Of all the young men in America none had such power for good. None had the ear of the public so completely as he to be heard. None had so eloquent a tongue to produce conviction. None had so magnetic a bearing to induce followers. He was ambitious, yes, but for what? Not for the spoils of office, not for command of his fellow-man, not for himself, but for his people. Years ago when his friends all over Georgia urged him to allow his name to be presented for a post of honor in the counsels of the Nation he refused. His letter of declination was so strong, so patriotic, and so unselfish that it commanded the admiration of the world. I know that even far-off New Zealand published his words and did him honor. His eloquent speech in New York completed the structure of his national fame. From the night of its delivery the whole country ranked him among its foremost citizens. Even in down-trodden and oppressed Cuba his eloquent words were translated into the Spanish tongue and read with delight while I was there. The echoes of his last eloquent, matchless defense of the South yet linger in Faneuil Hall, and so long as its historic walls shall stand they will be classed with the best efforts of Everett and of Webster. His friends all over the country read his words, and wondered that he was so great. Ambitious; yes, ambitious to be able to present the cause of the South in such a manner as to produce conviction in the minds and in the hearts of its most ultra defamers, that our people now in good faith accept as final the construction placed upon the Constitution of this country by the victors, and that they are as absolutely loyal and devoted, as are the people of the North, to that Union against which his father had fought.
With no apologies for the past; with no recantation of the belief that they were patriots, without in any way casting reproach upon our dead, with a nature grand enough to admire Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, he had taken for his high mission on this earth, the task of reconciling the people of the sections. Until this great mission was accomplished, he had no time to devote to the narrow duties of a public office. Office, therefore, he did not seek. Office he would not have. There was but one office in this land great enough for him. Had he lived until his sun had reached its meridian splendor there would have been a complete reconciliation between the sections. Partisan malignity would not have sought to enact laws aimed at only a part of this grand country. Soon would there have been a complete union of hearts between those who had been engaged in fratricidal strife, which the most ultra partisanship could not have severed. Too young himself to be in the war, but the son of a gallant Confederate soldier, killed upon the field of battle, he, more than any one of older years, could by his chosen profession bear the messages of peace to the North, and by his mighty pen, by his eloquent tongue, by his melodious voice, and by his commanding presence could he procure a hearing from an audience of strangers and produce conviction. If it be true that,
The tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony,
then his last words, uttered in behalf of his people, will not have been spoken in vain.
In his death the South has lost its most eloquent advocate and its most powerful defender. America weeps for one of her noblest sons. Who is there to finish this work? God grant that there may rise some one to complete his mission!
He was a man full of impulse and a quick reader of the popular mind. Well do we all remember the time when the result of a presidential election became certainly known, how his heart, wild with joy at what he believed to be the beginning of better days for the South, organized a street procession and proceeded to the legislative halls of this State, and with his followers entered the house, and in his clear, ringing voice announced, “Mr. Speaker: A message from the American people,” and adjourned it. ’Tis said that history shows that there have been but two men who have ever adjourned a parliament without a vote, Oliver Cromwell and Henry Grady. One was an act of tyranny—the other the expression of the desire of every member of the house.
A citizen of Atlanta, he loved Georgia; a Georgian, he adored the South; a Southerner, he worshipped the whole Union. He was an American in the fullest sense of that term. There was no work of public or private charity among us which he did not aid by his tongue, his pen, his head or his purse, whether that work was to procure the pardon of an abandoned young girl confined in the chain-gang with criminals, or canvassing the streets of Atlanta through snow and ice, accompanied with a retinue of wagons and drays, to accumulate fuel and provisions to prevent our poor from freezing and from starving. It was in response to his appeals, more than to all else combined, that a home is now being erected within sight of the dome of yonder capitol for the aged and infirm veterans of the Lost Cause. It was to him more than to all others that our Piedmont Expositions, designed to show to the world the wealth of our undeveloped mineral, agricultural and other resources, were carried to a successful end. It was through his persuasive power that the Chautauqua Association, designed to more thoroughly educate our people, was established.
But in the limited time allotted to me, I cannot go into further details. If you seek his monuments, look around. They are in every home and every calling of life. In all that which has tended to develop the material resources of the country, to enrich his people, to encourage education and a love of the arts, to relieve suffering, to provide for the poor, and to make our people better and nobler, he devoted his life, unselfishly and without hope of other reward than the approval of his conscience.
He was a model citizen. As a member of society, he was welcomed to every fireside. He was the center of every group. His doors were open always to strangers. He was given to hospitality. He was the life, the soul of every enterprise with which he was connected. As a patriot, his heart was bowed down with grief that his countrymen should be estranged. As a humanitarian, his great heart wept at the suffering of the poor, and his voice was ever raised in behalf of the afflicted and oppressed. As a friend, he was devoted, unselfish and loyal. Now, that he is gone, we know how dear he was to us. We have awakened to the full appreciation of his great worth, and of the calamity which has befallen us.