TRIBUTE TO HORACE GREELEY.
Remarks intended to be made in the Senate, in seconding a Motion for Adjournment on the Occasion of Mr. Greeley’s Funeral, December 3, 1872.
The death of Mr. Greeley at the close of the canvass in which nearly three millions of his fellow-citizens had given him their suffrages for the Presidency, seemed, in the view of leading Senators on both sides, to require from their body a respectful recognition of the day appointed for his funeral; and it was accordingly arranged that a motion for adjournment on this occasion should be offered by Mr. Fenton, of New York, and seconded by Mr. Sumner, with appropriate remarks by each. But a dominant party-spirit, by recourse to parliamentary tactics, prevented its introduction, and the day passed without notice. The remarks designed by Mr. Sumner were as follows:—
MR. PRESIDENT,—I have been requested to second this motion. One word, if you please. A funeral will take place to-morrow, on which the eyes of the nation will rest, while innumerable hearts throb with grief, and the people everywhere learn the instability of life and the commandment of charity. It is proper, therefore, for the representatives of the nation to suspend labor, that they too may be penetrated by the lesson of the day. More for them than the illustrious dead is this needed. He is gone beyond any earthly call; we remain. Duties are always for the living; and now, standing at the open grave of Horace Greeley, we are admonished to forget the strifes of party, and to remember only truth, country, and mankind, to which his honest life was devoted. In other days the horse and armor of the departed chieftain have been buried in the grave where he reposed. So, too, may we bury the animosities, if not the badges, of the past. Then, indeed, will there be victory for the dead which all will share.
RELIEF OF BOSTON.
Remarks in the Senate, December 12, 1872.