Part 5 (1/2)

But I was more pleased at the report of your conduct; that went more to my heart and was of infinite comfort to me. Hold on to your purity and virtue; they will proudly sustain you in all trials and difficulties and cheer you in every calamity.

So, too, when the young lieutenant had married and settled down a typical Virginian farmer upon the estate left him by his grandfather Custis, the well-known ”White House” on the Pamunkey, the home of Martha Was.h.i.+ngton:

I am glad to hear that your mechanics are all paid off and that you have managed your funds so well as to have enough for your purposes. As you have commenced, I hope you will continue never to exceed your means. It will save you much anxiety and mortification and enable you to maintain your independence of character and feeling. It is easier to make our wishes conform to our means than to make our means conform to our wishes. In fact, we want but little. Our happiness depends upon our independence, the success of our operations, prosperity of our plans, health, contentment, and the esteem of our friends, all of which, my dear son, I hope you may enjoy to the full.

With such counsels, glowing with a father's love and enforced by the constant example of a father's life, it is no wonder that the son grew into the manliness, the gentleness and modesty, the charitableness of judgment, the unconspicuous and patient devotion to duty, and the personal lovableness of Gen. LEE.

Mr. Speaker, I might say much more from the promptings of a strong and unfeigned affection and from a sense of the public merits of our late colleague, but where there are so many to speak, it is not necessary for one to attempt a catalogue of his private virtues and of his public services.

Perhaps I may fitly add a word in closing as to Gen. LEE's military career. From a captain of volunteer cavalry he rose on his own merits at the age of twenty-six to the rank of major-general. I have not searched the annals of war to recite his military history, for it is not the soldier that I have been commemorating, but I may recall a testimony not improper to be placed on record here to-day. I happened to be in company with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston about the time that Gen. LEE was first nominated for Congress. The old commander, who, as all know, was not given to effusive speech, expressed to me his hearty gratification at the event, and in doing so his high estimate of Gen. LEE as a man and of his ability as a soldier. His praise was strong and unstinted, and no one will question its sincerity. Mr. Speaker, what more need I add than to say that in all the acts and relations of life, as son and soldier, as husband and father, as private citizen and as Representative of the people, as friend and as Christian, our departed colleague left a memory we may well cherish and an example we may well follow.

ADDRESS OF MR. c.u.mMINGS, OF NEW YORK.

Mr. SPEAKER: Great as is our country, its history is comparatively brief. Though brief, it is exceedingly instructive. So far as there can be an outcome in ever-recurring events, it is the outcome of a tremendous social and political struggle. Sir, it hardly suits the occasion to refer to the origin of this struggle or to trace its progress, but the effort for popular government is discernible through many centuries. As we come nearer to our time it becomes more intelligent and determined. Our great Declaration was its best p.r.o.nunciamento. Our written Const.i.tution was its most concise expression. The events that produced them founded a normal school for patriotism. In it was perfected a new departure. Fealty to lord and king was supplanted by fealty to human rights. Proclaimed in the council chamber, these rights had to be won in the field. Yorktown completed our first endeavor at nation-making; we graduated masters at Appomattox. The first proclaimed the prowess of the Confederation, the second testified to the strength of the Union. Both astonished the world. Both transpired in Virginia.

Conspicuous in this a.n.a.logue of our history were the Lees of Virginia.

They have a lineage too ill.u.s.trious for praise. Its escutcheons are too bright for adornment. It reaches back for centuries loyal to honor and to truth. Him we mourn to-day was a gifted scion of that great name. His highest distinction was won in Confederate arms.

Thank G.o.d, I can now speak of our civil war with satisfaction and not with reluctance. I allude to it with a satisfaction akin to that one feels in gazing upon a plain fertilized by an inundation. Flowers spring up, birds sing, and golden grain nods in the sunlight. But our civil war was more like an upheaval than like a deluge. It shook every timber in the grand structure with which we had surprised the world. Other governments have fallen of their own weight; our matchless edifice could not be shattered by an explosion.

Both contestants stood guard over the popular principle and would not let it be mined. They were instructed in the same school and by the same teacher. Local privilege was as strong with the one as with the other.

The dispute was whether the Union should endure the strain of the race and slavery issue. The long and vexing argument was adjourned to the battlefield. In no other respect was our system even threatened. This close connection at the root made the angry divergence begin to a.s.similate at the very outset.

So kindred was it, that when Grant met his heroic opponent at Appomattox he says that he fell into such a reunion with him that he had twice to be reminded of the occasion that brought them together. He then conformed to it, and treated those who surrendered not as conquered, but as reclaimed. Lincoln went further. He found a Confederate legislature ready-made to his hand, and promptly permitted it to repair the situation. In thus mingling the gray with the blue he was neither color-blind nor purblind. He knew what he was doing. He desired to blend them, as emblematic of a more perfect Union. Possibly the Confederate legislature suited his purpose best.

After this testimonial it looks to me something like treason to that great name to try to exclude Confederate worth from the annals of the strife or from the glory of its grand consummation. Neither act nor actor can be profitably spared.

Mr. Speaker, the other day in this very Hall I laid a chaplet on the bier of a dead comrade. To-day I am trying to commemorate the virtues of a Confederate colleague. Both died while members of this House. That both were my countrymen warms my heart. As my countrymen I can make no invidious distinction. If living neither would permit it, and he is more reckless than I who would profane the memory of either.

Mr. Speaker, I have said that I could speak of the civil war with satisfaction and not with reluctance. The occasion prompted me to say so. The occasion requires that, as a Union soldier, I should state my reasons. We learn from experience, and war is the toughest kind of experience. When it raised its horrid front and began its work of seeming devastation, we shrank back from its terrible promise. The world looked to see us dismembered; but the great Republic, like a daring cruiser, emerged from the tempest sound from keel to truck. Not a brace swung loose, not a plank was sprung, no spar was s.h.i.+vered. Within there had to be readjustment. Aloft the Stars and Stripes rose and fell in graceful recognition of the trial. The thunder of her broadsides proclaimed the value of this object-lesson in nation-making.

We had learned a juster appreciation of ourselves as a whole people, and if this were all, it was worth the tuition. But we had besides garnered into our storehouse of knowledge vast consignments for the use of liberal economic government. We had infused into our laws, our language, and our inst.i.tutions new vigor for conquest and for human enlightenment.

Venality, that dogs great efforts, undoubtedly there was. But the high tide of the conflict showed no mercenary taint. On both sides it was urged from the highest motives of patriotism and of honor and in defense of the popular principle. That principle with us means local self-government and representative union. The rebel yell was because they thought local government in peril. The Federal huzza was for representative union. Together they were cheering the same deeply embedded sentiment.

Those who would study the phenomenon must remember that where opinions approximate on parallel lines, but from some interest or sentiment refuse to coalesce, the pa.s.sions are liable to ignite. Fusion then takes place in a terrible heat. The heat must be sufficient to remove the obstacles that the ma.s.s may become unified. We have as a result a firmly established representative union of local self-governments. The cooling and finis.h.i.+ng process has left no flaw. Sir, what sort of a soldier must he be who is not proud of having been tempered in such a trial? If after the unmatched tournament this is not the spirit of victor and vanquished, then the lights of chivalry are burnt out and magnanimity is no more.

Mr. Speaker, I know of no greater praise of a life than to say it was one of honest endeavor. Whatever faculties comprise it, this is the scope of human duty. When to this is added a conscience adequate to all the suggestions of a great and busy career, the sum of human excellence has been reached All this I believe in my soul can be truthfully said of ”ROONEY” LEE. ”Rooney” was his father's term of endearment, which all who knew him, without distinction of age, race, or s.e.x, delighted to apply to him when absent. When present, it was always ”general.” A thorough soldier, there was an idyllic strain in his nature. He was essentially rural in his tastes. He loved the wheat fields and tobacco plantations of his native State. Its very air seemed to inspire him.

The Blue Ridge was to him the perfection of natural beauty. He was warm in his friends.h.i.+ps and true to his kins.h.i.+ps. Always dignified, there was a heartiness in his greetings that was irresistible. He was as broad as his acres. Riding or driving over his vast estate or in its vicinity, his cheerful halloo rang in the ears of those who had not seen him, and the cheery swing of his hat, though paid to all, was a cherished compliment. If the spirit of mortal be proud, it was not his spirit.

Courteous, sympathetic, un.o.btrusive, patriotic, knightly, and beneficent, he was a part of the soil of Virginia itself. He had the loving hospitality that would take all into the march of progress. How much of these qualities was innate, how much he drew from his high lineage, how much from the teachings of his ill.u.s.trious father, can never be known, but he blended them in a halo that will not soon fade from his memory.

Sir, others have spoken of the incidents of his life and of his unabated fidelity to its claims. I can not add to his record. I have met him in battle array; I have embraced him with a soldier's warmth. We entered Congress together; we have fought here side by side. It has fallen to my lot to eulogize him. This I will venture: It would mar the catalogue of bright names of which America is so proud if his were omitted from the roll.

ADDRESS OF MR. COWLES, OF NORTH CAROLINA.