Mr. PRESIDENT: The resolutions just read were passed by the House of
Representatives on the 6th day of February last in respect to the memory
of WILLIAM H.F. LEE, deceased, late a member of that body from the
Eighth Congressional district of Virginia.
Before asking the Senate to adopt the resolutions it is incumbent upon
me, as one of the Senators from Virginia, as it is in harmony with my
own personal feelings, to submit some remarks in explanation of their
purpose and object; a sad and mournful duty to be performed on my part.
Gen. LEE was my immediate successor in the House of Representatives, and
served with ability and efficiency in both the Fiftieth and Fifty-first
Congresses. He was reëlected to the present Congress, but his career was
arrested by that higher and supreme Power to which we must all yield,
and on the 15th of October, 1891, he departed this life at his home in
the county of Fairfax, and in the midst of his family and friends.
I do not consider it necessary in this presence or on this occasion to
go into much detail touching the life and character of the deceased.
The full and eloquent tributes paid to his memory in the House of
Representatives show the high appreciation in which he was held by his
associates in that body, and express in far more fitting terms than I
could employ their estimate of his character, services, and virtues.
Gen. LEE came from a distinguished lineage. Two of the family signed our
Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence, and another was
Attorney-General under Gen. Washington.
On the paternal side he could refer to his distinguished grandfather,
Gen. Henry Lee, of the Revolutionary army, who was known as Light-Horse
Harry, the commandant of Lee's Legion, so conspicuous in the annals of
that period. His maternal grandfather was the late G.W. Parke Custis, of
Arlington, the stepson of Gen. Washington, and familiarly called in his
day the child of Mount Vernon.
His father, Gen. R.E. Lee, the chief military figure on his side in the
late civil war, was too well known for comment at my hands. It is the
boast of some of the old baronial families of England that their
ancestors rode with William the Conqueror at Hastings. To a certain
extent the pride of ancestry is an ennobling sentiment, and Virginians
must be pardoned when tempted to refer to the illustrious names which
their State in the past has furnished to the nation. The name of Lee has
been a household word in Virginia for three generations of men. In the
death of Gen. WILLIAM H.F. LEE the State has lost one of her truest and
worthiest sons and the Federal Government a faithful and patriotic
Representative.
Although acquainted personally with Gen. LEE for many years, it was only
within a year or two before his death that I had the opportunity to
appreciate fully the high personal qualities of the man and to
understand the real nobility of his nature. The more I saw of him the
higher became my respect and admiration. He grew upon me with closer
contact and more intimate association.
I was greatly impressed with his invariable courtesy of manner and great
amiability and kindness of heart, to which was added a knightly bearing
and cordiality of greeting which, combined, made Gen. LEE with all
classes of society an imposing and attractive figure.
He has gone to his last resting place, mourned by his family and friends
and lamented by an extensive acquaintance throughout the country. He had
filled the measure of his duties in every respect, and was entitled, as
he passed from the stage of action, to the plaudit, "Well done, good and
faithful servant."