Mr. SPEAKER: I have not been in the habit of speaking upon occasions of
this kind, but it is one of the joys of my life, a very great joy
indeed, to feel that I had a place in the heart of the gentleman whom we
are now commemorating. I knew him very well, and in many respects I
regarded him as one of the most fortunate men whom it was ever my
pleasure to know. While many men here are struggling for fame, while
many of them will leave the struggle heartsick, weary, defeated, he had
that power, that charm, so precious and so lovely, of attaching men to
him by the ties of affection. Little children loved him.
There was a benignancy, a sweetness of demeanor, which attracted them to
him, and while his name may not be sounded in the trump of fame, yet the
subtile power of his gentleness and goodness has permeated many lives,
will shape many destinies, and will have a force in the history of the
world greater than that which will be exerted by many who will succeed
him here. He was a soldier, yet he was gentle and kind. He was a
descendant of a long line of honored ancestry, yet he did not believe
that mere wealth was necessary either to respectability or to greatness.
He was a farmer and loved the soil. He looked upon the ripened grain as
the flower of human hope and as a minister to human needs. He loved the
breath of cattle, and he regarded the occupation of an agriculturist as
the noblest and the best in which a man could be engaged. He was a true
son of the soil--hearty, simple, gentle, true.
But, sir, the particulars of his career, both public and private, have
been recounted by those who knew him well; have been recounted with
great force, with great eloquence and propriety. There is, however, one
part of that career to which I wish to refer. He was engaged in the
memorable struggle which convulsed this nation from center to
circumference and which fastened the gaze of the civilized world. I wish
upon this occasion to say emphatically, that wherever we may have stood
in that struggle, whatever was good and great in any man participating
on either side of it is a precious heritage to the entire American
people to-day. We proved that, North, South, East, West, we had not
degenerated in the qualities which make a nation great.
Grant and Lee, Sherman, Sheridan, and the two Johnstons have gone from
us forever, and every day the green sward of peace, the flowers of
affection, are placed above the grave of some hero of the blue or the
gray. But I love to think that above these graves stands the Genius of
American freedom, serene and grand, and bids the world behold how brave
the sons of the Republic were in the past; how united they are in one
purpose and one destiny in the present; how certain they are to be a
people noted for reasonable liberty, for perfect union, and for
sufficient material power to be formidable and just alike to the other
nations of the earth.
And so, sir, I come and lay the flowers of my Northern home upon the
bier of this son of Virginia, this good citizen, this patriot, this man
who, I am proud to believe, held even me in his affection. And when
gentlemen here speak of the terror and the mystery of death, I tell them
that to such a man death has no terrors, and that to the good man it has
no mystery; for in that illimitable hereafter, which must be populated
by all the sons of men, it must be, it will be, well with all of us.