Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/217

Rh left this high office; of him on the whole ? Some men can be as eloquent on a ribbon as on a Raphael. They find no difficulty in calling General Taylor "the Second Washington." I like the first Washington too much to call any one by that name lightly. General Harrison was the "Second Washington" ten years ago. General Jackson ten years before that. I think there is another "Second Washington" getting ready; and before the century ends we shall perhaps have five or six of this family. But the world does not breed great men every day. I must confess it, I have not seen anything very great in General Taylor, though I have diligently put my eye to the magnifying glasses of his political partisans; neither have I seen anything uncommonly mean and little in him, though I have also looked through the minifying glasses of his foes. To be a frontier soldier for forty years, to attain the rank of Colonel at the age of forty- eight, after twenty-four years of service, to become a Brigadier-General at fifty-four, is no great thing. To defend a log-house, to capture Black Hawk, to use bloodhounds in war, and to extirpate the Seminole Indians from the ever- glades of Florida, to conquer the Mexicans at Churubusco and Monterey, does not require very high qualities of mind and heart. But in all the offices he ever held, he appears to have done his official duty openly and honestly. He was a good officer, a plain, blunt, frank, open, modest man. No doubt he was "rough and ready;" his courage was never questioned. His integrity is above suspicion. All this is well known. But is all this enough to make a great man in the middle of this century; a great man in America, and for such an office? Judge for yourselves.

I sincerely believe that he was more of a man than his political supporters thought him; that he had more natural sagacity, more common sense, more firmness of purpose, and very much more honesty than they expected or desired. E-umours reach me that he was not found quite so manageable as his "friends" and admirers had hoped; that he had some conscience and a will of his own. It seems to me that he honestly intended to be an honest and impartial ruler, the President of his country; that he took Washington for his general model; that he never sought the office, and at first did not desire it; but when