Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/212

200 Taylor, with an education very imperfect, had passed his life, from twenty-four to sixty-four, on the frontiers and in the army; had never held any civil office ; had seldom voted, and, though an excellent officer in the sphere of duty he had occupied, did not appear to be the most promising man in the nation to select for its highest and most difficult office. The defence of a log house in 1812 against a troop of Indians, the conquest of Black Hawk, the rout of the Seminoles, the gaining of half-a-dozen battles in Mexico, at the head of a few thousand soldiers, does not seem exactly an adequate schooling to prepare a common man to lead and rule twenty million Americans with the most complicated government in the world. It certainly was surprising that he should be nominated for that office; and more so, that the nomination should be confirmed by the people. It is not surprising that the distinguished Senator of Massachusetts should call this "A nomination not fit to be made;" the wonder is, he deemed it fit to be confirmed. In selecting him for our chief, the nation went hap-hazard, and made a leap in the dark. No prudent man in Boston would hire a cook or a coachman with such inadequate recommendations as General Taylor had to prove his fitness for his place. Had a sensible man on election day asked the nation, "What do you know about the man you vote for?" the people would have been sadly puzzled to seek for an answer. The reasons which led to his election were partly special, and partly of a general and popular character. It is instructive for us to look at them, now that we can do it coolly. I suppose this was the special cause of his nomination : The leaders of the whig party thought they could not elect either of their most prominent men. If they went before the people with nothing but their idea,—The protection of property by a tariff, and a Representative of that idea, however able and well trained, they feared defeat ; such as they had met with in the last campaign, when the democratic party, with a man almost unknown to the people, a tricky lawyer from Tennessee, had yet carried the day against one of the oldest and ablest politicians in the country. So the whig leaders availed themselves of the temporary popularity of a successful General to give an accidental triumph to their party, and apparently to their