A TRIBUTE TO ROSCOE CONKLING.
Delivered before the New York State Legislature, at Albany,
N. Y, May 9,1888.
ROSCOE CONKLING—a great man, an orator, a statesman, a lawyer, a distinguished citizen of the Republic, in the zenith of his fame and power has reached his journey's end; and we are met, here in the city of his birth, to pay our tribute to his worth and work. He earned and held a proud position in the public thought. He stood for independence, for courage, and above all for absolute integrity, and his name was known and honored by many millions of his fellow-men.
The literature of many lands is rich with the tributes that gratitude, admiration and love have paid to the great and honored dead. These tributes disclose the character of nations, the ideals of the human race. In them we find the estimates of greatness—the deeds and lives that challenged praise and thrilled the hearts of men.
In the presence of death, the good man judges as he would be judged. He knows that men are only fragments—that the greatest walk in shadow, and that faults and failures mingle with the lives of all.
In the grave should be buried the prejudices and passions born of conflict. Charity should hold the scales in which are weighed the deeds of men. Peculiarities, traits born of locality and surroundings—these are but the dust of the race—these are accidents, drapery, clothes, fashions, that have nothing to do with the man except to hide his character. They are the clouds that cling to mountains. Time gives us clearer vision. That which was merely local fades away. The words of envy are forgotten, and all there is of sterling worth remains. He who was called a partisan is a patriot. The revolutionist and the outlaw are the founders of nations, and he who was regarded as a scheming, selfish politician becomes a statesman, a philosopher, whose words and deeds shed light.
Fortunate is that nation great enough to know the great.
When a great man dies—one who has nobly fought the battle of a life, who has been faithful to every trust, and has uttered his highest, noblest thought—one who has stood proudly by the right in spite of jeer and taunt, neither stopped by foe nor swerved by friend—in honoring him, in speaking words of praise and love above his dust, we pay a tribute to ourselves.
How poor this world would be without its graves, without the memories of its mighty dead. Only the voiceless speak forever.