"The resolutions need no support which human lips can by human language give. Their subject is their support. The name of Lee appeals at once, and strongly, to every true heart in this land and throughout the world. Let political partisans, influenced by fanaticism and the hope of political plunder, find fault with and condemn us. They will be forgotten when the name of Lee will be resplendent with immortal glory.
"Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, in the course of Nature my career upon earth must soon terminate. God grant that when the day of my death comes, I may look up to Heaven with that confidence and faith which the life and character of Robert E. Lee gave him! He died trusting in God, as a good man, with a good life and a pure conscience. He was consoled with the knowledge that the religion of Christ had ordered all his ways, and he knew that the verdict of God upon the account he would have to render in heaven would be one of judgment seasoned with mercy. He had a right to believe that when God passed judgment upon the account of his life, though He would find him an erring human being, He would find virtue enough and religious faith enough to save him from any other verdict than that of 'Well done, good and faithful servant.' The monument will be raised; and when it is raised many a man will visit Richmond to stand beside it, to do reverence to the remains it may cover, and to say, 'Here lie the remains of one of the noblest men who ever lived or died in America.'"
HON. GEORGE WILLIAM BROWN
"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: The able and eloquent gentlemen who have preceded me have left but little for me to say. I rise, however, to express my hearty assent to the resolutions. Their broad and liberal views are worthy of the great and good man whose virtues and fame we seek to commemorate. He has passed away from earth, and our blame or censure is nothing to him now. The most eloquent eulogies that human lips can utter, and the loftiest monuments that human hands can build, cannot affect him now. But it is a satisfaction to us to know that expressions of the love for him which lives in every Southern heart—ay, in many a Northern heart—were heard long before his death, and that honor shed noble lustre around the last years of his life. He was the representative of a lost cause; he had sheathed his sword forever; he had surrendered his army to superior numbers; he was broken in fortune and in health, and was only president of a Virginia college, yet he was one of the foremost men of all the world.
"It has been said of General Lee, as it has been said of Washington, that he was deficient in genius. His character was so complete that what would have seemed evidences of genius with other men, were lost in the combination of his character and mind. He was always, and especially in every great crisis, a leader among men. During the four years of his education at West Point he did not receive a single reprimand. As a cavalry-officer, wherever he went he was a marked man; and when General Scott made his wonderful march to the capital of Mexico, Captain Lee was his right arm. At the commencement of the late war, though only a lieutenant-colonel of cavalry, he was offered the command of the armies of the United States. What a prize for ambition! Fortune, fame, and honors, awaited him. Where would he have been to-day? Probably in the presidential chair of this great nation. But he rejected all to take his chance with his own people, and to unite with them in their resistance to the vast numbers and resources which he knew the North was able to bring against them. There is nothing more remarkable in the annals of warfare than the success with which General Lee defeated for years the armies of the United States. Consider the six-days' battles around Richmond; the second battle of Manassas; the battles at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg; the wonderful contest at Chancellorsville; then again the remarkable battle of the Wilderness, in which it has been said by Federal authority that General Lee actually killed as many men as he had under his command; the defence at Cold Harbor, the prolonged defence of Richmond and Petersburg, and the admirably-conducted retreat with but a handful before an immense army. Well has he been spoken of as 'the incomparable strategist.' Did any man ever fight against more desperate odds or resources?
"But not merely as a great general is General Lee to be admired. He claims our admiration as a great man—great in adversity. I think there is nothing more admirable in all his life than his conduct in assuming the sole responsibility at Gettysburg. In the midst of defeat Lee was calm, unmoved, showing no fear where despair would have been in the heart of any other general, and saying to his officers and men, 'The fault is all mine.' Let the monument be raised, not merely by soldiers of General Lee, but by all men, no matter of what political feelings, who appreciate and honor that which is manly, great, and patriotic. The monument at Richmond will be the resort of pilgrims from the North as well as from the South, and the grave of Lee will be second only in the hearts of the people to the grave of Washington."
LEXINGTON, KY.
At the meeting at Lexington, resolutions were adopted similar to those already given. The meeting was addressed by General Preston and others.
GENERAL W. PRESTON.
"I am permitted to accompany the report with a few remarks, although I deem it unnecessary to use one word of commendation on the character of such a man. These resolutions are no doubt very short, but they will testify the feelings of every right-minded, noble-hearted man, no matter what may have been his opinions as to the past. Every true and generous soul feels that these resolutions are expressive of the sorrow entertained by the whole country. We speak not only the common voice of America, but of the world at this hour. It is no ordinary case of eulogy over an ordinary being, but over one who was the man of the century; a man who, by mighty armies commanded with admirable skill; by great victories achieved, and yet never stained by exultation; by mighty misfortunes met with a calm eye, and submitted to with all the dignity that belongs to elevated intelligence, and by his simplicity and grandeur, challenged the admiration of civilized mankind; and still more remarkable, after yielding to the greatest vicissitudes that the world ever saw, resigned himself to the improvement of the youth of the country, to the last moment of his mortal life, looking to the glorious life which he contemplated beyond the tomb. I must confess that, notwithstanding the splendor and glory of his career, I envy him the dignity of the pacific close of his life. Nothing more gentle, nothing more great, nothing more uncomplaining, has ever been recorded in the history of the world. By returning to Napoleon, we find he murmured, we find all the marks of mortality and mortal anger; but in Lee we find a man perfect in Christian principles—dignified, yet simple.