Various - Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia)
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Various >> Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia)
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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. CUMMINGS, 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
pronunciamento. Our written Constitution 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 analogue of our history were the Lees of Virginia.
They have a lineage too illustrious 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 God, 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
assimilate 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 shivered. 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 institutions 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 passions are liable to ignite. Fusion then takes
place in a terrible heat. The heat must be sufficient to remove the
obstacles that the mass may become unified. We have as a result a firmly
established representative union of local self-governments. The cooling
and finishing 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 sex, 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 friendships and true to his kinships. 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, unobtrusive, 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 illustrious 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.
Mr. SPEAKER: Truly "in the midst of life we are in death." There is
scarcely one of the associates and colleagues of Gen. WILLIAM H.F. LEE
who knew him here and up to the closing days of the late Congress who
would have been deterred by the thought of personal risk from exchanging
the chances of life or death with him for a few months; and yet, in so
short a time the dread summoner, who soon or late is to call us all, has
taken him from this life into that which fadeth not, neither does it
die.
The hand of the reaper
Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing
Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing
When blighting was nearest.
Yes, death, the unsolved and unsolvable mystery, has enveloped him, and
he has passed from our view never more to be seen and known of men on
this earth. But yesterday the living, moving, brave, sympathetic,
generous friend, and now, alas, but a memory--and yet a memory dear to
all who knew and appreciated his noble attributes of heart and mind; a
memory which has left its impress upon his fellow-men for nobility of
character; a memory which can not wholly fade, but must influence for
good not only his own immediate posterity, but all those who may come
after him.
My acquaintance with Gen. LEE began in the early part of the war between
the States. It was upon a night march, as we rode with the advance guard
of the army, where we might expect at any moment a hostile volley. He
related to me in a low impressive tone of voice an experience which had
occurred to him when his command by reason of surprise had met with some
disaster. What impressed me most at the time was that, although others
must have been to some extent culpable, he took all the blame upon
himself, and had not a word of complaint for either officer or man who
served under him.
This trait of magnanimity, such a splendid companion to personal
courage, I found afterwards to be characteristic of the man.
Though springing from a long line of heroic and patriotic ancestors, he
had not a particle of pretentious pride, but to all men, privates in the
ranks as well as officers, so that they were but brave and good
soldiers, he always found "time enough for courtesy." He never tried to
appropriate another man's laurels, but he possessed in a high degree
that quality of courage which is so well described by Emerson:
Courage, the highest gift, that scorns to bend
To mean devices for a sordid end.
Courage, an independent spark from Heaven's bright throne,
By which the soul stands raised, triumphant, high, alone.
Great in itself, not praises of the crowd,
Above all vice, it stoops not to be proud.
Courage, the mighty attribute of powers above,
By which those great in war are great in love.
The spring of all brave acts is seated here,
As falsehoods draw their sordid birth from fear.
In his friendship he was gentle and tender as one who is full of love
and human sympathy. You might have thought him better fitted for the
paths of peace, and yet upon the battlefield he was brave as the
bravest. Whenever and wherever duty called him his personal safety was
by him never considered. Often have I seen him in the thickest of the
fight, by his presence and personal direction cheering and encouraging
both officers and men. Though the son of the general in chief of the
army, he took no favor by it.
He never took advantage of his rank to keep to the rear and send his
regiments in. You could always measure his estimate of you by the manner
in which he met you. The soul of candor, his heart shone in his eye, and
placing a high estimate upon manhood, he loved all in whom he recognized
it. For about two years during the latter part of the war I served in
his command, and had every opportunity to observe and know him.
My acquaintance with him here was but a revival of old memories. I
always loved him as one who--
Spake no slander; no, nor listened to it.
* * * * *
Who reverenced his conscience as his king.
Who, if he committed an error or wronged any man, was swift to redress
it; never laying his blame at another man's door. Who excelled in all
the virtues which go to make up a beautiful private life in all the
essentials of faithful friendship and truthful character; who lived--
Thro' all this tract of years,
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life.
Think for a moment how much better and happier every one would be if all
men were earnestly to strive to live up to this high standard and how
much of pain would be spared the world. He was one of the most faithful
members upon this floor; faithful to the public interest, and whenever
any proposition was under consideration which specially concerned his
own people, they always had in him an able advocate and strong defender.
He is gone! sincere Christian, loving husband and father, trusted
friend. The life that was given him has been taken away. The widow and
the orphan mourn, and their grief is our grief; but a merciful Father
has given him more than he has taken away, and this strength and comfort
through the tender mercy of our Saviour is theirs--
I am the resurrection, and the life, he that believeth in me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and
believeth in me shall never die.
ADDRESS OF MR. BRECKINRIDGE, OF KENTUCKY.
Mr. SPEAKER: I never had the pleasure of Gen. LEE's acquaintance, so far
as I could recall, until he entered this House as a Representative of
the district which lies just across the river; but there were many
things in common between us which soon caused a kindliness of feeling
much warmer than the frequency of our association would indicate. It
happened that we were almost of the same age, born within a few weeks of
each other, and that on all great questions of the day we were
singularly alike in our opinions, and, if I may use such an expression,
even in our prejudices.
Amid all the trials of life we two found we had adhered to simple
beliefs of those Southern homes in which we were the reared; that no
advance in civilization, no pretense of progress, had ever obscured our
views as to the olden beliefs and the simpler truths which had been
inwrought into our being by the venerable fathers and beloved mothers
with whom we had been blessed. The substratum of our beliefs was
precisely the same. And we found that we were not ashamed of that
substratum, that we were not given to apologizing for adhering to
so-called "obsolete" traditions or to creeds "that were passing out of
fashion."
We also found that on the political questions of the day we were
similarly in accord. We believed in the same political principles. And
so it was a very rare occurrence that when the roll was called in this
House we were not found voting, even on what seemed to be trivial
matters, upon the same side. It was not strange that with these
coincidences of belief and with our having both served in the
Confederate army and the local accident of the nearness of our seats
which threw us together, there grew up a regard greater than was
indicated by our association outside of this Hall.
If I were to select in my acquaintance him who, as much as any other,
deserved the title, I would say of Gen. LEE that he was a gentleman. All
that had concurred in producing him was of the best. The blood which
gave him life, the soil out of which he grew, the kindly influences
which always surrounded him, the molding powers to which he had been
subjected--all were of the noblest. A son of such houses, reared at such
knees, influenced by such powers, he passed early under the influences
of Harvard. Later he took his young experience as a soldier under Albert
Sidney Johnston. He began his civil life in a delicious home, with the
love of an exquisite young wife. And in the Confederate service he was
associated with the best and the bravest volunteers of the Old Dominion
herself.
It was not strange that the product of such influences should be a
gentleman. All that was courageous, all that was loyal to truth, all
that was courteous to those with whom he came in contact, all that was
gentle and kindly was not only the heritage which he received with his
name and his blood, but it was developed by all the environments which
he was so fortunate as to have surround him. If I were to select a
character of which it might be said that it was round, without angles,
even without salient points, it would be his--not because he was weak,
but because the calmness, the serenity, and the magnificence (if I may
use a word that seems to be hyperbolic) of the equipoise of his
qualities made each of them seem less important than it would have
seemed if other qualities had been less.
It would not be extravagant to apply to him the paraphrase of the
apostolic description of a Christian gentleman--loving without
dissimulation; abhorring the evil; cleaving to the honorable; preferring
to confer honor rather than to receive it; earnest in the work of life,
and careful of time and opportunity to labor; hopeful of all good;
patient in tribulation; forbearing to resent trespass; charitable in
thought and word, as in deed; given to hospitality; at peace with his
own conscience and with God.
We live, Mr. Speaker, in a heroic age. I constantly hear of this being
an age of materialism, of the worship of the "almighty dollar." I
challenge all the past, in all the endeavors of man, to reach a higher
level, to equal the heroism of the age in which we have been called to
perform our part--the devotion to duty, the readiness to make
sacrifices, the willingness to give all for the truth which have marked
our generation--the era in which we have to act our part.
This simple, kindly, unaffected, modest gentleman; this man, with his
sweet calm smile, who met us every day, passing in and out with a
certain reticence of modesty, was himself but the type of the age in
which he lived and of the people from whom he sprang. All modest as he
was, he had given up everything at the call of duty. All simple and
kindly as he seemed to be, he had at the head of charging squadrons
captured cannon, and with more heroic endurance had lain without
complaint in the cell of solitary confinement. He carried about with him
in the simple modesty of his everyday life the heart that at a moment's
notice was ready to still its beating at the call of duty; and with the
same simplicity, with the same freedom from ostentation, with the same
delicious smile, he would have walked into the jaws of death if it had
become him as a gentleman to do so.
To live in such an age, to be associated with such men--and, thank God,
they are not uncommon amongst us--the bar at which I practice, the
tables at which I sit in the kindliness of social intercourse, the men
with whom I have been blessed enough to be called into contact, the very
strangers who call on business at my house, rank among them men just
like unto him. I say to live in such an age, to be associated with such
men, to play a part, however obscure, in such drama, make life worth the
living; make the hereafter nobler for him who has been so blessed.
Mr. Speaker, to-day, in the midst of this the ending of the nineteenth
century, we who will soon pass away, we who are but the remnants of a
generation of war, can proudly hand over to those who shall come after
us the example of lives that in war feared nothing but God, in peace
strove for nothing but the good of the people.
PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE.
EULOGIES.
MARCH 4, 1892.
The VICE-PRESIDENT. The Chair lays before the Senate resolutions from
the House of Representatives, which will be read.
The resolutions were read, as follows:
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, _February 6, 1892._
_Resolved_, That the business of the House be now suspended, that
opportunity be given for tributes to the memory of Hon. WILLIAM
HENRY FITZHUGH LEE, late a Representative from the State of
Virginia.
_Resolved_, As a further mark of respect to the memory of the
deceased, and in recognition of his eminent abilities as a
distinguished public servant, that the House, at the conclusion of
these memorial proceedings, shall stand adjourned.
_Resolved_, That the Clerk communicate these resolutions to the
Senate.
Mr. BARBOUR. Mr. President, I offer the resolutions which I send to the
desk.
The VICE-PRESIDENT. The resolutions will be read.
The resolutions were read, as follows:
_Resolved_, That the Senate has heard with profound sorrow the
announcement of the death of Hon. WILLIAM H.F. LEE, late a
Representative from the State of Virginia.
_Resolved_, That the business of the Senate be now suspended, in
order that fitting tribute may be paid to his memory.
_Resolved_, That as an additional mark of respect the Senate shall,
at the conclusion of these ceremonies, adjourn.
ADDRESS OF MR. BARBOUR, OF VIRGINIA.
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 reelected 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.
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