Note 107 — Chapter XIII · VIGOROUS PROSECUTION OF THE WAR.

In 1848, General Taylor was the Whig candidate for President of the United States; and so little was the history of this war known to our statesmen or politicians, that it is believed no newspaper, or stump orator, or advocate of his election, ever related or referred to this most gallant act of his life. He had himself, during the war, exhibited no particular sympathy in the work of catching and enslaving negroes; on the contrary, he had expressed his detestation of that policy. Of course the slave power, not willing to make open war upon him, had permitted his name to rest without connecting it with the performance of any brilliant or humane acts. The casuist may say, that he ought not to have served in such a war, and that no gallantry displayed in such a cause ought to reflect credit upon any man. But General Taylor, like other men, should be judged by the times, the customs, the morality of the age in which he lived.