The late Duc de Morny, who was the accomplished President of the Legislative Assembly of France, in a sitting shortly before his death, after sounding his crier’s bell, which is the substitute for the hammer among us, exclaimed from the chair: “I shall be obliged to mention by name the members whom I find conversing. I declare to you that I shall do so, and I shall have it put in the ‘Moniteur.’ You are here to discuss and to listen, not to converse. I promise you that I will do what I say to the very first I catch talking.” Our President might have found occasion for a similar speech, but his energy in the enforcement of order stopped short of this menace. Certainly he did everything consistent with the temper of the Senate, and he showed always what Sir William Scott, on one occasion, in the House of Commons, placed among the essential qualities of a Speaker, when he said that “to a jealous affection for the privileges of the House” must be added “an awful sense of its duties.”[25]
Accustomed as we have become to the rules which govern legislative proceedings, we are hardly aware of their importance in the development of liberal institutions. Unknown in antiquity, they were unknown also on the European continent until latterly introduced from England, which was their original home. They are among the precious contributions which England has made to modern civilization; and yet they did not assume at once their present perfect form. Mr. Hallam tells us that even as late as Queen Elizabeth “the members called confusedly for the business they wished to have brought forward.”[26] But now, at last, these rules have become a beautiful machine, by which business is conducted, legislation moulded, and debate in all possible freedom secured. From the presentation of a petition or the introduction of a bill, all proceeds by fixed processes, until, without disorder, the final result is reached and a new law takes its place in the statute-book. Hoe’s printing-press or Alden’s type-setter is not more exact in operation. But the rules are more even than a beautiful machine; they are the very temple of Constitutional Liberty. In this temple our departed friend served to the end with pious care. His associates, as they recall his stately form, silvered by time, but beaming with goodness, will not cease to cherish the memory of such service. His image will rise before them as the faithful presiding officer, by whom the dignity of the Senate was maintained, its business advanced, and Parliamentary Law upheld.
He had always looked with delight upon this Capitol,—one of the most remarkable edifices of the world,—beautiful in itself, but more beautiful still as the emblem of that national unity he loved so well. He enjoyed its enlargement and improvement. He watched with pride its marble columns moving into place, and its dome as it ascended to the skies. Even the trials of the war did not make him forget it. His care secured those appropriations by which the work was forwarded to its close, and the statue of Liberty installed on its sublime pedestal. It was natural that in his last moments, as life was failing fast, he should long to rest his eyes upon an object that was to him so dear. The early light of morning had come, and he was lifted in bed that with mortal sight he might once more behold this Capitol; but another Capitol already began to fill his vision, fairer than your marble columns, sublimer than your dome, where Liberty without any statue is glorified in that service which is perfect Freedom.
COMPLETE EQUALITY IN RIGHTS, AND NOT SEMI-EQUALITY.
Letter to a Committee on the Celebration of Emancipation in the District of Columbia, April 14, 1866.
Senate Chamber, April 14, 1866.
DEAR SIR,—It will not be in my power to celebrate with you Emancipation in the District, but I rejoice that the beautiful anniversary is to be commemorated.