"In common ways, with common men,
I served my race and time."
He was both an artist and a poet. He loved flowers, and there was to his ears no music so sweet as the merry laughter of children. And, whether in private life, or in his great executive office as "the arbiter of human fate," the tale of woe never failed to touch a sympathetic cord. He had in very deed,
"A tear for pity, and a hand open as day to melting charity."
He was welcome at every hearthstone, as one "who cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner."
Soon after his admission to the bar, Mr. Knott removed to Missouri, where he was almost immediately elected to the responsible position of Attorney-General of the State. In due time he returned to his native State, and was for six terms a representative in Congress. Yet later, and as the shadows were beginning to fall to the eastward, he was, almost by common acclaim, called to the chief executive office of the commonwealth. It may truly be said of him that "with clear head, and with clean hands, he faithfully discharged every public trust."
Mr. Knott entered Congress just at the close of the great Civil War. It was a period of excitement throughout the entire country, and of intense foreboding to the section he represented. In the debates of that stormy period he bore no mean part. He was counted a foeman worthy the steel of the ablest who entered the lists. A thorough student from the beginning, of all that pertained to Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, and the Federal Constitution, he was equipped as few men have been, for forensic contests that have left their deep impress upon history. The evidence of his ability as a lawyer is to be found in the satisfactory manner in which for three Congresses he discharged the duties of the trying position of Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives. The ablest lawyers of both political parties constituted this great committee, and its chairman, if possessing only mediocre talents or attainments, would have been sadly out of place.
But with his heavy armor laid aside, the genius of Knott was made manifest along more pleasing lines. Few speeches ever delivered in Congress have been so generally read, or so thoroughly imbedded into current literature, as one he delivered soon after his first admission to the House. Duluth awoke the morning after its delivery to find itself famous. As, "the zenith city of the unsalted seas," it has been known and read of all men. As such, it will probably continue to be known for ages to come. The speech hopelessly defeated a bill making a land grant to a proposed railroad, of which Duluth was to be the terminus. His mirthful prediction, however, as to its marvellous future has been fulfilled. How true it is that "jesters do oft prove prophets!" Bearing in mind that the great city of to-day then had no place even upon the map, the words quoted from the speech will be appreciated:
"Duluth, Duluth! The word fell upon my ear with peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a brook stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft sweet accent of an angel's whisper in the bright joyous dream of sleeping innocence. Duluth! 'T was the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panteth for the water brooks. I was convinced that the greatest calamity that ever befell the benighted nations of the ancient world was their having passed away without a knowledge of the actual existence of Duluth; that their fabled Atlantis, never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired poesy, was in fact but another name for Duluth; that the golden orchard of the Hesperides was but a poetical synonym for the beer-gardens in the vicinity of Duluth. As that name first fell upon my ear, a resplendent scene of ineffable glory opened before me, such as I imagine burst upon the enraptured visions of the wandering Peri through the opening gates of Paradise."
Mr. Knott was often the sad and silent man. His real intimacies were few, and to strangers he was reserved. But to those who came within the circle of his personal friendship he was one of the most delightful of companions. No man was ever given less to a parade either of his friendships or of his animosities. His enemies —and it would have been strange if, passing through the eventful scenes he did, he had had none—knew just where to find him. He was, in very truth,
"Lofty and sour to them that loved him not;
But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer."