THE LATE HON. GARRETT DAVIS, SENATOR OF KENTUCKY.
Remarks in the Senate on his Death, December 18, 1872.
MR. PRESIDENT,—I was a member of the Senate, when, in 1861, our departed Senator entered it; and I was to the end the daily witness of his laborious service. Standing now at his funeral, it is easy to forget the differences between us and remember those things in which he was an example to all.
Death has its companionship. In its recent autumn harvest were Garrett Davis, William H. Seward, and Horace Greeley. Seward was the precise contemporary of Davis, each beginning life with the century and dying within a few days of each other. Always alike in constancy of labor, they were for the larger part of this period associated in political sentiment as active members of the old Whig party. But the terrible question of Slavery rose to divide them. How completely they were on opposite sides I need not say. Horace Greeley was ten years the junior, but he was the colleague and peer of Garrett Davis in devotion to Henry Clay. In the whole country, among all whose enthusiastic support he aroused, there was no one who upheld the Kentucky statesman with more chivalrous devotion than these two. Here they were alike, and in the record of life this signal fidelity cannot be forgotten. It was to the honor of Henry Clay that he inspired this sentiment in such men, and it was to their honor that they maintained it so truly. Kindred to truth is fidelity.
At his death, Garrett Davis was our Congressional senior, having entered the other House as early as 1839, after previous service of six years in the Legislature of Kentucky. For eight years he sat as Representative, and then, after an interval of thirteen years, he was for nearly twelve years Senator. During this long period he was conspicuous before the country, dwelling constantly in the public eye. How well he stood the gaze, whether of friend or foe, belongs to his good name.
All who knew him in the Senate will bear witness to his wonderful industry, his perfect probity, and the personal purity of his life. No differences of opinion can obscure the fame of these qualities, or keep them from being a delight to his friends and an example to his country. Nor can any of us forget how, amid peculiar trials, he was courageous in devotion to the National Union. No pressure, no appeal, no temptation, could sway him in this patriotic allegiance. That fidelity which belonged to his nature shone here as elsewhere. He was no holiday Senator, cultivating pleasure rather than duty, and he was above all suspicion in personal conduct. Calumny could not reach him. Nothing is so fierce and unreasoning as the enmities engendered by political antagonists; but even these never questioned that he was at all times incorruptible and pure. Let this be spoken in his honor; let it be written on his monument. Nor can the State that gave him to the national service and trusted him so long fail to remember with pride that he was always an honest man.
With this completeness of integrity there was a certain wild independence and intensity of nature which made him unaccommodating and irrepressible. Faithful, constant, devoted, indefatigable, implacable, he knew not how to capitulate. Dr. Johnson, who liked “a good hater,”[227] would have welcomed him into this questionable fellowship. Here I cannot doubt. Better far the opposite character, and even the errors that may come from it. Kindred to hate is prejudice, which was too often active in him, seeming at times, especially where we differed from him, to take the place of reason. On nothing was this so marked as Slavery. Here his convictions were undisguised; nor did they yield to argument or the logic of events. How much of valuable time, learned research, and intellectual effort he bestowed in support of this dying cause, the chronicles of the Senate attest. How often have we listened with pain to this advocacy, regretting deeply that the gifts he possessed, and especially his sterling character, were enlisted where our sympathies could not go! And yet I cannot doubt that others would testify, as I now do, that never on these occasions, when the soul was tried in its depths, did any fail to recognize the simplicity and integrity of his nature. Had he been less honest, I should have felt his speeches less. Happily, that great controversy is ended; nor do I say anything but the strict truth, when I add that now we bury him who spoke last for Slavery.
Time is teacher and reconciler; nor is it easy for any candid nature to preserve a constant austerity of judgment toward persons. As evening approaches, the meridian heats lose their intensity. While abiding firmly in the truth as we saw it, there may be charity and consideration for those who did not see it as we saw it. A French statesman, yet living, whose name is indissolubly connected with the highest literature, as well as with some of the most important events of his age, teaches how with the passage of life the judgment is softened toward others. “The more,” says M. Guizot, “I have penetrated into an understanding and experience of things, of men, and of myself, the more I have perceived at the same time my general convictions strengthen and my personal impressions become calm and mild. Equity, I will not say toleration for the faith of others, in religion or politics, has come to take place and grow by the side of tranquillity in my own faith. It is youth, with its natural ignorance and passionate prejudices, which renders us exclusive and biting in our judgments of others. In proportion as I quit myself, and as time sweeps me far from our combats, I enter without difficulty into a serene and pleasant appreciation of ideas and sentiments which do not belong to me.” Even if not adopting these words completely, all will confess their beauty.