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MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 Allen T. Caperton, 
 
 (A SENATOR TROM WEST VIRGINIA,) 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 Senate and House of Eepresentatives, 
 
 December 21 and 22, 1876. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF CONGRESS. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1877. 
 
 T7" 
 

 8061 9 onv 
 
ADDRESSES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 Death of A. T. Caperton. 
 
 PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 
 December 21, 1876. 
 
 Mr. Davis. Mr. President, according to notice heretofore given, I 
 now submit two resolutions having for their object the furnishing of 
 an opportunity for the Senate and HLouse of Representatives to bear 
 testimony to the character and pubHc services of Allen T. Caper- 
 ton, and ask their present consideration. 
 
 The President /n? tempore. The resolutions proposed by the Sen- 
 ator from West Virginia will be read. 
 
 The Chief Clerk read as follow.s ■ 
 
 Resolved, That as an additional mark of respect to the memory of 
 Allen T. Caperton, late a Senator from the State of West Vir- 
 ginia, business be now suspended, that the friends and associates of 
 the deceased may pay fitting tribute to his private and public virtues. 
 
 Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate communicate this reso- 
 lution to the House of Representatives. 
 
 The resolutions were agreed to unanimously. 
 
ADDRESS OF MR. DAVIS ON THE 
 
 ftDDRESsi OF Mr. PaVIS, OF WeST yiRGINIA. 
 
 Mr. President: The Senate is again called upon to suspend its 
 ordinary proceedings, that it may in a proper manner mark its respect 
 for one of its former members whose death it laments; to testify to 
 his private worth and public virtues and give expression to its sorrow. 
 
 Scarcely a session of this body passes but it is invaded by death, 
 and some familiar face, some associate, is summoned hence and called 
 to rest forever from all earthly care. 
 
 In my single term of service here, yet incomplete, the painful duty 
 now upon us has been, alas! too frequently performed. 
 
 We have followed to the grave and shed the tear of affection over 
 some of the ablest and most distinguished men of our day and time. 
 
 Our late President of the Senate, Vice-President Wilson, the na- 
 tion's and people's friend; the learned and gifted Sumner; Ex-Pres- 
 ident Johnson, self-taught and self-educated, who by force of energy 
 and native abilities hewed his way from the humblest walks of life 
 up to the executive chair of the nation ; the patriot governor, Buck- 
 ingham ; the amiable and affectionate Ferry; and the earnest, able, 
 and fearless Davis, all have passed away. 
 
 In this instance it has fallen to the lot of West Virginia to mourn 
 and render up one of her ablest, best, and truest sons. 
 
 Toward the close of the last session of the Senate, prolonged as it 
 was into the late summer, when the heat was most oppressive and 
 fatigue and exhaustion rested upon all, after but a brief illness of 
 organic disease of the heart, on the 26th day of last July, death found 
 Mr. Capekton at his post of duty. 
 
 It is not my purpose on this solemn occasion to pronounce any 
 studied words of praise and commendation over my friend and dead 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. J 
 
 colleague, believing that the best eulogy upon so noble a character 
 will be the plain and simple story of his life. 
 
 Allen T. Caperton was descended from an old Virginia family, 
 and was born at Union, Monroe County, Virginia, (now West Vir- 
 ginia,) November 21, 1810. His ancestors on the paternal side were 
 English and on the maternal Scotch, a commingling of nationalities 
 that has produced some of the greatest men of our country. His 
 great-grandparents on both sides were among the earliest settlers on 
 the headwaters of the Kanawha, then overrun by hostile Indians ; 
 and the fact that his grandmother was captured by savages, her infant 
 child butchered before her eyes, and she detained in captivity for four 
 years, will give some idea of the courage it took and the dangers 
 that had to be encountered in opening to civilization that fertile and 
 beautiful mountain region. 
 
 Hugh Caperton, the father of the late Senator, was a man of great 
 ability, high character, and commanding influence in the section of 
 Virginia where he resided. He represented his district in the Thir- 
 teenth Congress, and was the intimate friend and admirer of the great 
 statesmen Clay and Webster, and other leaders of the whig party, to 
 which he belonged. 
 
 Mr. Caperton passed the earlier years of his life at the home of 
 his father, near Union, and at that village received the rudiments of 
 his education. At the age of fourteen he went to Huntsville, Ala- 
 bama, to attend school, making the long journey on horseback in 
 company with an elder brother. He afterward attended the Univer- 
 sity of Virginia, and completed his education at Yale College, in 1832, 
 graduating seventh in a class of fifty-three at the age of twenty-two. 
 Jn college he was noted, as in after life, for his studious habits, indus- 
 try, and good deportment; though modest and reserved, he was 
 popular with his fellow-students and beloved and esteemed by his 
 professors. 
 
 After leaving college he studied, law under the late Judge Briscoe 
 
ADDRESS OF MR. DAVIS ON THE 
 
 Baldwin, at Staunton, Virginia; was admitted to the bar in 1834, and 
 commenced the practice of his profession at his native town. His 
 natural ability, eloquence, and close attention to business soon se- 
 cured for him a prominent position as a lawyer, and his practice 
 rapidly extended throughout the southwestern portion of the State. 
 He was not, however, long permitted to confine himself solely to his 
 professional duties, but in 1841, at the solicitation of his friends and 
 neighbors, he took part in politics and was elected to the house of 
 delegates of Virginia, and in 1844 to the senate, after which, until 
 i860, he was at various times a member of both houses of the State 
 legislature. In 1848 he was a member of the national convention 
 that nominated President Taylor. Although elected to the legisla- 
 ture at an early age and at a time when some of the ablest and most 
 brilliant men of the State were members, he soon advanced to the 
 front rank, and gained an enviable reputation throughout the State 
 as a useful legislator and a ready and forcible debater. 
 
 His service in the legislature was marked by his untiring efforts 
 and best exertions in favor of every measure looking to the progress 
 and prosperity of the State generally, but more particularly to the 
 opening up and development of the vast resources of the portion he 
 represented. All propositions for internal improvements and public 
 works found in him a zealous and energetic supporter, and he was 
 held in the highest esteem by all parties. 
 
 A newspaper correspondent, speaking of him in 1858, says: 
 
 A. T. Caperton, of Monroe, is .i whig and has long enjoyed the confidence of 
 the whole people of his section. He has never been defeated for office. Mr. 
 Caperton is one of the handsomest men in the legislature, the ablest member of 
 his party on the floor, and would make a valuable and useful member of Congress. 
 
 During all this time, notwithstanding his service in the legislature 
 and the interest he took in politics, he not only continued the prac- 
 tice of his profession with success, being engaged in almost every 
 important suit in his section of the State, but found time to devote 
 
1.1 IE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 7 
 
 to agriculture and stock-growing, of which he was very fond, and 
 was reputed among the most successful in the State. 
 
 He was also the active friend and supporter of nearly all import- 
 ant enterprises projected and put in operation in the southwestern 
 portion of Virginia. 
 
 He was one of the most influential directors in the James River 
 and Kanawha Canal, looked upon in that day and time, as now, a 
 work of national importance, its object being to connect the waters 
 of the East and West, and furnish means of transportation between 
 the distant sections of the country. 
 
 In 1850 and 1861 he was elected a member of the constitutional 
 convention of Virginia, and, like many prominent members of the 
 whig party in the South, was a conservative union man, and opposed 
 secession until the commencement of actual hostilities, when he felt, 
 as many others did, that his duty was to link his fortunes with those 
 of his State. In 1862 he was elected by the legislature of Virginia 
 as a member of the Confederate States senate, which position he 
 tilled until the close of the war, in 1865; after which he returned to 
 his home, accepted the result of the war in good faith, and resumed 
 the practice of his profession, devoting much of his time and 
 energies, as in the past, to the opening up and developing the 
 resources of West Virginia, particularly adverting and bringing to 
 the attention of foreign capitalists her fine coal, timber, and grazing 
 lands; and in this direction he accomplished much and his efforts 
 were crowned with reasonable success. 
 
 On the 17th of February, 1875, after a spirited contest, he was 
 almost unanimously elected a member of this body to succeed Hon. 
 Arthur I. Boreman, and took his seat on the 4th of March following. 
 His election was received with general satisfaction throughout the 
 State He brought to the Senate great strength of character, 
 matured experience in public affairs, sound judgment, and an accu- 
 rate knowledge of the history of the Government and the necessities 
 
of the country, and particularly the South. He had the liveliest 
 appreciation of the responsibility resting upon a Senator and his 
 duty to the General Government and his State. He recognized in 
 the amplest manner that old issues were dead and that a glorious 
 and prosperous future awaited the whole country if good feeling 
 could be restored between the sections. His greatest concern and 
 deepest anxiety was over the unsettled condition of our political 
 affairs, and had he lived I have no doubt his voice would have been 
 raised and energies e.\erted in behalf of peace and harmony. 
 
 Such is a brief outline of the early life and public services of my 
 departed colleague. 
 
 For thirty-five years, it may be said, he Vk'as constantly under the 
 eye of the public, filling many important positions of trust and con- 
 fidence to which he had been elevated by the partiality of his neigh- 
 bors and fellow-citizens. And during this long term of public service, 
 (juite an ordinary life-time, embracing and covering as it does a 
 period as important, stirring, and exciting as has occurred in our 
 history as a country, I have the pride and pleasure of recording that 
 his conduct and character were so pure, so high, and so elevated that 
 neither suspicion nor taint ever rested on either; and in all of his 
 ofiicial acts and doings, in his professional and business dealings, he 
 did his duty well, wronged neither state nor individual, and was 
 uniformly just and honorable. 
 
 He was a man of scholarly attainments, positive character, fixed 
 principles, and strong convictions, a despiser of all tricks and narrow 
 doings, a sound lawyer, modest and reserved, though a ready debater, 
 thoroughly versed in the hi.story of the country and politics, a lover 
 of the Constitution and a close student of its wise provisions; all of 
 which was supplemented by a large experience with men and affairs. 
 
 Thus thoroughly eijuipped by nature and cultivation, he came up 
 to our best ideas of an American Senator and statesman. 
 
 The term of service of Senator C.\i>erton as a member of this 
 
LIEE AND CHARACTEK OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 9 
 
 body, less than two years, was so short that there was scarcely 
 sufficient time for his associates to know him well and understand 
 his noble character; but I believe I am authorized in saying that, 
 even brief as it was, he enjoyed the esteem and respect of all, and 
 none was more dearly beloved. 
 
 Of commanding presence and dignified deportment, he inspired 
 the respect of all with whom he came in contact. He was eminently 
 social. Possessed of rare conversational powers a,nd a cultivated 
 mind, amiable disposition, and genial manner, warm-hearted and 
 affectionate, he drew around and cemented to him friends wherever 
 he went. He made but few speeches in the Senate, but when he did 
 speak he brought to the subject careful and accurate thought, close 
 research, and sound judgment. His highest ambition, best purpose, 
 and most earnest wish were that the estrangement growing out of 
 our late unfortunate war should forever disappear and be replaced 
 by harmony and good feeling between the people of the whole 
 Union, believing when this happy end should be attained there was 
 a brilliant and prosperous future before the country. 
 
 He was an earnest advocate of internal improvements on the part 
 of the General Government, feeling that if Congress could inaugurate 
 and carry out a proper system it would prove of incalculable benefit 
 to the country and help to bring about the harmony and friendly 
 feeling between the people of the States which he so much desired 
 and believed necessary to the perpetuity of our free institutions. 
 
 His speeches on the Centennial and river and harbor bills, deliv- 
 ered during the last session of Congress, breathe a spirit of progress 
 and patriotism and hope for the future. 
 
 But it was at his own home, in the midst of his neighbors and 
 friends of a lifetime and in the quiet sacredness of the domestic circle, 
 where he was best known, that he was loved most. 
 
 A fond and affectionate husband, a generous and loving father, he 
 enjoyed the devotion of his family. 
 
 2 C 
 
ADDRESS OF MR. WRIGHT ON THE 
 
 It was my lot to be one of the number who accompanied his 
 remains from this capital to their final resting-place at his home, 
 and his popularity and the afilection cherished for his memory were 
 marked by the general grief and gloom that pervaded all classes as 
 we drew nearer to the end of our sad journey. His death was not 
 only a great loss to his State and the country, but particularly to his 
 family and the community in which lie lived. He was endeared 
 to all classes, and in the long procession of relatives, friends, and 
 neighbors that followed his remains to their last resting-place, 
 among the grief-stricken and those who stood nearest the grave 
 were some of his former slaves. 
 
 Although cut off in the midst of his usefulness and at a time wlien 
 he could apparently do the most good for his country and State, we 
 bow with better submission to this dispensation of a divine Provi- 
 dence, believing and knowing that society, the times, and the age 
 were better for his having lived. 
 
 _;iDDRESS OF Mr. Wright, op Jowa. 
 
 Mr. President : I should be unmindful of the strong jiromptings 
 of friendship, indifferent to duty, and unjust to the memory and many 
 sterling qualities of head and heart of the late Senator Caperton, if 
 I did not add something to what has just been so appropriately said 
 by his surviving colleague. I first met the late Senator when lie 
 appeared to enter upon his duties here in March, 1875. Prom that 
 lime until his death our relations, official and personal, for those 
 tlierctofore strangers to each other, were more than usually intimate. 
 Among other duties, he was a.ssigned to the committee of which I 
 was then made chairman, a committee (Claims) where he fouud hard 
 work, drudgery, need of patience, care, thoughtfuliiess, walclifuhiess. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. H 
 
 and where, certainly equal to any other in this body, there is 
 abundant opportunity to test the fidelity of its members to duty and 
 their ability to dispose of the many perplexing and important ques- 
 tions arising. And I am sure that I but express the united judgment 
 of his associates there when I say that no man could have been more 
 faithful, painstaking, or attentive to every question arising, nor more 
 solicitous to do even and exact justice to the claimant and the Gov- 
 ernment, than our late colleague. 
 
 In the committee-room, as in the Senate, he was the same affable, 
 courteous, polite, and courtly gentleman, and in both, as in private 
 and social life, never in an unseemly or untimely- manner pressing 
 his views, never seeming to obtrude his opinions in the spirit of the 
 determined and obstinate antagonist, but mildly, pleasantly, and yet 
 with a firmness which satisfied you that he knew his ground, had 
 studied it well, and that his convictions or conclusions were the 
 result of thought and care, and not oif passion, prejudice, or other 
 than what was to him the very right of the case. He could listen 
 to and take part in fair and just argument; to aught else than this 
 and the very law and justice of the matter presented he ever turned 
 a deaf ear. 
 
 Senator Caperton was educated at Yale, and had as his class- 
 mates and fellow-students, among others, John and Wellington Gor- 
 don, of Virginia ; Rhett and Rutledge, of South Carolina ; Shorter, 
 of Georgia, as well as others who were afterward of distinguished 
 prominence in their several States and in the nation. One of these 
 (Hon. Henry Sherman, now of this city) says of him as a student 
 that " He was of fine personal appearance, courteous in his address, 
 of high moral character, and very popular among his fellow- 
 students." And following him through after life this friend adds 
 that " He was eminent in his profession, prominent in his State; in 
 liis business he was a man of large conscientiousness and high-toned 
 honor and integrity. I frequently found him, after he entered upon 
 
ADDRESS OF MR. WRIGHT ON THE 
 
 his duties in the Senate, very late at night poring over vokuninoiis 
 records and laboring with the utmost care and industry. His labori- 
 ous and persistent attention to business, in my judgment, shortened 
 his days." 
 
 In private life, as we have already heard, the goodness and great- 
 ness of the late Senator appeared in the most conspicuous manner. 
 The man who — as another friend, who was for years brought into the 
 closest and most intimate relations to him, in a letter now before me, 
 says — I say the man who, "tender and guileless as an infant himself, 
 could and did attach to him the affections of the young and the poor, 
 enter into their plans and pleasures, identify himself with their in- 
 terests; who had the almost sublime adoration of wifeand children, 
 and who returned this with a devotion attracting the attention of all 
 who knew him, who despised a little thing beyond expression ; who, 
 with that vigor of language of which on such occasions he was com- 
 plete master, denounced all things little and mean and wicked; who 
 ever took an interest unequaled in the struggles and trials of those 
 in distress and trouble ; who as a man was exemplary in all the rela- 
 tions of life" — such a man, I repeat, could not be otherwise than 
 good; and greatness most logically and certainly followed, for good- 
 ness leads to greatness; goodness is greatness. 
 
 Senator C.\perton belonged to that school of politics which taught 
 the power and constitutionality of the General Government to engage 
 in a general system of internal improvement. 
 
 Entertaining these convictions, he was, as his public life will show, 
 ever the most active sujjporter in his own State and in the nation of 
 all those measures which tended to the material development, by a 
 system of internal improvement or otherwise, of the old State which 
 lie loved so well, and of any and almost all schemes under the pat- 
 ronage and fostering care of the General Government which in his 
 opinion might contribute in any manner to its growth, greatness, and 
 material ])rosperity. On this subject or on these matters he never, 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 1 3 
 
 as far as I can learn, and as his public record will attest, had any the 
 least constitutional scruples. And yet it is perhaps not strange, in 
 view of his associations, education, and from his devotion to his State, 
 that he could quite naturally incline to side with his State in the late 
 unpleasant and deprecated struggle. Hence he took a prominent 
 part in that contest for what he thought were the rights of his State 
 and his people. And yet the sincerity of the man and his convic- 
 tions, his adherence to his principles as to the powers of the Govern- 
 ment, and his, as I must believe, patriotic devotion to the Union and 
 country in whose service he was engaged at the time of his death, is 
 well shown by what he said to a near friend in almost his last hours, 
 as given to me, when, referring to his public life, he said, "You know 
 the influences under which I have lived and been brought up and 
 strengthened in the views of States rights, consistent with which I 
 could not do otherwise than I did. But," he added, " I am clear of 
 those views now, and I accepted my present position with a firm 
 determination to support the Union and Government of the United 
 States, and my first ambition is to enforce upon the people of the 
 State which I represent my conviction that our greatest good is to 
 make the State of West Virginia as great a State in the Union as the 
 Old Dominion of Virginia was in her palmy days." 
 
 Such, Mr. President and Senators, were some of the characteristics 
 and virtues, as they impressed me, of our late colleague; such almost 
 his last words. Standing by his tomb and admonished by the occa- 
 sion, our present surroundings, the scenes here enacted each day, how 
 we should each be led to reflect upon the vanity and littleness of all 
 human ambitions and aspirations! How fitting that we should for 
 the passing hour, and mdeed for time, bury the asperities, the bitter- 
 ness, the criminations and recriminations of party and political strife, 
 and upon their tomb build higher and still higher a love and devo- 
 tion to that Union which is the only sure hope of our present and 
 future greatness; that Union which should know neither sections nor 
 
jiarties; that country which our deceased colleague was, as I believe, 
 in his service here, seeking to make stronger and better and i)urer; 
 that country and that Union bequeathed to us by the noblest ancestry 
 of the ages, and saved to us by the best blood of their equally noble 
 children. 
 
 ^DDREss OP M.R. Withers, of Virginia. 
 
 Mr. President: Amid the many appropriate and graceful tributes 
 to the memory of our departed associate, I ask the privilege of de- 
 positing a modest chaplet on the same sacred shrine. 
 
 To the interesting biographical sketch, the acute analyis of charac- 
 ter, the warm expressions of appreciation and esteem to which the 
 Senate has listened little need be added. Yet I feel in this connec- 
 tion that something is due from the State which gave him birth, the 
 State toward which his true and loyal heart was ever wont to turn 
 with filial love and never-failing reverence. Though by the exigen- 
 cies of the times he appeared on this floor as one of the faithful rep- 
 resentatives of that fair daughter which had been so rudely carved 
 from the mutilated form of that dismembered State, Allen T. Caper- 
 ton was iiitus ct in cute a Virginian of Virginians. His interest and 
 his affections, refusing to be restrained within the narrow confines of 
 West Virginia, included in their loving embrace all Virginia, whether 
 old or new. Nay, sir, I may go further and say that while Virginia 
 held the first place in his affections, no portion of his country, whether 
 East or West, North or South, was excluded. His expansive patriot- 
 ism, disdaining the restricted limits of State boundaries, embraced 
 the interests of the whole people. 
 
 Reared amid those grand old mountains which, like heaven's senti- 
 nels, keep watch and ward around that loved ancestral home where 
 his progenitors for generations had "lived and moved and had their 
 being," it is not surprising that his mind was early imbued with that 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 1 5 
 
 undying devotion to the principles of liberty and free government 
 which in all ages has been deemed a characteristic of " the dweller 
 among the hills." 
 
 Blessed with a fine person, a strong and vigorous intellect improved 
 by culture; of refined literary taste, with an exquisite and quiet humor; 
 of temperate habits and genial disposition, it is not remarkable that 
 he should have been early called to assume the duties and responsi- 
 bilities of public life. Of that public career, long and honorable as 
 it was, 1 shall speak very briefly. 
 
 By inheritance, as well as by the convictions of his maturer judg- 
 ment, he was an earnest but not a blind adherent of that grand old 
 party which under the leadership of the "great commoner" attained 
 such enviable distinction for its probity, its purity, and its patriotism 
 as will in all time provoke the emulation of all political organizations; 
 a party which, if not always fortunate in the inauguration of its 
 schemes of statecraft and the election of its candidates, ever main- 
 tained as its cardinal doctrine that the interests of the whole country 
 were to be held superior to the gratification of individual ambition, 
 and the prosperity of the people more to be valued than the triumph 
 of the politician. 
 
 These principles found in Mr. Caperton a steadfast and uncom- 
 promising adherent. His intellect, naturally acute, was expanded by 
 culture and disciplined by study in both northern and southern schools 
 until it attained a breadth and comprehensive scope which was fatal 
 alike to the narrow dogmatism of the sectionalist and the destructive 
 frenzy of the fanatic. He was no one-idea man. In politics he knew 
 no higher law than the Constitution of his country, was ambitious of 
 no distinction except that incident to the faithful discharge of repre- 
 sentative trust. He sought no selfish end, labored not for personal 
 aggrandizement. His devotion to duty was so absolute and unques- 
 tioning, his abnegation of self so utter and complete, that they over- 
 shadowed that prudence which ordinarily prompts us to regard per- 
 
1 6 ADDRESS OF MR. WITHERS ON THE 
 
 sonal comfort and personal safety superior to all other considerations, 
 and thus doubtless accelerated the final catastrophe by which an 
 honorable and useful career was so suddenly and sadly closed. En- 
 ervated by the excessive heat and exhausted by the unusually arduous 
 and protracted labors of the last session, with vital powers percepti- 
 bly waning day by day, he yet, with brave heart and unblenching 
 s[)irit, refused to seek amid other and more congenial surroundings 
 that repose upon which his very existence depended. In his opinion 
 the interests of his constituents required his personal attention and 
 demanded his continued presence here. The members of the Sen- 
 ate will not, I am sure, soon forget the earnest and almost impassioned 
 tones of his voice as they fell for the last time upon our ears pleading 
 for the inauguration and consummation of such enlarged and com- 
 prehensive policy of internal improvements as would develop and 
 enrich not only his own immediate constituency, but would redound 
 to the advantage of the whole country. 
 
 In hi.i stern devotion to duty, in his delicate sense of honor, in his 
 contempt for all that was little and mean, and in the fearless bravery 
 of his loyal heart he seemed better suited to the chivalric than to 
 the present utilitarian age. But it was in the domestic circle, amid 
 the sweet endearments of home, that the most lovable and lovely 
 traits of my friend's character found their fullest development. His 
 appreciation of home joys and domestic pleasure was unusually acute, 
 and however appreciated and honored might be his public service, he 
 ever turned with unfailing zest and keen enjoyment to the delights 
 of that mountain home whose elegant hospitalities he so much de- 
 lighted to dispense, and to that family in whose afiectionate minis- 
 trations he found his highest happiness. In the sacred penetralia of 
 that home there is " an aching void the world can never fill." I wi 1 
 not with rude hand attempt to draw back the veil which shrouds sor- 
 rows which it cannot wholly conceal. To "lime, the comforter," and 
 " to Him who doeth all things well," they can look alone for the heal- 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 17 
 
 ing of their yet green wounds, assured that when that time shall come 
 they will feel a just appreciation of his reputation as a public serv- 
 ant, and will forever cherish as their dearest heritage the memory of 
 his sweet domestic virtues. 
 
 Mr. President, to arrest the sweeping current of heated political 
 discussion which has since the commencement of the present session 
 borne down everything before it; to still for a time the tones of mutual 
 denunciation which have so persistently vexed the ear of the Senate; 
 to withdraw our minds for a brief space from the consideration of 
 the exciting questions which press upon us with such engrossing 
 interest, and to turn with saddened hearts and subdued utterances 
 to the performance of the touching duty of paying this tribute of 
 respect and affection to the memory of our departed associate, is 
 eminently judicious and must be productive of good. 
 
 These ceremonies bring us face to face with the last great enemy, 
 before whom the struggles of political parties are dwarfed into insig- 
 nificance, and compel you to remember that "there is no work, nor 
 device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest." 
 
 The dreams of ambition, the mad quest for power and place, the 
 aspirations of purest patriotism, alike pass away v/ith the fleeting 
 breath, and thus we "bring our years to an end as a tale that is told:" 
 
 For the living I<no\v that they shall die : Init the dead know not anything. Also 
 their love, and their haired, and their envy, is now perished ; neither have they any 
 more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun. 
 
 Such is the conclusion of him to whom was given wisdom beyond 
 that which has ever fallen to man, and it becomes us well to ponder 
 his words and so apply our hearts to the true wisdom that when our 
 star sets at hfe's close "it may set as sets the morning st.'r, which 
 goes not down behind the darkened west, but melts away into the 
 brightness of the coming day." 
 
 3 c; 
 
l8 ADDRESS OF MR. EDMUNDS ON THE 
 
 Address of Mr. Edmunds, of yERMONT. 
 
 Mr. President : Mr. Caperton took his seat in this body as one 
 of the representatives of West Virginia for the term of six years on 
 the 4th of March, 1875. He died on the 26th of July, 1876. 
 
 A law higher than constitutions and a power greater than that of 
 St.i-tes terminated the high trust his State had committed to him 
 before one-fourth of its period of usefulness and honor had elapsed. 
 The daily lesson of mortality, repeated in every age and every clime 
 in the only language common to all the inhabitants of the earth, 
 speaks as clearly to those in the most exalted as to those in the hum- 
 blest stations. The cabinets and audience-chambers of kings and the 
 halls of .senates are as obedient to its inexorable voice as the lonely 
 tent or wigwam of the poorest dweller in the desert. Misery and 
 ha])piness, want and affluence, are equal before it ; and so day by day 
 there disappear from the scene of human endeavor, as well the actors 
 of the great parts as the simple figures who only pass unnoticed across 
 the shadows of the most distant parts of the stage. 
 
 In the brief career of Mr. Caperton among us, he had endeared 
 liimself to the whole body of his senatorial associates. Political' 
 IViends and political opponents alike found in him those qualities of 
 Ijcrsonal uprigiuness and independence that do .so much always to 
 mitigate the overzeal and soften the asperities of party strife. A 
 man of much sensitiveness of temper and of strong opinions, the self- 
 reverence and self-control flowing from a gentle spirit, a cultivated 
 intellect, and long intercourse with his fellow-men in many stations 
 of trust, made him always courteous in manner and conciliatory in 
 advancing his own opinions and in opposing those of others. He has 
 been suddenly taken from the sphere of labor for his State and his 
 country, upon which he had but just commenced. .\s we join in the 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 19 
 
 sorrows of the young coninionuealth he rcpresenteil, \vc naturally 
 look backward to liis predecessors and to her singular history. Mr. 
 Caperton was only the third Senator of his class I'rom that State. 
 Mr. Borenian immediately preceded him, and Mr. Van Winkle pre- 
 ceded Mr. Boreman, and was one of the first two Senators from West 
 Virginia, Mr. Willey being his colleague. Out of the convulsions of 
 the rebellion there was born a new and welcome sister in our great 
 family of States. 
 
 The substantial power of the old commonwealth of \"irginia, 
 glorious in all her previous history, east of the mountains, having 
 carried her in 1861 into the rebellion — although during a short period 
 afterward she had representatives in the Senate — the people of the 
 forty-eight counties of the western part of the State, lying among the 
 beautiful and fertile valleys of the AUeghanies, in 1862 framed a con- 
 stitution and government for a separate and independent State. The 
 great majority of this people were loyal to the national unity of the 
 Republic, and naturally felt deeply anxious that their fortunes should 
 not be linked with those of Eastern Virginia in its sad attempt to 
 break up the Government of the Union. After mi:ch consideration 
 and many doubts, on the 31st of December, 1862, an act of Congress 
 was passed providing for the creation of the new State of West Vir- 
 ginia, and on tlie 19th of June, 1863, she became the thirty-fifth State 
 of the Union, and the twenty-second of the new States. The cliar- 
 acter of the political body that, as the legislature of Virginia, 
 assented to the dismemberment of the State was not the clearest as 
 being the constitutional legislature of the old State ; but Congress 
 exercised its undoubted political power to recognize it as such, and 
 the State of West Virginia became an accomplished and unchange- 
 able fact. It is not one of the least evils flowing from powerful 
 assaults upon lawful government that the government itself is often 
 forced to extreme measures and to the verge of its authority to pre- 
 serve and protect itself; anil thus it sometimes transmits to later 
 
ADDRESS OF MK. EDMUNDS ON THE 
 
 times unsatisfactory precedents and examples that many in less 
 emergencies are too apt to resort to as the justification or excuse for 
 other steps dangerous to the common weal. As we reflect upon the 
 characters and careers of departed statesmen and bring up to view 
 the events with which they were connected in times of trouble and 
 distress, can we not repeat with fervent emphasis? 
 
 Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day, 
 Live till to-morrow, will liave passed away. 
 
 Neither the purest motives nor the most e.xalted patriotism can 
 prove an antidote to the poison of measures of any government be- 
 yond its constituted power, however apt they may be for the exigen- 
 cies of an existing occasion, or for an appeal to any other force than 
 that of the law for the redress of grievances arising in a government 
 constituted upon principles of justice and equal rights, and wherein, 
 from period to period, recourse must be had to fresh expressions of 
 the popular will. The men of the time and the excitement of the 
 hour pass away, but the institutions and the body of the people, old 
 and yet ever new, remain to rectify, in the sober light cf truth and 
 reason, the evils that ignorance or passion, prejudice or corruption, 
 may have inflicted upon society. 
 
 To-day we make memorial to a [)rominent figure in the government 
 of a great nation. One of tliat very small body of men, to whom, as 
 " the .sheet-anchor of the Government," the security and haiijiiness of 
 more than forty millions of peojjle are chiefly committed, has been 
 called, suddenly and forever, from his place. Such an event, although 
 certain to occur very often, cannot fail to be solemn and impressive, 
 not only — indeed not chiefly — from our awe of death, or from our 
 friendship and respect for the man who has gone, but from consider- 
 ations that relate to the connection of particular individuals, or 
 indeed selected bodies of men, with alTiiirs of state, and the little 
 contribution the most fortunate arc acttialjy able lo make to the sum 
 of human events. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 21 
 
 In this body, itself the most permanent in its personality of any un- 
 der the Constitution except the judiciary, a very few years suffice to 
 change almost entirely the elements of its composition. There now 
 remain to us only three Senators who occupied their places at the 
 beginning of Mr. Lincoln's administration, or who participated offi- 
 cially in the long tragedy of the rebellion ; and there are only eleven 
 who in 1868 were members of the high court that tried and acquittted 
 the President. The accused and the greater part of his judges have 
 long since left the forum — some for the simple duties and pleasures of 
 citizenship, and some, with the chief personage in that great drama, 
 have gone to their long repose, and to whose constantly increasing 
 number has now been added one of the most recently appointed of 
 the members of this body. 
 
 Surely the works we personally do for our country must be few and 
 small in the aggregate of history, and their permanent value must 
 depend, not upon the glamour of orator)', the polish of scholarship, 
 or skill in discussion, but rather on that deep spirit of truth and 
 justice, and the courage to follow them always, that make up the 
 character of him — 
 
 Wlio, whether praise of him must walk the earth 
 Forever, and to noble deeds give birth, 
 Or must go to dust without his fame, 
 And leave a dead, unprofitable name, 
 Finds comfort in himself and in his cause, 
 And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws 
 His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause. 
 
 _;4ddress of Mr. JSayard, op Pelaware. 
 
 Mr. President: On the 4th of March, 1875, our lamented asso- 
 ciate, Allen Taylor Caperton, took his seat in this body, having 
 been elected to serve until March, 1881. Death closed his career 
 when but little more than a single year of his senatorial service had 
 
22 ADDRESS OF MR BAYARD ON THE 
 
 been performed. During this slicirt ijeriod there was httie to signalize 
 his service here, and in the (juiet, steady, undemonstrative perform- 
 ance of liis duty must be found the basis of any commentary we may 
 now make. 
 
 I have said his period of service here was short, yet it was long 
 enough to cause all wlio came to be acquainted with him to mourn 
 that it should not have been longer. It was long enough to impress 
 those whose acquaintance he then first made w^ith respect and confi- 
 dence. 
 
 He came into this body with a high and unblemished personal 
 repute, not built upon noisy professions and sustained by sensational 
 advertisement, but firmly founded in the appreciation of his personal 
 qualities by his friends, his neighbors, and that wide-spread circle of 
 men of all shades of political opinion in Virginia and West Virginia 
 amid whom his modest and virtuous life had been spent, and where 
 a worthy ancestry had preceded him from the first foundations of 
 civil government in that country. 
 
 The term declared by the Psalmist to b; the years of a man had 
 been nearly passed by him, lor he had reached his sixty-seventh year 
 when the "dread arrest" was felt. But he had so lived that he did 
 not fear to die, and although wrung with pain he met it as the imme- 
 diate and recognized precursor of death with that fortitude which 
 had characterized his whole life. He had lived remote from cities, 
 and in the comparative seclusion of a country life had found his thea- 
 ter of usefulness, duty, and quiet happiness. 
 
 From the most venerable and one of the most highly respected 
 institutions of learning in our coiuitry he had received, in 1S32, his 
 diploma of scholarshi]), and, as a graduate of Vale College, entered 
 upon the study and soon the practice of the law. He attained high 
 standing in the ranks of his profe.ssion, and gained and kept the con- 
 fidence and affection of those around liim, as was attested by the 
 many important public trusts he was called upon to execute. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF AI.LEN T. CAPERTON. 23 
 
 When Virginia, his native home, felt in i86i, in common with all 
 other members of our Federal Union, the terrible convulsions of 
 political strife, it was almost inevitable that a citizen so eminent and 
 esteemed by men of all parties as Mr. Caperton should be called 
 upon in that critical hour to represent his people in the |)ublic 
 councils. 
 
 While he nought not distinction for himself, he shrank not from re- 
 sponsibility, nor kept in the background when danger showed itself 
 at the front ; lor no man in a land where courage is the rule was more 
 constant in that quality, morally and physically, than he. 
 
 He was in politics a whig — a conservative-union man — and with 
 such views became a member of the State convention of Virginia of 
 
 1 86 1. This is not the occasion to relate nor I the fit historian of the 
 longing, lingering look cast back upon that Union, in so great degree 
 the work of her sons in field and council, of her treasure and her ter- 
 ritory, by the great State of Virginia as she reluctantly withdrew 
 from its political association. 
 
 The conscience and training of Allen T. Caperton bade him follow 
 the political fortunes of his State, and in obedience to the call of her 
 legislature he became a member of the Confederate States senate in 
 
 1862, and served there throughout its stormy existence and until the 
 end of that short-lived government. Ten years after that govern- 
 ment had passed away to be known no more except in history, Mr. 
 Caperton was in the vicissitude of human affairs chosen to represent 
 the State of West Virginia in the Senate of the United States. 
 
 Mr. President, I have never felt more penetrated with a sense of 
 the wisdom of prompt and thorough reconciliation of our fellow-coun- 
 trymen, so lately and violently at strife, than when I recognized in 
 the course of my confidential relations of private friendship with 
 Alle.m Caperton how truly and wholly his heart beat for the hap- 
 piness and prosperity of our whole country and for the perpetuation 
 of its constitutional government. Would that now the power could 
 
ADDKESS OF MR. BOOTH ON THE 
 
 be given to me to picture in all its glowing and truthful reality the 
 fidelity of his honest soul, that has so lately taken its flight, to the 
 integrity and welfare of our (Jovernnient and the happiness of all 
 its people. Sure am I that distrust and suspicion toward men such 
 as he, and from the section of country with which he was politically 
 identified, would vanish, and forever, from the breasts of their fellow- 
 country men of the more northern section of the Union. 
 
 Honor and truth are not mere idle abstractions. They are the liv- 
 ing and practical realities upon which men and women found their 
 best reliance for personal happiness, and which constitute the real 
 bulwarks of a nation's welfare and safety, without which written 
 constitutions are mockeries and laws mere pitfalls. 
 
 In the life of the modest gentleman whose death we mourn these 
 qualities were constantly exemplified, and from our contemplation of 
 them and their exercise may we not take new resolve to pay them 
 due respect in our memory of the dead, and call for their recognition 
 and practice in our intercourse with the living. 
 
 ^AddrEoS of Mh. JBooth, of Paliforuia. 
 
 Mr. President: We have paused in our daily labor, turned aside 
 I'rom the routine of business and from the consideration of those 
 grave questions which disturb the public mind with vague alarm, to 
 pay tribute of respect to one who in his brief service in this body, by 
 his kindness, courtesy, and frankness, made each of us his friend, and 
 who discharged his public duties with industry, intelligence, fidelity, 
 and honor. 
 
 This chamber is the arena of intellectual combat, and when the 
 great monarch drops his baton the conflict of opinion is suspended. 
 
 In all stations, in every allotment of life, it is well that we should 
 sometimes be brought to the absolute contemplation of death and 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTO.V. 25 
 
 the realization tiiat to eacli of us it is inevitable and near. The days 
 of our lite are numbered; at each sunset there is one less. The sands 
 of our life are measured. While I speak they are wasting. 
 
 Though death is as "common as any, the most vulgar thing to 
 sense," though it hath been " cried from the first corse till he that 
 died to-day '///y ntiist be so,'" it still remains the great mystery whose 
 overshadowing presence awes us into a sense of our insignificance, 
 and shows us the objects of our pursuit and passionate desire in their 
 cold, naked reality. And this is its office to the living. Not lips 
 touched with the fire of genius can so solemnize us to a sense of duty, 
 so plead for the right, so admonish us of the vanity of human expec- 
 tation as the dumb, cold lips of the dead. Beneath these forms and 
 trappings, beneath this covering of flesh, our skeletons are marching 
 to the grave. And everything on earth that we long for, seek, strive 
 for, is but a covered skeleton. Adorn it as we may, cheat ourselves 
 as we will, "to this complexion it must come at last;" and then dust 
 and ashes. 
 
 Six months ago, if Allen Taylor Caperton had entered this 
 chamber and passed to his seat, it would have been a commonplace 
 incident, as little noted as your or my coming to-day. If he should 
 enter that door now, what an awe would fall upon us all. If he 
 should rise at his desk to speak, with what rapt suspense we should 
 listen. Not the most eloquent words that ever fell from mortal lips 
 could so enchain attention as the lightest syllable from his. 
 
 Yet if he could come back from the "undiscovered country" and 
 speak to us as in the flesh, do we not know what his message would 
 be ? Would he not counsel peace and good-will ? Could he incul- 
 cate a higher lesson than that taught of old, that "righteousness ex- 
 alteth a nation," that "error shall pass away like a shadow, the truth 
 shall endure forever?" Could he not tell us that self-seeking is not 
 the highest wisdom, that safe guidance is not found in passion, and 
 that institutions can neither be built nor preserved by hatred or vio- 
 
 4 o 
 
ADDRESS OF MR. UOOTH OX THE 
 
 lc;nce ? Could he reveal a diviner jjrecept than " luvc," a more sacred 
 duty than " charity ? " If it has been permitted him to pass in review 
 the ])rocession of events in the unnumbered ages since man appeared 
 on the earth and to realize that history has but begun, that in the 
 curtained future there are countless ages to be, could he not tell us 
 that in the grand sweep of destiny mere personal success, the pride 
 of place, the lust of power, are of as little, worth as the foam on the 
 river ? 
 
 This is the message from the dead past to the living present; this 
 is the lesson of the silent centuries; this is the voice from the grave 
 of all who have gone before. 
 
 Those who knew Senator Capf.rton better than I have already 
 spoken of the traits of his character and the incidents of his life. In 
 our brief acquaintance he impressed me as a man of culture and re- 
 finement ; of strong practical sense, impatient with what he regarded 
 as abstractions, zealous for the ]jromotion of every material interest, 
 and devoted to a reunion of hearts and hands through all the land. 
 His neighbors told me he was a man of active habits, interested in 
 every enterprise for the advancement and improvement of the coun- 
 try where he lived, strong in his convictions, outspoken in his ojjin- 
 ions, steadfast in his friendship, and of bountiful hospitality. 
 
 He had this true test of genuine worth: his character and temper 
 softened and mellowed with years and experience. Children loved 
 him, and the dumb beast regarded him as a natural protector. 
 
 He lived, where his ancestors had for se\-eral generations, in a re- 
 gion of great beauty of landscape — a high plateau, with mountain- 
 peaks in the distance, with intervales and opening vistas of surpass- 
 ing loveliness— off the great lines of travel, and where the stream of 
 life seemed to eddy into a quiet circle. It was a spot where old cus- 
 toms survive, old fashions prevail, and old faiths are cherished. From 
 his beautiful home, through the broad English lawn — almost a park — 
 we l)ore his remains to the village church, where his old friends and 
 
neighbors had gathered from all the country round. The solemn 
 service for the dead was spoken. We followed him to the grave-yanl 
 on the hill and left him with his fathers. 
 
 His task is finished. He has no part or lot in all that ii done be- 
 neath the sun. No more for him the voice of love, the song of glad- 
 ness, the load of care, the cup of sorrow. Not for him the beauty of 
 spring, the splendor of summer, the glory of autumn, the uncrowned 
 majesty of winter. Flowers will spring from his grave ; storms will 
 beat upon it ; morning will greet it with her earliest light, night 
 crown it with her stars, and the earth, rolling in her great orb in in- 
 finite space, will bear his dust with hers, till time shall be no more. 
 
 Ah, mystery of death, and greater mystery of life! both are in the 
 hand of Him without whose knowledge not a sparrow falls ; obedi- 
 ent to whose will the tides of human destiny ebb and flow, and unto 
 whom a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is gone, or a 
 watch in the night. 
 
 Address of /Wr. ^'rice, of West Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Pre.sident : I was no doubt better acquainted with the de- 
 ceased than was any other Senator here. We lived in adjoining 
 counties, practiced law in the same courts, were members of the same 
 legislatures and the same conventions, and generally had the same 
 interests to represent. Our acquaintance extended back to his early 
 manhood, when he first commenced his professional and entered 
 upon his public career. 
 
 He was the son of Hugh Caperton, esq., a gentleman of fascinat- 
 ing address and popular manners, of great compass and energy of 
 mind, and who, by his energy and sound judgment, had amassed a 
 large fortune, which he left unimpaired and unembarrassed to his 
 children. He was repeatedly called on by the citizens of his county 
 to represent them in the popular broncli of the State legislature; and 
 
he always served them to their entire satisfaction. He was also 
 elected to Congress from his district at a critical period in our history, 
 and rendered service satisfactory to his district. 
 
 Allen Taylor Caperton, the subject of our remarks to-day, was 
 born on the 21st day of November, icSio, in the town of Union, 
 Monroe County, Virginia, now West Virginia, and departed thislifeon 
 the 26th day of July, 1876. He inherited his father's popularity and 
 a large estate. He received the rudiments of an English education at 
 the village school of his nati\e town. At that time there being no 
 schools of a high grade in that immediate neighborhood,-hewassent to 
 theacailemyat Huntsville, Alabama, where heremained two and a half 
 years. He was then sent to the Lewisburgh Acadeiny, which was pre- 
 sided over by that historic character Rev. Dr. John McElhenny, the 
 pioneer preacher in the Presbyterian Church, a veneration for whose 
 person and character Mr. Caperton cherished during the remainder 
 of his life. 
 
 In early manhood (the date I have not obtained) Mr. Caperton 
 became a student at Vale College, where he remained four years and 
 until he was graduated. Upon his return to Virginia he went to the 
 university of that State, where he was also graduated. He finally 
 finished his education at General (afterward Judge) Baldwin's law- 
 school in Staunton, Virginia, and immediately thereafter commenced 
 the practice of his profession. 
 
 He was married, in the twenty-second year of his age, to Miss 
 Harriet Echols, a lady of great intellectual, social, and moral worth, 
 whose acquaintance he made while a student at Yale College, and 
 who remains his survivor. 
 
 Mr. Caperton filled many oflices of trust and importance. 
 
 The first office that he filled was a State directorship in the James 
 River and Kanawha Company, as successor to his father, who had 
 held that oflice and resigned. This, though not a lucrative office, 
 having neither salary nor perquisites, was deemed one of great State 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPEKION- 29 
 
 importance, as it was then expected that by this improvement the 
 waters of the Chesapeake would be connected with the waters of the 
 Mississippi through the State of Virginia. 
 
 In April, 1841, he became a candidate for the State legislature, and 
 was elected to represent his native county in the house of delegates. 
 
 In April, 1S44, he was elected to the State senate from the counties 
 of Jlonroe, Giles, Montgomery, Floyd, Greenbrier, and Mercer. 
 During this term, which was one of four years, he had the misfortune 
 to lose his venerated father. He filled no political or civil office from 
 that time until 1850. He was the e.xecutor of his father's will, which 
 devolved upon him a large mass of business, which, with a large and 
 increasing professional business, gave him full employment without 
 being involved in the mazes of politics. 
 
 In August, 1850, a convention being called to amend the State con- 
 stitution, his fellow-citizens of Monroe, Giles, Tazewell, and Mercer 
 Counties called on him to become one of their representatives, to which 
 call he responded affirmatively and was elected. In this convention he 
 took a promment part, the great question before that bodybeing the 
 basis of representation in the two houses of the legisIature,one party 
 assuming that white population should be the basis, the other that popu- 
 lation and ta.xation combined should be the basis. He, in common with 
 his western friends, advocated the white basis. The question was finally 
 settled by a committee of compromise, of which he was a member. 
 He was twice upon the whig electoral ticket as elector, but failed 
 to secure his election because his party was in the minority in the 
 State at both elections. 
 
 In 1859 he was induced to become again a candidate for the house 
 of delegates, with a view of pushing on the great central improvement 
 which is now known as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. He 
 was elected and served two sessions. It would scarcely be necessary 
 for me to say that he was one of the leading members of that body, if 
 not the very leader. 
 
30 ADDRESS OF MR. PRICE ON' THE 
 
 While he was thus serving in the house of delegates, he, in 1861, 
 was elected a delegate to the State convention known as the secession 
 convention. He entered that convention with a determination to 
 save the Union if he could ; but when President Lincoln called for 
 money and troops to subjugate tlie South, he did not think the Union 
 could be preserved, and voted for the separation. 
 
 In 1862, Hon. William Ballard Preston, one of the senators in the 
 confederate congress, having depaiicd this life, Mr. Caperton was 
 elected to fill the vacancy. 
 
 In 1875 he was elected by the legislature of West Virginia a Sen- 
 ator in this body, which he remained to the time of his death. 
 
 This is his public history, the principal part of which is known to 
 your humble speaker. 
 
 I said in the outset that he inherited his father's popularity and a 
 large estate, which assertion I again repeat with the addition that he 
 added greatly to both. By the rehearsal which I have given of the 
 chronology of his public life, it will be seen that his popularity grew 
 with his growth and strengthened with his strength; that his last 
 days were his most popular days; and he added to his fortune as 
 well as to his popularity, and died possessed of a large estate. 
 
 As a lawyer he was always ingenious and persuasive. He under- 
 stood law as a science, and practiced with great success. He was 
 generally engaged in all the important cases that arose within the 
 range of his practice. He generally argued his cases with marked 
 ability, though he was not always equal to himself. He required to 
 be aroused; without that his utterance was a little hesitating, and his 
 mind seemed timid in taking hold of the subject ; but when thoroughly 
 aroused, his language flowed copiously and his mind worked 
 smoothly and vigorously. He could not only follow up his subject 
 in argument, but could add beauty to strength ; he could cull llowers 
 for the jury and carry on a playful dalliance with everything he met 
 with on the wayside. He was probably the best lawyer I ever knew 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 31 
 
 who did not commence the practice of law from necessity, poverty 
 being, as a general thing, necessary, as I think, to professional suc- 
 cess. I can unite with another friend of his who said, just before the 
 senatorial election in 1875, "Mr. Capekton is an accomplished 
 man in every respect." His disposition was genial and his fund of 
 information copious, which made him attractive as a social compan- 
 ion. 
 
 His last illness was short. No one thought the symptoms of his 
 case were alarming. Some of his family were with him, not as watch- 
 men at the bed of death, but as nurses around the bed of sickness. He 
 was bolstered up in bed with pillows, and said to his children who 
 were present, " Hoist the window ; hoist it quickly," and swooned 
 away and died. The winged messenger was sped with too fatal an 
 aim. Death had struck its victim, and he is no more. " He is gone 
 from us and will not come to us, but we may go to him." 
 
 " The ways of Providence are inscrutable and past finding out." 
 But this we know, that " it is appointed unto men once to die." He 
 has gone before us. We must soon follow. 
 
 To say that he was an affectionate husband and a kind father 
 would be cqmmonplace and almost a mockery in terms, for his family 
 not only reverenced him, but almost adored him. They have sus- 
 tained the '■^irreparable loss," and no one can realize the deep mean- 
 ing of this expression who has never experienced it. We need not 
 go into the sanctuary of the family to find mourners ; they are found 
 in the streets, in the by-ways and the hedges, and everywhere where 
 Mr. Caperton was known. 
 
 Deeply sympathizing with his family and other friends, in humble 
 sorrow we submit to the fiat of an all-w^ise and inscrutable Providence. 
 
 Mr. President, as a further testimonial of respect to the memory of 
 the deceased, I move that the Senate do now adjourn. 
 
 The motion was agreed to unanimously; and (at four o'clock and 
 eleven minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned. 
 
PROCEEDINGS IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 DECEMDEIi 22, 1876. 
 
 A message from the Senate, by Mr. Sympson, one of its clerks, 
 commimicated the proceedings of the Senate in regard to the death 
 of Hon. Allen T. Caperton, late a Senator from West Virginia. 
 
 Tlie Speaker. The Chair lays before the House the following res- 
 olutions, received from the Senate: 
 
 Resolved, That as an additional mark of respect to the memory of 
 Allen T. Caperton, late a Senator from the State of West Virginia, 
 business be now suspended that the friends and associates of the de- 
 ceased may pay fitting tribute to his private and public virtues. 
 
 Resolved, That the Secretary communicate this resolution to the 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 Address of Mr. Hereford, of West Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: For the first time since the State of \Vest Virginia 
 wa.s organized as a separate State arc we called u[>on to mourn the 
 death of one of her representatives in the national councils. 
 
 We are told in the sacred writings that — 
 
 It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting: 
 for that is the end of -all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. 
 
 May it prove so in this instance. May we lay this visitation of 
 Divine Providence to our hearts, and leave this hall better men, bet- 
 ter citizens, and better legislators, legislating for the whole country 
 and the continued peace thereof. 
 
 Allen Taylor Caperton is no more. He was born in Union, 
 
Monroe County, Virginia, (now West Virginia,) November 21, 1810; 
 after having attended the schools in his native village, he went to the 
 University of Virginia and Yale College, graduating with honor at 
 the latter institution in 1831 ; after which he studied law with Judge 
 Briscoe G. Baldwin, at Staunton, Virginia; he was admitted to the 
 bar, and up to his death practiced his profession in his native county 
 and several adjoining counties. Having all the advantages of a 
 thorough education, and being of studious habits and fond of his pro- 
 fession, he soon ranked among the very ablest lawyers in the State. 
 He had a mind peculiarly adapted to the law; its catholic spirit, the 
 broad principles of even and exact justice he found in the pages of 
 the law library were in perfect consonance with his own nature. His 
 lofty spirit disdained the arts of the pettifogger. In his practice he 
 was never guilty of deception. He deceived neither client, court, 
 nor jury, retaining to the last the confidence and respect of each. 
 He took peculiar delight in the companionship of his brother mem- 
 bers of the bar, as all can attest who ever met him professionally, or 
 under his hospitable roof. But he did not confine himself exclusively 
 to the labors of his profession. He took great interest in developing 
 the material interests, the agricultural and mineral resources of his 
 State. He was a director of the James River and Kanawha Canal, 
 in which he took a great interest up to the time of his death ; he had 
 a great and life-long desire to see by the construction of this mag- 
 nificent work the waters of the mighty West connected with those 
 of the East. 
 
 He was for several years a member of the State house of delegates 
 and of the State senate of Virginia, his last senatorial term being from 
 1859 to i860. During his service in the legislature, enabled as he 
 was by his store of knowledge, he assisted very materially in mold- 
 ing the code of laws of that State. He was also a member of the 
 constitutional convention of that State in 1861. At the breaking 
 out of the late war he was originally opposed to extreme measures. 
 
 5 O 
 
34 ADDRESS OF MR. HEREFORD ON THE 
 
 believing, with many others, that the rights they claimed could be 
 more certainly obtained by battling for the right within the Union ; 
 but when his State decided otherwise he followed. During the war 
 he was elected to the confederate senate, which position he held at 
 the close thereof. As soon as hostilities ceased he turned his face to 
 the future, and from that time to the day of his death he did all in 
 his power to restore peace, harmony, and fraternal feeling to this dis- 
 tracted land. 
 
 As long as the whig party was in existence he was one of its strong- 
 est and ablest supporters. He defended its principles and devoted 
 himself to its success with knightly courage and devotion. Oft and 
 again in earlier days has his manly form been seen going from county 
 to county, along valley and over mountain-heights, for the purpose 
 of addressing his fellow-citizens in stirring and eloquent appeals to 
 rally them to the standard of Henry Clay. Wherever the white 
 plume of his great captain. Harry of the West, was seen, there was he. 
 
 On February 17, 1875, after a protracted struggle, he was elected 
 to the United States Senate to succeed Arthur I. Boreman. How 
 short his career on that theater! Truly hath the wise man said : 
 Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. 
 
 During the last session of Congress we had rooms in the same 
 building, and it was my fortune to see more of him in his last sickness 
 than any other person. It was my lot and sad pleasure to minister 
 to his varied wants in his last days on earth. His suffering at times 
 was very great, after which he was easy and very cheerful. He bore 
 his paroxysms of suffering with heroic fortitude, never repining. A 
 short time before the critical moment his only son and eldest daugh- 
 ter, with other relations, were summoned to his bed-side; his noble 
 and devoted wife being too feeble to travel. He was not aware his 
 end was so near. On the last morning of his earthly existence, 
 thoughtful as he always was of the pleasure of others, he suggested 
 to his son and another gentleman near and dear to him who was in 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 35 
 
 attendance, to go to the hall of the House of Representatives to hear 
 a certain discussion that was to take place, in which he felt a great 
 interest. They yielded to his request, and only returned an hour or 
 two before he had another and his last paroxysm. About four o'clock 
 p. m. of that day, July 26, 1876, he was sitting up in his bed con- 
 versing with his son. All at once he said quickly to him, " Raise 
 that window," which was done, and he immediately expired. 
 
 "Raise that window!" How typical! how suggestive! As the 
 window of his earthly mansion was raised that of the eternal was 
 opened to receive his spirit into the "house not made with hands, 
 eternal in the heavens." 
 
 His remains now lie buried amid the mountains where he was born, 
 and over which he delighted to ramble in his boyhood days and riper 
 years. 
 
 If any one had ever doubted the high esteem in which he was held 
 at home, they would have doubted no longer if they had been pres- 
 ent on that last sad day when his remains were lowered into the grave. 
 For miles around his friends came from their mountain homes to 
 mingle their tears with his weeping family — men and women of all 
 stations in life, the rich and poor, white and black ; among the 
 latter of whom were many who once were his slaves. That was a 
 sad, sad day for the little village of Union. Sadness and silence 
 reigned over that mountain village as if they had lost their last and 
 dearest friend. 
 
 But a few weeks preceding this scene a similar one had been wit- 
 nessed. Augustus A. Chapman, a former member of this House for 
 two terms, had paid the debt of nature. Caperton and Chapman 
 in one brief summer. A. A. Chapman was also a man of mark and 
 distinction, beloved by all, disliked by none — a noble and generous 
 soul. Both have left behind them fond, devoted wives, noble speci- 
 mens of true womanhood, and each a son worthy to bear the names 
 of their respective fathers, and each several daughters inheriting all 
 
3(J ADDRESS OF MR. HEREFORD ON THE 
 
 the nobler and finer traits of cliaracter of their fathers. Mr. Caper- 
 ton was of pure and spotless character, public and private. 
 
 If it be true, as has been said, that public men are the true reflex 
 of their constituents, then indeed may West \'irginia take high rank 
 among the great sisterhood of States. 
 
 Cicero tells us that in his day — 
 
 The senators, tliat is, the scites or old men of the state, dwelt in the country and 
 lived on their farms. 
 
 So did Mr. Caperton ; and to its fullest extent did he adopt the 
 
 sentiment of Cicero when he said : 
 
 There is nothing more profitable, for there is not in nature, in my opinion, any- 
 thing more beautiful or affecting, than to behold a plantation with all the parts of 
 it in complete and perfect order. 
 
 He delighted in horseback exercise. He was devoted to his home 
 and his State. He delighted in natural scenery, and at times he 
 seemed to be enchanted. 
 
 Well do I recollect one bright, beautiful morning, when we were 
 returning from Charleston on horseback, just as the sun was gilding 
 the eastern horizon, we reached the highest point of Sewell Mount- 
 ain, when suddenly he called to me to halt, and said, " Behold the 
 beauty, grandeur, and sublimity of this view." Below us lay the 
 morning fog as one broad sea, with here and there some peak taller 
 than the others rising through the fog and presenting the appearance 
 of so many islands, covered with the most beautiful emerald, in the 
 midst of the ocean. 
 
 Again he burst fortii in iiis ecstasy and exclaimed — 
 
 See yonder mountains, the everlasting mountains; how peerlessly they rise 
 Like earth's gigantic sentinels discoursing to the sky. 
 
 He could not tolerate tyranny or oppression either in the individ- 
 ual or state; he was a noble specimen of truest manhood, most 
 eloquently and happily illustrated in that expression of George W. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 37 
 
 Summers, West Virginia's most gifted orator, when, describing the 
 
 State and her people, he said : 
 
 Her people are a bold, daring, liberty-loving people ; they are lulled to sleep at 
 night by the roaring of her cataracts and awakened in the morning by the scream 
 of the eagle as he takes his flight sunward. 
 
 He had a kind, tender, and grateful heart. Well do I remember 
 on another occasion, when again traveling on horseback over our 
 lofty mountains, when arriving at a certain spot he pointed to a farm 
 some distance from the road and said, " There lives a generous, kind- 
 hearted man; I shall never forget him; directly after the war, as I 
 was passing that point, he came out to me and said : ' Mr. Caperton, 
 you are going to Charleston; although you are a rich man in this 
 world's goods I know you can have no money, for the war has just 
 closed ; here are a few dollars in silver that I had buried ; take it.' 
 I thanked him, but declined his generous offer." 
 
 He was a man of scholarly attainments, a fine lawyer, a man of 
 enlarged views on all subjects, a devoted husband and father, a warm 
 friend, a generous neighbor, and a worthy example to old and young, 
 at home and abroad, in public and private. He scorned everything 
 like duplicity. 
 
 In the selection of men to fill the offices of our State, from the 
 highest to the lowest, he always urged that none should be elevated 
 to position but men of ability and spotless character, both in public 
 and private, having an eye single to the good of the State and all the 
 people thereof 
 
 But I inust detain you no longer. He is gone, gone to his long 
 home. Who will dare say the world was not better by his having 
 lived in it ? No more shall we look upon his manly brow and deli- 
 cately-chiseled features; no more will we hear his merry laugh or 
 words of encouragement and sound wisdom. 
 
 I lis life was gentle; and the elements 
 
 So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up 
 
 And say to all the world, " This was a man ! " 
 
38 ADDRESS OF MR. GOODE ON THE 
 
 Address of Mr pooDE, of yiRGiNiA. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: The representcatives of the American people are 
 again called upon to pause in their deliberations for the public good 
 to recognize the hand of death and to render a just tribute of respect 
 to the memory of a worthy compatriot and faithful public servant in 
 the other end of the Capitol. 
 
 On the 26th day of July, 1876, Alle.v Taylor Caperton, a Sena- 
 tor from the State of West Virginia, was suddenly stricken down in 
 the midst of an honorable and useful public career, and his mortal re- 
 mains were borne hence to his beautiful home in the mountains of 
 West Virginia, where they were tenderly consigned to the grave by 
 his bereaved neighbors and friends, who had known him long and 
 loved him well. As one of the Representatives from the State of Vir- 
 ginia, I feel that I would disappoint the just expectations of my con- 
 stituents if I failed to utter their voice of sympathy on this memorial 
 occasion, and to give some expression, however inadequate, of the 
 respect and esteem in which they held the distinguished dead. Vir- 
 ginia claims the mournful privilege of laying a simple wreath upon 
 the tomb of her departed son. Mr. Caperton was born upon the 
 soil of Virginia. He was educated at her great university. He was 
 identified with her works of internal improvement. He was for many 
 years an active member of her general assembly in both branches. 
 He was a conspicuous member of her convention in i86i,and served 
 her with fidelity and zeal in the senate of the Confederate States until 
 the close of the war in 1865. He loved his native State and all her 
 traditions. He cherished with filial devotion the hallowed associa- 
 tions and historic glories which cluster about her honored name. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 39 
 
 AVhen that mother commonwealth, so rich in historic treasures, shall 
 stand up in after years and point with maternal pride and tenderness 
 to her long line of devoted and illustrious sons, the name of Allen 
 Taylor Caperton will not be forgotten. 
 
 My personal acquaintance with him commenced in the Virginia 
 convention of 1861. He had come into that body earnestly opposed 
 to the separation of the States. He was ardently and devotedly at- 
 tached to the Federal Union. He was bound to it by the strongest 
 and closest ties of affection. He was exceedingly reluctant that Vir- 
 ginia should attempt to dissolve her connection with it. He remem- 
 bered with pride that the Union was in a great measure the creation 
 of her own hands; that it was her son who had penned the Declara- 
 tion of American Independence ; that it was her son whose heaven- 
 born eloquence had first kindled the fires of the American Revolution ; 
 that it was her son who was confessedly the father of the American 
 Constitution. When the Union was dissolved, he exerted all his 
 great powers and exhausted all his persuasive eloquence in an effort 
 to bring about its restoration. He was instrumental in inaugurating 
 the peace congress here at Washington. He advised that commis- 
 sioners should be sent to the seceding States of the South. But after 
 the war had been commenced and Virginia had been fired upon while 
 bearing the olive-branch of peace, he felt that every consideration of 
 duty and of honor required that she should take her position with her 
 southern sisters, and, with a full knowledge of all the fearful odds 
 against her, he deliberately voted to adopt her ordinance of secession. 
 While the war continued, Virginia was swept throughout all her borders 
 by the besom of destruction. Her sleeping cities were awakened by 
 the music of bursting bombs. The thunder of hostile cannon echoed 
 and re-echoed along all her coasts, and her green fields were made 
 red with the best blood of her children. But in that trying ordeal 
 through which she was called to pass, the great heart of Allen T. 
 Caperton never quailed, and his heroic spirit never faltered in devo- 
 
40 ADDRESS OF MR. GOODE ON THE 
 
 lion to that cause which he believed to be the cause of civil liberty 
 and constitutional government. 
 
 As a Virginia senator he supported all the war-measures of the con- 
 federate government with alacrity and zeal, and never withheld a 
 man or a dollar until the confederacy had fallen prostrate, bleeding 
 and exhausted, before the victorious legions of "the Union. Such 
 was the intrepidity of his nature and such the cheerfulness of his 
 courage that he moved steadily forward in the path of duty, unawed 
 by danger and uninfluenced by any consideration save those which 
 concerned the honor and welfare of his people. But when the war 
 had terminated and the long night of agony and of woe had been 
 spent, Mr. Caperton, as an acknowledged leader of public opinion 
 in his section, was one of the first to come forward and advise his 
 countrymen that it was the dictate of wisdom and patriotism to sub- 
 mit manfully and cheerfully to the logic of events. He believed, 
 with Edmund Burke, that true statesmanship consists in a proper 
 adjustment of the conditions in which we find ourselves placed. He 
 indorsed the sentiments of that eminent British classic, who said that 
 "to the future, and not to the past, looks true nobility of soul." In- 
 stead of indulging vain regrets over the issue of our unsuccessful 
 struggle, he felt that it was a high and patriotic duty to extinguish the 
 bitter memories of the war, and with uplifted brow to look bravely 
 and hopefully to the future. He felt that it was no reflection upon 
 southern manhood to imitate, in all respects, the great example of our 
 immortal chieftain, whose watchword was duty, and who from the 
 day of his surrender at Appomattox to the day of his death at Lexing- 
 ton never failed to inculcate the doctrine that, having renewed our 
 allegiance to the American Constitution, we too had duties to per- 
 form as American citizens. His heart's desire and prayer to God was 
 that we might have peace — peace between the sections and peace 
 between the races. He well knew that without a lasting and endur- 
 ing peace there could be no development of our material resources, 
 
LIFE AKU CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 4I 
 
 no revival of our prostrate industries, no restoration of hope and of 
 confidence to our distracted and afflicted country. 
 
 As one of the results of the war, the State of West .Virginia was 
 carved from the side of old Virginia, and the county of Mr. Capek- 
 ton's residence was embraced within the limits of the new State. 
 Notwithstanding the fondly-cherished associations of a life-time were 
 thus rudely sundered, he did not, like the captive Israelite of old, 
 hang his harp upon the willow and sit down by the waters to weep, 
 but, like a true man as he was, he immediately addressed himself to 
 the task of developing the untold wealth and the magnificent re- 
 sources of that young and highly-favored State. Nowhere else upon 
 this continent can be found a more fertile and productive soil or a 
 more genial and delightful climate. Her beautiful blue mountains 
 abound in iron, copper, coal, lead, and other minerals. Her mag- 
 nificent rivers murmur, as they roll, the music of her power. Mr. 
 Caperton fully appreciated her great capabilities and her immense 
 natural advantages, and instead of calling upon Hercules for help, he 
 advised the people to go to work and help themselves. They have 
 gone to work with an unfaltering purpose and an indomitable will 
 worthy of the heroic race from which they sprang. They have ex- 
 hibited recuperative energies which have not been surpassed by any 
 people m any age. 
 
 Such was the high estimate in which Mr. Caperton was held by 
 the people of West Virginia that they embraced the first opportunity 
 to send him as one of their representatives in that august body, the 
 Senate of the United States. It is a sufficient eulogy to say of him 
 that he was equal to the occasion and worthy of the exalted station. 
 He was not a brilliant orator, but a wise and safe counselor. He 
 was not a fierce gladiator in debate, but a modest, dignified, prudent 
 Senator. Descended from an ancient stock, he was always and 
 everywhere a gentleman of the old school. He was a man of such 
 lufty character and incorruptible integrity that he would have lelt a 
 
 6 o 
 
42 ADDRESS OF MR. GOODE ON THE 
 
 Stain upon his personal honor Hke a wound. What a happy day it 
 would be, Mr. Speaker, if every position of honor and of trust in our 
 land could be filled by a man of character, who would avoid corrup- 
 tion in office as he would flee from the "pestilence that walketh in 
 darkness and the destruction that waiteth at noonday." But, sir, our 
 true and noble and gallant friend has gone from among us forever. 
 No more will his manly form be seen in these halls. No more will 
 we receive the friendly, cordial grasp of his hand. No more will we 
 hear his words of sympathy and of cheer to comfort and to strengthen 
 us in the great battle of life. 
 
 The mighty flood that rolls 
 
 Its torrents to the main, 
 Can ne'er recall its waters lost 
 
 From that abyss again. 
 
 So days and years and time, 
 
 Descending down to nighl. 
 Can thenceforth never more return 
 
 Back to the spliere of light. 
 
 And man, when in the grave, 
 
 Can never quit its gloom. 
 Until th' eternal morn shall wake 
 
 The slumber of the tomb. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, when the Forty-fourth Congress first assembled, the 
 Representatives of the people found the Capitol draped in mourning 
 for the loss of Henry Wilson, the favorite son of Massachusetts and 
 the second officer of the Government. During the existence of this 
 Congress they have paused amid the bustle and turmoil of legislative 
 life to chronicle the deaths of the lamented Starkweather of Connec- 
 ti( ut, the gifted Parsons of Kentucky, the high-toned Caperton of 
 West Virginia, and our late beloved Speaker, Michael C. Kerr of In- 
 diana, whose genius and virtues have illustrated the grandeur of 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 43 
 
 American institutions and lent additional luster to the American 
 name. What mean all these dispensations of Divine Providence ? 
 What mean all these habiliments of woe which now surround the 
 Speaker's chair and meet the eye of the Representative of the people 
 as he enters this hall ? The solemn lesson which they convey to each 
 one of us is, " Be still, and know that I am God." 
 
 ^DDREss OF Mr. Wilson, of West Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Speaker : One of the most beautiful traits of the human 
 character is that the living mourn the loss of the dead. When rela- 
 tives or friends or acquaintances are removed from earth, it forces 
 upon us a renewed realization that man is born to die, that life is but 
 a span, and eternity hath no end ; it arouses in our breasts the feel- 
 ing of man's obligation to his God. How impressive and sorrowful 
 the reflection that from the prime of life and the vigor of manhood 
 we may, under the providence of God, be stricken down in the 
 twinkling of an eye. It verifies the teaching of divinity, that in the 
 midst of life we are in death. 
 
 At an early hour upon the morning of the 27th of July last I was 
 shocked with the intelligence, communicated by a friend, that Sena- 
 tor Caperton was dead. How sad that solemn announcement! 
 Sadder, perhaps, to me than to any other member on this floor, for the 
 thought rushed upon my mind that but a few brief weeks before that 
 time, when a protracted, dangerous, and wasting sickness had carried 
 me almost to death's door; when my family, physicians, and friends 
 had well-nigh ceased to hope for my recovery — even when the an- 
 nouncement of my death had flashed along the wires to my con- 
 stituents — I remember, ah ! well and gratefully do I remember, the deep 
 and anxious solicitude with which the distinguished dead whose loss we 
 mourn here to-day lingered at my bed-side ; well do I remember the 
 
44 ADDRESS OF MR. WILSON ON THE 
 
 \vu:ds of comfort he whispered in my ear, and the tender care with 
 which he administered to my almost dying wants. Under the provi- 
 dence of a merciful God I have been restored to health again, but 
 my friend, O, my friend ! where is he ? Gone ! gone to that bourn 
 whence no traveler returns. I follow him with my prayers and be- 
 seech for him grace and pardon from a just and righteous God. 
 
 At six o'clock in tlie evening of the 2Cth of July, 1876, Allen Tay- 
 lor Caperton, Senator from the State of West Virginia, departed this 
 life, in the sixth-sixth year of his age, in the city of Washington. His 
 disease was that technically known as angina pectoris. His last illness 
 was of brief duration, and was at no time regarded dangerous. His 
 devoted wife was then unhappily confined to a sick-bed, at Richmond, 
 Virginia, and for that reason was unable to attend her husband in his 
 last hours. His son and daughter, assisted by other relatives, kept 
 Aiithful watch over their fond father and were flattered by the hope 
 of his speedy recovery. Upon the morning of the day of his death 
 he was feeling so comfortable that he advised his son to attend the 
 session of the House to hear the speech of an able friend. When 
 the son returned he found his father sitting up in bed, brusliing his 
 whiskers. He suddenly called to the son to hoist the window, and 
 immediately sank back on his pillow, and expired without a groan. 
 We can better imagine than describe the anguish of those children, 
 and the untold grief and agony that entwined itself around the heart 
 of that wife when the startling, crushing news fell upon her ear that 
 one whose very existence formed part of her own was called to lie 
 down in the cold damp ground to sleep the sleep that knows no 
 waking. 
 
 Mr. Caperton was born near Union, Monroe County, Virginia, 
 now West Virginia, November 21,1810. He attended school, first 
 in Virginia, then at Huntsville, Alabama, next at the University of 
 Virginia, and graduated at Vale College in 1839. He afterward 
 studied law with Virginia's distinguished jurist, Judge Briscoe G. 
 
LIKE AND CHARACTIR OF AI.LEN T. CAPERTON. 45 
 
 Baldwin, at Staunton, was subsequently admitted to the bar, and prac- 
 ticed his profession with ability during the remainder of his life. He 
 served as a director of the James River and Kanawha Canal, and 
 ■was for several years a member of the Virginia senate and house of 
 delegates. His last senatorial term in the legislature ended in i860, 
 and in 1861 he was elected a member of the State constitutional 
 convention which passed the ordinance of secession, and was after- 
 ward elected by the legislature of Virginia a member of the Confed- 
 erate States senate, in which body he served until the close of the war. 
 
 After the close of the war he returned to his home in the mountains 
 of his nativity, where, borrowing the idea from another, it may be 
 said, the air is pure, heaven serene, and God is near. Here he intended 
 to spend the evening of his life in his professional and private pur- 
 suits and in the enjoyments of his home. He engaged actively in 
 presenting to eastern capitalists the vast and superior coal and tim- 
 ber regions of the southwestern portion of his State, and to his energy 
 and ability perhaps as much as to those of any other gentlemen are 
 the citizens of the East and West indebted for that development 
 which gives cheap fuel, cheap lumber, and promises of cheap trans- 
 portation. But his mission had not yet been fulfilled; his people had 
 further need of his talent, his experience, his learning, and his purity, 
 and after an exciting and somewhat bitter contest between other gen- 
 tlemen for a seat in the United States Senate in the winter of i874-'75 
 the legislature of his State conferred that high honor upon him. He 
 was an element of compromise acceptable to all, and the honor was 
 the more thankfully and graciously received because it came to him 
 unsought. 
 
 In early life he was a whig in politics ; was an admirer of Henry 
 Clay, Josiah Randall, and their compeers, and a co-worker with them. 
 The most cordial personal relations existed between himself and Mr. 
 Randall, and the visits of the latter gentleman to the mineral springs 
 of Virginia, and to his landed interests in the coal regions on the Great 
 
46 ADDRESS OF MR. WILSON ON THE 
 
 Kanawha, brought them into frequent association. Upon the disin- 
 tegration of the whig party Mr. Randall was prominent in heading 
 the movement to unite the whigs with the conservative-democratic 
 party. His great speech, delivered at Chambersburgh, Pennsylvania, 
 on the 6th of August, 1856, at the request of the democratic con- 
 vention of that State, defined the policy of the wing of the party who 
 aided the democrats in achieving the victory of that year. In this 
 movement he was ably seconded by Mr. Caperton, and during the 
 remainder of their lives they co-operated in carrying out the policy 
 thus inaugurated. 
 
 Mr. Caperton discharged the duties of the various positions he 
 was called upon to fill with honor to himself and benefit to his con- 
 stituents. It was in the constitutional convention of Virginia, in 
 1 86 1, that I became intimately acquainted with him. He there, as 
 always before and since, displayed the fine culture, high character, 
 and conservative views that drew around him the love and confidence 
 of his people. He was a conservative-union man, opposed to seces- 
 sion, and declared that it was not the remedy for the evils of which his 
 State complained — that secession would lead to coercion, coercion 
 would produce war, and war would result in distress and desolation. 
 It was not until his State had taken the fatal step that he determined 
 to follow ; but, being of that school which regarded the doctrine of 
 paramount allegiance to the State, when his mother, Virginia, cast her 
 fortune with the confederate government, he threw his influence for 
 weal or for woe with that mother and determined to share her fate, 
 whatever that fate might be. Upon the close of the war he accepted 
 the situation, and acquiesced in the abandonment of secession and 
 the overthrow of the institution of slavery. 
 
 He also acquiesced in the validity of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and 
 fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States, giv- 
 ing to them the broadest interpretation placed upon them by the 
 courts of the country ; but he also tenaciously clung to those other 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTOtv'. 47 
 
 familiar provisions of the Constitution, one of which guarantees to 
 every State in the Union a republican form of government, and the 
 other reserving to the States respectively, or to the people, the powers 
 not delegated to the United States nor prohibited by it to the States. 
 His earthly career is ended, and his friends in their grief point with 
 satisfaction to his life as one well spent — upon which neither spot 
 nor blemish can be found. The chief feature of his character was its 
 purity and unbending integrity ; he lived and died an honest man — 
 the noblest work of God. Sorrow for such an one is an affliction we 
 cherish and brood over in solitude ; we would not wipe out from our 
 recollection if we could the memories of the man. "The love which 
 survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul." " There 
 is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song — there is a recollection of 
 the dead to which we turn, even from the charms of the living." 
 
 Let me mingle tears with thee, 
 Mourning for him who mourned for me. 
 
 Address of Mr. Tucker, of Virginia. 
 
 Having known Mr. Allen Taylor Caperton, late Senator from 
 West Virginia, intimately for more than a quarter of a century, it is 
 fit that, as his friend and as a representative of his mother-common- 
 wealth, I should speak of his public and private character to-day. 
 
 He sprang from a race which removed from the south of France to 
 the north of Ireland; and thence his great-grandfather, Adam Caper- 
 ton, came to America. 
 
 His grandfather went to Kentucky, in its early history, and was 
 killed by the Indians in a battle known as Estill's defeat. 
 
 His father, Hugh Caperton, began life in Monroe, then Greenbrier, 
 County, Virginia. He was a prominent man, was esteemed a gentle- 
 man of honor, and was a citizen of great public spirit and wide in- 
 
48 ADDRESS OF MR. TUCKER ON THE 
 
 fluence, and full of good deeds to the people among whom he lived 
 and died. 
 
 He was a member of the State legislature, and for several terms a 
 Representative of his district in this House of Congress, in which 
 body he established a cordial and permanent friendship with such 
 men as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. 
 
 His distinguished son, whose death we now deplore, was liberally 
 educated at the University of Virginia and then at Yale College, 
 being graduated at the latter institution in 1831. He studied law at 
 Litchfield, Connecticut, and afterward under the late eminent Judge 
 Briscoe G. Baldwin, of the court of appeals of Virginia. 
 
 He began the practice of the law in his native county, and rose 
 rapidly in public confidence as a counselor, advocate, and man. He 
 was successively a member of both houses of the legislature of his 
 native State, of her constitutional conventions of 1850 and 1861, and 
 was elected by her legislature in 1863 to the senate of the Confed- 
 erate States, in which he served honorably to the close of the war. 
 Two years ago he was elected to the Senate of the United States by 
 the State of West Virginia, and died in July last while faithfully 
 doing his duty in that body. 
 
 His career, so full of manifestations of public esteem, gives evi- 
 dence of rare mental and moral endowments, and justifies me, who 
 knew him well, in attempting to portray them as they were grouped 
 in his noble character. 
 
 His intellect was active, acute, and vigorous, with a substratum of 
 shrewd and masculine common sense, which constituted him a wise 
 and sagacious counselor. He had imaginative powers superadded, 
 which gave fervor and earnestness to his convictions and made him 
 an able and often an eloquent advocate at the bar, on the hustings, 
 and in the Senate. His culture was liberal, and, while his study of 
 his profession and of political science did not rank him with the most 
 learned and profound lawyers of the country, yet he was most efficient 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 49 
 
 in the conduct of his cause, very successful in the management of 
 business, eminently safe as an adviser, and an able public servant. 
 
 In the very depths of his soul he was brave, disinterested, gen- 
 erous, and true. He was sincere and constant in his friendships ; 
 open, manly, and magnanimous, though stern and resolute to his foes. 
 Deceit could not cross the confines of a heart whose inmost citadel 
 was held by honor and truth. He was frank and candid, and in his 
 word absolute reliance was reposed ; for as his sincerity was undoubted, 
 so his courage was a pledge to make it good to his friend or against 
 his opponent. 
 
 To these sterling and manly virtues were united all the gentleness 
 of a tender and loving nature. To his friends his society was a genial 
 sunshine. Good sense, with wit and humor; earnestness of purpose, 
 with perennial pleasantry; the manly activities of a firm and resolute 
 nature, with a taste for poetry and music; gentle loves and ardent 
 friendships in the midst of the fierce struggles with adverse fortune 
 or malign influences — these were mingled in beautiful proportions on 
 the page of his history. 
 
 His mountain home was the seat of a hospitality where his guest 
 forgot it was not his own, or only recalled it as he admired the easy 
 freedom and graceful dignity of a host who banished all formality in 
 the nobleness of his welcome and the simplicity and generosity of his 
 entertainment. 
 
 He had the warmest sympathies for his own people. "The short 
 but simple annals of the poor" ever found his ear attentive. Their 
 early traditions, their homely thoughts, their sturdy and healthful 
 sentiments, he heard, appreciated, and cherished. To his equals he 
 seemed proud and reserved, until friendship melted the surface, be- 
 neath which was the warm current of his affections; but he was never 
 haughty to the lowly, the poor, or the helpless. To these he was gen- 
 tle, tender, and sympathetic; so that popularity followed him un- 
 sought. He charmed childhood by his playfulness; won the esteem 
 
 7 o 
 
5© ADDRESS OF MR. TUCKER ON THE 
 
 of the gentler sex by his attractive manners, his cordial deference, 
 his genuine respect, and his chivalrous courtesy and manhood paid 
 homage to his liberality, his courage, his honesty, his magnanimity, 
 and his good sense. 
 
 In his own household — I pause upon its sacred threshold but to 
 utter one word: As husband and father he merited the grief whicli 
 can only be assuaged by Him whose promise is sure, to be the hus- 
 band of widowhood and the father of orphanage I 
 
 I have spoken of Mr. Caperton as a man adorning society by his 
 presence and as a citizen blessing his people by his beneficence. 
 
 I must speak of him as a public man. He was animated by a high 
 public spirit, lending his aid to all schemes which would benefit and 
 advance the interests of his community, his State, and his country, 
 in its largest sense. 
 
 He was a whig in politics in early life, and adhered to that party 
 until i860 with consistent and unshaken fidelity. After the presi- 
 dential election of that year he was elected to the convention of 186 1 
 as a Union man. He was a patriot, who loved the Union of our 
 fathers with a depth of devotion which was only surpassed by his 
 veneration for Virginia. And he adhered to the Union until the 
 proclamation of Mr. Lincoln of April 15, 1861, summoning Virginia 
 to assist in the war upon her southern sisters, when he decided to fol- 
 low her into the southern confederacy, and was faithful and true to 
 its cause until it perished by war in 1865. 
 
 But Mr. Caperton was no visionary or dreamy abstractionist. His 
 mind was sagacious and practical. In the overthrow of the confed- 
 eracy he saw the divine decree that the future fortunes of the South 
 were bound up in the restored Union under its Constitution, and that 
 duty demanded of him to devote his future life to building up the 
 waste places of his own loved land, to repairing the breaches in the 
 Federal system, and to promoting the liberty and the progress of the 
 ]>coplc of these reunited States. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 51 
 
 I know that such was his patriotic purpose and has been his ear- 
 nest eflbrt. He fell at the post of his duty, and has left to his friends 
 and to his countrymen a name without a stain, a character for spot- 
 less and lofty integrity, and the perpetual memory of a -noble and 
 honorable life. 
 
 Mr. Caperton and our late Speaker died within a few weeks 
 of each other. Mr. Kerr passed away amid mountain scenes in 
 Virginia resembling those familiar to the eye of Mr. Caperion. 
 Virginia may well mourn them together; the one her faithful son, 
 the other who, drawing the inspiration of his opinions from our 
 State, ever held her in a reverence which merits the tribute of her 
 sorrow, as his eminent virtues and abilities won the esteem of her 
 Representatives. In this Hall, where lately eloquence lent its 
 voice of praise to the memory of Kerr, we may speak, above the 
 graves of both, our sincere conviction that in their death the 
 country has lost the sagacious counselsof two patriot statesmen, 
 never more needed than in this critical period of her history, to 
 guide her in the path of prosperity andhonor and an enduring 
 peace. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I have thus endeavored to delineate the character of 
 my friend in simple words and with fidelity to truth. I dare not 
 trust myself to speak of the personal relations which bound. us for 
 many years nor of the beautiful memories of the past which crowd 
 upon my mind. 
 
 In this desperate battle of life, as we near its close, so many who 
 began the march with us have fallen like leaves in wintry weather, 
 that we naturally feel as if the friends who are gone were more 
 numerous than those who remain. What we are meant to learn from 
 these providential events is not merely the trite lesson of the uncer- 
 tainty of our life, but that as death ends so life must be filled up with 
 duty. Duty is indeed the whole of our life, the sublimest word as it 
 is the grandest thought of our race. As we look in the face of 
 
52 ADDRESS OF MR. KASSON ON IHE 
 
 (lur honored dead, where passion's flush lias yieUled to peri)etiial 
 
 pallor — 
 
 Before decay's effacing fingers 
 
 Have swept the lines where beauty hngers, 
 
 And marked the mild, angelic air, 
 
 The rapture of repose that's there — 
 
 we feel how solemn it is to die and close forever the book of human 
 jjurpose, and human activity, and human obligation. But life is more 
 solemn than death, and of deeper import. It is our only opportunity 
 for responsible work, to make up that record which must stand of 
 duty done in the fear of God and for the good of our race. 
 
 Brother Representatives, we have buried one who, with us, repre- 
 sented the voice of the people of these States in our Federal Union. 
 We stand to-day at the grave of one of the representatives of an or- 
 ganic State, in its equipollent relations to its sister commonwealths. 
 Each in our respective Houses have solemn relations to this great 
 system of government, and fraught with momentous results in the near 
 future of our history. May we be endued with wisdom from on high 
 so to perform these important functions that when our summons 
 comes, as soon it must come, we may render our dread account with- 
 out fear; and, life's weary warfare done, and well done, may sink 
 peacefully and honorably, with firm faith and humble hope, to our 
 welcome rest from all the work that wearies, and enter w ith immortal 
 energy upon the activities and the aspirations of an eternal life in the 
 Ijresence of our Father and our God! 
 
 Address of Mr. J<asson, of Jowa. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: I regret that I cannot adequately contribute another 
 to the fitting tributes already rendered to a character so respected 
 anil so amiable as that of the late Senator Caperton. His life here 
 h\ Washington was so quiet, his public service in the American Sen- 
 ate so short, that comparatively few of us on this floor had the pleas- 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 53 
 
 ure of even a personal acquaintance with him; but so many of us as 
 dill know him — and I am glad to have been one of that number — 
 most sincerely unite with the delegation from his own honored State 
 in a common regret at his departure from these scenes of his official 
 duty, and in a common grief that his presence will never again 
 brighten the hours of our social intercourse. 
 
 Sir, there has always been, both in the Senate and House of Rep- 
 resentatives, a body of useful men, rarely claiming the attention of 
 the public press, rarely consuming tjie hours devoted to debate, but 
 sound in their judgments, attentive to the duties of committees, 
 patient in labor for their constituents, and conscientious in their votes. 
 The applauding clamors of the public never fall to their share, never 
 quicken their vanity, or give them a deceptive pleasure. No wreaths 
 of earthly glory are woven for their brows. No eager, selfish am- 
 bitions mduce them to provoke or to participate in popular tumults, 
 in the turbulence of which they may rise to temporary distinction. 
 They love peace for themselves and peace for their country. Their 
 reward is not sought in popular applause, but in an approving con- 
 science. The God who speaks in a " still, small voice," not he who 
 speaks amid the rending winds of tumultuous praise or in the earth- 
 quake of civil strife, is the object of their worship. Faithful to duty 
 as they see it, their lives pass, giving and receiving blessing, tran- 
 quilly to their end. 
 
 To this class of useful men and trustworthy public servants Sen- 
 ator Caperton belonged during the period of my acquaintance with 
 him, faithful to his constituents, faithful to his own convictions of 
 duty, giving to his country the benefit of his large experience in 
 affairs without conceit and without ostentation. In social life his 
 quiet nature gave an illumination to the circle in which he moved. 
 Even his presence served as a bar to discord and an invitation to 
 conciliation. Elected to a position in the confederate senate during 
 the years of our national trouble, it might have been expected that he 
 
54 ADDRESS OF MR. IIARDENBERGH ON THE 
 
 would enter the benatc of our reunited States with prejudices which 
 would mar his record or impair his usefulness. But his character 
 was too true, direct, and sincere to admit such a result. From tiie 
 moment he took his official oath as a member of that exalted body 
 charged with the vast interests of this Republic, he seemed to have 
 no thought which was at discord with his patriotic duty. He became 
 a true son of his united country, and not a word from his lips ever 
 fanned the dying embers of civil strife. His action in the Senate, i;i 
 committees, and in society was an assurance of returning fraternity. 
 So far as we have any knowledge, no angers, personal or political, 
 remained to be buried in his grave. No one there had need to sup- 
 press a frown. Only those who bore to him the sentiments of kind- 
 ness and affection could be found in all the range of his social rela- 
 tions. 
 
 Thus, Mr. Speaker, this House knows no distinction of party names 
 as we gather to this memorial service. We all reluctantly bid fare- 
 well to our late associate in Congress. We all honored him living; 
 we all revere his memory, dead. We all wish to lay some fond trib- 
 ute upon his tomb. All of us deeply sympathize with those who 
 were nearest to him in the ties of kindred and with his congressional 
 associates from his own State. We all are to see his face no more 
 on earth. We all pray for a meeting in the other and happier world 
 to which he has gone. 
 
 fLDDRE-SS OF /"vIr. HaRDENBERGH, OF ]MeW JERSEY. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: Death's hurricane again has passed and a stately 
 tree has fallen, rich in the foliag- and fruits of its gathered years, at 
 once an ornament, a beauty, and a blessing. 
 
 A stricken famiJy bewails its loved one lost; a sovereign State 
 mourns an illustrious son, called away in the maturity of his power; 
 the Senate drapes again with the devices of mourning a Senator's 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. JS 
 
 chair, and \vc attest by our spoken grief that another member of the 
 Forty-fourth Congress has passed through the portals of the tomb 
 and a spirit ascended to the bosom of its Father and its God. 
 
 It is right that we should pause in our avocations, and while 
 laying our garlands upon his tomb, give fitting expressions to the 
 thoughts which instinctively well up in the heart. It is also right 
 that as representatives of the people we should bear our testimony 
 to the virtues which gave dignity to and adorned his character, for 
 he was true to his high trust, and the sentiment is at once chaste and 
 beautiful that marks an immemorial custom when death enters here, 
 as State joins with State to attest the common sorrow as mourners 
 at the grave of an associate and a friend. We cannot repress our 
 grief when the "good man" dies. Society feels the vacuum when 
 an educated mind is withdrawn forever from its service and a ray of 
 broadest light expires, light furnished by that inward and immortal 
 lamp which when its mission upon earth has ended is trimmed anew 
 by angel hands to shine forever in the land beyond. 
 
 The mind of man in its sphere and destiny is essentially immortal. 
 It is true it has its periods of youth and age; its rise, its progress, its 
 decline; yet, like the oak whose withered branches have withstood 
 the storms and gales of centuries, when its leaves are strewn by wail- 
 ing winds and angry blasts, from the small but gradual unfolding of 
 that vital substance spring forth into life and beauty as a new crea- 
 tion the buds and blossoms of another year. 
 
 There have been many vacant seats since first we gathered at 
 our country's call. Massachusetts weeps still at Wilson's grave, for 
 he was her gifted son, reared from toil, and the record of his useful 
 public service in times that gave development to greatness will alike 
 forever adorn her own and the nation's annals. 
 
 Connecticut has lain away with tender hands a gallant Senator 
 and a faithful Representative once of us here. Kentucky's tears fell 
 thick and fast as the manly form of Parsons was borne away to 
 
56 ADDRESS OF MK. IIARnENniRGH OS Till. 
 
 repose beneath her generous sods. A few days since and all the 
 eloquence of woe was heard within this Hall as we rested from our 
 pursuits of legislation at Indiana's and the nation's loss that our 
 Speaker, her sturdy son of Roman type, lay buried from our sight ; 
 and now West Virginia, virgin State, born into the Union amid the 
 mightiest of earth's great warfares, has vailed her temples in mourn- 
 ing as the sad procession again was formed to bear her departed 
 Senator o'er her hills and through her vales at once to his home and 
 to his grave. Born upon her soil, with gifted powers early trained 
 in academic groves, he gave to her his noblest services. And fur 
 these s/ie loved him and crowned him with her highest civic honors. 
 It was right it should thus be. That country best honors itself as it 
 confers its dignities upon its worthiest and most illustrious sons, for 
 the record of their lives will mark the noblest pages of its career. 
 
 There was a period in Grecian history denominated the "heroic 
 age." The mystic spirit of that classic race had invested men with 
 the dignity of gods. So wonderful had been their achievements, so 
 exalted their career, that the mere attributes of ordinary humanity 
 were not sufficient to account for the virtues they possessed. Their 
 names were inscribed upon the warrior's shield, lifted up as the silent 
 guardians of the public weal, adorned the temples dedicated to jus- 
 tice; for in all places and on all occasions where patriotism sought 
 example the heroes of classic Greece claimed the reverence and 
 affection of the people. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, may not the intelligent inhabitants of a hemisphere 
 unknown to the ancient kingdoms of the world when truth was 
 vailed in fiction and before the revealment of a superior wisdom to 
 mankind, as we cross the threshold of our new centennial, give 
 higher witness to our own "heroic age" as memory reverts amid 
 such touching scenes as this to the long list of minds of giant mold 
 from those who founded to those who in the providence of God may 
 preserve this best of human governments? Standing as we do by 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN' T. CAPERTON. 
 
 57 
 
 the new-made graves of Wilson, Ferry, and of Starkweather, of Par- 
 sons, Kerr, and Caperton, shall we not learn lessons anew of the 
 l)atriot's duty and the legislator's high responsibility, that passion 
 and prejudice and envy shall be quenched in that nobler spirit of 
 endeavor whose patriotism is the love of country, whose code of 
 morals is the love of man ? Then the pillars of our Republic will 
 be the firmer set, its destiny the surer be, and then indeed shall be 
 given a purer emphasis to the language of the Roman bard : 
 
 Ve have raised monuments more lasting than brazen statues, higher than ihe 
 niyal pyramids, which cannot be destroyed by wasting rains or Ihc fury ol the 
 winds, by the series of countless ages, or the flight of the eternal years. 
 
 yVDDRESS OF yVliR. ^AULKNER, OP WeST VIRGINIA. 
 
 Mr. Speaker; My colleague who sits near me, [Mr. Hereford,] 
 having, as it was altogether appropriate for him, given a somewhat 
 detailed sketch of the life and services of the individual whose death 
 has just been announced, it will only be expected from me to give 
 my personal recollections and impressions of the deceased, as de- 
 rived from my occasional official and private association with him. 
 Although we were both natives and citizens of the same State, and 
 of the same grand division of the State, yet we were widely separated 
 by distance from each other, and rarely met except when engaged 
 in the public councils of our State or of the nation. This is not an 
 occasion, in my view of it, for indiscriminate or exaggerated eulogy, 
 i)ut a very fit and appropriate occasion to portray the real character 
 of the deceased, and to let the story of his life suggest such reflec- 
 tions as the facts may fairly warrant. 
 
 Mr. Caperton was not among the most distinguished men of either 
 of the two States whicli have honored him with their confidence; but 
 he was a fair and honorable representative of a high-toned and edu- 
 cated class of country gentlemen who gave a character to Virginia 
 
 a f 
 
58 ADDRESS OF MR. FAULKNER ON THE 
 
 society and extrcised a salutary influence upon the particular neigh- 
 borhoods in which they lived. Inheriting a large landed estate from 
 his immediate ancestor, he was removed above the necessity of pur- 
 suing any profession as a means of livelihood; and yet, as was not 
 uncommon among youths similarly situated with himself in that 
 State, he received the benefit of a liberal and classical education, 
 and passed through the curriculum of Yale and the University of Vir- 
 ginia with credit and distinction. Such an education at that period 
 usually embraced a course of municipal, constitutional, and national 
 law, and was sought after by our young men of inherited fortunes, 
 not as a means of gain or profit, but as a source of intellectual enjoy- 
 ment, and as a stepping-stone to political preferment. Blessed with 
 a sound constitution, a handsome person, frank and engaging man- 
 ners, an easy flow of language, an ample fortune, and animated by 
 noble but modest aspirations for public service, no young man could 
 liave commenced life with promise of a more useful and honorable 
 career. 
 
 His mind was quick, sprightly, penetrating, and accurate, but not 
 of the highest and most robust order. It had not been disciplined 
 by habitual labor nor invigorated by the stern collison of intellect- 
 ual gladiatorship. His memory was tenacious and his fancy occa- 
 sionally brilliant, while a suppressed and gentle humor gave a pecu- 
 liar charm to his conversation. His literary taste, naturally acute 
 and delicate, had been assiduously cultivated and improved by a care- 
 ful study of the best English classics. 
 
 As a statesman he was essentially conservative in all his views. He 
 was a sincere believer in the superiority and value of free institutions 
 and an inflexible advocate of all the just rights of the people; and 
 yet he was no demagogue. His appeals were always to the reason, 
 not to the passions or prejudices of his hearers. He never flattered 
 popular follies, but often exhibited a peculiar pride in avowing an 
 unpopular opinion if he had himself full faith in its soundness. He 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 59 
 
 looked with intense admiration upon the wisdom and sagacity dis- 
 played in the Constitution of the United States, and was disposed, 
 especially in his earlier life, to give too broad and liberal a construc- 
 tion to its implied powers. He was the stern and inflexible supporter 
 of what he believed to be the right ; and perhaps treated with too much 
 levity and harshness what was deemed by others expedient in morals 
 and politics. His maxim in life was Nihil vcro utile, qmd no/t idem 
 honcsium. 
 
 There was one quality which strikingly distinguished Mr. Caper- 
 TON, and which all will recognize who enjoyed the pleasure of his 
 acquaintance, and that was an elevated tone of mind and morals, 
 which rendered him incapable of countenancing a low or mean action. 
 He shrank from all humbuggery, imposture, and false pretension as 
 something vile and contaminating. He was a stranger to the gnaw- 
 ings of envy; he stabbed no man in the dark; he took no unmanly 
 advantage of an opponent; he was modest in the assertion of his own 
 merit; disdained to appropriate credit or honor to himself which he 
 had not fairly and honestly earned, but did full justice to all who 
 were associated with him in joint labors of any kind. He never 
 sought to impress himself upon the world as something greater or 
 better than he really was. In other words, he was throughout life a 
 sincere, truthful, honest, and honorable man. 
 
 My acquaintance with Mr. Caperton commenced at Richmond, in 
 1 84 1. He was then a delegate from the county of Monroe, one of the 
 transmontane and western counties of that State. The agricultural 
 interests of his constituents. were at that time suffering severely from 
 the want of a cheap and convenient transportation of their products 
 to market, and he, keenly sympathizing with their necessities, became 
 soon recognized as an ardent and earnest friend of a liberal system of 
 internal improvements. At that time the great scheme which ab- 
 sorbed the attention of the State was a continuous line of water com- 
 munication between the seaboard and the Ohio River by the valleys 
 
6o ADDRESS OF MR. FAULKNER ON THE 
 
 of the James and Kanawha Rivers — an enterprise suggested by the 
 unerring foresight of the Father of our Country — shown to be prac- 
 ticable by the engineering science of McNeil, Ellet, Fisk, and Lor- 
 raine, and pushed forward in its construction by the labors of Cabell 
 and the eloquence of McDowell. Mr. Caperton attracted attention 
 by his earnest advocacy of this great national thoroughfare, a work 
 which now challenges the attention of Congress and ranks among 
 the public works best entitled to its consideration and patronage. 
 
 My next association with him was in 1850, as a member of the 
 reform constitutional convention of Virginia. 
 
 The people of Virginia for half a century after the close of the re\o- 
 lutionary war lived under a State constitution which would hardly 
 be regarded as republican in these advanced days of democratic prog- 
 ress. Population as the basis of representative power in the legisla- 
 ture was wholly ignored. The smallest counties, with a population of 
 a few hundred inhabitants, had the same weight in the legislature with 
 the largest and most populous counties numbering from twenty to 
 thirty thousand; suffrage was restricted to freeholders alone; not an 
 office in the State was elective by the people except members of the 
 legislature. Election-precincts were unknown, and if a voter lived 
 twenty or thirty miles from the court-house, it was there and there 
 alone that he could declare his viva voce vote in the presence of the 
 assembled voters of the county. These defects, with many others in 
 the constitution of that State, were sought to be remedied by a con- 
 vention which assembled in 1829, comi)ose(l of a body of men as illus- 
 trious as ever met together in council upon this continent. Among 
 the persons composing that body were James Madison, James Monroe, 
 Chief-Justice Marshall, John Randolph, Littleton Waller Tazewell, 
 P.enjamin W. T-eigh, and a host of others scarcely less distinguished 
 for ability and statesmanship. Some of the most glaring defects in 
 the then constitution were remedied; representation was somewhat 
 more fairly apportioned and suftragc partially extended. But the 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTON. 6 1 
 
 instrument, though protected from severe criticism by the illustrious 
 names which framed it, and which recommended its adoption, fell far 
 short of meeting the popular demand for reform. Accordingly another 
 convention was called in 1850, of which Mr. Caperton was a member. 
 The results of that convention gave entire satisfaction to the popular 
 mind of Virginia. Representation upon the basis of the free white 
 population of the State was recognized, although, in a spirit of com- 
 promise, the period was suspended for a few years when the principle 
 was to be carried into full operation. Suffrage was extended to all 
 free white male citizens of twenty-one years of age and upward. All 
 offices were made elective by the people, with many other changes of 
 an important and interesting character. In all the proceedings of 
 this convention Mr. Caperton bore a useful and prominent part as a 
 friend of constitutional reform, earning the respect and confidence of 
 his colleagues by his good sense, sound principles, and practical sug- 
 gestions. The constitution was adopted by an overwhelming major- 
 ity of the people, and an impulse given to the active energies of 
 the State which soon became perceptible in its rapidly-increasing 
 prosperity. 
 
 Mr. Caperton was an ardent admirer of that great and accom- 
 plished statesman, Henry Clay, who gave evidence in three of the most 
 memorable acts of his life of a devotion almost passionate for the per- 
 petuity of the Union. This sentiment was enthusiastically responded 
 to by his supporters and disciples throughout the country, who, in- 
 deed, made it almost the shibboleth of party faith. But the Union 
 which Mr. Clay so eloquently depicted was one of choice, of concilia- 
 tion, and compromise; not of armed despotism and force. This opin- 
 ion was largely shared by Mr. Caperton, and in all the movementn 
 preceding the breaking out of hostilities he was a firm and inflexible 
 adviser of a policy that sought to preserve Virginia to the Union. 
 But when the proclamation of President Lincoln was issued, calling 
 upon that State, among others, to contribute her quota of troops and 
 
ADDRESS OF MR. FAULKNER ON THE 
 
 to become an active party to the war then about being inaugurated 
 to crush the seceding States, and to imbrue her hands in tlie blood of 
 lier brethren of the South, a change came over him, as in one night it 
 did over fifty thousand of the freemen and voters of Virginia. That 
 proclamation boldly presented, on behalf of the Northern States, the 
 stern ultimatum of war, and the alternative was then precipitated 
 upon Virginia either to become a party to a war to conquer and sub- 
 due the seceding States or a party to a war to maintain and defend 
 rights which she had held sacred from the foundation of the Govern- 
 ment. Mr. Caperton and the great mass of the people of that State 
 arrayed themselves on the side of the rights and sovereignty of the 
 States. From that moment his heart and his services were freely 
 given to the confederate cause. 
 
 I met with Mr. Caperton frequently after he took his seat in the 
 Senate of the United States. I had occasional conferences with him 
 upon measures pending before the two bodies, and it became my duty 
 fiom time to time, as a member of the House of Representatives, to 
 call his special attention to the personal claims of my constituents 
 and to the local interests of my district. I found him a frank, court- 
 eous, intelligent, and attentive colaborer in the work of legislation, 
 ready at all times to guard and protect the interests and to promote 
 the just claims of the citizens of his State. In not a single instance 
 did I observe any procrastination or inattention on his part to any of 
 the several matters to which I invited his attention. His service in 
 that elevated and dignified body was brief, too brief to enable him to 
 exhibit to the country many of those sterling qualities of head and 
 heart whicli would have reflected credit on his State. But he is 
 now gone forever from among us; his place may be filled by suc- 
 cessors of greater brilliancy and of more dazzling talents; but it never 
 can be filled by any man of more virtuous and generous impulses, 
 nor by one more loyal to the true interests and honor of his native 
 State. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF ALLEN T. CAPERTOK. 63 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I submit the resolutions which I send to the Clerk's 
 desk to be read. 
 The Clerk read the resolutions, as follows : 
 
 Resolved, That the House of Representatives has received vi'ith 
 deep sensibility and profound sorrow the intelligence of the death of 
 Hon. Allen T. Caperton, late a Senator from the State of West 
 Virginia. 
 
 Resolved, That the proceedings of this House in relation to the 
 death of Hon. Allen T. Caperton be communicated to the widow 
 and family of the deceased by the Clerk of the House. 
 
 Resolved, That as a further mark of respect for the memory of the 
 deceased this House do now adjourn. 
 
 The resolutions were adopted; and accordingly (at five o'clock and 
 thirty minutes) the House adjourned.