Sir, from that long, anxious, and exhausting conflict, he never rose again. In that last battle for his country’s honor and his country’s safety, he received the mortal wound which laid him low, and we now mourn the death of a martyred patriot.
But never, in all the grand drama which the story of his life arrays, never has he presented a sublimer or a more touching spectacle than in those last days of his decline and death. Broken with the storms of state, wounded and scathed in many a fiery conflict, that aged, worn, and decayed body, in such mournful contrast with the never-dying strength of his giant spirit, he seemed a proud and sacred, though a crumbling monument of past glory. Standing among us, like some ancient colossal ruin amid the degenerate and more diminutive structures of modern times, its vast proportions magnified by the contrast, he reminded us of those days when there were giants in the land, and we remembered that even then there was none whose prowess could withstand his arm. To watch him in that slow decline, yielding with dignity, and as it were inch by inch, to that last enemy, as a hero yields to a conquering foe, the glorious light of his intellect blazing still in all its wonted brilliancy, and setting at defiance the clouds that vainly attempted to obscure it, he was more full of interest than in the day of his glory and his power. There are some men whose brightest intellectual emanations rise so little superior to the instincts of the animal, that we are led fearfully to doubt that cherished truth of the soul’s immortality, which, even in despair, men press to their doubting hearts. But it is in the death of such a man as he that we are reassured by the contemplation, of a kindred, though superior spirit, of a soul which, immortal, like his fame, knows no old age, no decay, no death.
The wondrous light of his unmatched intellect may have dazzled a world; the eloquence of that inspired tongue may have enchantedmillions, but there are few who have sounded the depths of that noble heart. To see him in sickness and in health, in joy and in sadness, in the silent watches of the night and in the busy day-time—this it was to know and love him. To see the impetuous torrent of that resistless will; the hurricane of those passions hushed in peace, breathe calm and gently as a summer zephyr; to feel the gentle pressure of that hand in the grasp of friendship which in the rage of fiery conflict would hurl scorn and defiance at his foe; to see that eagle eye, which oft would burn with patriotic ardor, or flash with the lightning of his anger, beam with the kindliest expressions of tenderness and affection—then it was, and then alone, we could learn to know and feel that that heart was warmed by the same sacred fire from above which enkindled the light of his resplendent intellect. In the death of such a man even patriotism itself might pause, and for a moment stand aloof while friendship shed a tear of sorrow upon his bier.
‘His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, This was a man!’
But who can estimate his country’s loss? What tongue portray the desolation which in this hour throughout this broad land hangs like a gloomy pall over his grief-stricken countrymen? How poorly can words like mine translate the eloquence of a whole people’s grief for a patriot’s death. For a nation’s loss let a nation mourn. For that stupendous calamity to our country and mankind, be the heavens hung with black; let the wailing elements chant his dirge, and the universal heart of man throb with one common pang of grief and anguish.
Mr. CASKIE said: Mr. Speaker, Unwell as I am, I must try to lay a single laurel leaf in that open coffin, which is already garlanded by the eloquent tributes to the illustrious departed, which have been heard in this now solemn hall; for I come, sir, from the district of his birth. I represent on this floor that old Hanover so proud of her Henrys—her Patrick Henry and her Henry Clay. I speak for a people among whom he has always had as earnest and devoted friends as were ever the grace and glory of a patriot and statesman.
I shall attempt no sketch of his life. That you have had from other and abler hands than mine. Till yesterday that life was, of his own free gift, the property of his country; to-day it belongs to her history. It is known to all, and will not be forgotten. Constant, stern opponent of his political school as has been my state, I say for her, that no where in this broad land are his great qualities more admired, or his death more mourned, than in Virginia. Well may this be so; for she is his mother, and he was her son.