Mr. SPEAKER: In this brief tribute to the memory of Gen. WILLIAM H.F.
LEE I should be unworthy of the friendship which it was my privilege to
claim did I indulge in anything else than the language of soberness and
truth. In him there was no manner of affectation; he pretended to be
nothing but such as he was, and it is certain that if he had been giving
directions to his biographer he would have laid down the rule announced
by Thomas Carlyle, in his review of the life of Lockhart, that the
biographer in the treatment of his subject "should have the fear of God
before his eyes and no other fear whatever."
Froude, as biographer, claims subsequently to have applied to the life
of Carlyle his own rule; and all the world knows that in the portrayal
of Carlyle's faults of character the biographer left many a sting in the
hearts of those who had loved the great man while he lived and who felt
that the failings on which the historian had dwelt ought to have been
interred with his bones. The biographer who shall perform faithfully the
task of writing the life of "ROONEY" LEE will not paint him as a genius
like Carlyle; but, sir, if there was any single feature in the character
of our friend that, laid bare to the world even by the bold hand of an
Anthony Froude, would cause the faintest blush to tinge the cheek of
family or friends, I, who knew him well, do not know what it was.
It is true, sir, that it was not my fortune to be thrown in contact with
him in the earlier years of his life. I did not know him when his
character was being shaped and molded by the generous and refining
influences which surrounded him from his cradle to his manhood.
My personal acquaintance with him may be said to have begun only when he
had taken his seat by my side in this Hall. But his fame had come before
him. A representative of the most distinguished family in America, he
had been, by this circumstance alone, conspicuous from his birth; and
yet he came among us with not a spot upon his name.
During the civil war, from a subordinate position rising rapidly to high
command and always in the bright light that surrounded him as a son of
the most illustrious general of modern times, he bore himself as a
soldier without reproach. Neither in civil life nor in war had calumny
assaulted him. Such a man, entering here upon a new career, attracted
attention the moment he came into this Hall.
It soon appeared to those who watched him closely that he was singularly
modest. This modesty was not diffidence. He was at all times
self-poised. On this floor, addressing himself to a public question just
as in a private conversation among his friends, he always had the easy,
unpretentious manner of the thoroughbred gentleman, but his modesty was
easily apparent in an utter lack of self-assertion. He never put himself
forward except when duty prompted, and then he did nothing for display;
never a word did he speak for himself, but only for his cause.
He made indeed no pretensions to oratory; he had never been trained in
its arts; but his mind was broad and highly cultured, he had a vast fund
of vigorous common sense, and he expressed himself readily and
pointedly. With these faculties he would in time have taken rank as a
strong debater.
While broadly patriotic, he had at the same time a high sense of
obligation to his immediate constituency, and he was patient to a
remarkable degree. His district, you will remember, Mr. Speaker, lay
just beyond the Potomac.
It was an easy matter for his constituents to come to the Capitol, and
naturally many of them sought office at his hands. I sat near him in the
Fifty-first Congress. Often have I known him to be carded out a dozen
times a day; and if he ever expressed himself to me as worried by these
interruptions he never failed to show by what he said that his annoyance
arose not so much from the importunities of his friends as from his
inability to serve them.
In address he was remarkably pleasing. Indeed, his manner was so genial,
so pleasant, so hearty and sincere, that the memory of his kindly
greeting will not be forgotten until the whole generation of his friends
shall pass away. Who is there among his associates on this floor that
will ever cease to remember him as, morning after morning in the
springtime, he came into this Hall, bringing from his home a basket of
roses to distribute among his friends? He was not seeking popularity.
Such a thought had not occurred to him, nor did it enter into the mind
of anyone here. He simply loved his friends, and he loved flowers just
as he loved all things beautiful and true.
Such a man could not but be, as Gen. LEE was, a model brother, husband,
and father. In all his life nothing was more lovely and beautiful than
his family relations.
He had about him none of the arts of the demagogue; he was always true
to himself, and therefore never false to any man. His whole walk and
conversation illustrated that he was the worthy son of his noble father;
that from his youth up he had profited by the precepts and example of
that illustrious chieftain, who declared, in those memorable words
already quoted by my eloquent friend [Mr. Tucker], that duty was the
sublimest word in the English language. And, Mr. Speaker, let me say
that the idea conveyed by this word duty, as taught by the father and
practiced by the son, was far higher than that ideal, lofty though it
was, expounded by philosophers like Plato and Cicero. With the Lees duty
meant Christian duty.
With all these characteristics Gen. LEE could not but grow and continue
to grow as he did in power and influence in a body like this; and had he
been spared for that long career in this Hall hoped for by his friends
he would have risen to eminence as a legislator.
But this was not to be. He has passed away from us forever.
When such a man dies out from among us, let critics cavil as they may
about time wasted in memorial addresses. We should do violence to our
own feelings did we not pause to honor his memory; we should do wrong to
the American people, whose heritage they are, did we not spread before
them the lessons of his life, that the whole country may venerate his
virtues and the youth of the land may emulate his example.