EULOGY DF.LIVKRKI) BY TKK HON. THOMAS H. BENTON, 'I IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 2d DAY OF FEBRUARY, 1844, ON THE ANNUNCIATION TO THAT BODY OF THE DEATH OF THE HON. ALEXANDER PORTER, LATE A SENATOR FROM LOUISIANA. MISSOURIAN OFFICE. 1844, *0 > "ST. LOUrS, Feb. 28th, 1844. "Gen. V. P. Van Antwerp, Editor of Missourian, « SIR, "The undersigned have read, in your paper of the 17th inst.jthe touching and beautiful eulogium pronounced by the Hon. Thomas H. Benton, in the United States Senate, on the late lamented Alexander Porter, United States Senator from Louisiana. As natives of Ireland, and as American citizens, we are justly proud of the successful and brilliant career of the deceased, and the talent and virtue for which he was so eminently distinguished. Like him, too, some of us are connected by blood and affection — all of us by sympathy — with the men w^ho in '98 struck for the freedom of Ireland, and who, betrayed and overwhelmed, sealed their fidelity to her with their blood ! We observe, therefore, with pecu- liar gratification, that Mr. Benton, while paying the tribute of friendship to the memory of Senator Porter, has nobly vindicated the patriots of '98, and the cause in which they gloriously fell. The speech, w^hile pointing at the admira- ble working of our republican institutions, is characterized throughout by liberal and generous sentiments, creditable to him as a man, and w^orthy of an American Senator. We are desirous of giving a more extended circulation to this speech than it has yet had among our fellow-citizens ; we believe the Missourian is the only paper in this city in which it has been published, and therefore wish you to print for us one thousand copies. " We remain your obedient servants, «L. E. LAWLESS, AUSTIN PIGGOT, ARTHUR L. MAGENIS, THOMAS M. WELDON, E. WALSH, JOHN HAVERTY, ROBERT CAMPBELL, PATRICK DEEGEN, THOMAS WATSON, PATRICK LAWLER, JOHN RTCE, WILLIAM TREACY, NICHOLAS TIERNAN, LAWRENCE DENINY, JEREmAH LANGTON, JOHN KELLY." NOTE. "We assure the gentlemen who have honored us with the letter prefixed, that we promptly and gladly comply with their request. "As their fellow citizen, though having a different lineage and birth-place, we are proud of the deep, manly feeling, and republican spirit which pervade their letter. How cordial the unity of sentiment between the speech and the letter! The political tempest which, in 1798, swept over unhappy and oppressed Ireland, threw thousands of her gallant sons into the bosom of our republic ; here they have realized the enjoyment of that liberty which they sought to establish in their native land, but which fraud, force, and treachery prevented them from achieving. " Ireland was separated from her children, but by America they were not received as strangers; she adopted them as her own; and the distinction, popularity, and fortune which many of them have attained, satisfactorily prove that she has not been to them a step-mother. "The blood of Irish patriots and martyrs now circulates through the veins of millions of American freemen, — the story of British tyranny and Irish suffering are transmitted from father to son; and the day may — we believe, will come^ when Irish patriots, aided by their American kinsmen, will be found side by side in battle array on the plains of Ireland, — their war cry. Liberty and Ireland — Death to the Oppressors! " — Ed. Missourian, EULOGY, &c. Mr. Barrow, of Louisiana, having announced the death of his late colleague, the Hon. ALEXANDER PORTER, who died on the 13th ultimo, at his residence in Louisiana, aged 58 years, and accom- panied the annunciation with a few appropriate remarks, submitted the following resolutions: •* Resolved, "That the Senate has received with deep sensibility the information of the death of the Hon. Alexander Porter, a Senator from the State of Louisiana; and in token of their high respect for the memory of the deceased, the members of the Senate will wear crape on the left arm, as mourning, for thirty days. * ' Resolved, " That, as a further mark of respect for the memory of the Hon. Alexander Porter, the Senate do now adjourn. The Resolutions having been read, Mr. BENTON rose and said : — I rise, Mr. President, to second the motion which has been made to render the last honors of this Chamber to our deceased brother Senator, whose death has been so feehngly annomiced; and in doing so, I comply with an obligation of friendship, as well as conform to the usage of the Senate. I am the oldest personal friend which the illustrious deceased can have upon this floor, and amongst the oldest which he can have in the United States. It is now, sir, more than the period of a generation — more than the third of a century — since the then emigrant Irish boy, Alexander Porter, and my- self met on the banks of the Cumberland river, at Nashville, in the State of Tennessee, when com- menced a friendship which death only dissolved on his part. We belonged to a circle of young lawyers and students at law, who had the world before them, and nothing but their exertions to depend upon. First a clerk in his uncle's store, then a student at law, and always a lover of books, the young Porter was one of that circle, and it was the custom of all that belonged to it to spend their leisure hours in the delightful occupation of read- ing. History, poetry, elocution, biography, the 7 ennobling speeches of the Hving and the dead, were our social recreation; and the youngest member of the circle was one of our favorite readers. He read well, because he comprehended clearly, felt strongly, remarked beautifully upon striking pas- sages, and gave a new charm to the whole with his rich, mellifluous Irish accent. It was then that I became acquainted with Ireland and her children, — read the ample story of her wrongs, — learnt the long list of her martyred patriots' names — sympa- thized in their fate, and imbibed the feelings for a noble and oppressed people which the extinction of my own life can alone extinguish. Time and events dispersed that circle. The young Porter, his law license signed, went to the Lower Mississippi — I, to the Upper: and, years afterwards, we met on this floor, senators from different parts of that vast Louisiana, which was not even a part of the American Union at the time that he and I were born. We met here in the session 1833, '3^^— high party times, and on oppo- site sides of the great party line ; but we met as we had parted years before. We met as friends; and, though often our part to reply to each other in the 8 ardent debate, yet never did we do it with other feelings than those with which we were wont to discuss our subjects of recreation on the banks of the Cumberland. I mention these circumstances, Mr. President, because, while they are honorable to the deceased, they are also justificatory to myself for appearing as second to the motion which has been made. A personal friendship of almost forty years gives me a right to appear as a friend to the deceased on this occasion, and to perform the office which the rules and the usage of the Senate permit, and which so many other senators would so cordially and so faithfully perform. In performing this office I have, literally, but little else to do but to second the motion of the Senator from Louisiana, (Mr. Barrow.) The mover has done ample justice to his great subject. He, also, had the advantage of long acquaintance and intimate personal friendship with the deceased. He, also, knew him on the banks of the Climber- land, though too young to belong to the circle of young lawyers and law students, of which the junior member — the young Alexander Porter — 9 was the chief ornament and delight : but he knew him long and intimately, and has given evidence of that knowledge in the just, the feeling, the cor- dial, and impressive eulogium which he has just delivered on the life and character of his deceased friend and colleague. He has presented to you the matured man^ as developed in his ripe and meridian age ; he has presented to you the finished scholar, the eminent lawyer, the profound judge, the distinguished senator, the firm patriot, the constant friend, the honorable man, the brilhant converser, the social, cheerful, witty companion. He has presented to you the ripe fruit, of which I saw the early blossom, and of which I felt the assurance, more than thirty years ago, that it would ripen into the golden fruit which we have all beheld. Mr. President, this is no vain or empty ceremo- nial in which the Senate is now engaged. Honors to the illustrious dead go beyond the discharge of a debt of justice to them, and the rendition of consolation to their friends; they become lessons and examples for the living. The story of their humble beginning and noble conclusion is an 10 example to be followed, and an incitement to be felt. And where shall we find an example more worthy of imitation, or more full of encouragement, than in the life and character of Alexander Porter? — a lad of tender age — an orphan with a widowed mother and younger children — the father martyred in the cause of freedom — an exile before he was ten years old — an ocean to be crossed, and a strange land to be seen, and a wilderness of a thousand miles to be penetrated before he could find a resting-place for the sole of his foot; then, education to be acquired, support to be earned, and even citizenship to be gained, before he could make his own talents available to his support. Conquering all these difficulties by his own exertions, and the aid of an affectionate uncle — (I will name him, for the benefactor of youth deserves to be named, and named with honor, in the highest places,) — with no aid but that of an uncle's kindness, Mr. Alexander Porter, sen., merchant of ISfashville, also an emigrant from Ireland, and full of generous quahties, which belong to the children of that soil, — this lad, an exile and orphan from the Old World, thus start- 11 ing in the New World, with everything to gain before it could be enjoyed, soon attained every earthly object, either brilliant or substantial, for which we live and struggle in this life. Honors, fortune, friends; the highest professional and political distinction; long a supreme judge in his adopted State ; twice a senator in the Congress of the United States, wearing all his honors fresh and growing to the last moment of his hfe; and the announcement of his death followed by the ad- journment of the two Houses of the American Congress. What a noble and crowning conclusion to a beginning so humble, and so apparently hopeless! Honors to such a life — the honors which we now pay to the memory of Senator Porter-^— are not mere offerings to the dead, or mere consolations to the feelings of surviving friends and relations; they go further, and become incentives and inducements to the ingenuous youth of the present and succeeding generations, encour- aging their hopes, and firing their spirits with a generous emulation. Nor do the benefits of these honors stop with individuals, nor even with masses or generations 12 of men. They are not confined to persons, but rise to institutions — to the noble republican institutions under which such things can be! Republican government itself — that government which holds men together in the proud state of equality and liberty — this government is benefited by the exhibition of the examples such as we now celebrate, and by the rendition of the honors such as we now pay. Our deceased brother senator has honored and benefited our free repub- lican institutions by the manner in which he has advanced himself under them; and we make manifest that benefit by the honors which we pay him. He has given a practical illustration of the working of our free, and equal, and elective form of government; and our honors proclaim the nature of that working. What is done in this Chamber is not done in a corner, but on a lofty eminence, seen of all people. Europe, as well as America, will see how our form of government has worked in the person of an orphan, exiled boy, seeking refuge in the land which gives to virtue and talent all that they will ever ask — the free use of their own exertions for their own advancement. 13 Our deceased brother was not an American citizen by the accident of birth ; he became so by the choice of his own will, and by the operation of our laws. The events of his Hfe, and the business of this day, show this title of citizenship to be as valid in our America as it was in the great republic of antiquity. I borrow the thought, not the language, of Cicero, in his pleading for the poet Archias, when I place the citizen who be- comes so by law and choice on an equal footing with the citizen who becomes so by chance. And in the instance now before us, we may say, that our adopted citizen has repaid us for the liberality of our laws ; that he has added to the stock of our national character by the contributions which he has brought to it in the purity of his private life — the eminence of his public services — the ardor of his patriotism, and the elegant productions of his mind. And here let me say — and I say it with pride and satisfaction — our deceased brother senator loved and admired his adopted country with a love and admiration increasing with his age, and with his better knowledge of the countries of the Old 14 World. A few years ago, and after he had obtained great honor and fortune in this country, he returned on a visit to his native land. It was an occasion of honest exultation for the orphan emigrant boy to return to the land of his fathers, rich in the goods of this hfe, and clothed with the honors of the American Senate. But the visit was a melancholy one to him. His soul sickened at the state of his fellow man in the Old World, (I had it from his oAvn lips,) and he returned from that visit with stronger feehngs than ever in favor of his adopted country. New honor awaited him here — that of a second election to the American Senate. But of this he was not permitted to taste; and the proceedings of this day announce his second brief elevation to this body, and his departure from it through the gloomy portals of death, and the radiant temple of enduring fame. The question was put, and the resolutions unanimously agreed to. LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 014 544 182 1 •