesty, Humility, Dis- interestedness, and, in the highest seat of all — yea, even in that Republican edifice, he built a Throne, and placed upon it his guardian angel — Duty. He knew no North, no South, no East, n > West. Duty was the sun, whose rays fall with equal light upon the just and the unjust — Duty, the divinity whose voice must be obeyed, though the heavens fall. Strong in life, inextinguish- able in death, was that ruling principle. Amid the shadows which gathered over the eyes of the dying man, one form was distinctly visible even to his fading sight — not the form of Victory, with garlanded brow and flashing sword ; not the form of Power, stretching her sceptre over a vast republic ; not the form of Am- bition struggling for supremacy — but the upright and sublime figure of Duty, the guide of his youth and the counsellor of his age, her stern features now relaxed and beaming with an approv- ing smile, and her uplifted finger pointing to the skies. "/ haiie endeavored to perform my duty" were the words with which the spirit of Taylor passed from the toils of earth to the rewards of Heaven.

Go stand at the grave of that man, men and women of America. Go, mother, and instruct your child by the light of that example, that it is wiser and better to be faithful and virtuous, than to bow the knee to popularity and sell the conscience for power. Show him that a great soul is great from its own intrinsic worth, and not from the applause of men, — that its lustre is self-derived like that of the sun, and not the borrowed and reflected radiance of an inferior orb. Go, young men of America, and imitate the character of Taylor. Seek not for honors, but strive to deserve them. Your course may not lead you over ensanguined plains, but life has battle-fields more terrible than those of war, — fierce contests with grovelling pas- sions, corroding jealousies and selfish ambition. Life has its war- riors in palace and cottage, in country and in town, — valiant souls upon whose warfare Heaven itself looks down with solicitude and whose victories are celebrated by angel's harps, — heroes, who, in conquering their own spirits, prove themselves greater than he who taketh a city. Better that final hour of reckoning which finishes the humblest path of Duty well performed, than to close even the magnificent course of a Wolsey with bitter memories of great powers sacrificed to worldly and ignoble purposes.

The death of Taylor admonishes us all, in awful tones, that Jehovah is the King of Kings, and that he holds not only the life

17

of each man, but the destinies of this boasted Republic, in the hol- low of his hands. It warns us to bury sectional strife and hatred in his tomb, and cultivate contentment with our lot, and fraternal relations with each other, if we would not see the Republic follow its President to the grave.

In conclusi(»n, fellow-citizens, permit me to remark, that if there was one passion that General Taylor had failed to conquer, it was his love of the American Union. In the language of an Irish orator, he had stood almost by the cradle of the Consti- tution ; he did not desire to follow it to its grave. He had seen the cluster of thirteen faint stars which first glimmered above our horizon, increased to thirty magnificent planets, revolving in gran- deur and harmony around the central orb. He had served beneath the flag of the Union in every section, until he recognised one and all as portions of his common country. He not only loved the Union, but he understood as well as any other man that love was its vital principle, and that when it had departed, it were as easy to restore life by the most powerful appliances of science, as by force to compel the continuance of a Union from which the spirit of mutual affection and confidence had departed. He himself em- phatically declared that when the Union could only be preserved by force, it would not be worth preserving. He knew that Reason, Charity and Truth could preserve it, when fifty thousand bayonets, led by a Napoleon, would only crush it in a common ruin. Zachary Taylor was a man of the South, but he who links those words, South and Disunion — he who does not know it is in the South that the purest, the most abiding, the most disinterested love of the Ame- rican Union is to be found, does foul wrong to a great and gene- rous people. Zachary Taylor was a son of Virginia, and Virginia led the way to that Union which is now menaced by the torch of insane fanaticism. Virginia will be the last to desert that citadel of the rights and the hopes of the human race. When the mother forgets her first-born son, and learns to loathe the child of her sorrows and her joys, Virginia will forget and loath? that Union which was born from the teeming patriotism of this giant mother of States and Statesmen, baptized with the best blood of the Re- public, and consecrated by the holy hands of Revolutionary apos- tles to the cause of constitutional liberty and human rights. No! The glories of her own youth may fade, the sceptre may pass from her own grasp; but, in her expiring hour, as in the meridian of her renown, she will exclaim, The Union of the States — The 3

Rights of the States — May they together be preserved, till the stars of our system shoot from their spheres and the sun goes out in eternal night.

I know, fellow-citizens, that the hour is dark, that sectional pas- sions are aroused, and that the future seems pregnant with disas- trous results. But let us not even yet permit ourselves to dream of such an event as the dissolution of the American Union. Fra- ternal love, forbearance, reason, can save it, when even wisdom and eloquence would be of no avail. Let the eyes of each section be no longer blind to the virtues and open to the faults of others. The Frenchman may rise against his government ; the Hungarian may seek to throw off the thraldom of Austria ; the Polander may struggle to regain his nationality ; but if we permit this Union to perish until every constitutional and fraternal remedy has been exhausted, we shall present the first example in the world's history of a people who were rebels against themselves; who were satiated with the sweets of liberty, sick of peace and wearied with prosperity. Never have a people been blessed with such blessings as we have enjoyed under this Union ; never have a people been cursed with such curses as will follow its dissolution. Surely it cannot be that all our endowments of civil and religious liberty, of peace and plenty, are to be sacrificed by the madness of a few men who make war alike upon the Bible and the Constitution, and who would involve in the same ruin the shrine of religion and the ark of liberty. Surely, it cannot be, that as Europe is slowl}^ advanc- ing in rational freedom by the light of our example, we should with our own hands extinguish the beacon fire which guides a world on its weary way. Did your footsteps ever wander in a foreign land? Doubtless, many a grand and impressive object you there beheld, hallowed by the moss of antiquity, and wreathed with a thousand beautiful associations. Beneath the solemn shades of Westminster Abbey, on the immortal field of Waterloo, at the foot of St. Peter's massive pile, upon the plains of Marathon, you have bowed your head in veneration of genius, learning, piety and valor. You have beheld many a gorgeous spectacle of wealth and greatness, of power and pomp — but, tell me, among them all, did you ever behold a sight that so stirred the deep fountains of your heart, and sent the blood boiling with proud emotion through every vein, as when, upon sonne lonely sea, you met one of your national vessels, the sta?'s and stripes of your country flowing freely out over the frowning battery and the mountain wave?

19

And shall the time ever arrive when you must travel through the world and meet no more that flag; when neither on sea nor shore shall its "meteor glories" fall upon the wanderer's eye; when the American shall pass through the world worse than an orphan, a man without a country? Must I ever be condemned to feel that the national structure in which I dwell is not the one which was built by the Apostles of American Freedom and cemented by the blood of its martyrs ; not the one of which Washington laid the corner-stone, and of which Jefferson and JMadison were among the chief architects, — not the one which was illumined by the wisdom of a Marshall, and echoed the thunders of a Henry's eloquence; not the First Temple, which stood upon the Mount Zion of our American Israel, its magnificent altar gleaming through clouds of patriotic incense, and the heaven-enkindled fire of Freedom burn- ing forever upon its shrine, — no, not this Temple, but some humble edifice, without an altar or a priest, like that in which the discon- solate Jew mourns his lost Jerusalem, and, hanging his harp upon the willow, exclaims, "How can 1 sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" And must I not only give up my portion in the flag and history of my country, but must I yield my interest in any of the consecrated spots of this loved Republic? Must I stand on Bunker's Hill and on Lexington, and be known as a foreigner ? Must the man of the North press the sod of Mount Vernon, and mournfully exclaim, "This is no longer my country?" Must the world relinquish its only rallying ground of free princi- ples? A voice rises from the oppressed millions of Europe — Take not away from us our only city of refuge ! From dungeon vaults, and from the ashes of holy martyrs, comes a cry — Destroy not the only home of Religious Liberty ! From the ruins of ancient Re- publics, melancholy notes of warning float on every breeze. From the battlements of Heaven, the spirits of our fathers bend in soli- citude, and mourn, if grief can enter Heaven, that they have no human tongue to arrest our mad career. From the grave of Taylor, a voice seems to utter those two hallowed words — The Constitution! — The Union! Let but that voice be heard, and Taylor will not have died in vain. Let but his example be re- garded, and from the tears a nation sheds, a bow will spring more beautiful than that which glowed above his cold remains, upon whose radiant arch Peace and Charity, those brightest angels at the throne of God, will descend to heal the wounds of an aflSicted land.

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