Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring;
Lend, lend your wings! I mount—I fly!
Oh, Grave! where is thy victory?
Oh, Death! where is thy sting!’
‘Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last hour be like his.’
Mr. HUNTER.—Mr. President: We have heard, with deep sensibility, what has just fallen from the senators who have preceded me. We have heard, sir, the voice of Kentucky—and, upon this occasion, she had a right to speak—in mingled accents of pride and sorrow; for it has rarely fallen to the lot of any state to lament the loss of such a son. But Virginia, too, is entitled to her place in this procession; for she cannot be supposed to be unmindful of the tie which bound her to the dead. When the earth opens to receive the mortal part which she gave to man, it is then that affection is eager to bury in its bosom every recollection but those of love and kindness. And, sir, when the last sensible tie is about to be severed,it is then that we look with anxious interest to the deeds of the life, and to the emanations of the heart and the mind, for those more enduring monuments which are the creations of an immortal nature.
In this instance, we can be at no loss for these. This land, sir, is full of the monuments of his genius. His memory is as imperishable as American history itself, for he was one of those who made it. Sir, he belonged to that marked class who are the men of their century; for it was his rare good fortune not only to have been endowed with the capacity to do great things, but to have enjoyed the opportunities of achieving them. I know, sir, it has been said and deplored, that he wanted some of the advantages of an early education; but it, perhaps, has not been remembered that, in many respects, he enjoyed such opportunities for mental training as can rarely fall to the lot of man. He had not a chance to learn so much from books, but he had such opportunities of learning from men as few have ever enjoyed. Sir, it is to be remembered that he was reared at a time when there was a state of society, in the commonwealth which gave him birth, such as has never been seen there before nor since. It was his early privilege to see how justice was administered by a Pendleton and a Wythe, with the last of whom he was in the daily habit of familiar intercourse. He had constant opportunities to observe how forensic questions were managed by a Marshall and a Wickham. He was old enough, too, to have heard and to have appreciated the eloquence of a Patrick Henry, and of George Keith Taylor. In short, sir, he lived in a society in which the examples of a Jefferson, and a Madison, and a Monroe, were living influences, and on which the setting sun of a Washington cast the mild effulgence of its departing rays.
He was trained, too, as has been well said by the senator from Michigan, [Mr. Cass,] at a period when the recent revolutionary struggle had given a more elevated tone to patriotism, and imparted a higher cast to public feeling and to public character. Such lessons were worth, perhaps, more to him than the whole encyclopedia of scholastic learning. Not only were the circumstances of his early training favorable to the development of his genius, but the theatre upon which he was thrown, was eminently propitious for its exercise. The circumstances of the early settlement of Kentucky, the generous, daring, and reckless character of the people—all fitted it to be the theatre for the display of those commanding qualities of heart and mind, which he so eminently possessed. There can be little doubt but that those people and their chosen leader exercised a mutual influence upon each other; and no one can be surprised that, with his brave spirit, and commanding eloquence, and fascinating address, he should have led not only there, but elsewhere.