Gen. Jackson’s Bequest

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Gen. Jackson’s Bequest

The Common Council of New York have a committee sitting for the purpose of finding out who is the bravest man in the New York regiment of Mexican Volunteers. They have neither the discretion to pursue the inquiry in the right way themselves, nor the modesty to refer it to the decision of the survivors to elect which of their number shall be the recipient of the old hero’s bequest. Were the case reversed—had it devolved on the soldiers to determine to which of the Aldermen the premium should be awarded, there would be no difficulty in coming to a conclusion. No one could question that Alderman Bill Wilson,¹ by his gallant conduct in helping to guard his master Mayor Wood² from arrest by Coroner Perry’s³ posse, would have entitled himself to the distinction. If the problem consisted in ascertaining who was the bravest member of Congress, there could be no question, now that Preston S. Brooks⁴ is dead, that the honor should be conferred on Albert Rust,⁵ for his brave onslaught on Horace Greeley⁶. If the respective bravery of members of Assembly were in question, the superior claims of the gentleman who so chivalrously knocked down Hastings of the Albany Knickerbocker,⁷ would be recognised without clamor or demur. But to decide who was bravest, in a regiment where all were brave—to say who was most heroic, where all were heroes, is a task which nothing but the sublime impudence of New York Aldermen, tutored under that boldest of pretenders, Fernando I., would attempt. Any other set of men, with less matchless conceit and arrogance, would long ago have referred the decision where it belongs—to the surviving members of the regiment itself, to be determined by their suffrages. It is an insult to the military honor and spirit of the State to see half a dozen old granny aldermen sitting in solemn conclave day after day, gravely presuming to pass on the military conduct and services of the valiant sons of New York. Nothing but the sanctity communicated to the bequest by the veneration in which the memory of the deceased donor is held, could for an instant preserve the whole inquiry, or rather the shape it has assumed, from being buried in inextinguishable ridicule. The New York Aldermen are about as well qualified to decide on the respective meritoriousness of heroic deeds, as a conclave of apple women would be to pass upon the merits of different specimens of naval architecture. These Aldermen are great in their peculiar line, no doubt. They can tell with unerring accuracy which of a dozen estimates for public work will be most profitable—to themselves; they can read human character sufficiently to discern who of a hundred applicants for city pap will be most unscrupulous in rascality, and subservient to the schemes of their patrons—they can tell who in party tactics and squabbles will stoop the lowest, and crawl on his belly in slimy intrigues the furthest. In all this they are connoisseurs; but they cannot appreciate heroism or bravery—it is not in their line. Their endeavor to discover to whom they should award General Jackson’s⁸ snuff box is as bootless as the search of Diogenes,⁹ with his lantern, for an honest man.

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