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MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER 
 
 OLIVEE P. MOETON, 
 
 (A SENATOR FROM INDIANA,) 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 January 17 and 18, 1878. 
 
 PUBLISHED BV ORDER OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Forty-fifth Congress, Second Session. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1878. 
 
I 1! it A It Y 
 
 CALIFORNIA. 
 
 ANNOUNCEMENT 
 
 DEATH OF OLIVER P. MORTON, 
 
 A SENATOR FROM INDIANA. 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1877. 
 
 Rev. BYRON SUNDERLAND, D.D., Chaplain of the Senate, offered 
 the following 
 
 PRAYER : 
 
 O Thou infinite, self-existent, eternal One, our Father in Heaven, 
 before whose sight all time and space are as nothing, and all the 
 life of all Thy creatures begins, unfolds, and changes according to 
 the purpose Thy will decrees, we, Thy servants, come this day 
 humbly to acknowledge the dispensation of Thy providence. We 
 have heard the voice that calls to us out of the chamber of death, 
 out of the mouth of the grave; and by faith we see lifeless and 
 prostrate the form of him who will share no more in these councils 
 of the nation, whose great life-work has now been concluded in the 
 eyes of all the people. By faith we witness the scene in yonder 
 home, where a broken family sit down to-day in all the ashes of 
 mourning. 
 
ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE 
 
 O Lord, our God, help us all, Thy servants, to recognize and 
 humbly to submit in this event to Thy righteous will. May the 
 Congress and the nation together be sensible of Thy dealing, and 
 when Thou comest nigh to us in cutting off men from the face 
 of the earth may we come nigh to Thee in loving confidence and 
 filial trust, and in the ordering of our obedience to fulfill Thy 
 pleasure. 
 
 O Lord, our God, we are all in Thy hands to do with us as Thou 
 wilt. Be very gracious unto us and help us. Regard the cry of 
 those who grieve in the bitterness of sorrow. Assuage all the 
 anguish of loving hearts. Be merciful to the widow and the father 
 less. Lift up this nation to a higher life of fortitude and virtue by 
 the bereavements and the disasters we experience, so that light may 
 come forth out of darkness, so that good may prevail over evil, and 
 so that Thy saving help may be known among all nations. Through 
 Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 
 Mr. McDONALD. Mr. PRESIDENT: It becomes my painful 
 duty to announce to the Senate of the United States the death of 
 my late colleague, OLIVER P. MORTON, of Indiana. 
 
 He died at his family residence in the city of Indianapolis yester 
 day afternoon at half-past five o clock. The funeral services and 
 burial will take place on Monday the 5th of this month, at the city 
 of his late residence. At some suitable time I will submit resolu 
 tions expressive of the sense of the Senate as to the loss sustained 
 by the country by the death of my late distinguished colleague. 
 At present, that the Senate may be properly represented on the 
 mournful occasion of his funeral and to note the melancholy an- 
 
DEATH OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 
 
 nouncement, I submit the following resolutions and move their 
 adoption : 
 
 Resolved, That a committee consisting of six Senators be appointed by the Chair 
 to attend the funeral obsequies of Hon. OLIVER P. MORTON, to take place at his late 
 residence, at the city of Indianapolis, on Monday the 5th instant. 
 
 Resolved, That, as a mark of respect for the memory -of the deceased, the Senate 
 do now adjourn. 
 
 The resolutions were agreed to unanimously. 
 
 The VICE-PRESIDENT appointed as the committee under 
 the first resolution Messrs. McDoNALD, DAVIS of Illinois, BURN- 
 SIDE, BAYARD, CAMERON of Pennsylvania, and BOOTH; and (at 
 twelve o clock and eight minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned. 
 
ADDRESSES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 DEATH OF OLIVER p. MORTON, 
 
 A SENATOR FROM INDIANA. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE SENATE. 
 THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 1878. 
 
 Mr. McDONALD. Mr. PRESIDENT: 1 send to the Secretary s 
 desk resolutions to be read for information, and to be acted upon by 
 the Senate in their proper order. 
 
 The VICE-PRESIDENT. The resolutions will be read. 
 
 The Chief Clerk read as follows : 
 
 Resolved, That from an earnest desire to show every mark of respect to the mem 
 ory of Hon. OLIVER P. MORTON, late a Senator of the United States from the State 
 of Indiana, and to manifest the high estimate entertained of his eminent public 
 services, his distinguished patriotism, and his usefulness as a citizen, the business of 
 the Senate be now suspended that the friends and associates of the deceased Senator 
 may pay fitting tribute to his public and private virtues. 
 
 Mr. McDONALD. Mr. President, I ask that that resolution 
 be now adopted. 
 
 The resolution was considered, and agreed to unanimously. 
 
 The VICE-PRESIDENT. The remaining resolutions will 
 be read. 
 
 The Chief Clerk read as follows : 
 
 Resolved, That a wide-spread and public sorrow on the announcement of his 
 death attested the profound sense of the loss which the whole country has sustained. 
 
 Resolved, That as a mark of respect for the memory of Mr. MORTON, the mem 
 bers of the Senate will go into mourning by wearing crape upon the left arm for 
 thirty days. 
 
 Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate communicate these resolutions to the 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 Resolved, That as an additional mark of respect for the memory of the deceased 
 Senator, the Senate do now adjourn. 
 
ADDRESS OF MB. MCDONALD ON THE 
 
 Address of Mr. MCDONALD, of Indiana. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT : On the 1st day of November, 1877, in the after 
 noon, at five o clock and twenty-eight minutes, my late colleague, 
 OLIVER P. MORTON, departed this life. 
 
 The Senate, at the time, took note of his death and manifested 
 its respect for him by the appointment of a committee to be present 
 at his burial. 
 
 The resolutions which I submit to day for the consideration of 
 the Senate are designed to be placed upon the journals of Congress, 
 there to remain for all time a record-monument to his memory. 
 
 In moving these resolutions I do not expect to become his eulo 
 gist. I feel that I am not suited to the task. 
 
 We can all say that by his death a "great name has been stricken 
 from the roll of the Senate." Few, if any, filled so large a space 
 in the public mind during the eventful period in our history in 
 which he lived. But the mellowing influence of time will have to 
 cast its mantle over these events and the prominent part he took in 
 them before a political opponent, and especially a citizen of his own 
 State, can so far free his mind from the influences engendered by the 
 political strifes as to be just, much less to be able to indulge in the 
 pardonable license which sanctions the exaggeration of virtues and 
 high quality and hides, as if with a veil, all defects. 
 
 Less than one year ago, when the Senate had under consideration 
 the resolutions of the House of Representatives of respect to the 
 memory of its late Speaker, Michael C. Kerr, Senator MORTON was 
 borne from the Supreme Court room, where he was engaged as a 
 member of the electoral commission, to this Chamber to take part 
 in the proceedings. On that occasion, speaking of Mr. Kerr, he said : 
 
 We live in a State somewhat distinguished of late years for the bitterness of its 
 political contests. While he and I were on different sides, yet our personal relations 
 were always good, and I now take pleasure in bearing testimony to his memory. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 
 
 These words and this sentiment I can and do fully apply to him. 
 
 OLIVER P. MORTON was a native of the State of Indiana, and 
 was born in the county of Wayne on the 4th day of August, 1823. 
 A brief period in the common schools of his native State, four years 
 apprenticeship at the hatter s trade, and two short years at Oxford 
 College, in the State of Ohio, made up the sum of his preparation 
 to enter upon the business of life. Having chosen the profession 
 of law, he devoted himself to its study and came to the bar in 1847. 
 Had he continued in the practice of his profession, it is not to be 
 doubted that, with the energy and ability he has displayed in other 
 fields, he would have become a leading member in it. While he 
 was more or less connected with the political controversies of the 
 times, it was not until 1856 that he may be said to have entered 
 actively into political life, when he became the candidate of what 
 was known as the people s party for governor of the State. 
 
 Before that time, and up to 1854, he had been identified polit 
 ically with the democratic party ; but upon the passage of the Kan 
 sas-Nebraska act, by which the Missouri compromise line was 
 repealed, he detached himself from that party and joined in the 
 movement which resulted in the establishment first of the people s 
 and afterwards of the republican party. But it was not until 1861 
 that he became generally known to the country. In October, 1860, 
 he was elected lieutenant-governor of his State on the ticket with 
 Governor Henry S. Lane, and upon the election of Governor Lane 
 to the Senate, in January following, he became acting governor, 
 and continued to be the chief magistrate of his native State until 
 January, 1867, when he was elected a Senator from the State to 
 succeed Senator Lane in this body. His course and conduct as gov 
 ernor of Indiana during the civil war are so well known to the 
 country and have been so much the subject of comment as to make 
 
10 ADDRESS OF MR. MCDONALD ON THE 
 
 it unnecessary for me to do more than refer to them. The energy 
 with which he supported and upheld the power of the Federal Gov 
 ernment in its efforts to suppress the rebellion won for him the name 
 and title of the " war governor," and gave him a permanent place 
 in the front rank of the public men of the country. 
 
 Naturally combative and aggressive, intensely in earnest in his 
 undertakings, and intolerant in regard to those who differed with 
 him, it is not strange that while he held together his friends and fol 
 lowers with hooks of steel, he caused many whose patriotism and 
 love of country were as sincere and unquestioned as his own to place 
 themselves in political hostility to him. And the political situation 
 in Indiana was well expressed by him when he said, on the occasion 
 I have already referred to : 
 
 We live in a State somewhat distinguished of late years for the bitterness of its 
 political contests. 
 
 During the early part of Governor MORTON S political career he 
 was as distinguished for his physical strength as for his mental 
 ability and energy; but in the fall of 1865, almost without warn 
 ing, he was stricken down by partial paralysis, from the disabilities 
 of which he never recovered and which gradually but surely carried 
 him to his grave. When he entered this Chamber to take his seat 
 as a Senator he was enabled to do so only by the aid and assistance 
 of others, and although unschooled in parliamentary law and without 
 experience in the methods and proceedings of deliberative bodies, 
 laboring under disabilities that would have induced most men 
 to seek for quiet in retirement, almost from the first day he entered 
 this Chamber he became the political leader of his party and main 
 tained that position to the last; not that there were not other mem 
 bers of it who were his equals in intellect and his superiors in learn 
 ing, yet there were none who possessed his untiring energy, his 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 11 
 
 sleepless industry, and his indomitable will. His loss of physical 
 vigor seemed to have added concentrated power to his mental facul 
 ties and to have given increased activity to his mental energies, so that 
 it appeared as if the mind was acting for both mind and body ; and 
 it is most probably true that this increase of mental activity and 
 constant occupation rather added to his life by drawing the mind 
 away from dwelling upon the helpless condition of his body and 
 the incurable malady that had seized upon it. 
 
 I shall not undertake to follow OLIVER P. MORTON through 
 his senatorial career. He became a member of this body after the 
 rebellion had been suppressed and armed resistance to the Govern 
 ment put down, but before the method of dealing with the people 
 of the Southern States or the policies that should govern in the 
 re-establishment of the Federal authority over the States lately in 
 rebellion had been decided upon or adopted. The two modes of 
 what was termed a " restoration " of the Union on the one hand, 
 or a " reconstruction " of it on the other, were then being actively 
 canvassed in the national councils and before the country. 
 
 Although in the inception of these questions it was understood 
 that Governor MORTON favored what was known as the restoration 
 policy, yet upon becoming a member of this body, for reasons no 
 doubt satisfactory to himself, he became the champion of the recon 
 struction policy, and continued to be the advocate of that policy, 
 and the logical results of it, during the remainder of his life. He 
 also took a leading part in all the discussions and debates that arose 
 in this body from time to time as is fully shown by the records of 
 its proceedings. But his labors during the last session of the last 
 Congress furnished the most striking illustration of his sleepless 
 energy. As chairman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections 
 it became his duty to direct and control the investigation ordered 
 
12 ADDRESS OF ME. MCDONALD ON THE 
 
 by the Senate into the elections in several of the Southern States and 
 respecting the Oregon electoral vote. His determined opposition to 
 the electoral bill and his efforts to defeat it are well remembered by 
 all who were members of this body at that time. 
 
 His labors upon the electoral commission during the eventful 
 period when it seemed as if the very foundations of our Government 
 were in danger of being uprooted are vividly remembered by all. 
 Physically disabled, yet he was everywhere present ; borne to his 
 committee-room, carried to this Chamber, lifted to his seat in the 
 electoral commission by the strong arms of others, there remaining 
 into the long, dreary hours of the night, tireless among the tired, 
 pressing on where strong men gave way, he presents a picture that 
 may well excite our wonder and challenge our admiration, and for 
 which history furnishes no example. I may, however, be allowed 
 to say that in all these things the part he played was intensely par 
 tisan. To him it may have appeared true statesmanship. In the 
 great contest then going on it may have seemed to him that the suc 
 cess of his party was essential to the welfare of his country. By 
 his own declaration, he opposed the electoral bill because he " did 
 not want to give up a certainty for an uncertainty." His action in 
 the committee and, as far as we are able to judge, on the electoral 
 commission, was aimed especially to maintain that vantage-ground ; 
 and when success was finally attained it may be said that it rounded 
 up and closed his political career. 
 
 The subsequent events of his life were unimportant and will 
 attract but little attention when the history of these times shall have 
 been written. 
 
 That OLIVER P. MORTON was a great man is conceded by all. 
 In regard to his qualities as a statesman, men do differ now and 
 always will. But that he was a great partisan leader the greatest 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 13 
 
 of his day and generation will hardly be questioned ; and his place 
 in that particular field will not, perhaps, be soon supplied. No 
 where will his loss be so severely felt as among his friends and fol 
 lowers in his own native State. 
 
 Viewing him simply as a partisan, even his opponents concede 
 that he possessed many high and generous qualities. If he struck 
 hard blows, he did not shrink from receiving hard blows in return ; 
 and when the strife was over he was ever ready to extend a hand 
 and to sink, if not forget, the past. And while he never gave up 
 a partisan advantage, he was ever ready to perform a personal act 
 of kindness and friendship to a political adversary as well as to a 
 political friend ; and the undying love and affection of those who 
 stood nearest and dearest to him in the relations of life attest the 
 warmth and strength of his own affections. 
 
 And now, Mr. President, that he has gone to his grave, where we 
 all are soon to follow him, if he had faults let them be buried with 
 him. Let us remember and cherish only those kindly feelings and 
 sentiments which his higher and better qualities inspired. 
 
 Address of Mr. EDMUNDS, of Vermont. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT : The tribute I offer to the memory of the late 
 Senator from Indiana flows from a personal intercourse of good 
 will and general sympathy covering the period of his whole career 
 in the Senate, from 1867 to the time of his death, and also from 
 the high estimate I have formed of his extraordinary ability and 
 the purity and breadth of the purposes of his political life. 
 
 However much he differed with his political opponents, and not 
 infrequently with some of his political associates, the warmest con 
 troversy rarely, if ever, interfered with the kindliness of his per- 
 
14 ADDRESS OF MR. EDMUNDS ON THE 
 
 sonal relations with his fellow Senators. His was one of the natures, 
 not too common in the world, that could without animosity receive 
 as well as give hard blows in debate, that with men differently con 
 stituted would long rankle in personal bitterness and dislike. But 
 in the time allotted to the occasion I must speak of his relations 
 to public aifairs rather than of those felicities of character that made 
 his intercourse with his fellow-men in the communications of private 
 life a pleasure to all who knew him. 
 
 The qualities that command the largest measure of material suc 
 cess in affairs are a clearness of understanding that brings into view 
 from the beginning the definite end and the most available processes 
 by which it is to be reached, together with that force of will which 
 is tireless in its persistence and that quickness of decision which 
 utilizes instantly the commanding points in every crisis, that never 
 leaves an enterprise waiting upon doubts until the tide that might 
 have borne it on to fortune has receded and left the nascent victory 
 a helpless wreck. Men with such qualities become the founders or 
 saviors of States and systems and policies ; and they are the leaders 
 of men, not from the intrigues of craft and cunning or the power 
 of wealth or rank or the traditions of a family, but from an innate 
 and rightful sovereignty in human nature. 
 
 These qualities are not those essentially necessary to oratory, and 
 they frequently exist without it. Conspicuous examples of these 
 differences exist in the history of every people. The finest flights 
 of Cicero or of Burke had little effect upon the condition of the 
 Roman or English nation compared with the plain speech and 
 prompt action of a Coesar or a Cromwell. 
 
 Although not wanting in many things which are usually consid 
 ered to be parts of oratorical power, Mr. MORTON S greater power 
 consisted in the large possession of the characteristics I have named 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 15 
 
 as belonging to natural leaders of men, and in his plain but persua 
 sive modes of impressing his views upon others and the fitness of 
 their following him to their realization. 
 
 As a lawyer it perhaps cannot be said that he possessed that sub 
 tlety in dialectics and that copiousness of technical learning that 
 would have made him pre-eminent at the bar in the disposition of 
 cases arising in the affairs of a conventional state of society and a 
 complicated system of jurisprudence. But, as has been said of the 
 famous French lawyer and statesman, Odillon Barrot, his real 
 strength lay in matters " which he could lift into public events of 
 paramount importance by referring them to the broad principles on 
 which all systems of social order or policy are based." In discus 
 sions of this character he had few equals. The graphic clearness of 
 his statements, the simple directness of his logic, and the sense of 
 his sincere earnestness that he impressed upon his hearers, placed 
 him fairly among the most powerful and successful of speakers. 
 
 Like many men of such great and extraordinary gifts and quali 
 ties, with usually a most sincere belief in the value of the ends he 
 had in view on particular occasions and an intense desire to attain 
 them, he was not always careful as to the consistency of the methods 
 of reaching them or of the harmony of those methods with his 
 previous opinions. The object appearing to him to be a high one, 
 as of justice or equal rights, he did not always pause hi his pursuit 
 of it to consider whether the path he trod in reaching it was the 
 same with or differing from that he had thought the only fit one on 
 some former occasion. But such inconsistencies were in their nature 
 far from the shifting selfishness of the demagogue or the vacillations 
 of weakness; they arose rather out of the very intensity of his belief 
 in the virtue and importance of the thing to be accomplished, which 
 to him made the most available reasons and processes of action the 
 
16 ADDRESS OF MR. EDMUNDS ON THE 
 
 true ones, however much opposed in the abstract they may have 
 been to opinions he had before expressed. Such peculiarities as 
 these, while in many men they would be vices, were with him almost 
 virtues ; for they were never shown for selfish or personal aims, but 
 always on occasions when it appeared to him that the safety of the 
 Republic was at stake or the liberties and rights of citizens were in 
 peril. 
 
 Perhaps the most remarkable period in his career was while he 
 was governor of Indiana, during the darkest days of the rebellion. 
 This is not the proper occasion to describe in detail the almost insur 
 mountable dangers and difficulties with which he was surrounded; 
 dangers and difficulties before which the hearts of many would have 
 sunk and the efforts of many would have failed. But his brave 
 soul seemed to grow stronger as perils increased, and his quickness 
 of perception and fertility in expedients generally frustrated the 
 plans of the enemies of the Republic, and stimulated to greater ac 
 tivity its weak supporters and its lukewarm friends. 
 
 From the arduous and multifarious duties of his executive life 
 we follow him to this body, in which he took his seat on the 4th 
 of March, 1867. 
 
 Here he found pending problems in legislation, and concerning 
 the future frame-work and nature of the Government, as difficult 
 and embarrassing as any perhaps that have ever been experienced 
 by a civilized people. Their nature and scope are familiar to us all. 
 
 To their solution Mr. MORTON brought a fervent love of that 
 real liberty and equality of rights among men that can exist only 
 under the security of provisions of fundamental law, and can only 
 be practically defended and promoted by the enactment of statutes, 
 and their fearless and vigilant enforcement by the judiciary and 
 executive power. His voice was always raised in favor of measures 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 17 
 
 looking to these ends. To his zeal and vigor in debate the country 
 is much indebted for two of the constitutional amendments and the 
 statutes to enforce them that have been made since the close of the 
 war of the rebellion. Whatever of failure may have occurred 
 in realizing all that true liberty under the law implies cannot be 
 attributed to any want of interest or active effort on his part. He 
 firmly believed that there had been a great and beneficent change, 
 a lawful revolution in the form of the Government in the direction 
 of equal rights, as the fair fruit of a revolution that had been 
 attempted in the interest of slavery and secession ; and, to quote 
 the words of the French statesman to whom I have compared him, 
 he believed that it would be a misfortune more real than the woes 
 attending the rebellion itself for those who had failed "to think that 
 there had been no revolution, for, for this very reason, there may 
 be two instead of one. And in truth, if a revolution without 
 cause is fatally condemned to miscarry, the miscarriage is not less 
 infallible for a revolution without effect." 
 
 He was a man of strong passions and great talents, and was, as 
 a consequence, a devoted partisan. He had no faith in that phi 
 losophy of government imputed to Louis Napoleon when President 
 of France, which led him to suppose that he could dominate all 
 parties by taking ministers who represented none. He did not 
 believe that the present security or the permanent peace of the 
 country could be obtained without inscribing the results of the 
 war in the sacred pages of the Constitution itself, and in enacting 
 and enforcing measures of legislation that, if observed, should 
 make liberty and equal rights as great a beneficence as without such 
 protection they would be to the poor and downcast a mockery and 
 a snare. So believing and so acting, he was consistently conspic 
 uous in his devotion to the ends he had in view. In the fields in 
 
18 ADDRESS OF MR. THURMAN ON THE 
 
 which his patriotism was exerted it may be said of him, as it was 
 of the Knights of Saint John in the holy wars : 
 
 In the forefront of every battle was seen his burnished mail, and in the gloomy 
 rear of every retreat was heard his voice of constancy and of courage. 
 
 Now when his labors are closed and he has departed from among 
 us, this high body rightly sets apart a day of solemn memorial to 
 his memory that, more lasting than monuments of bronze or of 
 marble, will remain as long as the records of history endure. 
 
 Address of Mr. THURMAN, of Ohio. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT, I have always entertained the opinion that an 
 occasion like this when the whole Senate, differing widely in 
 political opinions, as its members ever have done and ever will do, 
 unite in paying tribute to the memory of a deceased brother is 
 not a proper occasion for unmeasured praise on the one hand or 
 criticism on the other of his political life. OLIVER P. MORTON 
 was too prominent a man in American politics, for nearly a quarter 
 of a century, to be forgotten ; and his friends and his adversaries 
 may safely trust to the sober influences of time for a correct esti 
 mate of his political character. 
 
 In the brief remarks that I shall submit to-day I shall speak 
 of the man, not of the politician. It is true that it is difficult to 
 separate the man from the politician in speaking of OLIVER P. 
 MORTON, for he lived and moved and had his being in the atmos 
 phere of politics, and in that atmosphere and by its influence his 
 personal traits of character were most strikingly developed and 
 sharply defined. In any sphere of life he would have been a 
 remarkable man, for his ability, his energy, his determination, and 
 his industry were all remarkable. But practical politics was his 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 19 
 
 true sphere, for in no other occupation could he have displayed in 
 so signal a manner that quickness of apprehension, force of logic, 
 singular audacity, inflexibility of purpose, and controlling power 
 over the opinions and actions of others, by which he was so emi 
 nently distinguished and which so well qualified him to be a leader 
 among men. 
 
 Suffering for years from a painful and hopeless disease that ulti 
 mately terminated his life, we yet saw him, year after year, perform 
 an amount of labor from which the most robust man might have 
 recoiled as from a task too heavy to be borne. He evaded no duty 
 however onerous; he asserted his claim to leadership at all times 
 and under all circumstances however great might be the sacrifice 
 of comfort, repose, or health. He was not a scholar in the broad 
 sense of the term, and he did not pretend to be. His speeches 
 were distinguished by logical force and earnestness, and not by 
 beauty of expression, figures of rhetoric, or classical allusions. He 
 always spoke for a purpose and not for show, for he was very free 
 from vanity. But while his general scholarship was not great 
 there were some subjects that he had studied with much care, and 
 he was very remarkable for the quickness with which he gathered 
 and mastered the facts of any subject debated in the Senate. He 
 was averse to personalities in even the most heated party debates, 
 and in social intercourse he was uniformly courteous and amiable. 
 It is gratifying to me to remember that often as we were engaged in 
 discussion, and sometimes very exciting discussion, no unkind word 
 ever passed between us, and our personal relations were always kind 
 and friendly. 
 
20 ADDRESS OP MR. CONKLING ON THE 
 
 Address of Mr. CONKLING, of New York. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT, in ancient times those nearest the dead spoke 
 in their funerals. Fathers celebrated the bravery and achievements 
 of their sons, and the graces and virtues of wives and of daughters 
 were publicly recited and extolled by those who loved and mourned 
 them most. 
 
 These customs have been banished by modern civilization or modern 
 manners. Now, the fondest lips are sealed, and the ashes and the fame 
 of the departed are no longer committed to those who would shield 
 and treasure them with the tender partiality of bereaved affection. 
 
 It is difficult to note a change so great, in a matter so deep-rooted 
 in the heart of man so hallowed and mastered by instinct and 
 innate emotion, without wonder that the same beings in different 
 generations should be moved to such different manifestations of the 
 same sentiment and the same sorrow. 
 
 Death is nature s supreme abhorrence. The dark valley, with 
 its weird and solemn shadows, illumined by the rays of Christi 
 anity is still the ground which man shudders to approach. The 
 grim portals, and the narrow house, seem in the lapse of centuries 
 to have gained rather than lost in impressive and foreboding horror. 
 
 It must have been while musing over this puzzling fact that an 
 illustrious American gifted as a poet, and therefore gifted as a 
 philosopher wrote these graceful, memorable words : 
 
 In the temple of Juno, at Elis, Sleep and his twin-brother, Death, were repre 
 sented as children reposing in the arms of Night. On various funeral monuments 
 of the ancients the Genius of Death is sculptured as a beautiful youth, leaning on 
 an inverted torch, in the attitude of repose, his wings folded and his feet crossed. 
 In such peaceful and attractive forms did the imagination of ancient poets and 
 sculptors represent death. And these were men in whose souls the religion of 
 Nature was like the light of stars, beautiful, but faint and cold! Strange, that, in 
 later days, this angel of God, which leads us with a gentle hand into the " land of 
 the great departed, into the silent land," should have been transformed into a mon 
 strous and terrific thing! Such is the spectral rider on the white horse; such the 
 ghastly skeleton with scythe and hour-glass ; the Reaper, whose name is Death. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 21 
 
 Whether owing to the tendencies here suggested, or to other 
 promptings, the usage of paying public tribute to those who have 
 gone, now admits to its privilege few who stand in relations so close 
 as brother Senators. 
 
 When a member of the Senate, weary with the toil of years, 
 worn with labors which observe no hours, long and harshly criti 
 cised perhaps when the truth if known would have changed critics 
 to eulogists, crowned with duties well done and honors well earned 
 when such an one, beckoned by the shadowy hand, retreats from 
 the din of life, and the gates have closed behind him forever, it is 
 decorous that those who are so soon to follow him should pause, 
 and bear public testimony of the esteem in which they held him, 
 and of the approbation which they know he deserved. Their 
 utterances may not add a cubit or an hour to his fame, but they 
 strengthen and brighten the links of the chain which should bind 
 men and Senators together. 
 
 It is not my purpose to repeat the story of a career which the 
 nation knows by heart. 
 
 The Senate has heard in feeling and graceful words many inci 
 dents of a life devoted to the public service, and enduringly asso 
 ciated with events. grand, arduous, and historic. 
 
 I rose only to add my tribute of respect and admiration for the 
 genius and the services of a remarkable man, and to unite with the 
 people of Indiana in the grief with which they mourn the death 
 of their illustrious Senator. 
 
 As a party leader, he was too great for any party or any State 
 readily to supply his place. 
 
 As an efficient, vigilant, and able representative, he had no supe 
 rior in either House of Congress. 
 
 Oppressed and crippled by bodily infirmity, his mind never fal- 
 
22 ADDRESS OF MR. BURNSIDE ON THE 
 
 tered or flagged. Despite pain and sickness, so long as he could be 
 carried to his seat he was never absent from the Senate or the com 
 mittee. No labor discouraged him, no contingency appalled him, 
 no disadvantage dismayed him, no defeat disheartened him. 
 
 Those who encountered him in debate or in affairs will never 
 forget his ability, his zeal, his industry, his energy, his fertility, his 
 varied powers, or above all his indomitable heart. Living in an 
 era of extraordinary activities and forces, he has left a deep and 
 lasting impress on his times. He will go down to a far hereafter, 
 not as one who embellished and perpetuated his name by a studied 
 and scholastic use of words, nor as a herald of resounding theories, 
 but rather as one who day by day on the journey of life met actual 
 affairs and realities and grappled them with a grasp too resolute 
 and quick to loiter for the ornament or the advantage of protracted 
 and tranquil meditation. 
 
 He needs no epitaph but his name; and though brass may 
 corrode, and marble molder, men will still remember OLIVER 
 PERRY MORTON as a leading and manful defender of the Republic 
 in the Republic s most dire and heroic age. 
 
 Address of Mr. BURNSIDE, of Rhode Island. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT, I will be pardoned, I am sure, for making 
 some two or three allusions personal to myself in speaking of our 
 distinguished deceased brother Senator. 
 
 My acquaintance with him began in boyhood. We were born 
 and reared in the same neighborhood. We left our homes to enter 
 college the same year, he as a student at Miami University and I 
 as a cadet in the United States Military Academy. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OP OLIVER P. MORTON. 23 
 
 In consequence of these early relations I have watched his career 
 with great interest and pride. Our walks in life led us apart until 
 the war of the rebellion, during a portion of which we were inti 
 mately associated, he as governor of the great State of Indiana and 
 I as military commander of the Department of the Ohio. The 
 friendship that had existed from boyhood was strengthened by the 
 kind, strong, efficient counsel and co-operation he gave me during 
 my service in that department. After the termination of this 
 association, I naturally watched his career with an increased interest. 
 It was with great personal satisfaction that I found him the recog 
 nized leader of the republican party upon this floor when I joined 
 him here. 
 
 In all the walks of life MORTON has proved himself a great man. 
 The high position which he attained was in no sense due to acci 
 dent. No fortuitous circumstances brought him into prominence. 
 He did not spring from the humble walks of life and rise through 
 great difficulties to eminence ; nor did he separate himself by self- 
 denial from a life of ease and luxury with a view to taking upon 
 himself the labors and responsibilities of a public man, which latter 
 course is oftener harder to pursue than the former. Nor did he 
 come from that class who are educated for the learned profeasions, 
 from which the stepping-stone to public distinction is comparatively 
 easy when the aspirants are possessed of intelligence, integrity, and 
 industry, but he sprang from that great conservative class which is 
 composed of men engaged in agricultural and mechanical pursuits, 
 whose dispositions, as a rule, are to continue in the course upon 
 which they enter until their works are crowned with moderate suc 
 cess or ended in failure. MORTON, however, broke from this temp 
 tation, (if it may be so called,) and determined early in life to 
 attain distinction, if possible, as a public man. By dint of great 
 
24 ADDRESS OF ME. BUENSIDE ON THE 
 
 industry and economy he acquired a good education and began the 
 study of law under the direction of one of Indiana s most sterling 
 and distinguished men, Hon. John S. Newman, and soon acquired 
 great proficiency in his profession. The example of this accom 
 plished gentleman for industry and integrity doubtless had a great 
 influence upon MORTON S after-life. 
 
 From boyhood he was fond of debate upon political topics, and 
 early attained prominence as a political leader. When but thirty- 
 three years of age he became the candidate of his party for the high 
 office of governor of his native State, and won during that canvass 
 a reputation as a debater that followed him through life, and which 
 at his death was world- wide. What gave him his greatest strength 
 as a debater was his great desire and facility for learning and pre 
 senting the facts of a case. He was rarely found wrong in his 
 statements, and was always ready to appeal to the records and to 
 abide the results. Another prominent characteristic was his fair 
 ness. Any fact claimed by his opponent and well established by 
 the record he always conceded. There was but little repetition in 
 his speeches. After he had once presented his facts or theories dis 
 tinctly they were dropped until some one of his opponents made it 
 necessary to refer to them again. He never wearied his political 
 friends by too much speech, and always occupied his opponents. 
 He rarely, if ever, indulged in personalities or in frivolities. It 
 is said by those who have known him very intimately that he had 
 a hard struggle with himself in early life to break the habit of in 
 dulgence in wit and ridicule which his keen sense of humor was 
 apt to lead him into. Upon the breaking out of the rebellion 
 MORTON at once sprang into still greater prominence. His great 
 services as one of the war governors have been fully portrayed 
 upon this occasion, and I will not detain the Senate by reiterating 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 25 
 
 them. It will not be amiss, however, to refer to a few of his more 
 prominent characteristics. His great care and love for the soldiers 
 of his State, not only while they were in the field but after their 
 return to their homes, won for him their great respect and affection. 
 He was eminently patriotic. No sacrifice was too great for him to 
 make in the cause of his country. 
 
 He was a lover of law and order, and was averse to being led 
 into an arbitrary exercise of authority by the emergencies of the 
 war. I remember while I was in command of the Department of 
 the Ohio, which department embraced the State of Indiana, that I 
 had occasion to issue a general order with a view to reaching per 
 sons who I thought were indulging in treasonable speeches. Under 
 this order some prominent citizens were arrested, and among them 
 a prominent citizen of Ohio, and one of the State senators of the 
 State of Indiana. MORTON urgently argued with me against the 
 wisdom and justice of the arrest of these citizens, and demanded 
 the release of the State senator, notwithstanding the fact that he was 
 one of his most bitter political opponents. He had ambition, but 
 never allowed it to blind him to what he conceived to be the best 
 interests of the country. He was a prominent aspirant for the 
 nomination by his party at the last presidential election, and was 
 doubtless sorely disappointed at his failure to receive the nomi 
 nation, but when he wrote his letter of advice to his fellow-citizens 
 as to the duty of the hour, all were assured that this failure had 
 engendered in him no ill-will toward his party or to the distin 
 guished gentleman who received the nomination, but quite the 
 reverse; he was ready and anxious to give him his full support and 
 encouragement. 
 
 His unbounded affection for his family was one of his striking 
 characteristics. His estimable wife was his almost constant com- 
 
26 ADDRESS OF MR. MORGAN ON THE 
 
 panion when he was not engaged in his public duties. His devo 
 tion to his friends was marked in the extreme, which accounts for 
 the great affection, in which he was held by all those who were 
 intimately associated with him. 
 
 MORTON was a great man. His judgment was good; his power 
 of research was great, his integrity was high, his patriotism was 
 lofty, his love of family and friends unlimited, his courage indom 
 itable. No feeble words of mine can express the great loss which 
 this body, his native State, and our country have sustained by his 
 death. 
 
 Address of Mr. MORGAN, of Alabama. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT, on an occasion such as this, when a nation is 
 paying its tribute of respect to a great citizen, it is not fitting that 
 any section of the Union should be silent. The West has spoken 
 and the East has answered ; the voice of sorrow that for months 
 past has wailed mournfuly along the shores of the lakes of the 
 North is also echoed by the sighing breezes of the Gulf of Mexico. 
 If this were the house of mourning, where none but those who were 
 the beloved of the great Senator were expected to speak, I should 
 feel that I was compelled to remain silent. But it is the Senate 
 that conducts these obsequies, and the States are all here to par 
 ticipate. Indiana has suffered a bereavement in the death of an 
 honored son that touches the hearts of her people with profound 
 grief; and Alabama lays upon his tomb a bough of her evergreen 
 magnolia, crowned with its white emblems of peace, in token of her 
 sense of the immortality of his fame, and with it she extends to 
 Indiana the hand of sympathizing and honest-hearted friendship. 
 
 Senator MORTON did not live to see the States all reassembled in 
 this Chamber. Since 1873 the grand roll-call of the States was 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 27 
 
 never fully completed in his hearing. He was not content that it 
 should be completed, under his views of the Constitution, with the 
 representation which was sent here, and in this great controversy 
 States stood arrayed against him, but they are now assembled at his 
 funeral rites. They are here as members of a bereaved family. 
 They bow in chastened sorrow to the omnipotent hand that will 
 soon smite others of their sons with death, and if rightly conscious 
 of the imperfections of their own representatives, and if they are 
 properly considerate of duty, they are prepared to bury every bitter 
 resentment of the past, and to cherish only the good that has been 
 evolved through their common trials and sufferings and even 
 through their angry strife. 
 
 If Senator MORTON were here in person, as he will long remain 
 in spirit and influence, he would realize that this full Senate is a 
 power better worthy to be made useful in the high purposes of serv 
 ing the country in promoting its great moral and material interests 
 than as an instrumentality of strife and in struggles for power, 
 whether that power is claimed by ambitious men, or by rival sec 
 tions of the country, or by political parties. 
 
 He would do all within the range of his great abilities to make 
 the Senate worthy of the age and a pattern for the statesmen of 
 coming generations. He would not waste his energies in renewing 
 conflicts that are ended, nor would he encourage us to turn aside 
 from our practical duties to engage in the fruitless discussion of 
 past grievances, whether real or imaginary. With a heart truly 
 and fully American, and a mind amply stored with treasures of 
 knowledge, and with an energy of will of which the march of 
 American progress is the truest and most vivid illustration, he 
 would set to work to build up every waning industry, to renew 
 hope in every languishing heart, and to open up new fields of 
 
28 ADDRESS OF MR. MORGAN ON THE 
 
 enterprise to the boundless energy of our people. If he had dif 
 fered always and everywhere with the people of Alabama, they 
 would not have remembered their diiferences a day longer than he 
 had brought his great powers to this form of the service of his 
 country. 
 
 It is sad for the country that a man so capable and so trusted 
 should have been removed while in the meridian of his influence 
 and power. 
 
 Senator MORTON S political life was largely spent in the midst 
 of war. To maintain the cause for which he struggled, he believed 
 that he was compelled to lay his hand on the sword of military 
 power. He grasped it firmly. He wielded it without pause or 
 questioning, but with perfect loyalty to his country. 
 
 In this he only did his duty ; for the country of his soul s allegi 
 ance required it of him. He could not have done less. However 
 the laws may otherwise declare, his country where he dwells, the 
 place that is sanctified with the name of home, will be the sovereign 
 of an honest man s heart and will command his allegiance. 
 
 When others thought that the sword had served its full purpose 
 and should be sheathed he mistrusted that it was further needed, 
 and he held to it with a firmer grasp. In this the South was 
 opposed to him, and its wail of anguish was bitter against him. 
 While he held the sword suspended the South had no shield for its 
 uncovered bosom. It was natural that its heart should chill to 
 ward him. It would be untrue to say that it did not, and he would 
 have despised the falsehood. But this attitude was changed, and 
 no man was more ready than he was to recognize the new order of 
 things. Almost his dying words attest the fact. 
 
 His nature was intensely combative, but his ear was ever ready 
 to listen to the bugles of truce. He did not persecute in secret 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 29 
 
 inquisitions. He openly denounced what he conceived to be wrong 
 in his opponents and demanded the vengeance of the law. How 
 he acted toward his friends we were not in position to know. He 
 was no conspirator. His nature was above that mean level where 
 men of great powers sometimes get their consent to serve a cause 
 that they even conceive to be just in the dark and devious ways of 
 fraud and conspiracy. Senator MORTON was an open, bold, and 
 defiant antagonist. His opponents always knew where to find him, 
 and when he meant to strike. In this respect even those who suf 
 fered from his blows learned to honor him. 
 
 To do him justice in another important respect it is necessary to 
 say that he lived during an era of our history beset with great 
 temptations and had the fullest opportunity to grow rich by stealth, 
 and yet he escaped all suspicion of dishonesty. He was an honest 
 man. It is here that the people have planted a white stone, and 
 every contribution to his honor will cluster about it as the best 
 and most enduring foundation of his immortal fame. 
 
 His record is before the country. It is easily understood, bold, 
 fearless, direct, and distinct. His individuality was so distinctive 
 that it is a rare occurrence that his name has a fixed historical asso 
 ciation with his great contemporaries as the associates of his labors. 
 There is no evasion or darkness in the definitions of his principles 
 or policies. Most of his thoughts connected with public affairs are 
 on the records of the Senate. He spoke freely on all subjects that 
 he discussed, and few important measures failed to attract his atten 
 tion. Yet the country never tired of listening to him, such was the 
 vigor of his thoughts and the profound depth of his convictions and 
 the boldness of his utterances. 
 
 When such a man is deceived, as all men are liable to be deceived, 
 as to matters of fact relating to the graver duties of government, the 
 
30 ADDRESS OF MR. MORGAN ON THE 
 
 country is endangered. So much power as he possessed, when mis 
 directed, is of necessity dangerous. His record will receive impar 
 tial criticism. He would not have asked that it be forbearing. It 
 contains no plea for lenient consideration. His opinions are too bold 
 and too broadly and confidently stated to be drifted oif into neutral 
 ground. They will enter the conflict with self-asserting energy 
 though their author is no longer here to defend them. In many 
 important matters time alone will demonstrate their value. They 
 will always be respected. In the most essential points where dif 
 ferences have existed between him and the people of Alabama, they 
 have been diiferences of opinion. In some respects those differences 
 were in sharp and decided conflict. But in no respect was it true 
 that either he or they desired to do wrong the one to the other. The 
 hostility was not in the intent or the purpose. It was the conflict 
 of opinions, too often, I fear, based on misconceptions of fact, the 
 correction of which other evil influences rendered for the time 
 impossible. 
 
 The grand outline of the retrospect of American statesmanship 
 is not marred, but is rather rendered more pleasing, as it has also 
 become more a cause of national pride, by the rugged and isolated 
 peak that seems to have been thrown up from lower depths by some 
 great social and political revolution and to have risen high above 
 the elevated plane on which so many monuments are raised to com 
 memorate our great and deathless names. MORTON builded his 
 own monument, no other hand assisting. To the nation is only left 
 the duty of inscribing his epitaph upon it. This should not be 
 written now. It should be left to a more impartial generation. 
 
 The great Senator rests in the bosom of a generous and grateful 
 country. Millions of hearts are saddened by his loss, while they 
 beat with pride at the mention of his name; and thus are cherished 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 31 
 
 the memories that we style immortal. In minds alive to grateful 
 remembrances, and in living, pulsating hearts, day by day, the fame 
 and glory of our dead statesmen and heroes live. They are storied 
 in books and sculptured in monuments, but they live on, and on, 
 through ceaseless years in the hearts of the people, where they are 
 never forgotten. Thus will MORTON live, and thus will his fame 
 be cherished so long as any who claim to be American shall exist. 
 This is indeed a proud immortality. 
 
 Address of Mr. BOOTH, of California. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT, to epitomize the life and character of OLIVER 
 PERRY MORTON in the few moments devoted to these observances 
 is impossible to mortal utterance. The stalwart proportions of his 
 living presence are but realized by the void his death has made. 
 
 But yesterday he was one of us, of like clay and passions. The 
 echoes of his voice have scarcely died in this Chamber. To-day he 
 is as far from us as Demosthenes or Abraham or the generations 
 that perished before the flood. 
 
 Less than most men intellectually his equals does he need the 
 voice of eulogy. The clearness of his purposes, the boldness of his 
 opinions, his tireless activity, his indomitable will, have impressed 
 "the very age and body of the time." His life was a force which 
 cannot die. 
 
 That fireside criticism which dwells apart in the seclusion of its 
 own self-importance and would not soil its dainty fingers by contact 
 with affairs, which believes government is a science as exact as 
 mathematics, that human nature is plastic as clay and cold as mar 
 ble, may dwarf his image in the penny mirror it holds up to the 
 universe and in which the only colossal figure it beholds is the 
 
32 ADDRESS OP MR. BOOTH ON THE 
 
 reflection of itself; but he has made his own place in history "safe 
 gainst the tooth of time and razure of oblivion." 
 
 He lived in an heroic age this age an age so great that the 
 distance of intervening centuries will be necessary to measure its 
 heroism, its achievements, and its sacrifices. 
 
 We, as Americans, must be excusable for believing, we should be 
 inexcusable if we did not believe, that no political question of graver 
 consequence to all succeeding time was ever confronted by any 
 people than that which culminated in our civil war. History will 
 record that the war was the inevitable result of an irrepressible 
 conflict of moral forces, for which peace had no arbitrament. 
 MORTON S life was cast in a State where this conflict of opinion was 
 eager, passionate, and doubtful. He was at the meeting of the cur 
 rents in the circling of the maelstrom. What to others was a con 
 viction, a sentiment, to him became an inspiration and a passion. 
 He was intensely American. For his large nature, and for his 
 great ambition too, the continent was none too wide. That his 
 country should play a subordinate part in human affairs never 
 entered his imagination to conceive. He would have enlarged the 
 bounds of destiny to give it scope and amplitude. The sentiment 
 that this is a "nation, one, indivisible, indestructible," so permeated 
 his intellect that any other seemed political profanation and sacrilege. 
 With him this was not a theory of construction, but a source and 
 center; not an abstraction, but living faith. Not Webster has 
 expressed his faith with more massive strength, nor Baker with 
 more impassionate fervor. 
 
 No man had an earlier or clearer apprehension of the magnitude 
 of the war on whose verge we stood and the tremendous issues it 
 involved. Of Titan mold, near to nature, elemental powers were 
 his familiars. He had an instinctive sense of the awful forces that 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 33 
 
 are unleashed by war. He knew that in the air, so still it would 
 not stir the floating down, the fury of the tempest slept. 
 
 In the halcyon days, amid delusive promises of peace, he saw that 
 war was inevitable, and rose to the supreme height of the occasion. 
 In a speech on the 22d of November, 1860, which rang through 
 the country like a call to arms, he said : 
 
 Seven years is but a day in the life-time of a nation, and I would rather come 
 out of a struggle at the end of that time defeated in arms, conceding independence 
 to successful revolution, than to purchase present peace by the concession of a prin 
 ciple that must inevitably explode this nation into small, dishonored fragments. 
 
 He flunked nothing, concealed nothing. He knew the uncertain 
 ties of war, its dread sacrifices, and declared that all these, though 
 followed by defeat, were better than inaction or the compromise of 
 a principle he deemed essential to the existence of any republic on 
 this continent. 
 
 This was at once his confession of political faith and the key 
 note of his character. In the cause he championed, he would have 
 dared fate itself to the lists, and matched his will against the courses 
 of the stars. 
 
 There is neither time nor necessity to trace his career. To leave 
 out MORTON and his influence would be to rewrite the history of 
 this country for the past eighteen years, and to modify it for all 
 time to come. In the great struggle on which the existence of the 
 Union was staked he held the central fort. No living man can 
 tell what the result would have been if he had not been where and 
 what he was. 
 
 In character his will dominated his intellect, great as that was. 
 He seemed incapable of indecision. To resolve was to leave doubt 
 behind. Thought, resolution, action, were coinstant. 
 
 As a debater he was an athlete trained down to pure muscle. In 
 speech, careless of the graces of oratory and polish of style, his 
 
34 ADDRESS OF ME. BOOTH ON THE 
 
 earnestness enchained attention, his directness carried conviction, 
 and there was a natural symmetry in the strength of his statement 
 above the reach of art. 
 
 He was a partisan; instinct and experience taught him that 
 organization was essential to the triumph of any political principle 
 or the successful administration of a popular government. He was 
 a born leader, conscious of his power and jealous of his right to 
 lead. He was ambitious; but blessed is the memory of him whose 
 ambition is at one with the best aspirations of humanity, whose 
 death is a loss to the weak, and whose grave is wet with the tears 
 of the humble and the despised. 
 
 Large brained, large framed, and brawny muscled, his vigorous 
 health, freedom of motion, physical independence, manly presence, 
 were his joy and pride, and a part of that full endowment of mind 
 and body which gave him commanding rank. But when at life s 
 meridian he was stricken with the cruel paralysis from which he 
 was never to recover, he accepted his lot without repining. What 
 to another would have been a warning to quit active service and an 
 excuse for ease and rest, to him was the occasion of increased ex 
 ertion and mental activity. The broken sword only made the 
 combat closer. 
 
 When the fatal symptoms of his malady appeared some months 
 before his death, he said to a friend that he realized the end had 
 come, but he felt his career was incomplete, his life-work not 
 finished. Perhaps he felt, too, that death was stepping between 
 him and the great prize of his personal ambition. He knew the 
 night was settling on the home of which his love was the day- 
 spring. 
 
 From that time the American people watched the wasting sands 
 of his life and counted his failing pulse. He fought death as an 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 35 
 
 equal for every inch of time until " worn out/ worn out by long 
 suffering and hard conflict, he yielded to the conqueror of all. 
 
 However long expected, the death of one we honor or love comes 
 at last as a shock. No preparation can take away its final sudden 
 ness. There is not a precinct in all this broad land where MORTON S 
 death was not felt. The nation was bereaved. His State was his 
 chief mourner. Political friends and opponents vied with each 
 other to honor his memory. A hundred thousand men, women, and 
 children took a last look at his face, softened and refined by death, 
 every trace of suffering, every mark of conflict gone. On a chill 
 November afternoon a vast concourse followed him to the grave. 
 The shades of night were falling when the last rite was spoken 
 and the great crowd dispersed, leaving him alone with the dead. 
 
 There will be music and song, revelry and mirth. " The seasons 
 in their bright round will come and go; hope, and joy, and great 
 ambition will rise up as they have risen." Generations will pass 
 on the swift flight of years. Battle-storms will smite the earth, 
 peace smile upon it, plenty crown it, love bless it. History will 
 write great chapters in the book of time. He will come no more. 
 His life is "blended with the mysterious tide which bears upon its 
 current" events, institutions, empire, in the awful sweep of destiny. 
 Nor praise nor censure, nor love nor hate, "nothing can touch him 
 further." 
 
 Address of Mr. ANTHONY, of Rhode Island. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT, OLIVER P. MORTON was born a leader of men, 
 with the sagacity to perceive, with the judgment to determine, with 
 the courage to execute. Had he chosen arms for his profession, he 
 would have made a great general, or he might have rivaled the 
 
36 ADDRESS OF ME. ANTHONY ON THE 
 
 fame of the naval hero whose illustrious name he bore. In what 
 ever pursuit, he would not have failed of eminence, for he pos 
 sessed the essential elements of strength. To a will which nothing 
 could subdue he joined an industry which nothing could fatigue, a 
 capacity for labor seldom rivaled in the annals of American states 
 manship. Taking little upon authority, he applied himself to the 
 original source of investigation and thoroughly informed himself 
 upon every matter on which he w"as required to act. No member 
 of this body gave a more uniformly intelligent vote; and this was 
 true of small matters as well as of great. His comprehension 
 grasped every subject of our deliberations. Nothing was too form 
 idable for him to undertake; nothing was so minute as to escape his 
 observation. Feebler than any of his associates in physical health, 
 he was surpassed by none of them in the amount of labor which he 
 accomplished. He did not recognize in his infirmities a reason for 
 avoiding any duty imposed upon him, or that he imposed upon 
 himself. The mind dominated the body and compelled its enfeebled 
 and exhausted functions to perform the full service of a vigorous 
 organization. 
 
 Deeply impressed with the truth of his convictions, he supported 
 them with an earnestness born of sincerity, with a fullness of in 
 formation due to his marvelous habit of industry, and with a power 
 that sprung from large natural ability disciplined by severe training; 
 but he supported them only in fair and manly debate. He never 
 indulged in trickery; he seemed to disdain even the trickery of 
 rhetoric. The solid logic of his arguments was encumbered by 
 little ornament, and his array of facts depended for their effect, 
 apart from their inherent force, upon the clearness of his statement 
 and the strength of his presentation. 
 
 Simple in his manner, frugal in his habits, he maintained through 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 37 
 
 a life devoted to the public service an honorable poverty, content to 
 support the dignity of official position upon the emolument which 
 the law assigned to it. 
 
 I do not propose to attempt an analysis of his character or to 
 repeat the story of his life that has been so well told, of his early 
 discipline in the stern but healthful school of poverty; of the won 
 derful executive power, the vigor, the foresight, the bold prudence, 
 the patriotism which he exhibited in the gubernatorial chair of his 
 native State; of his long and distinguished service in this Chamber; 
 of the heroic struggle which he held with mortal disease, sustaining 
 life by his indomitable will, which seemed to gather to itself the 
 energy of every failing organ, and with the accumulated strength 
 to hurl defiance at the power of death. But the supreme hour 
 arrived, and he obeyed the inevitable summons, as all who went 
 before him had done, as all who come after him must do, and with 
 the affecting words " I am worn out," he yielded up a life which he 
 had identified with the history of his country by wise counsels, by 
 brave leadership, by solid achievements. He died in the prime and 
 vigor of his intellectual strength and in the midst of his usefulness. 
 Yet we may not call that life a short one whose work if distributed 
 over the allotted period of human existence would have crowned 
 the three-score years and ten with an honorable and an enduring 
 record. 
 
 Mr. President, the shaft of death has been hurled in this Chamber 
 of late with fearful frequency, sparing neither eminence, nor use 
 fulness, nor length of service. No one can predict where it will 
 next strike, whose seat will next be vacated. With our faces to the 
 setting sun we tread the declining path of life, and the shadows 
 lengthen and darken behind us; the good, the true, the brave fall 
 before our eyes, but the Republic survives. The stream of events 
 
38 ADDRESS OF MR. WADLEIGH ON THE 
 
 flows steadily on, and the agencies that seemed to direct and control 
 its current, to impel or to restrain its force, sink beneath its surface, 
 which they disturb merely by a ripple. 
 
 Address of Mr. WADLEIGH, of New Hampshire. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT, my acquaintance with the late Senator MORTON 
 began with my admission to a seat in this Chamber in 1873. Soon 
 after, at his request, I was placed upon the committee of which he 
 was chairman. Personal contact with him increased the admiration 
 and respect which his great ability and patriotic services had created 
 in my mind and led to feelings of friendship, on my part at least, 
 which induce me to pay this humble tribute to his memory. 
 
 OLIVER P. MORTON was essentially a self-made man, the architect 
 of his own fortune. Obscurity shadowed his early life. Four years 
 were spent by him in a hatter s shop. An unquenchable thirst for 
 knowledge and a sleepless ambition impelled him to acquire an 
 education, which he did by arduous endeavor, and at an early age 
 he was admitted to the bar. His great ability was soon recognized, 
 and when but twenty-nine years old he was chosen a circuit judge 
 by the Legislature of Indiana. But a nature like his could not be 
 satisfied with the calm repose of the bench. At the end of a year 
 he resigned and returned to the conflicts of his profession. Events 
 were soon to place him in a broader, loftier arena of action than 
 any tribunal of justice. The repeal of the Missouri compromise in 
 1854 aroused a storm of indignation which swept over the Northern 
 States like a whirlwind and seemed for a time to have annihilated 
 the old political organizations. Among the ardent and generous 
 young men who then severed their party tics to lead the popular 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 39 
 
 movement which culminated in the formation of the republican 
 party OLIVER P. MORTON was first and foremost. 
 
 Such was his recognized capacity for leadership that iu 1856, 
 when only thirty-three years of age, he was nominated by acclama 
 tion the republican candidate for governor of Indiana. In the 
 canvass that followed he exhibited pre-eminent ability, but was 
 defeated. His triumph was only postponed. In 1860 he was 
 chosen lieutenant-governor, and, by the election of Governor Lane 
 to this Senate, made the chief magistrate of his native State. 
 
 Hardly had he taken his seat when the grand drama of the civil 
 war opened and cast upon him labors, cares, and responsibilities 
 such as few men could bear. He was equal to the great emergency. 
 During the four long, bloody years of gigantic warfare his unpar 
 alleled executive ability attracted the attention and admiration of 
 the whole country. He seemed able to foresee and to provide for 
 every contingency. He created a great arsenal, which not only 
 supplied the needs of Indiana, but those of other States and some 
 times those of the nation. He contracted for and furnished vast 
 stores of clothing and provisions for the soldiers of the Union. 
 Again and again he raised troops before they were called for, so 
 that a single telegraphic dispatch from Washington hurled them 
 like thunderbolts to the crimsoned edge of battle. Inspired by his 
 energy Indiana became a vast camp. Her patriotic women vied 
 with each other in their devotion to their country ; the valor of her 
 sons won unfading glory on numerous blood-stained fields. Neigh 
 boring States threatened with invasion looked for aid to her and her 
 great governor. Yet he had to contend with an opposition which 
 organized a conspiracy whose net-work spread over the whole State, 
 threatening to wrap it in the flames of civil war. When by a 
 political revolution all the offices of the State, except his own, were 
 
40 ADDEESS OF ME. WADLEIGH ON THE 
 
 intrusted to his opponents, he appealed to the loyalty of his people 
 for means to carry on the government and prosecute the war for 
 the Union. 
 
 By private subscription, by the assumption of staggering liabili 
 ties which threatened to ruin himself and his friends, he met the 
 indebtedness of the State, paid her governmental expenses, and 
 raised, fed, armed, disciplined, and sent to the field thousands of 
 her bravest sons. Fired by a sublime patriotism, he defended the 
 cause of his country and urged her children to preserve her from 
 destruction. The history of that stupendous conflict contains no 
 more glorious record than his. 
 
 In 1864 he was again elected governor, and in 1867 he took his 
 seat in this Chamber as a Senator from Indiana. That seat he held 
 more than ten years, to the day of his death. His course and his 
 achievements here are read and known of all men and are a part of 
 the history of the time. Here, upon a new arena, he supplemented 
 his lofty reputation for administrative energy by one equally lofty 
 for intellectual power in discussing and solving the greatest and 
 gravest questions. As much as any other Senator, he led the debates 
 and guided the action of this body. The last ten years of his life 
 were one constant and hopeless struggle with the incurable disease 
 from whose grasp there was no escape, and which day by day 
 steadily approached the citadel of life. He knew that his days 
 were numbered and were few ; yet he looked firmly in the face of 
 the relentless, torturing, conquering enemy and kept on his way. 
 He shirked no labor, however arduous ; he left no duty unperformed. 
 His devotion to duty was heroic. His journey to the Pacific coast 
 in the last months of his life was marked by prodigies of herculean 
 labor. Ease, comfort, nay, even life itself seemed of little conse 
 quence to him when compared with the imperious duty to which he 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 41 
 
 seemed to have bound himself of preserving the results of the civil 
 war to the people of the United States forever. Worn out by 
 ceaseless labor in the performance of public duties, in the armor of 
 battle he calmly met the stroke of death. 
 
 In robust manliness the intellect of Senator MORTON was unex 
 celled. His speeches were marked by logical force, clear percep 
 tion, and a strength of statement which resembled demonstration. 
 Though destitute of rhetoric and bare of ornament, their massive 
 force almost silenced doubt and compelled conviction. Even his 
 extemporaneous efforts had the symmetry of labored production. 
 
 Like most really great men the deceased Senator was profoundly 
 sincere and earnest. He despised the petty trickery of politics. 
 Incapable of treachery, he was slow to suspect it in others. Con 
 fident in his strength, he scorned the arts of weakness. He had, 
 too, the generosity and magnanimity which are inseparable from 
 true greatness. No party conflicts tinged his personal relations with 
 bitterness. Nor can I believe that he was not a lover of peace. 
 But he desired a peace based upon justice, and therefore enduring 
 forever. He could not accept a peace which he believed was based 
 upon injustice and wrong. Against wrong and injustice of all kinds, 
 and upon whomsoever exercised, he fought with indomitable courage 
 and unbending will. In his tomb lies the boldest champion of the 
 oppressed, the sternest foe of oppression. His sympathies were 
 bounded by no lines of creed nor condition nor race, but were broad 
 as humanity. In the last days of his life he sought to cover with 
 the eegis of his great name the despised and hated Chinese immi 
 grants of the Pacific slope. He was equally regardless of popularity 
 in his advocacy of the claim of women to political rights. 
 
 His integrity was untarnished. Every attack upon it left it 
 brighter than before. Plain, simple, and frugal in his habits, after 
 
42 ADDRESS OF MR. MITCHELL ON THE 
 
 a long and illustrious public life he died in comparative poverty. 
 He had an uncompromising hatred of political bribery and corrup 
 tion whether in friend or foe. Those of us who heard can never 
 forget his appeals to us to thrust from this Chamber a political friend 
 who was believed to have gained an election by bribery. 
 
 No quality was more conspicuous in the character of Senator 
 MORTON than his lofty patriotism. Ardently loving his country, 
 he sought to make it a temple of liberty, to which might come the 
 oppressed and down-trodden of all races, where universal education 
 should diffuse its blessings, in which might dwell in security and 
 peace a free, happy, and united people. 
 
 To that cause he devoted himself; to it he gave the strength of 
 his intellect and the warmth of his heart, and in it he never faltered 
 till there came to his bed-side the summons of all-conquering Death. 
 Linked to that cause, his fame will endure till history shall have 
 perished and its records shall be wrapped in the darkness of endless 
 night. 
 
 Address of Mr. MITCHELL, of Oregon. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT, the high estimation in which Senator MORTON 
 was held by the people of the State I in part represent on this floor, 
 coupled with the fact that from the day I first made his acquaint 
 ance, in February, 1873, until his death, he was my ardent, un 
 swerving, personal friend, forbids that I should remain silent now. 
 
 Oregon, no less than Indiana, mourns the death of a great man. 
 The telegraphic flash that told of his departure, although not unex 
 pected, touched the hearts of her people with a pang of unmistaka 
 ble sadness; clothed her dwellings, her churches, her temples of 
 justice, her executive, legislative, and administrative departments 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 43 
 
 in the habiliments of mourning. And now here, in this seat of his 
 former greatness and from which for ten long years his words of 
 wisdom and power went forth challenging the admiration of friend 
 and foe alike and giving direction to the policy of States, the State 
 of Oregon, through one of her representatives, would crave the high 
 privilege of contributing a word to his memory ; of placing upon 
 his tomb a single wreath, formed though it may be of wild flowers, 
 gathered promiscuously on a distant shore and wrought into shape 
 by unskillful hands. 
 
 Senator MORTON visited Oregon during the past summer and 
 came in contact with many of her people of both political parties. 
 And although prior to his going, while his great ability was con 
 ceded by all, he was regarded by many who had never met him as 
 cold, selfish, repellant, when he came away, as I had occasion to learn 
 by traveling through the State shortly afterward, this opinion had 
 radically changed ; and it was my pleasure to hear many of the lead 
 ing men of the democratic party of that State testify in words of 
 unqualified praise, not only as to his goodness of heart, his kindness 
 of manner, his amiable disposition, and his courteous demeanor to 
 ward all, but also as to their belief in the integrity of all his pur 
 poses. 
 
 It is one of the misfortunes of public men to be misjudged by 
 those who know them not. Partisan misrepresentation has done 
 more in the years that are past, and is doing more to-day, to debauch 
 public virtue and lower the standard of national integrity in the 
 estimation of the masses than has the aggregated actual shortcomings 
 of all our public men. And perhaps no man with equal position of 
 power and influence in the nation was ever more misunderstood by 
 those who did not know him personally than was OLIVER P. MOR 
 TON. By those who did have the fortune to know him well, aside 
 
44 ADDRESS OF ME. MITCHELL ON THE 
 
 from any considerations arising from his eminent public life, his true, 
 sympathizing heart, his gentleness of manner, his uniform kindness 
 will be cherished in grateful remembrance to the end of life. 
 
 And it was in my judgment this trait in his character, this desire 
 to befriend the helpless, to sustain the oppressed, to lift up the lowly 
 and the down-trodden, more than anything else that caused him in 
 these halls year after year to sustain with more than Roman gran 
 deur the cause of the colored people of the South. No right of 
 theirs, civil or political, was ever stricken down with his consent, 
 or without his manly protest being recorded against the act. No 
 opportunity ever escaped him of saying a kind word in their behalf, 
 or of doing any act that would better their condition or tend to ad 
 vance their prosperity. He was the friend of the colored race, as 
 the record of his public life will abundantly testify; and in his 
 death their cause in the national Senate has lost one of its ablest 
 champions and most valiant defenders. Around his tomb they in 
 future years will in countless numbers gather in the native simplicity 
 of undisguised gratitude to testify their reverence for his memory, 
 while his name will live with them as a household word to be taught 
 to their children and their children s children down through many 
 generations. 
 
 Mr. President, it was my fortune to serve with Governor MOR 
 TON on the Committee on Privileges and Elections from the time I 
 took my seat in the Senate until his death, a period of over four and 
 a half years. During this period the amount of work performed 
 by him as chairman of that committee was prodigious. The various 
 contests for seats in this body, the great presidential controversy of 
 the last year involving investigations by that committee into the 
 elections in several States, were well calculated to tax the physical 
 endurance of the most vigorous constitution and ruffle the disposi- 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 45 
 
 tion of the most patient mind. Yet through all these years of ex 
 citing interest, of almost superhuman work upon the part of the 
 chairman of that committee, I never once knew him to be late to a 
 committee meeting, never saw him in the least disturbed in temper; 
 on the contrary, always patient, affable, companionable; always 
 meeting his colaborers with a smile of welcome, always parted with 
 words of kindness. There it was, Mr. President, I learned to love 
 him and appreciate his noble soul ; there I estimated the high qual 
 ities of his heart those of his mind were known throughout the 
 world; and there I learned how very false, how severely unjust, 
 was any criticism that would rob him of those qualities of true 
 gentleness, of high sense of honor, of unreserved friendship, so pe 
 culiarly characteristic of his whole nature. 
 
 Mr. President, a great man and, knowing him as I did, I am con 
 strained to say, a good man has fallen ; not in the morning of active 
 life, nor yet in the "sere and yellow leaf," but in the meridian of 
 his usefulness and power. The solemnity of this hour, these crowded 
 galleries, these emblems of mourning, these idle hands and attentive 
 ears all unite in expressions of heart-felt sorrow. The voice of 
 partizanship is hushed in this Chamber to-day and throughout the 
 nation as well, for all the people and the people s representatives 
 stand with bowed heads in profound respect at the tomb of one of 
 the nation s greatest men. The Senate of the United States can but 
 feel that a power in the elements of its ever-living existence, its con 
 tinuing intellectual conflicts, has departed, that one of its greatest 
 lights has gone out in the darkness of death forever. How rapidly 
 are the men whose voices have been heard in these halls being sum 
 moned to that " undiscovered country from whose bourne no trav 
 eler returns." In the less than five years that I have been here 
 nine of those who have sat here during that time have gone down 
 
46 ADDKESS OF MR. PADDOCK ON THE 
 
 "into the dark valley," "Wilson, Sumner, Buckingham, Ferry, 
 Johnson, Pratt, Caperton, Bogy, and MORTON. Truly 
 
 Our lives are rivers, gliding free 
 To that unfathomed boundless sea 
 
 The silent grave. 
 
 Thither all earthly pomp and boast 
 Boll, to be swallowed up and lost 
 
 In one dark wave. 
 
 Well did the poet say 
 
 Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? 
 Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 
 A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
 He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne, 
 The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn, 
 The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave 
 Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. 
 
 Oh ! the capacity and the remorselessness of that grave to which 
 we are all so rapidly hastening. 
 
 Earth has hosts, but thou canst show 
 
 Many a million for her one; 
 Through thy gates the mortal flow 
 Has for countless years rolled on. 
 Back from the tomb 
 No step has come; 
 
 There fixed till the last trumpet s sound 
 Shall bid thy prisoners be unbound. 
 
 Senator MORTON is dead, but the record of his life shall live 
 through the centuries, casting light, and not gloom, upon the page 
 of the faithful historian that shall record it. It shall be to his mem 
 ory a mausoleum more enduring than that of marble, for there will 
 it be written in imperishable sentences, " He was in the nation s fo 
 rum fidus et audax and in the walks of private lifefidvg Achates. 
 
 Address of Mr. PADDOCK, of Nebraska. 
 Mr. PRESIDENT, on behalf of the people of the great trans-Mis 
 souri country, whom in part I have the honor to represent upon this 
 floor, whose interests Senator MORTON always advocated and de- 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 47 
 
 defended, whose earnest, faithful friend he always was, I beg to add 
 my poor, brief word of eulogy to those which have already been so 
 fitly, so eloquently spoken here to-day. 
 
 I never saw Senator MORTON rise to address the Senate during 
 our brief service together here when I was not oppressed by the fear 
 that it might be his last effort in this Chamber. Indeed he appeared 
 to me as one standing ever in the very shadow of the uplifted hand 
 of the angel of death, ready and waiting for the always impending, 
 the always expected blow. 
 
 He rose from his chair with great difficulty, and often undoubt 
 edly with much pain. Frequently while speaking he was compelled, 
 from sheer physical exhaustion, to resume his seat; and some of the 
 greatest efforts of his life were made while sitting in yonder chair. 
 A less determined spirit would have succumbed to so serious a 
 physical derangement; but his great intellect seemed to become 
 clearer, brighter, more vigorous, his iron will to strengthen, his moral 
 courage to increase, as his physical organism became weaker from 
 the attacks of the insidious disease that was slowly but surely under 
 mining it. 
 
 I have seen the mighty oak, with his giant bole symmetrical and 
 strong, with its wealth of graceful limbs, with its glory of leaf and 
 shade forming, all in all, one of the highest types of blended power 
 and beauty in nature a very monarch among his fellows, to whom 
 they seemed to mutely bow, as if with acknowledgment of primacy. 
 Afterward I have seen this wonder of the forest which nature had 
 so lavishly expended her forces to upbuild, and which had during 
 many generations withstood the assaults of the angry tempests, gain 
 ing in each struggle increased development and strength suddenly 
 rent and riven, a deepened wound upon its noble trunk pointing 
 out the lightning s track ; and yet its umbrageous canopy of limb 
 
48 ADDRESS OF MR. PADDOCK ON THE 
 
 and leaf appeared, if possible, more perfect, more beautiful than 
 ever. I cannot tell perhaps no one but the great Creator himself 
 will ever know whether there may not have been specially im 
 parted to it, through some Dryad medium, something of that force 
 of will from the source of all power which gave to that charred 
 and broken and wounded trunk the needed strength to draw from 
 the fruitful soil the sustaining elements necessary to the continuance 
 of its great life. A few years later I have found this stupendous 
 growth of nature a blasted, withered thing. A second bolt from 
 Jove s awful hand had descended and robbed it forever of life and 
 strength and beauty; for the very last time it had "flung down its 
 green glories to battle with the winter s storm." 
 
 In respect of its inherent strength, its remarkable development, 
 its superlative power and endurance at the maturity of its growth, 
 entitling it to superior rank among its fellows as well as in its final 
 blight and decay, this wonderful creation of nature was aptly illus 
 trative of the great life of the deceased Senator before whose open 
 grave to-day we mourn. To him there was given a mental and phys 
 ical organism with each faculty, each force, so carefully, so perfectly 
 adjusted to every other, the whole constituting a manhood of such 
 symmetry and strength and power that in any sphere of life must 
 have commanded for him superior station among his fellows. En 
 dowments so rare were his that of their own force, by their own 
 momentum, they impelled him to the fore-front, to intellectual pri 
 macy, to leadership ; and this position once secured was easily held 
 through that instinctive concession of precedence which the masses 
 of men always make to the possessor of such faculties. As the oak 
 grew broader and stronger from its tempest conflicts, so did this 
 noble manhood broaden and strengthen in the encounters incident 
 to a life of leadership among men. 
 
LIFE AND CHAEACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 
 
 49 
 
 Those of us who were with Senator MORTON here did know and 
 did appreciate him; and well now can we testify to his greatness. 
 We do indeed know with what God-like manfulness, with what self- 
 reverence, with what self-control, with what power of will he did 
 deport and maintain himself after a great part of the forces of his 
 physical nature had been blasted by an invisible blow from that 
 mysterious power which, at will, sends the shaft that strikes to death 
 the forest oak, or the shock that palsies the body of a leader of men. 
 
 We, sir, do well remember that with all this blight upon his phys 
 ical powers, the great Senator bore an intellectual lance to the very 
 last day of his career in this Chamber which no adversary ever de 
 spised or was over-eager to measure. Often during the period of 
 my service here have I seen the whole Senate filled with admiration 
 of him, when, after many days, perhaps weeks, of continuous debate 
 on some important question in which he had constantly participated, 
 and when the endurance of even the very strongest had been greatly 
 overtaxed, he rose, and with no external evidence of weariness, re 
 stated, reviewed all the arguments of perhaps a dozen adversaries 
 in the discussion, and with one great masterful overpowering pres 
 entation of the law and the facts in the case answered them all at 
 once, leaving his opponents if not utterly overcome, at least con 
 vinced that their case had been greatly damaged by the blows of an 
 intellectual giant, and his own party colleagues satisfied that the sub 
 ject had been exhausted and no further effort on their part would 
 be necessary or useful. When "the full river of his speech came 
 down " upon an opposing disputant with its richly laden argosies of 
 fact and precedent of thought, philosophy, and logic if his oppo 
 nent, himself, was not a master in debate he was sure to be over 
 whelmed, for only such an one could stand at all against the almost 
 resistless current of his argument. 
 
50 ADDEESS OF MR. PADDOCK ON THE 
 
 Mr. President, this was Senator MORTON as you and I and all 
 of us knew him; but, sir, there was a good deal of him beyond all 
 this which none of us ever did, or ever can, exactly know. The 
 silent inner life the unspoken thoughts the heart-struggles of this 
 great man in his continual conflict with the disease which, first by 
 a sudden and terrible, but only partially successful blow and 
 afterward by insidious approaches waged unceasing war against his 
 physical nature if they could be fully written out would make 
 such a page of eulogy as alone would secure for him the most endur 
 ing immortality. But they will never be fully known until that 
 great day when all the secrets of the heart shall be laid bare; they 
 went down with him into the grave into the grave did I say, sir? 
 No ! they went along with that brave spirit of which they were begot 
 ten to be present as witnesses at the great final accounting, to vouch 
 for the proper use of the wonderful powers so generously loaned 
 him from the common store upon which the drafts of mortals are 
 honored as they are worthy as they have need. 
 
 Mr. President, who of us has not now in his memory, photo 
 graphed there ineffaceably, that sad, thoughtful, but resolute face, 
 as through the corridors and into this Chamber, borne in his chair 
 by two stalwart men, he came to his great daily service? The noisy 
 throng in the passages became silent and gave way at his approach 
 with the same instinctive reverence that greets the gallant soldier 
 who has borne a distinguished part in a memorable battle when 
 afterward he is brought from the field weary, worn, wounded, and 
 dying. The doors flew open before him always as if by magic, 
 and party spirit could at no time run so high as to cause to be with 
 held from him, when he entered here, the most cordial, the most 
 sincere, the most respectful greeting from every Senator present. 
 And who of us will forget the charming heartiness of his greeting, 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 51 
 
 kindliness, and geniality toward all, the lowliest equally with the 
 highest? 
 
 But, Mr. President, Senator MORTON has gone. His voice will 
 never again be heard in this Chamber. His great spirit, his noble 
 example, his valued precepts, will remain for our guidance, but we 
 shall see him no more here forever. At length the death-shaft 
 struck him full and strong and he fell to rise no more. 
 
 O, what a fall was there, my countrymen ! 
 Then I, and you, and all of us fell down. 
 
 One of the bravest and truest and strongest; one for whose voice 
 the nation listened in the hour of peril; one to whose judgment the 
 people deferred when the country was in trouble and in distress; a 
 patriot, a practical statesman, a man of work, a man of immortal 
 deeds, a kindly, generous man withal, is gone. Let the nation 
 let all the people mourn ! 
 
 Address of Mr. BRUCE, of Mississippi. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT, the strong true men of a people are always 
 public benefactors. They do work, not only directly beneficial to 
 their communities, but by the utterance of noble thoughts and the 
 infusion of a manly spirit into public life and administration they 
 put in operation forces which in their effects are of greater moment 
 to their fellow-citizens than the immediate and specific labors per 
 formed. The death of such men is a public calamity because there 
 are lost to the country not only their active energies but the influence 
 and stimulus of their personal presence. As a compensation for the 
 evil that death works a people in the removal of its great leaders 
 there remain behind the memory of their public services, the effect 
 of their example, and the subtile influence of the truths uttered and 
 
52 ADDEESS OF MR. BRUCE ON THE 
 
 illustrated by their lives. Occasions like this furnish, therefore, not 
 only appropriate opportunities to commemorate the services and 
 virtues of the dead, but of instruction and profit to the living by 
 calling attention to those characteristics and qualities that have 
 made the lives of the departed useful and memorable. 
 
 My estimate of OLIVER P. MORTON embraces mainly the ideas 
 of his character formed from personal contact in the Senate and 
 personal observation of him while discharging the duties of his 
 public life. He impressed me as a man of catholic spirit and 
 judgments. 
 
 Born and reared in a section whose type of thought on both 
 political and moral questions differed from the ideas of the South, 
 receiving his distinctive and permanent character from a period in 
 which the conflicting thought of the country had been intensified 
 and more clearly articulated by the passions and struggles of a great 
 civil conflict, he was a representative of his section upon both the 
 civil and ethical questions of the day ; but in no offensive sense was 
 he, as a public man, sectional. 
 
 In all of those great judgments which entered into the formation 
 and administration of government, that were the basis of the legis 
 lation enacted in the interests of the whole country, there was neither 
 sectional temper nor purpose. 
 
 Among the manly and honorable qualities exhibited by the 
 deceased Senator was the kindly and considerate temper manifested 
 personally toward those who were his opponents in the contests and 
 discussions growing out of party differences or the policies and 
 measures of government. 
 
 So prominent an actor in the public life of his day, so earnest in 
 his thought and aggressive in his endeavors to further what he con 
 ceived to be right, it would be singular if the angular points in 
 
LIFE AND CHAEACTEE OF OLIVEE P. MOETON. 53 
 
 party life had not sometimes originated unpleasant personal differ 
 ences and collisions. Such collisions, however, were rare in his 
 case, because he was just and fair in his treatment of those whose 
 ideas he not unfrequently was compelled to combat and whose 
 measures he felt impelled to pronounce unwise and hurtful. 
 
 A man of mature and positive thought, he was decided in the 
 maintenance of any opinion he expressed and sincere in maintaining 
 any measure he advocated, but he conceded like sincerity of purpose 
 to his opponents. 
 
 While earnest to severity in his opposition to principles, institu 
 tions, and measures that seemed unfriendly to the public interest 
 or dangerous to the rights of the people, he was withal deferential 
 to the personal advocates of the very measures that conscientious 
 considerations led him to oppose and sometimes even to denounce. 
 
 What to the superficial observer appeared to be personal bitter 
 ness was personal earnestness, and what seemed illiberal to his polit 
 ical opponents was no more than the stringent judgments entertained 
 by him on questions that aifected not only the interests of the indi 
 vidual citizen but the people of all classes. Beneath a severe exterior 
 was a kindly heart, and back of the great partisan leader were the 
 broad wise opinions of the patriot and the statesman, who knew that 
 the best interests of the people forbade any concessions to unreason 
 able prejudices or trifling or tenderness in dealing with those who 
 either lightly esteemed or recklessly invaded the rights of the 
 humblest American citizen. 
 
 Whether contemplating OLIVEE P. MOETON as the governor of 
 a great State in the critical period of civil war, exhibiting wisdom 
 in his plans and discretion, energy, and courage in execution thereof, 
 or observing him as a member of the National Senate, in discussion 
 and counsel upon the grave questions of legislation and administra- 
 
54 ADDRESS OF MR. BRUCE ON THE 
 
 tration, involving the complex and multiplied interests of a great 
 nation, I was impressed that he understood both the philosophy and 
 practice of wise government, and possessed not merely the qualities 
 of a great political leader, but in a notable and remarkable measure 
 the elements of a great statesman, understanding the genius of our 
 institutions no less than the necessities and demands of our great 
 country. A generation hence and his opinions and judgments on 
 fundamental and grave questions will be cited and revered as are 
 now those of the fathers of the Republic. 
 
 I would do injustice to my own feelings and that of my race did 
 I not refer to the relations that Senator MORTON sustained to us and 
 the services rendered in our behalf. No public man of his day, with 
 the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Sumner, was 
 better known to the colored people of the South than OLIVER P. 
 MORTON, and none more respected and revered. 
 
 In 1865, before he had entered upon his senatorial career, Sen 
 ator MORTON expressed opinions that suggested grave doubts of the 
 wisdom of the measures which contemplated immediate enfranchise 
 ment of my people. These measures were in conflict with the 
 sentiment and estimates of even many of the friends of the negro, 
 persons who had labored most earnestly for his freedom; were 
 opposed by the ancient prejudices of centuries; and there was no 
 historical precedent authorizing such radical measures or that seemed 
 to give guarantee and promise of their success. 
 
 Appreciating the responsibility of his acts as a public man and 
 the delicacy and difficulties of the problem of reconstruction, he did 
 not at that time take the pronounced and forward position, subse 
 quently so ably held by him, in behalf and defense of the rights of 
 this people. The shock to the public sentiment and prejudices of 
 an entire section, involved in the sudden introduction of this large 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 55 
 
 and new element into the politics of the country, was feared and 
 deprecated, and the competency of a people so long enslaved and 
 consequently uneducated and unaccustomed to participate in public 
 affairs to perform satisfactorily the important functions that would 
 be devolved upon them in their new sphere as citizens seemed to 
 him questionable. A more thorough consideration of this question, 
 however, in all of its relations local and national led to a revision 
 of the opinions expressed in 1865, and upon these latter judgments 
 of the question his subsequent public action was based, and by them 
 his public career is to be judged. Two facts prominently challenged 
 attention and demanded recognition in any philosophy that was 
 broad enough to compass equally the interests of each class and 
 every section of the country. The emancipation of more than four 
 millions of former bondsmen was an accomplished fact. The 
 political relations of eleven great communities were ruptured and 
 imperatively demanded restoration. The question holding these 
 two determining factors must be settled on a philosophy as broad 
 as the facts embraced. Emancipation that its beneficent ends 
 might be attained and adequate readjustment of these disturbed re 
 lations of the political communities of a great section be made 
 involved reorganization of both the social and industrial elements 
 of the South ; and this reorganization, to be just, harmonious, peace 
 ful, and fruitful of public content and public quiet, demanded the 
 enfranchisement of the negro. The liberties and securities that 
 rendered emancipation valuable to him could only be sufficiently 
 attained when he was clothed with the power of self-protection by 
 becoming a personal and actual participant in the creation and ad 
 ministration of government. 
 
 Reconstruction of the Southern States a restoration of these 
 political communities to participation in the conduct of the Federal 
 
56 ADDRESS OF MR. BRUCE ON THE 
 
 Government could only become real and permanent, and subserve 
 all of its purposes, when all classes of the community should be 
 equally protected and equally cordial in obedience to the law and 
 cheerfulness in submission to its demands ; and this cheerfulnes and 
 cordial response to civic obligations, and conscientious recognition of 
 the rights of society and individuals, could only exist among the 
 communities generally when every member, by the possession and 
 exercise of equal and common, personal, civil, and political privi 
 leges, should be inspired with content and supplied with equal 
 motives for the cultivation and practice of personal and civic virtues. 
 In the midst of their vassalage my race had still preserved in full 
 force and vigor their original love of liberty; and despite the em 
 barrassment of their conditions they had felt the ennobling influ 
 ences of the Christian civilization that surrounded them. Cast 
 down but not destroyed; disciplined by the painful ordeal through 
 which they had passed ; apt to learn and prompt to appreciate the 
 ennobling ideas of American institutions, they were in a large meas 
 ure prepared to enter upon the new life presented to them. 
 
 On the other hand the American people with institutions estab 
 lished, yet elastic; a public sentiment whose catholicity was rein 
 forced by the sturdiest conservatism the nation, possessing, in a 
 remarkable measure, the maturity of age without its weakness and 
 the vigor of youth without its ignorance, were prepared to initiate 
 and, in his judgment, to perfect this great philanthropic movement, 
 which looked not only to the elevation of a race but the reconstruc 
 tion of a great country. 
 
 He knew that more than a hundred thousand negro soldiers had 
 ventured life to maintain the authority of the Government and the 
 integrity of the soil of the Republic; and it seemed appropriate and 
 just that the nation, emerging from a supreme effort for its own 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 57 
 
 preservation and elevated by its grand success, should requite these 
 services, and realize the popular aspirations for universal liberty and 
 equality by a commensurate liberalization of the laws and institu 
 tions of the country. 
 
 He believed the negro would be equal to the responsibility of his 
 new life and meet, in reasonable and creditable measure, the de 
 mands that it made upon him ; and he believed also that the insti 
 tutions of the country were strong enough to bear with safety the 
 strain that this new venture might make upon them, and that the 
 unavoidable mistakes in government, arising from the enforced 
 ignorance of the new citizen, would suggest their own corrective, 
 and that the Republic meanwhile would both live and prosper. 
 The sober judgments of Senator MORTON embraced all this and 
 more. And standing on this high and philanthropic plane of 
 thought he resolutely contributed to put into organic form those 
 constitutional provisions that specifically protect the rights of five 
 million American citizens, and to enact and enforce equally and 
 alike the statutes that rendered these provisions operative and the 
 rights thereunder practically enjoyable. Through him and his peers 
 the grand declaration of human equality made by Jefferson in 1776, 
 and for nearly a century a glittering abstraction, has become a part 
 of the fundamental law of the land. 
 
 For the great ability and integrity that OLIVER P. MORTON ex 
 hibited in his public life he is entitled to the admiration and respect 
 of his countrymen ; and for the fidelity and patience with which he 
 labored for the elevation and protection of the negroes of the South 
 he will receive their heartfelt gratitude and reverent love. 
 
58 ADDEESS OF MR. VOORHEES ON THE 
 
 Address by Mr. VOORHEES, of Indiana. 
 
 Mr. PRESIDENT, the proprieties of this sad occasion and the 
 usages of this body do not permit me to remain silent. We are 
 paying the last tribute of respect to one who was long a Senator 
 from Indiana, and whose name will be forever associated with 
 her history. We are saying the last few words over the grave of 
 one who played a bold and leading part here, and identified him 
 self with every prominent measure in national affairs for the past 
 ten years. 
 
 I knew OLIVER P. MORTON from my first entrance upon the 
 duties of manhood. We met at the beginning of our acquaintance 
 both as personal and political friends, and although we afterward 
 became as widely separated as the poles of the earth in our views 
 of public affairs, yet our personal relations were never disturbed. 
 There were periods of great excitement in our State when we met 
 but seldom, but when we did it was always with civility and 
 courtesy. 
 
 Senator MORTON was without doubt a very remarkable man. 
 His force of character cannot be over estimated. His will-power 
 was simply tremendous. He threw himself into all his undertak 
 ings with that fixedness of purpose and disregard of obstacles which 
 are always the best guarantees of success. This was true of him 
 whether engaged in a lawsuit, organizing troops during the war, 
 conducting a political campaign or a debate in the Senate. The 
 same daring, aggressive policy characterized his conduct everywhere. 
 He made warm, devoted friends and bitter enemies. His followers 
 were intense in their support and admiration, and his enemies 
 were often unrelenting and unsparing. It is always so with such 
 a nature as his. Small men of neutral temperaments escape the 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 69 
 
 conflicts of life through which the strong, bold man passes to fame 
 and power. 
 
 The motives which actuated Senator MORTON in his public 
 conduct are not now open to discussion. I shall ask the same 
 charity for mine when I am gone that I extend to his. That he 
 was sincere in his convictions no one will ever question. That 
 the general tenor of his convictions upon the relations between the 
 North and the South was erroneous, I think history will fully 
 establish. 
 
 Senator MORTON S life contains one great lesson to young men 
 commencing a career of honorable ambition. He entered upon the 
 ordeal of life with nothing on which to rely but his own intellect 
 and his indomitable will. The position from which he started to 
 achieve all his success was humble and unpromising. It is hard 
 to recall any other American whose career better proves that 
 industry and talents will overcome all things than his. He be 
 came a power in the land. He was a party leader second to none 
 in our history. If he could not be President himself, he did much 
 to make others so, and to dictate their policies. And now that he 
 is gone a large portion of the American people regard his loss as 
 irreparable. 
 
 Sir, OLIVER P. MORTON is no more, and in his death there is a 
 solemn lesson to us. How small and insignificant appear all the 
 asperities, the heart-burnings, and personal alienations of the hour 
 when we measure them by the side of our responsibilities in that 
 world to which he has gone ! We are as evanescent and fleeting 
 here as the insect tribes of the air. Over the river, " in the land to 
 which we are drifting," there is life forever. Let us so use the little 
 margin we have on the shores of time that eternity will open as a 
 joy and not as a terror on our liberated spirits. And may those we 
 
60 ADDRESS OF MR. VOORHEES. 
 
 leave behind us do for our memories what we now do for the 
 memory of OLIVER P. MORTON. 
 
 I move the adoption of the resolutions. 
 
 The resolutions were agreed to unanimously ; and (at three o clock 
 and nine minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned. 
 
ADDKESSES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 DEATH OF OLIVER p. MORTON. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1878. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. HANNA] 
 rises to call up the resolutions of the Senate touching the death of 
 Hon. O. P. MORTON, late a Senator from Indiana. 
 
 The Clerk will read the resolutions. 
 
 The resolutions were read, as follows : 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 January 17, 1878. 
 
 Resolved, That from an earnest desire to show every mark of respect to the mem 
 ory of Hon. OLIVER P. MORTON, late a Senator of the United States from the State of 
 Indiana, and to manifest the high estimate entertained of his eminent public ser 
 vices, his distinguished patriotism, and his usefulness as a citizen, the business of 
 the Senate be now suspended, that the friends and associates of the deceased Senator 
 may pay fitting tribute to his public and private virtues. 
 
 Resolved, That a wide-spread and public sorrow on the announcement of his 
 death attested the profound sense of the loss which the whole country has sus 
 tained. 
 
 Resolved, That, as a mark of respect for the memory of Mr. MORTON, the mem 
 bers of the Senate will go into mourning by wearing crape upon the left arm for 
 thirty days. 
 
 Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate communicate these resolutions to the 
 House of Representatives. 
 
62 ADDRESS OP MR. HANNA ON THE 
 
 Address of Mr. HANNA, of Indiana. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER : The death of OLIVER P. MORTON was a national 
 bereavement. It is therefore eminently just that the record of that 
 department of the Government in which he served with such signal 
 ability should bear some testimonial of his illustrious character and 
 worth. Although his career was brief, yet few men have acted a more 
 prominent part or commanded so large a share of public thought. 
 For fifteen years the name of OLIVER P. MORTON has been known 
 in every household of the nation, known by reason of the fact that 
 he was endowed with those extraordinary qualities of character 
 which made him a great leader among the greatest men of his time. 
 We may perhaps with profit glance at some of the marked char 
 acteristics of the man for whose memory the representatives of the 
 people dedicate this hour. 
 
 Although prior to the election of Abraham Lincoln he was recog 
 nized in Indiana as a man of commanding ability, yet it was as 
 governor of that State he became a national character. He was 
 equal to every emergency, surmounted every obstacle, never faltered 
 in the face of danger, and with sleepless vigilance anticipated the 
 attack of political or national foe. His giant intellect grasped every 
 difficulty and promptly suggested remedies which inspired confi 
 dence in the true and discomfited the faithless. When the Legisla 
 ture of his State failed to make provision by law to pay the ex 
 penses of the State government, preserve her credit, and care for the 
 helpless and unfortunate blind, dumb, and insane, he did not quail 
 in the presence of the perfidy for an instant, but boldly pledged his 
 personal honor that the money should be repaid, and it was promptly 
 loaned him. When the Government was sorely in need of muni 
 tions of war for national defense he said to the Executive, "Advance 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 63 
 
 me sufficient means to start and I will, in obedience to the over 
 shadowing necessity of the hour, without authority of law, establish 
 my own board of finance, organize an arsenal in which shall be 
 promptly manufactured that which is vital to the success of our 
 arms ;" and it was done at his bidding. His executive ability was 
 the admiration of every patriot. The facility with which he organ 
 ized, armed, and equipped the soldiery of his State stamped him as 
 no ordinary man. He did not forget the brave men when they had 
 crossed the border, but followed them to the tented field, the hos 
 pital, the scene of conflict, and by his presence said to them " I have 
 a heart in sympathy with you." The governors of sister States 
 availed themselves of his wise and patriotic counsel, and the Execu 
 tive of the nation gave heed to his suggestions. Although some 
 times impatient, he never expressed a doubt of ultimate success. 
 His record during that unhappy conflict is as imperishable as the 
 love of free institutions. 
 
 His intellectual power was of the highest order. In that regard 
 no man has so nearly approached the full measure of the "great 
 expounder of the Constitution," Daniel Webster. In debate, by 
 reason of his almost superhuman intellect, he was invincible. The 
 simplicity, clearness, and compactness with which he presented every 
 proposition ; his power of analysis, which exposed sophistry or false 
 hood, and the ever prevailing earnestness of manner, born of con 
 scious power, enabled him in the discussion of great constitutional 
 questions to reach, instruct, and convince the common understand 
 ing as easily as if presenting matters of less moment involving mere 
 party policy. Impartial history will accord him the foremost de 
 bater of his time. In party warfare, as in defense of the Union, 
 his blows were those of a Hercules, never aimless, but with crush 
 ing force upon the forefront of opposition. Oft and again has his 
 
64 ADDEESS OF ME. HANNA ON THE 
 
 adversary reeled, staggered, and fallen upon the field of conflict. 
 Clay, with his dashing chivalry and electric appeal, inspired the 
 whig as if a divinity; MOETON, cool, self-reliant, majestic, hurled 
 at his opponent his unanswerable logic with the resistless force and 
 power of a thunderbolt from Jove. In party politics he was bold, 
 aggressive, and untiring. He recognized the efficiency and power 
 of organization, and hence his cohorts were ever disciplined and 
 ready for the charge. As a leader he was without an equal in 
 modern times. 
 
 By some he has been characterized as the apostle of hate. Time 
 will prove that he did not hate the people of any section. When 
 falsehood and prejudice shall have yielded to truth and reason their 
 rightful supremacy, the historic pen will do him full justice. The 
 preservation of the Union in the interest of liberty and humanity 
 was with him a conviction of duty so intense that no earthly power 
 ever presented obstacles which he deemed insurmountable. "We 
 are one people, one nation, undivided and indivisible," was his 
 answer to secession, and the sentiment he thus uttered became the 
 battle-cry of every patriot in the land. To him more than any other 
 man since Washington are we indebted for the extinguishment of 
 the heresy a heresy which has cost so much blood and treasure 
 that we are simply a confederation of States, bound only by a rope 
 of sand ; and to him are we in like manner indebted for the recog 
 nition of the fundamental, national idea, that our allegiance to the 
 Union is paramount to that of the State, that the title of "American " 
 is superior to that of "Indianian." He was equally devoted to 
 securing beyond all question for the weak and humble the inalien 
 able rights of man, and hence was not content until these rights 
 were firmly imbedded in the Constitution by the adoption of the 
 several amendments. His wisdom and statesmanship in that regard 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 65 
 
 have been sanctioned by the national utterance of all parties. God 
 forbid that any man should object that the humble, the lowly, and 
 the long-enslaved should bedew his bier or water the flowers that in 
 coming years shall bloom over his grave with their tears of grateful 
 remembrance. It is the holiest offering that mortal can offer in 
 recognition of a beneficent deed. I repeat, he did not hate the peo 
 ple of any section. 
 
 His untiring and incessant labor in behalf of the Union and to 
 secure the equal rights of every citizen under the Constitution and 
 laws has by some been made the pretext for such charge. To all 
 such I offer no apology for his conduct. The wisdom of his action 
 has been justified by a preserved nationality. I grant you he was 
 a partisan, but his partisan zeal was ever subservient to the best 
 interests of the nation. He never spoke for party, State, or section 
 as against the Union. He never counseled blotting out a single star 
 that glitters upon the American flag. He was never a party to any 
 scheme of national dishonor. He was the bold champion of free 
 labor at a time when that struggling cause was denied unfettered 
 utterance. As the friend of man he gave attentive ear to the whis 
 perings of the spirit of progress. He clung to the Constitution and 
 the Union as the sheet-anchor of hope for the welfare of unborn 
 millions. In him the people had an advocate equal to every emer 
 gency in which their dearest interests were involved. Had you 
 been with me at the capital of my native State on the 6th of No 
 vember last and beheld more than fifty thousand strong men, of 
 every shade of political opinion and of every pursuit in life and 
 from every section, who on that inclement day stood along the 
 streets for miles, with bowed heads and solemn mien, while the 
 mortal remains of the great man they honored, respected, and loved 
 were borne to their last resting-place on earth, you would not dare 
 
66 ADDRESS OF MR. HANNA ON THE 
 
 lisp the charge that OLIVER P. MORTON, when living, was in 
 spired with the spirit of hate. That he had political enemies I 
 grant. No public man deserves a place in history who has not. 
 The smile of Judas Iscariot never played upon his manly face. His 
 adherence to personal friends sometimes invoked severe criticism, 
 for he was slow to abandon any man in whom he had once reposed 
 confidence. His personal integrity, like the virtue which Csesar 
 demanded for his wife, was above suspicion. 
 
 An ill-gotten dollar, in either public or private life, never soiled 
 the palm of his hand. His soul was never blackened with official 
 corruption. Investigating committees encountered no offensive 
 stench arising from the record of his accounts with either State or 
 National Government, although he was intrusted with millions with 
 out surety save his individual honor. Few men of any age were 
 ever endowed with such force of will. From boyhood to death it 
 was a marked characteristic. What he resolved to do, as a rule 
 was accomplished. Although for years afflicted beyond the power 
 of words to express, he willed to labor beyond the measure of per 
 fect strength. By sheer force of will he kept at bay the grim mon 
 ster and seemingly bid him defiance. His will-power carried him 
 in the discharge of official duty wherever and whenever his country 
 demanded. I grant he was ambitious. God pity the boy or man 
 who is not. Like Webster and Clay he aspired to the Presidency, 
 and, like them, he did not aspire beyond his merit. 
 
 Peerless leader, beloved governor, heroic Unionist, wise coun 
 selor, matchless Senator, affectionate husband, kind father, honest 
 man. Citizen and statesman of a great nation, in whose service he 
 labored until in the presence of death he exclaimed, "I am worn 
 out," his record has passed into history, and the memory of his 
 achievements will inspire the American youth to emulate his ex- 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 67 
 
 ample. Grand type of free institutions ; fit representative of the 
 mighty West. Thank God for the preservation of a government 
 that bids the poor ambitious orphan boy of the field and shop to 
 climb upward to a position higher than that of any crowned head of 
 earth, the American Senate. May we indulge the fond hope that 
 his immortal spirit peacefully rests in the realm of eternal bliss. 
 Indiana keenly feels the loss of her distinguished son, and as chief 
 mourner in the midst of her sorrowing sisters she utters at the grave 
 of her dead a silent, fervent prayer that the God of our fathers may 
 preserve and bless us as "one people, one nation, undivided and 
 indivisible." 
 
 Address of Mr. WILSON, of West Virginia. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER, when my name was announced as a member of 
 the committee appointed to represent this House at the funeral of 
 the late Senator MORTON, my first impulse was to decline the ap 
 pointment, in order that some gentleman whose opinions had been 
 more in accord with those of Mr. MORTON than had my own might 
 perform that office in my place ; but, reflecting that a solemn duty 
 had been imposed on me, which I was not at liberty to decline with 
 out cause, and remembering, too, that during the last Congress I 
 was prevented by ill health from serving upon a similar committee 
 chosen to pay the last tribute of respect to West Virginia s late dis 
 tinguished son, Senator Caperton, I yielded my personal preference 
 and performed the duty assigned to me. 
 
 And now, Mr. Speaker, I am gratified that I did so ; am grati 
 fied that I was placed in a position to hear and see things that gave 
 me a better opinion than I had theretofore entertained of him whose 
 memory this House and the country mourn to-day. 
 
68 ADDEESS OF MR. WILSON ON THE 
 
 The frailty of our nature when aroused by the passions of the 
 hour too often prompts us to withhold from our opponents while 
 living the respect we cherish for their memories when they are no 
 more, and so it was in the life and death of Senator MORTON. His 
 career had been so prominent and so closely allied to the legislation 
 which operated harshly upon the Southern States that he was re 
 garded by those holding opposing views as an extreme partisan. 
 
 But there is another criterion by which to weigh the character of 
 the man and the statesman. It is the estimate placed upon him by 
 his neighbors, by those who see him most and know him best. Tried 
 by this test OLIVER P. MORTON was a better man, more of a man, 
 than his public conduct would indicate. On the day of his burial, 
 in the beautiful city of his home, there was to be seen an immense 
 funeral pageant; flags floated at half-mast almost everywhere ; pub 
 lic buildings and private residences were draped in mourning; a 
 throng of fifty thousand sorrow-stricken people had assembled from 
 various parts of his own State and from other States to be present 
 at the last sad rites. Democrats and republicans, white and black 
 men, ladies and little children, vied with each other in doing him 
 honor. No man, Mr. Speaker, could be thus mourned and buried 
 who had not possessed good qualities of both head and heart. 
 
 He entered at an early age upon the stormy sea of politics, and 
 rapidly advanced to the front rank as an orator and leader in the 
 perilous times of sectional strife and revolution. The crowning 
 period of his life was during the late war, when he acted in a civico- 
 military capacity as governor of Indiana. He soon became the 
 most distinguished governor on the continent, winning for himself 
 the reputation of being the great war governor of America. 
 
 When the policy of the Government was not well denned in the 
 prosecution of the war, and even the then Executive seemed to be 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 69 
 
 wavering, Governor MORTON delivered upon that subject, at the 
 capital of his State, a speech which fell like a flash of lightning into 
 the gloom. His positive counsel was speedily followed up by ener 
 getic action, and he surpassed all other men in zeal and efficiency in 
 the prosecution of the war; was foremost and fiercest in the effort 
 to overthrow the rebellion. Apparently losing sight of everything 
 else, to this one idea he devoted the wonderful powers of his mind 
 and the best days of his life. It was the dream of his existence, 
 which he followed 
 
 With an eye that never sleeps, 
 And a wing that never tires. 
 
 His political opinions were strong and extreme, and were pressed 
 by him without regard to opposition. This characteristic led many 
 to consider him cold, and even harsh and bitter, in his feelings 
 toward his opponents; but those more familiar with his life claim 
 that his intercourse with his fellow men was kind and courteous, 
 and that his devotion to his family was the strongest and most 
 beautiful manifestation of his character. 
 
 The future historian will ascribe to him inconsistency upon 
 currency, negro suffrage, and perhaps other questions of principle 
 and policy. 
 
 From the time he entered upon his legislative career he con 
 tributed largely to the policy pursued by the Government toward 
 the Southern States; yet upon the adoption of President Hayes s 
 southern policy he yielded his opposition and acquiesced in it; 
 and, if living to-day, it is fair to infer that, far from confederating 
 to strike down the arm of the Administration, he would be found 
 zealously upholding it. 
 
 However much he was distinguished for his varied services as 
 governor of his native State, there was reserved for him another 
 theater of action where his great ability was to give him a position 
 
70 ADDRESS OF MR. BROWN ON THE 
 
 of commanding influence the Senate of the United States. He 
 was not equal in comprehensive statesmanship to Clay, Webster, or 
 Calhoun, but as a party leader he excelled them all ; and he took 
 his high rank in that august body without having had previous 
 experience as a legislator. 
 
 Some men become great through the gift of peculiar talent, 
 others achieve greatness by force of will and energy of character. 
 Mr. MORTON, before he entered the Senate, was stricken down by 
 paralysis, and though a hopeless cripple for the rest of his life his 
 force of will and energy of character raised him up and pressed 
 him forward. He scorned paralysis with the same determination 
 with which he scorned all other dangers and obstacles; dragged his 
 half-dead body to his seat in yonder hall, and for ten years of 
 unrelaxing labor, unwincing boldness, and unmurmuring patience 
 struggled with great men and great measures, winning success and 
 prominence that seldom fall to the lot of any one man. 
 
 In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the wide differences 
 of opinion that existed between Senator MORTON and the majority 
 of the members of this House, we can, as Americans, all point 
 with pride to the fact that no charge of corruption tarnishes his 
 name. 
 
 Address of Mr. BROWN, of Indiana. 
 
 Representing the birthplace and the old home of OLIVER P. 
 MORTON, it is fit I should say a word on this sad occasion. I shall 
 attempt no eulogy. Panegyic may gratify the living, but the ear 
 of him who was for a quarter of a century my personal and polit 
 ical friend is deaf alike to censure or to praise. Calumny can no 
 more wound him, and in the presence of the new-made grave 
 malice stands mute. Rivalries and resentments are now extin- 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 71 
 
 guished, and friend and adversary alike lay their garlands on the 
 coffin of the dead statesman. It is creditable to our poor weak 
 nature that when one who has antagonized us joins 
 
 The innumerable caravan which moves 
 
 To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 
 we are ready to review his life in a spirit of fairness and candor, 
 approving the good, and with a generous charity covering the ill 
 out of sight. Those who have been in public life especially know 
 that to escape censure one must live a whole life-time without com 
 mitting a mistake or doing or saying an ill or an unwise thing. 
 We realize, too, that when death casts its shadow upon our souls, 
 poor and insignificant will be the story of our goodness and great 
 ness; that when the life struggle is over, and, worn out, we pass 
 into the darkness of the night of death, all there will be left of us 
 will be the example of our lives and the influence of our actions 
 and opinions. "Every human life is a lesson, it may be an 
 example, but always a lesson." And it is appropriate, therefore, 
 that on an occasion like the present we repeat the history and the 
 lesson of the life that is gone, that it may live in what it has 
 achieved worthy the respect or gratitude of mankind. 
 
 Like most distinguished men of the Republic of those who 
 have taken conspicuous positions in professional or political life 
 OLIVER P. MORTON was a self-made man, the architect and arbiter 
 of his own fortune. To the accident of birth or fortune, family 
 influence or patronage, he owed nothing whatever. His only pat 
 rimony was orphanage, and he wrought his great career by his own 
 genius. 
 
 He came from a sturdy English stock, an ancestry possessing that 
 stubborn tenacity of purpose, that unyielding will peculiar to that 
 people. From this ancestry he doubtless inherited that character- 
 
72 ADDRESS OF MR. BROWN ON THE 
 
 istic courage and perseverance so prominent in his public life, for 
 "the source of genius is ofttimes in ancestry and the blood of 
 descent is the prophecy of destiny." His parents were natives of 
 New Jersey, but at an early day they moved West and made .their 
 home in the then young but growing State of Indiana a State to 
 which they were destined to give the proudest name in its history, 
 a son who was to stand above all others of his time as a states 
 man and political leader. At an early age he was left an orphan. 
 The years of his boyhood were passed at the seminary of his native 
 village, at the Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and in learning 
 the trade of a hatter. "Ambition, that germ from which all 
 growth of true nobleness proceeds," inspired him to seek fields of 
 broader usefulness than were to be found in a hatter s shop, and in 
 the year 1843, at the age of twenty, he entered upon the study of 
 law. His venerable preceptor, Hon. John S. Newman, thus wrote 
 me a few weeks ago: 
 
 Senator MORTON came into my office at Centreville thirty-four years ago, at the 
 age of twenty. As a student he was industrious and thoughtful, anxious at all times 
 to accomplish everything he undertook. In discussing questions that arose in his 
 reading he exhibited a quickness of comprehension and a clearness in statement 
 that gave promise of that success in his chosen profession which he afterward 
 secured. 
 
 His professional career covered the fourteen years from 1843 to 
 1861, when, being elevated to the office of governor, he left the bar 
 and returned to it no more. When he retired from the profession 
 he stood well advanced toward its front. He did not reach profes 
 sional eminence at a single bound, did not win distinction in some 
 first cause by the brilliancy of his genius or the fervor of his 
 eloquence, but by perseverance and pluck he went steadily forward 
 and upward, never halting and never going back, until he became 
 the acknowledged leader of the bar of Eastern Indiana a bar num 
 bering among its members such men as Caleb B. Smith, Samuel W. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 73 
 
 
 
 Parker, James Rariden, Jehu T. Elliott, Charles H. Test, and John 
 S. Newman. 
 
 In 1855 it was my fortune to go on the circuit as prosecuting attor 
 ney, ^nd during the five succeeding years, the last and most active 
 years of his professional life, I had frequent opportunities of witness 
 ing his management of causes in court. He presented a legal ques 
 tion with great force and clearness. With a mind at once robust 
 and critical, he was able to grasp the whole scope of his subject, to 
 fathom its profoundest depths and master its minutest details. With 
 a quickness that was notable he seized upon the strong point in his 
 case and centered upon it every power of his mind, fortified it with 
 facts, intrenched it behind precedents, environed it about with illus 
 trations, until his position seemed impregnable. While he chose 
 with unerring certainty the strong point in his own cause, with 
 equal readiness and accuracy he discovered the weak one in that of 
 his adversary. No man was better versed in the art of putting facts 
 to the court or jury. He brought with a singular skill the favorable 
 points of his client s case in prominence, and exhibited a like dex 
 terity and acuteness in suppressing that which was prejudicial to his 
 interests. He readily detected a sophistry, and would break it into 
 fragments as the "spray is broken upon the rocks." Without any 
 eloquence other than the "talent of giving force to reason," he was 
 a most successful and formidable jury-lawyer. He had a keen in 
 sight into human nature and possessed an extraordinary influence 
 over men. With a dominion that was absolute he seized upon the 
 sympathy of the jury and poured the resistless tide of his own earnest 
 emotions and convictions into their hearts. In the trial of a cause 
 he never lost faith, but worked resolutely on to the end with an 
 unflagging confidence in his ability to win, and he seldom lost 
 the verdict. His was indeed a "Roman courage, that plucked 
 
 10 
 
74 ADDRESS OF MR. BROWN ON THE 
 
 success from rugged danger and snatched victory from the jaws of 
 defeat," 
 
 The bar is said to be the nursery of American politics, the school 
 in which the young men of the Republic prepare themselves for pub 
 lic employments. It provides an opportunity for talent, and in pop 
 ular governments there is always a place and a mission for a man of 
 ability, and intellect and merit will sooner or later force their pos 
 sessor to the front. 
 
 OLIVER P. MORTON was trained in this school, and at the early 
 age of thirty-three passed from it and unchallenged assumed the 
 leadership of the republican party of Indiana. In May, 1856, he 
 was unanimously nominated by that party as its candidate for gov 
 ernor in that, its first contest for political supremacy. Until the 
 abrogation of the Missouri compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska 
 legislation he had been in politics a democrat, but his convictions on 
 the subject of slavery would not permit him to act with that party 
 longer. In this memorable campaign his opponent was the lamented 
 and gifted Ashbel P. Willard. Never were two more able but dis 
 similar men pitted against each other in the arena of public debate. 
 The one was eloquent, copious, imaginative, and ornate; the other 
 earnest, epigrammatic, and severely logical; the one gave to elo 
 quence the graces of poetry ; the other clothed it in the garb of match 
 less reason. Willard culled the language and tied the words into 
 beautiful bouquets to dazzle and captivate, while his young competi 
 tor. O Connell-like, " flung a brood of robust thoughts upon the world 
 without a rag to cover them." After a long and spirited canvass Gov 
 ernor Willard was elected by a largely reduced majority. Four years 
 afterward Mr. MORTON was elected lieutenant-governor, and in the 
 following January, Henry S. Lane having been elected to the Senate 
 of the United States, he was inaugurated governor of Indiana. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 75 
 
 His executive career was cast in an era of unparalleled dangers 
 and difficulties, beginning at a time when the slaveholding States 
 were resolving themselves out of the National Union, after the 
 Montgomery Congress had assembled, and when civil war seemed 
 inevitable. In the very first moment of his official life he stood at 
 the threshold of the most extraordinary epoch in the history of the 
 nation, an epoch destined to bring out his immense executive and 
 administrative ability. The revolution into which he was thrust so 
 suddenly created an opportunity in which he was permitted to be 
 both the hero of a principle and an occasion. In that stupendous 
 crisis every public man was expected to act and to act promptly and 
 decisively. What a great work was now before him ! In that day 
 of gloom, of blood, of tears, and of peril to the Republic, he did 
 not stand 
 
 With folded arms and bated breath, irresolute, 
 
 but met so courageously the trying responsibilities of his office, so 
 ably and faithfully discharged every duty due his Government and 
 people, that he speedily became one of the marked characters in this 
 era, so crowded with illustrious names. Of the Union people of 
 his State he was at once the recognized leader and oracle. From 
 the beginning he was an undisguised coercionist. He believed that 
 to parley with treason was to become its accomplice ; that the nation 
 could not hesitate to strike when the wager of battle was tendered 
 without hazarding its existence and justly meriting the contempt of 
 mankind. 
 
 In October, 1860, in a public address, he stated his position. 
 
 Said he 
 
 Shall we surrender the nation without a struggle and let the Union go with merely 
 a few hard words? If it was worth a bloody struggle to establish this nation, it is 
 worth one to preserve it, and I trust we shall not, by surrendering with indecent 
 haste, publish to the world that the inheritance our fathers purchased with their 
 blood was given up to save ours. 
 
76 ADDRESS OF MR. BROWN ON THE 
 
 Again he said : 
 
 What is coercion but the enforcement of the law ? Is anything else intended or 
 required? Secession or nullification can only be regarded by the General Govern 
 ment as individual action upon individual responsibility. Those concerned in it 
 cannot intrench themselves behind the forms of the State government so as to give 
 their conduct the semblance of legality, and thus devolve the responsibility upon 
 the State government, which of itself is irresponsible. The Constitution and laws 
 of the United States operate upon individuals, but not upon States, and precisely as 
 if there were no States. In this matter the President has no discretion. He has 
 taken a solemn oath to enforce the laws and preserve order, and to this end he has 
 been made Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. How can he be absolved 
 from responsibility thus devolved upon him by the Constitution and his official oath ? 
 
 From these positions he never retreated and in their maintenance 
 he never faltered. 
 
 When the war cloud burst in thunders over our people and our 
 fields were drenched in blood, he proved himself equal to the occa 
 sion. He grasped the dreadful events of the time with an iron 
 resolution and a stern hand; he hesitated in the presence of no 
 danger; no peril overtook him unprepared, and his resources were 
 as boundless as the necessity that required them. 
 
 A petty hand 
 
 Can steer a ship becalmed, but he that will 
 Govern and carry her to ends, must know 
 His tides, his currents, how to shift his sails, 
 What she will bear in foul, what in fair weathers, 
 Where her springs are, her leaks and how to stop them, 
 What strands, what shelves, what rocks do threaten her. 
 
 He who would pilot a State safely when rocked upon the rough 
 sea of devastating war should have steady nerves, a clear head, be 
 capable of carrying her to her ends in spite of tempests and false 
 lights on the shore, of understanding the channels of human thought, 
 sympathy, and action, of molding public opinion and setting the 
 tides and currents of all these steadfastly against the dangers that 
 imperil her. 
 
 Governor MORTON, by the judicious management of his State, 
 which at the beginning of the rebellion was in serious danger from 
 a divided public sentiment, showed himself possessed of such 
 qualities in an unusual degree. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 77 
 
 To the cause of the Union throughout that protracted struggle he 
 consecrated every energy and impulse of his nature, suffering no dis 
 aster to appal, no defeat to discourage him ; but in every vicissitude 
 of that memorable conflict he had an abiding faith in the ultimate 
 success of the national cause. To him the war was a contest in 
 which slavery was measuring swords with free representative gov 
 ernment, and he believed the victory of the insurgents would be the 
 doom of the Republic. 
 
 During the war his labors were simply Herculean. No call was 
 made upon his gallant State but that was responded to with alacrity. 
 Under his administration more than two hundred thousand troops 
 were mustered and sent to the field; nineteen thousand officers put 
 in commission ; arms, clothing, camps, and camp equipage supplied ; 
 soldiers homes erected, sanitary commissions and soldiers pay agencies 
 organized. He personally supervised every detail of this immense 
 work. He anticipated and supplied every want of the Indiana sol 
 dier. He kept himself informed of the location of every regiment, 
 and wherever an Indianian followed the flag or pitched his tent, 
 whether on the Potomac or the Mississippi, under the pines of the 
 Carolinas or on the prairies of the Southwest, he was the object of 
 his care. Ere the smoke was lifted from the battle-fields his volunteer 
 surgeons and nurses, with medicines and sanitary stores for the sick 
 and wounded, were at hand. By this unceasing watchfulness, this 
 tender solicitude for the volunteer, he proved himself worthy of the 
 name of " the soldier s friend." 
 
 In his administration of the civil affairs of the State he met and sur 
 mounted difficulties of the most perplexing nature. Here again he 
 showed his superior executive ability. When a hostile Legislature 
 adjourned without appropriating money with which to carry on the 
 State government, he borrowed $2,000,000 on his personal assurance 
 
78 ADDRESS OF MR. BROWN ON THE 
 
 of payment, provided for the prisons, the asylums, kept for two years 
 the whole civil machinery in motion without a clog or a jar, and 
 saved the honor of the State by the prompt payment of the interest 
 on its debt. 
 
 Twice was he elected by the unanimous vote of his party to the 
 Senate of the United States. He entered the Senate at a time when 
 Congress had to deal with the difficult and delicate subject of recon 
 structing the seceding States. In this important and exciting con 
 troversy he took a prominent part. Of his position in the Senate it 
 is enough to say that in that most exciting tribunal he was accorded 
 a foremost place. By some, perhaps by many, his views upon the 
 subject of reconstruction were thought extreme; but it was a time 
 when even conservatism was extreme, when all opinions and sentiments 
 were an enthusiasm. This is not a fit time to approve or condemn 
 his opinions or his policy. We were too much actors and partizans 
 in that controversy and we stand too near that day of bitterness to 
 pass impartial judgment on its statesmen or their measures. In some 
 future day, when the men of this era shall have passed away and 
 their legislation and their ideas shall have been tested by years of 
 national experience, it will be a proper time to praise or censure 
 them. Posterity will review their work and pass upon it fairly; 
 we cannot. 
 
 His love for the Union was an absorbing passion, and it gave color 
 and direction to every thought and act of his public life. He be 
 lieved the revolt of the South a crime, and that 
 
 Universal amnesty would remove the last mark of legal disapprobation of that 
 crime; that it would be a declaration to posterity that there was nothing wrong in 
 the rebellion; that it involved no criminality; that it was an honest difference of 
 opinion between parties, without crime on either side. 
 
 Upon this question he did not leave his opinion to conjecture. In 
 his place in the Senate he said : 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 79 
 
 It should be definitely established as a principle in our Constitution, both by 
 Judicial decision and example of punishment, that rebellion is treason, that treason 
 is a crime which may not be committed with impunity. 
 
 He earnestly desired peace, a sincere and lasting peace, a restored 
 Union, the re-establishment of cordial and kindly relations between 
 the lately hostile sections, but was inflexibly opposed to a truce tink 
 ered up by the adoption of what he conceived to be temporary and 
 doubtful expedients. When peace came he meant it should be an 
 abiding peace, one acknowledging the supremacy of the Constitution 
 and the law and respecting and securing to the humblest every right 
 of American citizenship. The sovereignty of right over force, of 
 intelligence over prejudice, of the people over governments, was a 
 cardinal point in his political creed, and he upheld it with the zeal 
 of an apostle. To the amendments, to every advance movement of 
 his party, he gave his unqualified support, and in his philosophy no 
 system of government was republican that was not at once a charter 
 of human rights and a gospel of political equality. 
 
 As a party man he was extreme, ofttimes bitter, assailing parties 
 and measures with unusual asperity. To him politics meant war, 
 and in the heat of the campaign he neither asked nor gave quarter. 
 In these exasperating party struggles he was aggressive, assaulting 
 his adversaries with much acrimony, regardless of the wounds he 
 might inflict or the retribution he might provoke. Naturally he 
 was a generous and chivalrous man. His political convictions, how 
 ever, were fashioned in the midst of desperate, lawless war, when 
 there were beating of drums and mustering of armed men, when 
 thousands of his friends and neighbors were going down before the 
 iron tempest of shot and shell. He should be judged by the times 
 in which he lived. 
 
 Poets say that the clouds assume the form of the countries over which they have 
 passed, and, molding themselves upon the valleys, plains, or mountains, acquire 
 their shapes, and move with them over the skies. 
 
80 ADDEESS OF ME. BEOWN ON THE 
 
 So it is with the human mind : it models itself upon the epoch in 
 which it lives and puts itself in sympathy with the impulses and 
 passions of the times. The lessons of war are always stern, and they 
 temper the manners, morals, and politics of the people. Love, 
 charity, the tenderer instincts of our nature are speechless in the 
 presence of its desolation. It is natural that the man should gather 
 inspiration from the events in which he plays a leading part, and 
 that he should become, to a large extent, the impersonation of the 
 period in which he lives and acts. 
 
 As a political leader, an organizer of parties and campaigns, he 
 was unsurpassed. His party accepted his leadership unquestioned, 
 and with confidence that he would win success if victory were pos 
 sible. He was an indefatigable worker. Although partially para 
 lyzed and unable to walk without difficulty, he took charge of the 
 canvass and visited and spoke in every section of his State. Unable 
 to stand on the platform he sat on his chair, often in the open air, 
 and spoke so as to reach the uttermost limits of the vast crowds that 
 assembled to hear him. Although not "fluent like Cicero, nor like 
 Burke magnificent/ he was a captivating speaker, and the people 
 pressed close about him until he uttered his last word. In his ad 
 dresses he reached the reason of the multitude and often aroused an 
 intense enthusiasm. 
 
 I have seen 
 
 The dumb men throng to see him, and the blind 
 To hear him speak: The matrons flung their gloves, 
 Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchiefs, 
 Upon him as he passed. 
 
 He 
 
 Did pluck allegiance from men s hearts, 
 Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths. 
 
 As a public speaker he was clear, distinct, and intense, but never 
 tore "a passion to tatters." He made his words the servants of his 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 81 
 
 thoughts and subordinated style to matter. He was seldom hu 
 morous, and never coarse. His language was correct, but he em 
 bellished his sentences with none of the charms of classical literature 
 or the beauties of poetry, and never decked a sophistry in specious 
 colors simply to charm or allure. Without great learning, his re 
 serve of common sense supplied ample sources of argument, and his 
 severe logic always secured attention, and even challenged the re 
 spect of those who differed most widely from him in opinion. His 
 manner was easy, natural, and wholly without ostentation. In ar 
 rangement he was not always methodical, but his argument was 
 given in unadorned Saxon and with a perspicuity that made it com 
 prehensible to the most uncultivated mind. He was essentially a 
 strong man, and there was at all times and upon all occasions an im 
 posing vigor and compactness in his language and his logic that 
 kept alive the interest of his auditory. He was only eloquent in his 
 ability to " beat down the argument of his adversary and to put a 
 better one in its place." 
 
 If to abandon a position found to be unsupported by facts, faulty 
 in logic, or rendered untenable by the alterations of time or condi 
 tions, subjects one to the charge of inconsistency, Senator MORTON 
 was not always consistent. At the first he antagonized the policy 
 out of which the fifteenth amendment grew and combated it with 
 his characteristic ability, but it is to his credit that he was unwilling 
 to cling to an error simply to vindicate his consistency. As unyield 
 ing as he seemed to be in the championship of his opinions, he 
 recognized the law of progress and laid under contribution the light 
 of advancing knowledge. 
 
 Senator MORTON belonged to no church. Only once during our 
 long acquaintance did I hear him talk at any length on the subject 
 of religion. We were going to a political meeting and he had with 
 
 11 
 
82 ADDRESS OF MR. BROWN ON THE 
 
 him a copy of Lamartine s Girondists, from which he read me 
 the author s account of the deaths of Mirabeau, the tribune, and of 
 Verginaud, the philosophic deputy of the Gironde. He spoke of 
 Mirabeau s dying words : 
 
 Environ me with music, sprinkle me with incense, and crown me with flowers, 
 that I may pass into eternal sleep. 
 
 And then turning to the story of the last night passed by the 
 condemned deputies in the old oondargcrit he read me the last dis 
 course of Verginaud. Said the condemned man : 
 
 Death is but the greatest act of life, since it gives birth to a higher state of ex 
 istence. Were it not thus there would be something greater than God. It would 
 be the just man immolating himself uselessly and hopelessly for his country. This 
 supposition is full of blasphemy, and I repel it with contempt and horror. No! 
 Verginaud is not greater than God, but God is more just than Verginaud, and will 
 not suffer him to ascend the scaffold but to justify him in future ages. 
 
 He then put in contrast the philosophy and faith of these historic 
 men Mirabeau going down into the gloom of the grave without a 
 hope beyond and blaspheming the religion and teachings of the IVax- 
 arene with his last breath; Verginaud, in the sight of the guillotine, 
 condemned to die at the next sunrise, reproving the skeptical levity 
 of his colleagues, and discoursing with an inspired eloquence upon 
 immortality, and proclaiming his unfaltering belief that his martyr 
 dom would conduct him through the grave into a higher and hap 
 pier life. Twenty years have rendered indistinct the language of 
 Senator MORTON on this occasion, and I will not attempt to repeat 
 it, but I remember that this reading led to a conversation in which 
 he expressed his faith in immortality and the Christian system. He 
 seemed not to regard the ceremonial of religion, but believed in a 
 religion of feeling, of works, rather than of opinion. A religion of 
 love as broad and high as the Infinite, embracing the whole human 
 race ; one that discarded the " dry husks of creeds " and planted itself 
 upon the broadest philanthropy and tolerance. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTOX. 83 
 
 Senator MORTOX achieved no place or power by bribery, nor did 
 he retain any by bargain or intrigue. In private and in public life 
 he was an honest man. As governor he expended millions of the 
 public moneys, made numerous and extensive contracts for Army 
 supplies, and after a most rigid inquiry into his official conduct not 
 a farthing was found to have been misappropriated. One who 
 bitterly assailed him living, after his death paid this just tribute to 
 the integrity of his official life : 
 
 Living in an age of venality, of depravity and bribery, he kept his hands clean. 
 With opportunities for enriching himself possessed by few, he contented himself 
 with a moderate competency, and illustrated by the simplicity of his habits the 
 democracy he once professed. If he had vices, cupidity was not one of them. 
 
 But at last it is in the domestic relation we learn men best. 
 Man s domestic life is a sure and unerring index to his heart. To 
 know him he must be seen at home, in that mystic circle of wife 
 and children ; that rallying-place of the affections. At the family 
 hearth-stone, where his joys and griefs, his hopes and his aspirations 
 are laid bare, we learn his inner nature. One of Senator MORTON S 
 neighbors, who pronounced his funeral discourse, said of him: 
 
 He was a conspicuous example of tenderness; it passed the bounds of ordinary 
 family love as the friendship of Jonathan and David surpassed the ordinary tender 
 ness of men. It was a passion that never died or waned. When burdened with 
 such cares and tangled duties as no other governor of his State or any State ever 
 carried, he still welcomed to his crowded office at all hours his wife and children, 
 and never failed to greet them with kisses. He put away the great cares of State 
 to embrace those he loved. 
 
 To his home and family he was devoted, for there children and 
 
 A loving wife beguiled him more 
 
 Than Fame s emblazoned zeal, 
 And one sweet note of tenderness 
 
 Thau Triumph s wildest peal. 
 
 But OLIVER P. MORTON was weary and has gone to 
 
 Rest in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep 
 Of death is over, and a happier life 
 Shall dawn to waken his insensible dust. 
 
 All that is mortal of him who for sixteen years was a notable 
 figure in the most eventful and heroic era of the Republic, who 
 
84 ADDRESS OF MR. IIARDENBERGII ON THE 
 
 enchained the attention of listening multitudes and Senates, and to 
 whom a great party looked for counsel and leadership, lies in the 
 cemetery near the capital of the State he served so long and well. 
 He has joined the pale battalions that have answered the roll-call 
 of the great Captain. Near by the grave where he rests lie hun 
 dreds of those who, in answer to his call, went out to the battle 
 fields of the nation and challenged death 
 
 In the fevered swamp and by the black bayou 
 
 and in the din of the fight. Hereafter, when the May-day comes 
 and floral offerings are brought to adorn the tombs of these dead 
 heroes, his hands will bear no wreath and decorate no grave. He 
 will never more pay tribute to their patriotism and courage. 
 
 For his lips are mute, his hands palsied, 
 And his eye dark with the mists of death, 
 
 and he has lain down to sleep with them. There we must leave 
 him, for 
 
 He was weary, worn with watching, 
 
 His life-crown of power hath pressed, 
 Oft on the temples sadly aching 
 
 He was weary, let him rest! 
 Toll, bells at the capital ; 
 
 Bells of the land, toll! 
 Sob out your grief with brazen lungs; 
 
 Toll! toll! toll! 
 
 Address of Mr. HARDENBERGH, of New Jersey. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER, it has been a custom coeval with our Govern 
 ment when a member of the Senate or of the House is called to his 
 final rest during the term of his official service that such of those 
 who served with him as may be selected by the delegation from his 
 own State shall pronounce his eulogy and thus give additional 
 solemnity to an occasion which invites us to the most sober of 
 reflections. In the varied phases of our American life the spirit of 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 85 
 
 progress pays but little attention to ancestral homes, and but few of 
 our families but find themselves linked by kindred with other por 
 tions of our Union, and notably so those of my own State with the 
 young empires of the West. 
 
 It is thus of New Jersey I weave to-day a chaplet to the memory 
 of the departed Senator, whose immediate family, though long 
 since removed from her limits, yet, through many of their kindred, 
 adorn her history and still live to give impress to her policy and 
 her progress. Death has again spread his sable wing over this 
 Capitol, and we stand to-day within its shadow; and the signifi 
 cance of the occasion is that, though a great man has fallen, all are 
 equal in that mysterious presence. What is position, honor, glory, 
 when the inexorable tyrant treads a monarch down as easily as a 
 worm? The Senator now lying so low, and removed so far, was of 
 the most distinguished among the public men whose names were 
 written upon the roll of our national legislation. 
 
 But yesterday he stood in front of the people, his ear to their 
 heart, his voice for their utterance. The cares of the State, of the 
 nation, upon his shoulders, he grappled with those high concerns 
 which involve the empire of the mind and sought to set the stars 
 in their courses which should direct and influence the generation in 
 which he lived and for whom he labored. To-day, deaf to the 
 applause of friends, the taunts of foes, the sweet voices of love, all 
 heedless of his fair renown, insensible to glory. Between that 
 yesterday and this to-day is an abyss no line has sounded, and the 
 world with all its wisdom knows not what it is. But in that brief 
 space the wave of life has come and gone. We saw its rising 
 strength, its accumulating volume, its bounding and storm-tossed 
 crest. As we gazed it had broken and become lost in the eternal 
 sea. We stand upon the shore and seek in vain the refluent waters. 
 
86 ADDRESS OF MR. HARDENBERGH ON THE 
 
 There shall be no return. We but repeat to-day the dirge which 
 ever hath been chanted since time began and will be carried on in 
 melancholy cadence until time itself shall end. 
 
 Partisanship is hushed and justice finds a voice in the presence of 
 the dead. Such an hour, a momentary interlude in the play of pas 
 sion, here suggests thoughts as to the value of great reputations and 
 invokes speculation as to the ultimate influence upon the state of a 
 life of so much energy and a career of such distinguished public 
 service. 
 
 No stately Parthenon rears its fair and splendid proportions upon 
 this Capitol Hill to enshrine in enduring beauty the forms of those 
 thought worthy of remembrance by the Republic. No Westminster 
 Abbey, with its time-defying monuments reared by a mournful state, 
 wins hither the wandering and weary feet of the pilgrims of Liberty 
 to the eternal twilight of the dead ; but here and there, in quiet 
 church-yards all over the land, they are borne amid the tearful ben 
 edictions of a grateful people to rest with their ancestral dust. It 
 makes but little difference where lie scattered the bones of the brave 
 six hundred of Balaklava while the English tongue continues the 
 question "When can their glory fade?" 
 
 Who can determine the influence upon the Republic of that little 
 band of the fathers slowly gathered in immortal beauty beneath the 
 dome of this imposing edifice? We pass within the charmed circle 
 ere we enter this Chamber; but who of us ever stopped a moment 
 before them that did not feel the blood leap with bright current 
 through his veins? Who ever looked upon the heroic forms of 
 Samuel Adams and Ethan Allen without a prayer and a benediction, 
 or upon the chivalric beauty of Baker without a renewed vow of 
 patriotic devotion ? These are the silent influences which govern us 
 these the invisible hands which keep alive the vestal fires upon 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 87 
 
 our altars, the unconscious monitors which determine and regulate 
 the course and progress of humai> liberty. 
 
 We care but little where lie buried the fathers of the Republic; 
 the earth is their sepulcher, the " wide-arched empire " their mon 
 ument, and every language beneath the sun perpetuates their eulo 
 gies. Its great names are the foundation and pillars of the State; 
 their achievements are its strength and their reputation its highest 
 glory. OLIVER P. MORTON for many years has been a conspicuous 
 man. Upon his introduction to public life he gave marked evi 
 dences of the possession of those qualities which would insure a 
 successful career. He seemed born to be a ruler among men ; with 
 a temper and spirit that would not easily brook opposition ; with a 
 resolute and unflinching power of will ; with unquestionable reliance 
 upon his own convictions; with a courage which was undismayed 
 by the presence of overwhelming antagonism, he became more defi 
 ant as the elements of resistance were successfully combined. 
 
 Indeed his was a spirit that reveled in the storm. Amid tranquil 
 and gentle scenes he would enjoy repose, but that rest was the sweet 
 est which followed the shock of battle or which enabled him to 
 recruit his energies for a more vigorous and determined encounter. 
 Not in the peaceful vale of life where the very winds of heaven were 
 subdued, not where nature herself was in repose, the fields smiling 
 in verdure and strewn with flowers, inviting to luxury and ease, did 
 this stern Senator find fitting material to gratify ambition or sum 
 mon his soul to loftiest endeavor. His home was upon Alpine 
 heights, with the tempest and the avalanche to stir his heart with 
 their wild melancholy to its profoundest depths; amid scenes of 
 confusion and tumult, of popular excitement and seething con 
 flicts of opinion, his was the master-spirit, that could "ride the 
 whirlwind and direct the storm." Fearless, collected, and immov- 
 
ADDRESS OF MR. HARDENBERGH ON THE 
 
 able, he was not to be diverted from his purpose by intimidation 
 or execration on the one hand, or blandishments or cajolery on the 
 other. 
 
 His position was never one of doubt. Always at the front, with 
 ringing voice, the mien and gesture of authority, Achilles-like, he 
 " pined for the fierce joy and tumult of the fight." 
 
 To a soul so tempered the events of the past twenty years have 
 furnished ample opportunity for development. The threatening 
 complications, the gathering gloom, the menace of the sections, the 
 mutual defiance which charged the northern and the southern sky, 
 unchained the lightning in his breast, and with swift, unsparing vigor 
 he launched his thunders forth until hill and valley echoed back 
 the sound, and armed men, fresh from the hearth, the work-shop, 
 and the field, were marshaled in hot haste to vindicate what they 
 believed to be the dearest right of the citizen and the most sacred 
 obligations of the State. No man can charge the governor of 
 Indiana, at the period of which I speak, with exercising any 
 timid, doubtful, or vacillating policy. No man can truthfully 
 assert that he faltered once, or for an instant quailed in assuming 
 the tremendous responsibility created by a fierce and fratricidal 
 war. 
 
 The fires that were kindled on every mountain-top, the trumpet 
 tones that awakened the echoes in every valley, were significant to 
 him of a great and overmastering emergency. 
 
 A national catastrophe, a separation into disjointed fragments of 
 the glorious structure which he had hoped was to endure throughout 
 the ages, and which, as the highest expression of human wisdom, 
 was to secure for the race the perpetual enjoyment of civil and re 
 ligious liberty under the benign protection of the law what won 
 der that, as he read the signals, the lurid flame shut out the stars, 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OP OLIVER P. MORTON. 89 
 
 shut out the heavens, shut out all thought of mercy and all gentle 
 thoughts. At home, when a boy, he heard from his father s lips 
 the story of the Republic : The unknown, the undiscovered shore ; 
 the voyage of Columbus over an untracked waste ; a new world be 
 yond the setting sun like a star risen from the ocean, with its strange 
 inhabitants, its wondrous wealth, its marvelous promise ; the bleak 
 December where the pilgrim fathers built on a rock the great cathe 
 dral of freedom, with the sea chanting its eternal anthems ; the des 
 olation of savage life ; the war-whoop, the tomahawk, the scalping- 
 knife; the perpetual struggles of the colonists; the convulsions 
 which attended the birth of States; the sublime utterances of inde 
 pendence; the battle-fields of the Revolution; the peerless Wash 
 ington; the government established under the Constitution; the 
 consummate wisdom which distinguished the great charter of human 
 rights; the marvelous, the incredible energy which has reclaimed a 
 continent from a weary waste to all the great uses of the most 
 advanced civilization ; a country, a nation, his own, his grandsires, 
 his children s, theirs to the end of time with its glorious memories, 
 its hallowed associations and its golden promise "all this rushed 
 with his blood," and as he saw the glittering ranks and heard the 
 firm tread of hostile armies he had but one thought, he breathed 
 but one prayer. 
 
 It was to strive to the uttermost with all the power which God 
 had given him that he might resist with all the aids to be derived 
 from earth and sea and sky or from the powers beneath the earth. 
 
 He met the requirements of the hour with a fortitude, a patience, 
 a laborious industry, an unceasing faith in the final success which 
 found no discouragement, and no man rejoiced with a more exceed 
 ing joy than did he when the issues were determined and the unity 
 and indivisibility of the nation were established in peace. 
 
 12 
 
90 ADDRESS OF MR. HARDENBERGH ON THE 
 
 It could not be supposed that a man of such force, so much weight 
 of brain, so much strength of will, so much intense individuality, 
 could pass through such a strife without forming conclusions of a 
 decided and permanent character. With him principles were inde 
 pendent of the man. He would combat opinions without respect 
 to persons. He had no disposition to compromise, to arrange, to 
 weigh one force against another, to arbitrate in doubtful matters, 
 to give and take as policy should decide, to smooth down rough 
 edges that a wrong should insinuate itself upon the side of right and 
 find encouragement on the ground of avoiding useless controversy. 
 With him the path of duty only was the path of safety, and no 
 matter through what difficult or dangerous roads it were neces 
 sary to traverse to perform that duty as he understood it, he 
 would be deterred by no fears, no threats, no inducements of per 
 sonal aggrandizement, to abandon the severer and more painful 
 course. 
 
 It may be no disparagement to say that he was ambitious of 
 power not so much the direct control of men as the ability to use 
 them to enforce and carry into effect those measures he conceived to 
 be the wisest and the best adapted to promote the ends he had in 
 view. And is there a man upon the roll of all such as have been 
 distinguished in our annals who would not seek and exercise such 
 power? No man has become truly great by negation. It is the 
 aggressive, the positive, the calculating and determined energy of 
 fearless and tireless pursuits which in the history of mankind has 
 distinguished one man above another. 
 
 We all remember with what apparent vindictiveness and harsh 
 ness he insisted upon the scheme of reconstruction. He was unwill 
 ing to relegate power to other hands than those who would use it 
 as in his judgment it should be used. But he was better adapted : 
 
L.IFK AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 91 
 
 the elements of which he was composed found more congenial labor 
 in resisting disintegration than in rebuilding the shattered frame 
 work of the Republic. His was a special ministry, and well and 
 bravely did he exercise it. 
 
 Senator MORTON was no time-server; he never bent "the preg 
 nant hinges of the knee" that thrift might follow fawning. He 
 was direct, outspoken, without a shadow of hypocrisy, and in all 
 his personal relations he was the affectionate counselor, the steadfast 
 friend, the generous patron, the disinterested ally, the uncompro 
 mising enemy of craft, of dissimulation, as well as of cant and 
 insincerity. 
 
 How grateful to the memory of those who were upon terms of 
 privacy and intimacy with him must be the recollections of his many 
 endearing and kindly virtues. To all rugged and manly attributes 
 he added a tender and gentle spirit which especially fitted him for 
 companionship and drew others to him with hooks of steel. Strong 
 in his attachments, affectionate in his sympathies, he clung to the 
 ties of kindred and of domestic love with an ardor and sensibility 
 no time, no distance could weaken or diminish. None other than 
 those who thus knew him best can so well appreciate the sore 
 bereavement his departure has occasioned; but the sacredness of 
 private grief we shall not violate. 
 
 His public career is before the world. Prominent in the councils 
 of the nation, a gladiator upon the arena, he challenged and he 
 defied criticism of that august body whose deliberations are before 
 the world; he was of the foremost in debate. 
 
 He easily extracted the pith and marrow of a subject and 
 hurled his lance at the weak points of an adversary s armor with 
 remarkable skill and power. He could take heavy blows without 
 wincing, and one could not tell from any external expression 
 
92 ADDRESS OF ME. HAEDENBEEGH ON THE 
 
 whether a vital point had been penetrated or not. I attempt not 
 to delineate the peculiar qualities of the great Senator s mind. An 
 accurate analysis requires far more comprehensive knowledge than 
 mine can furnish to set forth in just measure and accurate detail 
 the strength and power, the logical clearness, the profound 
 thought, and acute discrimination which distinguished his career. 
 As a party man his allegiance was faithful and his discipline 
 
 exacting. 
 
 I do not propose to consider the personal antagonism or the 
 partisan rancor evoked by a character so uncompromising and so 
 determined. In the collision of opposing interests, in the struggle 
 to establish principles of administration irreconcilable and incapable 
 of adjustment, the hostility of sects, of parties, and of individuals 
 is a necessary consequence attending elaborate and inflammable dis 
 cussion. But a temper irritated by the malice of envy or aroused 
 by the violence of revenge is to be distinguished from the earnest 
 ness which animates conviction or the fortitude which inspires the 
 assertion of unpopular but far-reaching and comprehensive methods. 
 The surface of the ocean may be vexed by inconstant and variable 
 winds chafing the current and driving them from their course. It 
 is the prolonged and mighty sweep of the tempest at whose com 
 mands the caverns of the deep are unlocked, her billows lifted to 
 the skies, and the startled shores lashed and quivering beneath their 
 remorseless fury. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, on an occasion like this it is not becoming, as it 
 would not be desirable, to arraign positions assumed upon questions 
 which have been the subject of high controversy within these legis 
 lative Chambers, and which have not yet passed from the public 
 observation. His opponents recognize his ability, for they have 
 felt his power. The arm so often raised to strike is nerveless; the 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 93 
 
 flashing eye is closed; the stalwart form is prostrate; all-conquering 
 death hath sealed the lips so eloquent to maintain and to defend in 
 high and well-considered argument. We remember only that he 
 was true to himself and false to no man ; that his speech was the 
 faithful interpreter of his own thoughts and his conduct the just 
 expression of his judgment; that he overtasked the prime of his 
 life in laborious efforts to inaugurate a policy which he believed 
 would best promote the general welfare; that, harassed by physical 
 infirmities, disturbed by the encroachments of disease, oppressed by 
 the solicitude which accompanies a sense of wasting powers, he 
 nerved himself with unfaltering courage to meet the obligations of 
 the hour. 
 
 He fed the exhausting flame of life upon an altar consecrated to 
 the public service, and only with his last sigh expressed, in the 
 pathetic words, "I am worn out/ surrendered to the inevitable 
 conditions which limit all ambition and all hope when earth is 
 fading from sight and the weary eye is straining toward the im 
 mortal shore. 
 
 But still the man remains immortal in the imperishable record 
 he has made, in the unfading honors he has won, in the deathless 
 influence of his precepts and his example. 
 
 What means this brief span of life, with its cares, its aspirations, 
 its struggles, its triumphs, its defeats? 
 
 Are the waters of Lethe to drown all in dark oblivion and the 
 devouring grave to consume these activities forever? Ah, Mr. 
 Speaker, it were but a poor reward for all our ambition that the 
 laurel-leaf should be entwined upon our tomb, though the genera 
 tions of the future even should keep it green with their tears. Man 
 in all his wide domain hath no gift of honor which can satisfy the 
 desires of an immortal soul. 
 
ADDEESS OP MR. HUNTER ON THE 
 
 Let passion be hushed, for the grave is silent. Let flowers only 
 spring from the mold, as emblems of that purer and better nature 
 which alone will live in our memories and shall be cherished within 
 our hearts. 
 
 The hearse is passed, the knell Is rung, 
 The pageant and the pomp are done; 
 A statesman lies at Christian rest, 
 Ite, conclamalum est. 
 
 Address of Mr. HUNTER, of Indiana. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER, OLIVER P. MORTON, Indiana s greatest states 
 man, is numbered among the illustrious dead. He was a native of 
 that State, born in Wayne County, August 4, 1823, and always 
 remained a resident of it until his death. He died at the city of 
 Indianapolis, November 1, 1877, in his fifty-fifth year. 
 
 Among those who have attained national prominence as leaders 
 of men, either in the early years of the Republic or in the not less 
 eventful times of our own day, there has been no one in all the long 
 and glorious list of patriotic statesmen who was so much to his State 
 as was OLIVER P. MORTON to Indiana; no one whose record was 
 so great a part of his State s history ; no one whose influence in his 
 State was so powerful and so universally acknowledged; no one 
 whose death has left so great a void or been more deeply and sin 
 cerely mourned. 
 
 Long shall we seek his likeness long in vain, 
 And turn to all of him which may remain, 
 Sighing that Nature form d but one such man. 
 
 Governor MORTON came of good old English stock that emi 
 grated to this country about the time of the breaking out of the 
 revolutionary war, whose most prominent traits of character he 
 inherited in an unusual degree. His strong practical common sense, 
 his indomitable will, his inflexibility of purpose, his courage that 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 95 
 
 never faltered in opposing what he believed to be wrong, his con 
 fidence that such opposition must end in victory, however gloomy 
 might seem the present prospect all these were ancestral traits that 
 gave to his life a large measure of success and placed him among 
 the most conspicuous in the political history of the nation. 
 
 He was not born to inherit riches or to be nursed in the lap of 
 luxury; he had none of the advantages which ample fortune 
 bestows ; nor, on the other hand, was his ambition repressed or " the 
 genial current of his soul" frozen by the cruel frosts of poverty. 
 His mother died when he was but four years old, and several years 
 of his childhood were passed with her relatives in Springdale, Ohio. 
 His facilities for acquiring information were meager, but he made 
 the most of them and gained a thorough knowledge of the rudi 
 mentary branches of a common English education. Whether on 
 the rude bench of a country school-house during a brief winter 
 session or toiling at the hatter s trade, to which he was apprenticed 
 at fifteen years of age, he wasted no opportunity of increasing his 
 mental stores. His leisure hours and the odds and ends of time 
 which most boys devote to play were utilized by him in reading 
 and study. He did not neglect his trade. There was in him no 
 contempt of labor, no scorn of laborers, for he always honored each ; 
 but his rapid intellectual growth, his unusual fondness for reading, 
 and his remarkable judgment, which prompted him to select the 
 best standard authors, historical, scientific, and metaphysical, induced 
 the friends who were most interested in his we) (are to give him an 
 opportunity for further and more rapid progress in mental culture. 
 
 He attended a seminary in his native county and subsequently 
 entered Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, but did not remain 
 there to complete the regular course. At college he attained reputa 
 tion as a ready and forcible debater. Rapidity of thought and 
 
96 ADDEESS OP MR. HUNTER ON THE 
 
 clearness of expression were his characteristics then as in after years. 
 While others were pondering the proper words with which to fitly 
 clothe their ideas, his thoughts found instant expression in plain, 
 forcible, and appropriate terras. Throughout his life he showed 
 wonderful command of language, and yet his store of words was 
 neither rich nor beautiful, but strong, pointed, and convincing. He 
 often evinced great mastery of eloquence, swaying the minds of 
 juries, popular audiences, and legislative bodies, but his success as a 
 speaker was not owing so much to the elegant manner of expression 
 as" to the strong, compact, and logical thoughts so forcibly uttered 
 by him. He spoke the language of the masses so that "the com 
 mon people heard him gladly," he used no word beyond their com 
 prehension; but so fitly chosen were his words that they were 
 equally well adapted to the ear of a statesman, a common laborer or 
 a scholar, to the Senate or to a promiscuous audience upon the stump. 
 
 While others sought to erect gorgeous palaces, with columns and 
 shafts of finely carved and polished marble, in which ornamentation 
 and beautiful finish were more studied than strength of structure, 
 he preferred to build strong walls of plain and solid granite. 
 
 Leaving college at the ago of twenty-two, he began the study of 
 law at Centreville, in his native county, and prosecuted this study 
 with the utmost energy and thoroughness. He brought to the task 
 exhaustless patience, keen perception, a wonderfully retentive mem 
 ory, and robust physical health. He worked with untiring zeal 
 and with a firm determination to master each step in his upward 
 and onward career. Admitted to the bar in 1847, he struggled for 
 success amid many discouragements; but courage and pluck 
 triumphed ; he attained a large and, for those days and that section, 
 a lucrative practice. In civil and criminal cases he was alike emi 
 nent; and, had he continued to devote his time and energies to his 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 97 
 
 profession, there is no reason to doubt that he would have attained 
 the highest professional fame and ample fortune. Few men ever 
 surpassed him in power to plant conviction in the mind of a court 
 or jury, which made him successful as a practitioner and soon gave 
 him the reputation as an attorney who seldom lost a case. 
 
 To review the political career of Senator MORTON would consume 
 hours, where I have only moments. He was originally a democrat, 
 but cast off his allegiance to that party when its proslavery tend 
 encies were manifested in the repeal of the Missouri compromise; 
 and from that hour to the close of his life he was among the fore 
 most, often the most conspicuous, opponent to the policy and meas 
 ures of the democratic party. 
 
 The month of November, 1860, found the country hopelessly 
 and helplessly, to all appearances, drifting to certain ruin. Secession 
 conventions had been called in the South, armies were being formed 
 there and drilled, and the determination of political leaders in that 
 section to destroy the Union was but too painfully apparent. In 
 the North there was almost fatal hesitancy and a spirit of compro 
 mise that, had it been permitted to prevail, would have been a 
 death-blow to national unity. It was at that critical moment, says 
 a recent biographer of Senator MORTON 
 
 That a strong man rose in Indianapolis and sounded the key-note of northern 
 patriotism. His words were bold, his bearing was brave, his enthusiasm was 
 inspired. His central thought was that the Constitution provided no way for the 
 Southern States to get out of the Union, and that they must be kept in, if need be 
 by force. "The whole question," said he, "is summed up in this proposition: Are 
 we one nation, one people, or thirty-three nations, or thirty-three independent and 
 petty States? The statement of the proposition furnishes the answer. If we are 
 one nation then no State has a right to secede. Secession can only be the result of 
 successful revolution. I answer the question for you, and I know that my t nswer 
 will find a true response in every true American heart, that we are one people, one 
 nation, undivided and indivisible. If South Carolina gets out of the Union, I trust 
 it will be at the point of the bayonet, after our best efforts have failed to compel her 
 to submission to the laws." This was what the North was waiting to hear. The 
 speech went like wild-fire over the country. Mr. Lincoln declared that it covered 
 the whole ground and outlined the policy which he would pursue. It was not only 
 wise and patriotic; it was prophetic. 
 
 13 
 
98 ADDRESS OF MR. HUNTER ON THE 
 
 In 1860 he was elected lieutenant-governor, and in January, 
 1861, he became governor, by the election of Governor Henry S. 
 Lane to the United States Senate, and from that moment he became 
 prominent before the nation, prominent as few men ever have been 
 or ever can be, for the occasion of his prominence was an event not 
 likely to recur again in our national history. 
 
 It is as the war governor of Indiana that MORTON is best known, 
 and whoever shall truly write the history of that eventful period 
 cannot fail to place the name and deeds of OLIVER P. MORTON 
 among the very foremost of those that saved the Republic. In his 
 State, more than any other of the Northern States, there was sym 
 pathy with the rebellion and opposition to the war. But Governor 
 MORTON S resistless energy swept all sympathy and opposition from 
 his pathway, and inspired even the timid and faint-hearted with 
 something of his own great courage, his own unyielding hope. His 
 capacity as an organizer and his unparalleled executive ability 
 astonished and delighted all loyal men. He had troops ready in 
 anticipation of calls; no call for men ever elicited a tardy or a 
 reluctant response, and in almost every instance Indiana was the 
 first State to send a cheering reply to President Lincoln when he 
 asked for fresh levies of troops. In advance of every other State 
 of the West in preparation for war, Indiana led all others in her 
 care for soldiers in the field ; and there was not an Indiana soldier 
 in any of our armies who did not know and feel that Governor 
 MORTON was his friend. 
 
 Through all these terrible years, with the same intense earnest 
 ness, the same untiring energy, the same unflinching loyalty, he 
 continued to support the Union cause and to keep his State in the 
 front rank of those on which Mr. Lincoln knew he could rely in 
 any emergency for men and money. Treason in his own State 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OP OLIVER P. MORTON. 99 
 
 could not dishearten nor deter him, nor could it find him unpre 
 pared to meet and crush it wherever it undertook to assert itself. 
 Hatred and malice could not divert his attention for one moment 
 from the great cause of the imperiled Union. With sublime forti 
 tude he pressed on and bore others with him to the glorious end ; 
 and had he done no more, had his life terminated with the close of 
 the war, he would still have lived long enough to inscribe his name 
 among 
 
 The few, the immortal names, 
 That were not born to die. 
 
 As a Senator his career was as full of hope and promise to the 
 loyal element of the nation as was the bow in the cloud to Noah 
 and his children. To him more than to any other man is due the 
 credit of such legislation as has preserved some portion of the fruits 
 of Union victories in the late war. In the Senate he passed through 
 no probationary state, but at once became prominent and soon the 
 recognized leader of the dominant party in that Chamber. 
 
 As a debater, as a constant participant in extemporaneous dis 
 cussion, he has had few equals, if any superior, in the Senate at 
 any period of our history. It was not uncommon for him in a ten- 
 minute off-hand speech to utterly destroy the effect of a long and 
 elaborate oration. The most eloquent statesmen, the ripest scholars, 
 and most graceful speakers dreaded contact with the huge bowlders 
 hurled by him in debate with so much precision, force, and effect 
 iveness in the form of strong, plain, concise, and logical arguments, 
 and with which he assaulted the positions of all who opposed him. 
 With the great measures of the American Congress which connect 
 themselves with the questions of liberty, equality, and human 
 rights the name of Senator MORTON is indissolubly associated. 
 
 The political opponents of Senator MORTON always respected 
 him for his sincerity and straightforwardness. He detested hypoc- 
 
100 ADDRESS OF MR. HUNTER ON THE 
 
 risy and despised all cowardly and underhanded dealings. He 
 fought boldly, and always carried the positions of the enemy by 
 direct assault in open day, and he never left his opponents in doubt 
 for one moment as to how he would act in any emergency. They 
 knew that he would oppose them openly, fairly, manfully, and 
 gain his victory, if at all, by such means only as are approved by 
 honorable men. 
 
 As a friend Senator MORTON was, in the highest and best sense 
 of the word, loyal. His attachments were not hastily formed ; were 
 based on strong grounds and not easily shaken. Much of his influ 
 ence over men was due to the fact that he was true to his friends. 
 
 In the social circle he was attractive. He was not only a good 
 talker, but enjoyed listening to others who were interesting in con 
 versation, and had the happy faculty of making even the most 
 humble feel at ease and unembarrassed in his presence. He was 
 never obtrusive with counsel, but free to give it when asked. He 
 was gentle, genial, and full of the milk of human kindness. He 
 loved children and was beloved by them. At his home with his 
 family there was no kinder husband nor tenderer father, and no 
 man was ever rewarded with greater devotion and purer affection 
 than were lavished on him by the members of his domestic circle. 
 
 For many years and under varied circumstances, in peace and 
 war, in sunshine and in shadow, it was my privilege to know and 
 to be admitted to the friendship of OLIVER P. MORTON. I hon 
 ored him as a man and loved him as a friend. It is, perhaps, too 
 soon after the bitterness and heart-burnings of the political strife 
 of the last fifteen years to expect that all should do justice to his 
 noble qualities of head and heart. He was as little influenced by 
 personal animosities as any man I ever knew. He could hate what 
 he deemed political heresies, and yet cherish kindly feelings toward 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 101 
 
 those who held such views. Many of his warm and most intimate 
 friends were opposed to him in politics. But he never allowed this 
 difference of opinion to affect his friendship. Each day of his life 
 he grew stronger in the affections of the people of his own State as 
 well as those of the nation, and to OLIVER P. MORTON more than 
 any other man did they look for a proper solution of the various 
 troubles, political and financial, which now surround and embarrass 
 the country. His loss, therefore, was not that merely of a great 
 and good man, but it was a national calamity. 
 
 In his last sickness he was a great sufferer, but he bore his afflic 
 tions with patience and resignation, and when worn out by disease, 
 with a heart free from malice, he closed his high career in the arms 
 of death, loved, honored, and respected by the people of his State 
 and nation, whom, he served so faithfully and so well. 
 
 Address of Mr. GARFIELD, of Ohio. 
 
 For all the great professions known among Americans special 
 training-schools have been established or encouraged by law except 
 for that of statesmanship. And yet no profession requires for its 
 successful pursuit a wider range of general and special knowledge 
 or a more thorough and varied culture. 
 
 Probably no American youth, unless we except John Quincy 
 Adams, was ever trained with special reference to the political ser 
 vice of his country. 
 
 In monarchial governments not only wealth and rank but polit 
 ical authority descends by inheritance from father to son. The 
 eldest son of an English peer knows from his earliest childhood 
 that a seat awaits him in the House of Lords. If he be capable 
 and ambitious the dreams of his boyhood and the studies of his 
 
102 
 
 ADDRESS OF MR. GARFIELD OX THE 
 
 youth are directed toward the great field of statesmanship. To the 
 favored few this system affords many and great advantages, and 
 upon the untitled many, whom "birth s invidious bar" shuts out 
 from the highest places of power, it must rest with discouraging 
 weight. 
 
 Our institutions confer special privileges upon no citizen, and we 
 may now say they erect no barrier in the honorable career of the 
 humblest American. They open an equal pathway for all, and 
 invite the worthiest to the highest seats. The fountains of our 
 strength as a nation spring from the private life and the voluntary 
 efforts of forty-five millions of people. Each for himself confronts 
 the problem of life, and amid its varied conditions develops the 
 forces with which God has endowed him. Meantime the nation 
 moves on in its great orbit with a life and destiny of its own, each 
 year calling to its aid those qualities and forces which arc needed 
 for its preservation and its glory. Now it needs the prudence of 
 the counselor, now the wisdom of the law-giver, and now the shield 
 of the warrior to cover its heart in the day of battle. And when 
 the hour and the man have met and the needed work has been 
 done, the nation crowns her heroes and makes them her own 
 forever. 
 
 Such hours we have often seen during the last seventeen years, 
 hours which have called forth the great elements of manhood and 
 strength from the ranks of our people and crowded our pantheon 
 with new accessions of glory. 
 
 Seventeen years ago, at a moment of supreme peril, the nation 
 called upon the people of twenty-two States to meet around her 
 altar and defend her life. 
 
 Of all the noble men who responded to that call no voice rang 
 out with more clearness and power than that of OLIVER P. MOR- 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 
 
 103 
 
 TON, the young governor of Indiana. He was then but thirty- 
 seven years of age. Self-made, as all men are who are worth the 
 making, he had risen from a hard life of narrow conditions by fight 
 ing his own way, thinking his own thoughts, and uttering them 
 without fear, until by the fortune of political life he had become 
 the chief executive of his State. He saw at once and declared the 
 terrible significance of the impending struggle, and threw his whole 
 weight into the conflict. His State and my own marched abreast 
 in generous emulation. But he was surrounded by difficulties and 
 dangers which hardly found a parallel in any other State. With 
 unconquerable will and the energy of a Titan he encountered and 
 overcame them all; and keeping Indiana in line with the foremost, 
 he justly earned the title of one of the greatest war governors of 
 that heroic period. 
 
 Thus the great need of the nation called forth and fixed in the 
 enduring colors of fame those high qualities which thirty-seven 
 years of private life had been preparing. 
 
 To learn the lesson of his great life, let us recall briefly its lead 
 ing characteristics. 
 
 He was a great organizer. He knew how to evoke and direct 
 the enthusiasm of his people. He knew how to combine and mar 
 shal his forces, political or military, so as to concentrate them all 
 upon a single object and inspire them with his own ardor. 
 
 I have often compared him with Stanton, our great War Secre 
 tary, whose windows at the War Office for many years far into the 
 night shone out, " like battle-lanterns lit," while he mustered great 
 armies and launched them into the tempest of war and " organized 
 victory." In the whole circle of the States no organizer stood 
 nearer to him in character and qualities and friendship than OLIVER 
 P. MORTON. 
 
104 ADDRESS OF MR. GARFIELD ON THE 
 
 His force of will was most masterful. It was not mere stub 
 bornness or pride of opinion which weak and narrow men mistake 
 for firmness ; but it was that stout-hearted persistency which, hav 
 ing once intelligently chosen an object, pursues it through sunshine 
 and storm, undaunted by difficulties and unterrified by danger. 
 
 He possessed an intellect of remarkable clearness and force. With 
 keen analysis he found the core of a questson and worked from the 
 center outwards. He cared little for the mere graces of speech ; 
 but few men have been so greatly endowed with the power of clear 
 statement and unassailable argument. The path of his thought was 
 straight 
 
 Like that of the swift cannon-ball, 
 Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches. 
 
 When he had hit the mark he used no additional words and 
 sought for no decoration. These qualities, joined to his power of 
 thinking quickly, placed him in the front rank of debaters and 
 every year increased his power. 
 
 It has been said that Senator MORTON was a partisan, a strong 
 partisan, and this is true. In the estimation of some this detracts 
 from his fame. That evils arise from extreme partisanship there 
 can be no doubt. But it should not be forgotten that all free gov 
 ernments are party governments. Our great Americans have been 
 great partisans. Senator MORTON was not more partisan than 
 Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Clay, Calhoun, Benton, Marshall, 
 Taney, or Chase. Strong men must have strong convictions, and 
 "one man with a belief is a greater power than a thousand that 
 have only interests." Partisanship is opinion crystallized, and 
 party organizations are the scaffoldings whereon citizens stand while 
 they build up the wall of their national temple. Organizations 
 may change or dissolve, but when parties cease to exist liberty will 
 perish. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 105 
 
 In conclusion, let me say that the memory of Governor MORTON 
 will be forever cherished and honored by the soldiers of my State. 
 They fought side by side with the soldiers of Indiana, and on a 
 hundred glorious fields his name was the battle-cry of the noble 
 regiments which he had organized and inspired with his own lofty 
 spirit. 
 
 To the nation he has left the legacy of his patriotism and the 
 example of a great and eventful life. 
 
 Address of Mr. DUNNELL, of Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER, the life and character of the late Senator MORTON 
 will be read and admired by generations of American citizens yet 
 unborn. The moral and intellectual qualities which his public ser 
 vices developed and made conspicuous were such as all the noble 
 dead must have possessed and exercised. Enduring fame must 
 have a cause. It is not an accident. It is not attained by a mod 
 erate use of the common qualities of heart or brain, but must be 
 the offspring of mental or moral powers, clearly and unmistakably 
 great. The man whose name shall outlive that of his fellows must 
 surpass them in character or deed as much as he would have his 
 name go beyond theirs on its way to coming time. 
 
 While the subject of our eulogies to-day had in large develop 
 ment not a few of the rarest traits of human character, I shall be 
 content to call attention to the strength of his convictions and his 
 tenacity of purpose. 
 
 His convictions were so strong and deep that they banished from 
 him every element of moral weakness. He, therefore, spent no 
 time in doubt or in a discussion of measures suggested by doubt. 
 He lost no force by the intimations of mere expediency. The 
 
 11 
 
106 ADDEESS OF ME. DUNNELL, ON THE 
 
 cause which he espoused became a part of his very being and 
 drove from him every vestige of fear. His convictions made him 
 bold. Luther was not bolder when he uttered the words which put 
 his name upon the imperishable scroll of fame. 
 
 He was tenacious of purpose. With his deep, thorough convic 
 tions he could not have been otherwise. The exciting scenes 
 through which he passed between 1861 and the time of his too 
 early death furnished abundant occasions for a display of the traits 
 of character to which I have referred. The great Roman poet 
 could describe in no juster words the immortal Augustus, than to 
 say of him: 
 
 Justum et tenacem propositi virum, 
 Non civium ardor prava jubentium, 
 Non vultus instantis tyranni, 
 Solida quatit mente. 
 
 These words give a reason why the succeeding ages have kept the 
 deeds and name of Augustus safe from the touch of time. Not less 
 could the American statesman, whose life we fittingly eulogize this 
 day, than the Roman hero, be moved from his fixed purposes by 
 the fierceness of citizens commanding wrong courses of action or the 
 presence of the threatening tyrant or traitor. 
 
 It is not strange that OLIVEE P. MOETON, almost in a day, 
 passed from comparative obscurity into a well-merited national 
 renown, when as governor of Indiana he at once displayed his pre 
 eminent fitness to meet the terrible exigencies of the hour. The 
 wicked devices of his personal enemies and those of his country 
 only the more perfectly brought into immediate play the rare gifts 
 of head and heart with which God had endowed him. It cannot be 
 told here by what courage, by what almost superhuman labors, by 
 what consummate use of means, and by what rare wisdom he held 
 his State in the orbit of loyalty and duty. His great patriotism 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 107 
 
 could endure no limits to its exercise less than those which bounded 
 the entire country. He could not hesitate when the great work 
 was upon him. History will not let slip the labors of Governor 
 MORTON during the period of war. He sought out, shaped, and 
 controlled every force. He was the State itself. In and through 
 him it acted. It is said of Henry II : 
 
 He himself was always the center of all power. He remembered everything, he 
 thought of everything, he cared for everything. Nothing escaped his eye and his 
 hand. 
 
 These words in English history w r ill find their place in American 
 history when the life of Governor MORTON shall be written. An 
 official integrity, rendered all the more brilliant by a futile attempt 
 to impeach it, added its luster to the steady, unyielding tenacity 
 with which he guided his State into the path of supreme devotion 
 to the Republic. He so discharged the vast responsibilities that the 
 nation applauded, and when peace came the State gave him a seat 
 in the Senate Chamber of the nation. 
 
 His services in the Senate need no formal recital of incidents. 
 From the first he took and held a place among the ablest in that 
 distinguished body. No important measure was considered there, 
 during his term of service, which he did not discuss and elucidate. 
 The clearness of his style and the earnestness with which he en 
 forced the conclusions of his logic always gave him the attention 
 of the Senate. The great occasion found him ready and equal to 
 its demands. His power in debate was due, in no small degree, to 
 the unmistakable sincerity and enthusiasm with which he yielded 
 to and followed his convictions. He spoke from a heart filled with 
 belief. His eloquence was born in the soul, and hence was real, 
 true eloquence. He was not content simply to meet the questions 
 which came before the Senate in the ordinary course of business, he 
 
108 ADDRESS OF MR. DUNNELL ON THE 
 
 indicated measures which the Government would need in coming 
 periods of her life. He was the sagacious statesman. 
 
 Senator MORTON was eminent for his devotion to the republican 
 party. He held to it as unfalteringly as he did to the cause of the 
 Union itself. He believed in its principles, and deemed their tri 
 umph essential to the highest weal of the country. For their tri 
 umph his voice was heard by millions of his countrymen. It was 
 raised in dignified argument. Speaking with him was but the 
 logical arrangement of facts and the enforcement of their teachings. 
 This was done with the seriousness which honest and deeply cher 
 ished convictions never fail to produce. It is needless to say that 
 he was an effective speaker, that the people delighted to hear him, 
 that they honored the man who honored them by the very manner 
 in which he addressed them. His campaign speeches were a mas 
 terly statement of the issues involved in the canvass. No man in 
 the party surpassed him in this respect. His opening speeches, as 
 they were often denominated, were eagerly looked for. They be 
 came texts for party speakers in every State in the Union. Their 
 effect upon the public mind was marvelous, and therein attested the 
 genius of their author. 
 
 But, sir, how vain the effort to recount the labors and the public 
 achievements of the lamented Senator. Words fail us. We can 
 but wonder that a life so soon ended should bear such rich, abundant 
 fruit. We mourn the dead, yet rejoice that this resplendent life 
 was given to the nation. 
 
 We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; 
 In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
 ****** He most lives 
 Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 109 
 
 Address of Mr. WILLIAMS, of Wisconsin. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER, when the wife of OLIVER P. MORTON, at the 
 bedside of her dead husband, exclaimed: "Oh, my boys!" a 
 nation listened, and a nation realized how strong the chords that 
 had been broken, how great the light that had gone out. 
 
 Real greatness and true worth achieve their loftiest triumphs 
 and their best results when, while fighting the battles of a nation, 
 they intrench themselves deeper and stronger in the affections of 
 wife and children, neighbor and friend. 
 
 Such a man I think was OLIVER P. MORTON. If he was great 
 in head, he was great also in heart. He ever took the side of 
 the weaker party. He was the friend of the friendless and the 
 champion of the oppressed. Their wrongs were his wrong; their 
 griefs were his grief; and if when his sense of justice was touched 
 and all his energies were roused, he fought with the fierceness 
 and courage of the lion, so when the contest was over he forgave 
 with the simplicity and tenderness of a child. 
 
 He only wanted to know that the settlement, whatever it might 
 be, was genuine and sincere. He hated all shams and pretenses. 
 He knew nothing of circumlocution; he went straight to the 
 question before him, and as his own words sped like bullets to 
 the mark, so fine phrases and the tricks of speech had no charm 
 for him except as they stood for the very truth of the matter 
 in question. He was no temporizer. 
 
 He had no heart to build where he felt there was a flaw in 
 the foundation. He would sooner dig to the bottom and replace 
 all rotten timbers with sound material than rely on the props and 
 stays of expedients to give strength to the superstructure. 
 
 In his earnestness of purpose and in the fire and heat of debate 
 
110 ADDRESS OF MR. WILLIAMS ON THE 
 
 he was not always the most choice in his use of language, but no 
 man, either friend or foe, ever mistook its honest meaning. 
 
 He was a true man. He shirked no responsibility and shunned 
 no duty, but whether in the wildest hour of rebellion he struggled 
 for the honor and fidelity of his native State or for the integrity and 
 glory of the entire Union, his sledge-hammer blows brought down 
 upon the great anvil of public opinion rang out the notes to which 
 a patriotic land responded. 
 
 For such a man there was and could be no rest. 
 
 We are told that he loved his home and all the joys of domestic 
 peace, but his public life was a life of storm and battle. It could 
 not well be otherwise; for while in all the land there was one 
 human being, even one of the humblest of God s creatures, denied 
 a single constitutional right, OLIVER P. MORTON could not and 
 would not be peaceable. Whatever others might say or do, when 
 he believed that scores and hundred of American citizens were 
 being slaughtered in cold blood for the bare assertion of their 
 political rights, he never flinched from saying so either from the 
 rostrum, before the people, or from his seat in the Senate in the 
 presence of all his peers. 
 
 For such a man, I repeat, there was and there could be no peace ; 
 and had his life been spared as long as some of us might have 
 hoped, it would have been all the same. The contest would have 
 gone on; he would have been assailed, abused, and vilified while 
 living; he would have been loved, honored, and revered when dead. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, these are the penalties and these the rewards which 
 God himself has attached to the conscientious performance of public 
 duty. Mr. MORTON was not only a courageous but he was an honest 
 man. His lot was cast in the stormiest period of the Republic. For 
 seventeen years he stood in the full glare of opportunity. As gov- 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. Ill 
 
 ernor of Indiana he disbursed large sums of the public money ; he 
 had patronage to bestow. In the Senate he frequently became the 
 champion of measures involving vast property interests. The dis 
 bursement of millions of money might turn upon his voice or vote, and 
 yet he died leaving a competence only such as a frugal life could gather. 
 
 His style of living was the most unpretentious. It has been said of 
 him that at one time, when fashion spread her crimson sails and the 
 sea of gayety rolled unchecked through this capital, Mr. MORTON S 
 coachman donned the livery of the time, and the Senator observing 
 this, without ostentation of any kind and without attempting in the 
 slighest degree to dictate as to the tastes or customs of others, simply 
 intimated to his coachman that the plain garb of the American citi 
 zen would do for him and would have to do for the driver of his 
 cab; and we all remember that primitive vehicle in which, from 
 necessity, he rode from the Capitol to his lodgings. 
 
 These are slight matters, perhaps scarcely worth the mentioning; 
 and yet, in the language of the immortal Lincoln, " the plain people 
 will understand them." 
 
 I well remember an incident which occurred during the last 
 Congress. A committee of which I chanced to be a member was 
 charged with certain investigations. A witness had mentioned the 
 name of Mr. MORTON in connection with a proposed improper fee. 
 It was an obscure insinuation and in no wise rose to the dignity of 
 a charge. The testimony was printed in an evening paper. The 
 next morning, no sooner were our doors opened than the rattle of 
 the Senator s canes was heard on the marble stairway leading to 
 the committee-room ; and the manner in which he confronted his 
 accuser and the celerity with which the charge was withdrawn con 
 vinced all who witneased the scene that OLIVER P. MORTON was 
 able and ready to defend his honor whenever assailed. 
 
112 ADDEESS OF MR. WILLIAMS ON THE 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I am not on the list of his eulogists because I can 
 pretend to have enjoyed his intimate acquaintance. And yet at 
 one time certain minor committee duties threw me frequently in his 
 society, and I had the good fortune to hear him discuss in the 
 unreserve of social intercourse some of the most important questions 
 of the day. I think whoever heard him at such times could not 
 fail to be convinced that central facts and fundamental ideas were 
 the guiding-star of his life. 
 
 I remember going to him at one time in the Senate and making 
 the inquiry when he expected to complete a speech which he had 
 commenced upon Mississippi affairs. "With an air of gravity 
 amounting almost to sadness he replied, "I am not sure that I 
 shall ever complete it." He then went on to say that his only 
 object in making it was to get certain facts before the country, but 
 that, under the policy of journalism then in vogue, while whole 
 columns and pages of the remarks of opponents were given to the 
 public, of which he did not complain, scarcely a dozen lines of 
 these facts were allowed to appear. And he added, with an em 
 phasis which I shall never forget: 
 
 The truth is, that congressional documents and reports are fast becoming the 
 mere tombs of facts which if known in detail would startle the country with 
 horror. 
 
 That speech was never completed. It remains as ,he left it, a 
 specimen of his unfinished work. 
 
 And, Mr. Speaker, I sometimes fear the time will yet come in 
 this country which may God in his mercy avert when that 
 speech, standing like a broken column, may prove a monumental 
 reminder to the American people that one of their gravest mistakes 
 was that at one of the most critical periods of their history they 
 neglected to take the advice and counsel of OLIVER P. MORTON. 
 
 It has sometimes been charged that in his public acts he was 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 
 
 113 
 
 moved only by a spirit of hatred. I do not think the man ever 
 knew the feeling of hate, except that hatred which he felt for all 
 forms of wrong and injustice. And I think the day is rapidly 
 approaching when this will be universally conceded, and when 
 none will be more ready to acknowledge it than those who are his 
 bitterest, his ablest, and therefore most generous opponents. He 
 simply followed his convictions of duty wherever they led him. 
 
 Could he rise from the grave to-day to pronounce his own eulogy, 
 I doubt if he could do it in fitter language than when he said of 
 Henry Wilson: 
 
 His great strength was in his convictions. He was a man of ideas, and relied 
 upon ideas for success. He was a man of courage. He dared to follow his convic 
 tions wherever they led him. 
 
 So with Mr. MORTON. He was full of convictions and fearfully 
 in earnest. He seldom jested and never trifled. To him the con 
 flicts of life were fraught with awful reality, and such of them as 
 fell to his lot were prosecuted with the skill of a master. But 
 while he marshaled all his means and fought like a Hercules for 
 success he never sacrificed the fidelity of a friend to gain the favor 
 of an enemy. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, when the scaffolding falls away the structure reveals 
 itself in its true outline and proportions. So when the mists and 
 circumstances of the present shall have passed, impartial judgment 
 will assign OLIVER P. MORTON his proper place in history. I do 
 not propose to attempt that here to-day ; but the work for which 
 Greeley wrought, which Sumner prosecuted, which MORTON pushed 
 up to the very shore-line of death, will never be forgotten while 
 American history is written or read. 
 
 And as error must give way to truth, force to reason, wrong to 
 right, injustice to justice, and the equality of law ultimately prevail 
 over all alike, so do I believe that the names of Giddings and Gree- 
 
 15 
 
114 ADDRESS OF MR. HAZELTON ON THE 
 
 ley, Seward and Sumner, Chase and Stevens, Lincoln and Wilson, 
 will stand all the tests of the future and grow brighter and brighter 
 as time rolls on. 
 
 Last, but not least, in this list of departed statesmen stands the 
 name of OLIVER P. MORTON. 
 
 Broken in health, stricken in body, but unconquered and uncon 
 querable in spirit, he stood guard to the last over the precious lega 
 cies left to his care. 
 
 But he, too, is numbered with the dead. His voice is silent and 
 he rests at last in the soil of his native State. The snows of winter 
 mantle his grave and the winds that sweep the broad prairies of 
 Indiana sing a sad requiem around his tomb. His name will be cut 
 in brass, in bronze, and in marble; but, Mr. Speaker, when brass 
 and bronze shall have corroded and crumbled, when marble shall 
 have disintegrated and gone to ashes, then, as season follows season, 
 as winter releases its grasp and flowers bloom upon his grave, so shall 
 the memory of OLIVER P. MORTON ever spring fresh and green 
 and beautiful in the grateful hearts of a loving people. 
 
 Address of Mr. HAZELTON, of Wisconsin. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER, MORTON is dead, and the American Congress 
 which he honored in his life pauses to-day to pay becoming rever 
 ence to his memory. They buried him at the capital of his native 
 State amid the farewells, the tears, and the loves of kindred and 
 friends, and now the nation bends down to cast the garlands of its 
 respect and love upon his bier as it passes by. 
 
 He was the child of the Republic and his life-work stands among 
 the grandest achievements of the nineteenth century. He is a 
 marked example in our history of the beauty and the value of free 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 115 
 
 institutions in his development from the ranks of the people, up 
 through State lines to the horizon of national politics and states 
 manship broadened to the utmost limits of the Republic. 
 Carlyle said : 
 
 He is most a king who makes the strongest impression on the age In which he 
 lives though his scepter be a walking-stick. 
 
 In American polity he is most a statesman who makes the strong 
 est impression on the age in which he lives for the good of his race 
 and for human progress, and of such was OLIVER P. MORTON. The 
 present and the future will see him, as in the hour of the nation s 
 peril, as the great war governor of Indiana he organized victory 
 against a gigantic opposition and replenished the exhausted exchequer 
 of his State upon his own honor ; will see him as he stood by the tot 
 tering pillars of the American Union to uphold and maintain them 
 with his wisdom and his strength ; will see him as he devoted his 
 great energies, his lofty patriotism, his broad and practical states 
 manship, the best labor of his life, and in the end life itself, to make 
 us a freer and a better people. 
 
 Looking upon the face of Daniel Webster as he lay in his coffin by 
 the sea, a loving neighbor remarked : " The world will be lonesome, 
 Mr. Webster, now you are gone;" and so I thought when MORTON 
 died, as I passed through the "long-drawn aisles" of the Capitol 
 to his place in the Senate ; to the chair craped with mourning; to the 
 desk adorned by some loving hand with sweet flowers of condolence. 
 It was the vacant chair at the nation s fireside, and I thought how 
 lost the Senate, the party, the nation, the cause of human rights 
 without him. Here in the Senate he took his stand for all that is 
 valuable in human government ; from this point radiates the light of 
 his great work out into the world and across the centuries. Here 
 his immortal hand help fashion the amendments to the Constitution, 
 
116 ADDRESS OF MR. HAZELTON ON THE 
 
 which are the jewels of the world s liberty, and here he proclaimed 
 the doctrine higher than all others, the doctrine of American life, of 
 American vitality, of American perpetuity, of American duty ; that 
 the sovereignty of this nation, represented by its flag on land and sea, 
 the sovereign power of the nation, was pledged to the maintenance 
 of the rights of all its citizens, high and low, for all time on American 
 soil ; and for the rights and the duty of the Government to maintain 
 and enforce it he was as 
 
 Constant as the northern star, 
 Of whose true-flxed and resting quality 
 There is no fellow in the firmament. 
 
 Upon the question of equality before the law, in its declaration and 
 in its maintenance for ten years in our history he stands peerless. 
 
 He loved power, but he never would have exercised it except to 
 strengthen the grounds of liberty among men. He was ambitious, 
 but he never would have exercised or used his ambition beyond the 
 legitimate purposes of maintaining the liberty of man. He was 
 honest ; amid all the clouds of darkness that fell down upon that 
 period of our history, when speculation was rife, when the fierce 
 race for wealth had no scruple, "he kept the whiteness of his soul." 
 
 Mr. Speaker, OLIVER P. MORTON will be seen and heard in the 
 councils of this nation no more forever. He has gone down to rest 
 with the distinguished dead of the Republic, with her heroes and 
 statesmen, with the immortal Douglas and Lincoln and Seward 
 and Sumner ; but his name and memory, like theirs and like the 
 great deeds of American history, a part of which he was, will live 
 until the evening stars shall fade away. There shall be but few 
 prouder monuments in all America than that inscribed with his 
 name and sacred to his memory. The pilgrim and lover of liberty 
 "in the far ages yet to be shall come to kneel beside his grave and 
 hail him prophet of the free." 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 117 
 
 Address of Mr. CALKINS, of Indiana. 
 
 Mr. SPEAKER, the last words of Senator MORTON deserve to be 
 perpetuated in these memorial exercises. From the verge of the 
 grave, in the unequal contest with the "grim monster," with husky 
 voice he cried out "I am worn out; I am dying," and the next 
 instant his spirit unfettered took its flight to realms unknown. 
 
 I propose to address myself to a few of the prominent char 
 acteristics of Senator MORTON as they impressed me in a long 
 acquaintance with him, though not as intimate as that of many 
 others who have addressed the House upon this occasion. In the 
 nature of things I could not be on as intimate relations with him 
 as many others nearer his age and who commenced political life 
 about the time he did. 
 
 He entered prominently into politics while I was yet a boy, and 
 from the beginning assumed the leadership of the republican party 
 in my State and maintained it to the end. If the party in the 
 nation during the last decacle has had a leader he has approached 
 nearer to that place than any other man in its ranks, I mean a 
 leadership in the sense of marking out and shaping national issues, 
 announcing principles around and upon which the great body of the 
 party crystallized, in which they believed, and for which they went 
 out to do battle for their party. 
 
 Coming to the political front, as he did, at a time when great 
 upheavals in public sentiment were being constantly cast to the 
 surface and when political strife had fanned the flames of partisan 
 ship into a consuming fire, one less resolute, situated and sur 
 rounded as he was, would have been utterly crushed and over 
 whelmed. In my State the difference in the numerical strength of 
 
118 ADDRESS OF MR. CALKINS ON THE 
 
 the two great parties has always been small, and it has always 
 required the best generalship to marshal the entire forces of both 
 parties. To this work, as a natural leader, Senator MORTON was 
 eminently fitted and qualified. 
 
 In 1856 his party, then in its infancy, nominated him as its stand 
 ard-bearer at the head of the ticket; although at that time he was 
 just entering politics and was comparatively a young man. His de 
 feat made him stronger with the people than he was before, and like 
 Lincoln s defeat in the great and ever memorable canvass between 
 him and Douglas in 1858, in Illinois, the record he made brought 
 him more prominently before the people and they regarded him as 
 a leader and as a statesman. 
 
 In 1860 he accepted the second place on the republican ticket with 
 ex-Senator Lane at its head. The republicans of the State at that 
 time as well they might congratulated themselves that they had 
 combined the elements of popularity and strength in the choice thus 
 made. All who have ever listened to Senator Lane will bear me 
 witness that he had few equals as a popular orator and that few 
 men could sway the masses as he did. Following close upon the 
 magnetism of this popular orator, Senator MORTON made his ap 
 pearance upon the stump in that canvass, and with his clear-cut, 
 crisp sentences and terse logic drove conviction deep into the hearts 
 of all who heard him. The success of the republican party at that 
 election resulted in calling Governor Lane to the United States 
 Senate and OLIVER P. MORTON to the gubernatorial chair of the 
 State. 
 
 I shall not pass in review his many acts while governor from 
 1861 to 1864, except to refer to a few occasional and exceptional 
 instances, which serve to bring out in strong light the remarkable 
 gifts of leadership and ability which he possessed. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 119 
 
 Among the first acts of Governor MORTON, after he became act 
 ing governor of the State, which I now recollect, was his famous 
 speech at Indianapolis upon the duty of each of the States then not 
 in rebellion to furnish troops and supplies for maintaining the 
 National Union. I remember how his sentences went through the 
 press of the State and cemented all persons, irrespective of party, 
 who loved the Union and desired to see it perpetuated. I will not 
 at this time quote from his speech, for it is familiar to all. Suffice 
 it to say that from that time every man in Indiana knew what 
 would be the policy and course of its governor in the suppression 
 of the rebellion, then in its incipiency. It was a masterly eifort. 
 It was quoted not only throughout the length and breadth of the 
 State, but all over the North. It had the effect on those who were 
 wavering of deciding them. It combined the Union sentiment of 
 the two great political parties which had just before then been fighting 
 for political mastery, and thenceforward in the State there was built 
 up a patriotic sentiment second to none in the Union. Following 
 close upon this he commenced the organization of troops in response 
 to President Lincoln s call, and thenceforward was among the first 
 governors to respond to each successive call. 
 
 During his administration Indiana furnished over two hundred 
 thousand soldiers. This included some re-enlistments, but it does 
 not include the re-enlistment of veteran organizations. 
 
 The raising and equipment of these troops was a Herculean task, 
 and it was often remarked during and since the war that Governor 
 MORTON S efforts for the Indiana troops seemed almost super 
 human, and his personal presence among them did more to cement 
 and encourage them in their perilous hours than any other act per 
 formed by any man during the war. It will be remembered that 
 he personally bade each regiment that left the State "good-bye," 
 
120 ADDRESS OF MR. CALKINS ON THE 
 
 giving them words of cheer and encouragement, and, with rare 
 exceptions, was present to welcome them back when they returned 
 worn and scarred with their laurels at the close of the conflict. He 
 never forgot them nor ceased his ministrations while they were in 
 the field. After the bloody engagement at Fort Donelson, I well 
 remember seeing him arrive on the first boat that ascended the 
 river with supplies and medicines for the wounded, accompanied 
 by his staif of volunteer physicians, to personally look after the 
 wants of the survivors. After every battle where Indiana soldiers 
 fought he was among the first if not the first to reach the field 
 with supplies and necessaries, and to minister to the wants and 
 comforts of those who survived; and I cannot describe more 
 eloquently his devotion to them than to quote from an Indiana 
 wounded soldier after the battle of Shiloh, when he said: 
 
 I saw the old governor reach out and shake hands with us, and then saw the 
 tears start out of his eyes, as he saw the wounded and heard their groans. Since 
 then I have appreciated his love for us. 
 
 His heart was as tender as a child s, and there were but few men 
 who did not possess the power to resist appeals in a greater degree 
 than Senator MORTON. 
 
 The veteran soldiery were his fast friends. In all political con 
 tests he rallied them nearly as one man. They loved him and 
 loved to do him honor ; and I predict that the recent call made on 
 the veteran soldiery of Indiana for volunteer contributions to erect 
 to his memory a statue will be responded to in the most speedy 
 manner; that they will erect to him a monument fitting and fitted 
 to perpetuate his name through all time to come ; and when this 
 monument is completed, as it soon will be, if I were allowed to 
 suggest an appropriate inscription, I would have cut upon it the 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 121 
 
 simple but eloquent words "OLIVER P. MORTON, The Soldier s 
 Friend." 
 
 Another prominent characteristic which Governor MORTON pos 
 sessed in an eminent degree was his trenchant manner of expression. 
 It would seem that he culled from the list of words the strongest 
 
 O 
 
 and most intense, and when formed into his epigrammatic sentences 
 they expressed in the clearest manner exactly what he meant to 
 say. He was not a diplomatist, for he never made use of language 
 for the purpose of concealing his ideas. After he had expressed 
 himself, the world knew exactly what he meant. Coupled with 
 this great power of expression was a natural gift of reasoning. I 
 have rarely met a man who possessed pre-eminently the power of 
 reasoning to such a degree as did Senator MORTON. When he 
 turned his mind on any given subject and gave the result to the 
 world there was little left to be said on either side. 
 
 In debate it mattered not how many were opposed to him or 
 Avho were his adversaries. Numbers or ability never cowed him ; 
 and there were few that encountered him that were not "shorn of 
 their strength." When he exposed fallacy, plausibility melted 
 before his sledge-hammer blows. When he attacked deception, his 
 shafts rent asunder the garb in which it was cloaked. When he 
 dealt in invective, his foes withered before his terse sentences. 
 
 On all public questions Senator MORTON had decided convic 
 tions. He never temporized or apologized for his views. He 
 rarely engaged in personal colloquy, and never indulged in person 
 alities. He was a leader in public sentiment, and molded the 
 opinions of others to his own. He was original and aggressive, 
 bold, fearless, and_ intrepid. In the workings of his face could be 
 traced the deep cogitations of his mind. When he uttered a sen 
 tence it was big with meaning and burdened with a world of 
 
 16 
 
122 ADDRESS OF MB. CALKINS ON THE 
 
 thought. He constantly impressed you with the immense reserve 
 power which lay partially hidden behind the massive stern brow 
 and fixed determined face. 
 
 In these days of sensationalism the magic of oratory over the 
 masses in a marked degree has vanished. I remember with pride 
 some of the names of Indiana s orators. The names of Hannegan, 
 Marshall, Dunn, Wilson, and Willard, with their eloquence and 
 magnetism, still burnish and brighten the pages of the history of 
 my State. But Senator MORTON possessed neither magnetism nor 
 eloquence, and yet his hearers hung upon his words like a "bee 
 upon the flower;" for hours they would stand riveted to his utter 
 ances, while he never seasoned his speech with an anecdote or 
 embellished it with a burst of eloquence. It was his plain, simple 
 manner of statement which held them fast. It was that power 
 which was referred to by the apostle when he said " Come, let us 
 reason together." 
 
 As I have said, Senator MORTON lacked personal magnetism. He 
 had little imagery in his composition. He made use of no poetry or 
 lofty flights of eloquence. "Sweet soothing words" were not his. 
 Electrical sparks never passed between him and his auditors. But 
 combined with his simple and pure statement of fact he had a vein 
 of pathos which reached every heart. In his political discussions I 
 have often noted how his face lighted up with a strange fascination, 
 and his sledge-hammer gesticulation exactly fitted the flaming face. 
 His voice was distinct, not overanimated, but searching. The three 
 combined seemed exactly fitted for each other and blended together 
 in perfect harmony. Mr. Speaker, the eloquence, magnetism, and 
 enchantment of popular orators may fade and be forgotten, but the 
 remarkable canvasses and career and the more remarkable speeches 
 of Senator MORTON will never be effaced. 
 
LIFE AND CHAEACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 123 
 
 In 1864 Mr. MORTON was elected governor of the State of Indiana. 
 He was shortly afterward, in 1867, elected to the United States Sen 
 ate, in which body he has been a continuous member up to the time 
 of his death, making a public career in all of nearly twenty years. 
 When he entered the Senate of the United States he found there the 
 brightest talent of the land. He had no ordinary minds to grapple 
 with. Many of his associates will justly take rank with the greatest 
 of American statesmen; but in the midst of this constellation Gov 
 ernor MORTON at once took equal rank, and there were none, from 
 the day he entered the Senate to the day of his death, who outshone 
 him. As was truthfully remarked by his present successor in the 
 Senate, " he was the ablest political leader this country ever produced ." 
 Contrast at this day would be objectionable, but I may safely say 
 without giving offense to any that in the years that are to come, when 
 the historian shall search the pages and records of that body, his pen 
 will write OLIVER P. MORTON down as a man of the strongest mind, 
 the greatest genius, more originality, and the largest individuality of 
 any member that occupied a seat in the Senate with him. The con 
 stitutional lawyer in ages to come will read with interest his inter 
 pretations of that instrument; his utterances will be quoted when 
 all of us have passed away. 
 
 Other nations have preserved the words of wisdom uttered by their 
 great statesmen. So have we. We are familiar with the grand utter 
 ances of Adams, Jefferson, Calhoun, Webster, Clay, Benton, Doug 
 las, Seward, and Simmer; but none of these will hold a greater 
 place in the history of this nation than will OLIVER P. MORTON. 
 Strewn along on every page is the impress of his giant intellect; in 
 grafted in the organic law of our land is the offspring of his mighty 
 brain, and printed upon our statute books are the emanations of his 
 lofty thought. 
 
124 ADDRESS OF MB. CALKINS ON THE 
 
 As others have been criticised, so has he. As we yet criticise them 
 and their measures, so will future generations criticise those of Mr. 
 MORTON ; but all will agree that in his originality and clearness of 
 thought ho had few equals. 
 
 Since the adjournment of the Forty-fourth Congress death has 
 stricken down two American Senators who were in the flood-tide of 
 their greatness. The great State of Missouri has lost her gifted son, 
 Senator BOGY, and, like her sister State, is now wearing the "sables 
 of grief" for his untimely death. Both Senator BOGY and Senator 
 MORTON have paid the one great last debt of nature. In their loss 
 the nation mourns, but the blow falls severest on the two States 
 which claimed them as their own ; and to-day Indiana and Missouri 
 in common mourn the untimely death of these two eminent men. 
 
 Sir, Senator MORTON is no more. His tongue is stilled and his lips 
 are hushed in death. He has passed on a little before us, and we 
 shall soon follow. He sleeps the sleep of death, "that sleep which 
 knows no waking." In the prime of his intellectual vigor he was 
 cut off, and at a time when our "needs were the sorest." In the 
 beautiful language of Prentiss 
 
 There is no appeal for relief from the great law which dooms us to the dust. We 
 flourish and fade as the leaves of the forest; and the leaves that bloom and wither 
 in a day have no frailer hold upon life than the mightiest monarch that ever shook 
 the earth with his footsteps. Generations of men will appear and disappear as the 
 grass, and the multitude that throngs the world to-day will disappear as the foot 
 steps on the shore. Men seldom think of the great event of death until the shadows 
 fall across their own pathway, hiding from their eyes the faces of loved ones whose 
 loving smile was the sunlight of their existence. Death is the antagonist of life, 
 and the cold thought of the tomb is the skeleton of all feasts. "We do not want to go 
 through the dark valley, although its dark passage may lead to paradise. We do not 
 want to lie down in the damp grave, even with princes as bed-fellows. 
 
 Those of us who believe in Senator MORTON may well console 
 ourselves that he died in the fullest fruition of earthly fame; with 
 one foot upon the topmost round of the ladder he launched over into 
 the eternity beyond. 
 
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OLIVER P. MORTON. 125 
 
 Wreaths will fade and wither on his tomb; perennial flowers 
 will blossom and decay; the autumn winds in eddying gusts will 
 sweep the sere and crisped leaves above him ; remorseless time will 
 raze the well-rounded mound where he sleeps ; monuments will rust 
 and granite crumble; but his achievements are enduring and his 
 name, encircled with bright immortelles, is imperishable. 
 
 It now remains my sad duty to move the adoption of the resolu 
 tions sent to us from the Senate of respect to the memory of OLIVER 
 P. MORTON, late a Senator from the State of Indiana. 
 
 The resolutions were adopted unanimously. 
 
 Mr. BROWNE. I move the adoption of the following additional 
 resolution : 
 
 Resolved, That as a further mark of respect to the memory of OLIVER P. MORTON, 
 late a Senator from the State of Indiana, this House do now adjourn, 
 
 The resolution was adopted ; and accordingly (at four o clock and 
 thirty r five minutes p. m.) the House adjourned until Monday next. 
 
YD 12471 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY