MR. PRESIDENT,--There is a truce in this Chamber. The antagonism of
debate is hushed. The sounds of conflict have died away. The white
flag is flying. From opposite camps we meet to bury the dead. It is a
Senator we bury, not a soldier.
This is the second time during the present session that we have been
called to mourn a distinguished Senator from Vermont. It was much
to bear the loss once. Its renewal now, after so brief a period, is
a calamity without precedent in the history of the Senate. No State
before has ever lost two Senators so near together.
Mr. Foot, at his death, was the oldest Senator in continuous service.
He entered the Senate in the same Congress with the Senator from Ohio
[Mr. WADE] and myself; but he was sworn at the executive session in
March, while the two others were not sworn till the opening of Congress
at the succeeding December. During this considerable space of time I
have been the constant witness to his life and conversation. With a
sentiment of gratitude I look back upon our relations, never from the
beginning impaired or darkened by difference. For one brief moment he
seemed disturbed by something that fell from me in the unconscious
intensity of my convictions; but it was for a brief moment only, and he
took my hand with a genial grasp. I make haste also to declare my sense
of his personal purity and his incorruptible nature. Such elements of
character, exhibited and proved throughout a long service, render him
an example for all. He is gone; but these virtues “smell sweet and
blossom in the dust.”
He was excellent in judgment. He was excellent also in speech; so
that, whenever he spoke, the wonder was that he who spoke so well
should speak so seldom. He was full, clear, direct, emphatic, and never
was diverted from the thread of his argument. Had he been moved to
mingle actively in debate, he must have exerted a commanding influence
over opinion in the Senate and in the country. How often we have
watched him tranquil in his seat, while others without his experience
or weight occupied attention! The reticence which was part of his
nature formed a contrast to that prevailing effusion where sometimes
the facility of speech is less remarkable than the inability to keep
silence; and, again, it formed a contrast to that controversial spirit
which too often, like an unwelcome wind, puts out the lights while
it fans a flame. And yet in his treatment of questions he was never
incomplete or perfunctory. If he did not say, with the orator and
parliamentarian of France, the famous founder of the “Doctrinaire”
school of politics, M. Royer-Collard, that respect for his audience
would not permit him to ask attention until he had reduced his thoughts
to writing, it was evident that he never spoke in the Senate without
careful preparation. You remember well his commemoration of his late
colleague, only a few short weeks ago, when he delivered a funeral
oration not unworthy of the French school from which this form of
eloquence is derived. Alas! as we listened to that most elaborate
eulogy, shaped by study and penetrated by feeling, how little did we
think that it was so soon to be echoed back from his own tomb!
Not in our debates only did this self-abnegation show itself. He
quietly withdrew from places of importance on committees to which he
was entitled, and which he would have filled with honor. More than once
I have known him insist that another should take the position assigned
to himself. He was far from that nature which Lord Bacon exposes in
pungent humor, when he speaks of “extreme self-lovers,” that “will set
an house on fire and it were but to roast their eggs.”[24] And yet it
must not be disguised that he was happy in the office of Senator. It
was to him as much as his “dukedom” to Prospero. He felt its honors
and confessed its duties. But he was content. He desired nothing more.
Perhaps no person appreciated so thoroughly what it was to bear the
commission of a State in this Chamber. Surely no person appreciated so
thoroughly all the dignities belonging to the Senate. Of its ceremonial
he was the admitted arbiter.
There was no jealousy, envy, or uncharitableness in him. He enjoyed
what others did, and praised generously. He knew that his own just
position could not be disturbed by the success of another. Whatever
another may be, whether more or less, a man must always be himself. A
true man is a positive, and not a relative quantity. Properly inspired,
he will know that in a just sense nobody can stand in the way of
another. And here let me add, that, in proportion as this truth enters
into practical life, we shall all become associates and coadjutors
rather than rivals. How plain, that, in the infinite diversity of
character and talent, there is place for every one! This world is wide
enough for all its inhabitants; this republic is grand enough for all
its people. Let every one serve in his place according to his allotted
faculties.
In the long warfare with Slavery, Mr. Foot was from the beginning
firmly and constantly on the side of Freedom. He was against the
deadly compromises of 1850. He linked his shield in the small, but
solid, phalanx of the Senate which opposed the Nebraska Bill. He was
faithful in the defence of Kansas, menaced by Slavery; and when at
last this barbarous rebel took up arms, he accepted the issue, and
did all he could for his country. But even the cause which for years
he had so much at heart did not lead him into debate, except rarely.
His opinions appeared in votes, rather than in speeches. But his
sympathies were easily known. I call to mind, that, on first coming
into the Senate, and not yet personally familiar with him, I was
assured by Mr. Giddings, who knew him well, that he belonged to the
small circle who would stand by Freedom, and the Antislavery patriarch
related pleasantly, how Mr. Foot, on his earliest visit to the House
of Representatives after he became Senator, drew attention by coming
directly to his seat and sitting by his side in friendly conversation.
Solomon Foot by the side of Joshua R. Giddings, in those days, when
Slavery still tyrannized, is a picture not to be forgotten. If our
departed friend is not to be named among those who have borne the
burden of this great controversy, he cannot be forgotten among those
whose sympathies with Liberty never failed. Would that he had done
more! Let us be thankful that he did so much.
There is a part on the stage known as “the walking gentleman,” who has
very little to say, but always appears well. Mr. Foot might seem, at
times, to have adopted this part, if we were not constantly reminded
of his watchfulness in everything concerning the course of business
and the administration of Parliamentary Law. Here he excelled, and
was master of us all. The division of labor, which is the lesson of
political economy, is also the lesson of public life. All cannot do all
things. Some do one, others do another,--each according to his gifts.
This diversity produces harmony.
The office of President _pro tempore_ among us grows out of the
anomalous relations of the Vice-President to the Senate. There is no
such officer in the other House, nor was there in the House of Commons
until very recently, when we read of a “Deputy Speaker,” which is the
term by which he is addressed, when in the chair. No ordinary talent
can guide and control a legislative assembly, especially if numerous
or excited by party differences. A good presiding officer is like
Alexander mounted on Bucephalus. The assembly knows its master, “as the
horse its rider.” This was preëminently the case with Mr. Foot, who was
often in the chair, and for a considerable period our President _pro
tempore_. Here he showed special adaptation and power. He was in person
“every inch” a President; so also was he in every sound of the voice.
He carried into the chair the most marked individuality that has been
seen there during this generation. He was unlike any other presiding
officer. “None but himself could be his parallel.” His presence was
felt instantly. It filled this Chamber from floor to gallery. It
attached itself to everything done. Vigor and despatch prevailed.
Questions were stated so as to challenge attention. Impartial justice
was manifest at once. Business in every form was handled with equal
ease. Order was enforced with no timorous authority. If disturbance
came from the gallery, how promptly he launched the fulmination! If it
came from the floor, you have often seen him throw himself back, and
then with voice of lordship, as if all the Senate were in him, insist
that debate should be suspended until order was restored. “The Senate
must come to order!” he exclaimed; and, like the god Thor, beat with
hammer in unison with voice, until the reverberations rattled like
thunder in the mountains.
The late Duc de Morny, who was the accomplished President of the
Legislative Assembly of France, in a sitting shortly before his death,
after sounding his crier’s bell, which is the substitute for the hammer
among us, exclaimed from the chair: “I shall be obliged to mention by
name the members whom I find conversing. I declare to you that I shall
do so, and I shall have it put in the ‘Moniteur.’ You are here to
discuss and to listen, not to converse. I promise you that I will do
what I say to the very first I catch talking.” Our President might have
found occasion for a similar speech, but his energy in the enforcement
of order stopped short of this menace. Certainly he did everything
consistent with the temper of the Senate, and he showed always what Sir
William Scott, on one occasion, in the House of Commons, placed among
the essential qualities of a Speaker, when he said that “to a jealous
affection for the privileges of the House” must be added “an awful
sense of its duties.”[25]
Accustomed as we have become to the rules which govern legislative
proceedings, we are hardly aware of their importance in the development
of liberal institutions. Unknown in antiquity, they were unknown also
on the European continent until latterly introduced from England, which
was their original home. They are among the precious contributions
which England has made to modern civilization; and yet they did not
assume at once their present perfect form. Mr. Hallam tells us that
even as late as Queen Elizabeth “the members called confusedly for
the business they wished to have brought forward.”[26] But now, at
last, these rules have become a beautiful machine, by which business
is conducted, legislation moulded, and debate in all possible freedom
secured. From the presentation of a petition or the introduction of
a bill, all proceeds by fixed processes, until, without disorder,
the final result is reached and a new law takes its place in the
statute-book. Hoe’s printing-press or Alden’s type-setter is not more
exact in operation. But the rules are more even than a beautiful
machine; they are the very temple of Constitutional Liberty. In this
temple our departed friend served to the end with pious care. His
associates, as they recall his stately form, silvered by time, but
beaming with goodness, will not cease to cherish the memory of such
service. His image will rise before them as the faithful presiding
officer, by whom the dignity of the Senate was maintained, its business
advanced, and Parliamentary Law upheld.
He had always looked with delight upon this Capitol,--one of the
most remarkable edifices of the world,--beautiful in itself, but more
beautiful still as the emblem of that national unity he loved so well.
He enjoyed its enlargement and improvement. He watched with pride its
marble columns moving into place, and its dome as it ascended to the
skies. Even the trials of the war did not make him forget it. His care
secured those appropriations by which the work was forwarded to its
close, and the statue of Liberty installed on its sublime pedestal.
It was natural that in his last moments, as life was failing fast, he
should long to rest his eyes upon an object that was to him so dear.
The early light of morning had come, and he was lifted in bed that
with mortal sight he might once more behold this Capitol; but another
Capitol already began to fill his vision, fairer than your marble
columns, sublimer than your dome, where Liberty without any statue is
glorified in that service which is perfect Freedom.