"  Prizing  it  on  all  reasons,  I  think  you  are  too  much
a  Whig  not  to  derive,  in  receiving  it,  a  peculiar
pleasure  from  this  consideration,  that  it  expresses  the
judgments  of  this  portion  of  the  community  on  the
personal  qualities  and  character  of  Gen.  Taylor.  It
expresses  their  judgments  in  favor  of  those  qualities
and  that  character.  It  assures  us  that  we  are  not  mis-
taken in  the  man  himself.  It  assures  us  that  we  are
right  in  believing  him  just,  incorrupt,  humane ;  of
large  heart,  as  well  as  clear  head,  —  whose  patriotism
knows  neither  AUeghanies  nor  Mississippi,  nor  Rocky
Mountains,  embracing  our  whole  America,  —  from
whom  twenty  thousand  Mexicans  could  not  wrest  the
flag  of  his  country,  yet  whom  the  sight  of  a  single
Mexican  soldier,  wounded  and  athirst  at  his  feet,  melts,
in  a  moment,  to  the  kindness  of  a  woman.
"  I  do  not  suppose  that  I  enter  on  any  delicate  or
debatable  region  of  social  philosophy,  sure  I  am  that  I
concede  away  nothing  which  I  ought  to  assert  for  our
sex,  when  I  say  that  the  collective  womanhood  of  a
people  like  our  own  seizes  with  matchless  facility  and
certainty  on  the  moral  and  personal  peculiarities  and
character  of  marked  and  conspicuous  men,  and  that
we  may  very  wisely  address  ourselves  to  her  to  learn
if  a  competitor  for  the  highest  honors  may  boast,  and
has  revealed,  that  truly  noble  nature  that  entitles  him
to  a  place  among  the  cherished  regards,  a  niche  among
the  domestic  religions,  a  seat  at  the  old  hearths,  a
home  in  the  hearts  of  a  nation.
