The Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address — Key Ideas to Explore

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.