I have beheld, said Mr. H., a monument erected to a man, once considered as the patron of America, defaced, mutilated, its head broken off, prostrated with the ground. A statue, erected by the Legislature of Virginia to perpetuate the virtues of a man to future ages, had been destroyed.
Besides, a statue was minute, trivial, and perishable. It was a monument erected to all that crowd of estimable but subordinate personages, that soar in a region, elevated indeed above common character, but which was infinitely below that occupied by Washington.
The greatest honor which this country ever has received, the greatest honor which it ever could receive, was derived from numbering with its sons the immortal Washington.
Shall then a mistaken spirit of economy, and a still more mistaken jealousy arrest us? Honor him, it is true, we cannot. The world has charged itself with that task. Posterity, as long as the world shall endure, will celebrate his virtues and his talents; those virtues and talents of which every ingredient of their happiness will be a perpetual evidence. But though we cannot honor him, we may dishonor ourselves; though we cannot increase the lustre of his fame, we may show our own meanness, cowardice, spite, and malice; and show an astonished world that we are deplorably unworthy of the high honor conferred by Nature in giving us a Washington.
I am, said Mr. H., awfully impressed by the subject. I sink under the sublimity that surrounds it. No words can reach it; mine are totally inadequate; to the feelings of the House then it must be submitted: they, after anticipating all that genius or eloquence can say, will still far surpass their boldest effusions.
Mr. Randolph was very unfortunately situated, as he was compelled to rise, not in his own defence, but in defence of the calumniated reputation of that State which he revered, since from it he derived his birth.
I will not, said Mr. R., enter into an elucidation of the motives of the gentleman from South Carolina, which have produced so much asperity, and such a virulence of rancor against the State of Virgina, but will confine myself to the question on engrossing the bill.
The gentleman has talked to us about his disregard for the locus in quo. Mr. R. said he cared as little for the quo modo, as the gentleman did for the locus in quo.
He had further told us that a statue might be overthrown by a licentious mob; and that this had actually been the case in the State of Virginia. But, why had it been so? Because that statue had been erected in the life-time of the person it celebrated; because it had been erected under the Colonial Government; and because, like every other fetter of tyranny, it was broken by the Revolutionary spirit that established our liberties.
But, says the gentleman, statues are raised for subordinate men, for this admiral or that general, who may deserve well of their country, but who do not merit the highest distinctions of national gratitude. If this measure of raising a mausoleum is to be only a cover for obtaining statues for temporary and secondary and trifling characters, it may have a very alarming influence upon us.