Mr. Speaker, I might say much more from the promptings of a strong and unfeigned affection and from a sense of the public merits of our late colleague, but where there are so many to speak, it is not necessary for one to attempt a catalogue of his private virtues and of his public services.
Perhaps I may fitly add a word in closing as to Gen. Lee's military career. From a captain of volunteer cavalry he rose on his own merits at the age of twenty-six to the rank of major-general. I have not searched the annals of war to recite his military history, for it is not the soldier that I have been commemorating, but I may recall a testimony not improper to be placed on record here to-day. I happened to be in company with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston about the time that Gen. Lee was first nominated for Congress. The old commander, who, as all know, was not given to effusive speech, expressed to me his hearty gratification at the event, and in doing so his high estimate of Gen. Lee as a man and of his ability as a soldier. His praise was strong and unstinted, and no one will question its sincerity. Mr. Speaker, what more need I add than to say that in all the acts and relations of life, as son and soldier, as husband and father, as private citizen and as Representative of the people, as friend and as Christian, our departed colleague left a memory we may well cherish and an example we may well follow.
Address of Mr. Cummings, of New York.
Mr. Speaker: Great as is our country, its history is comparatively brief. Though brief, it is exceedingly instructive. So far as there can be an outcome in ever-recurring events, it is the outcome of a tremendous social and political struggle. Sir, it hardly suits the occasion to refer to the origin of this struggle or to trace its progress, but the effort for popular government is discernible through many centuries. As we come nearer to our time it becomes more intelligent and determined. Our great Declaration was its best pronunciamento. Our written Constitution was its most concise expression. The events that produced them founded a normal school for patriotism. In it was perfected a new departure. Fealty to lord and king was supplanted by fealty to human rights. Proclaimed in the council chamber, these rights had to be won in the field. Yorktown completed our first endeavor at nation-making; we graduated masters at Appomattox. The first proclaimed the prowess of the Confederation, the second testified to the strength of the Union. Both astonished the world. Both transpired in Virginia.
Conspicuous in this analogue of our history were the Lees of Virginia. They have a lineage too illustrious for praise. Its escutcheons are too bright for adornment. It reaches back for centuries loyal to honor and to truth. Him we mourn to-day was a gifted scion of that great name. His highest distinction was won in Confederate arms.
Thank God, I can now speak of our civil war with satisfaction and not with reluctance. I allude to it with a satisfaction akin to that one feels in gazing upon a plain fertilized by an inundation. Flowers spring up, birds sing, and golden grain nods in the sunlight. But our civil war was more like an upheaval than like a deluge. It shook every timber in the grand structure with which we had surprised the world. Other governments have fallen of their own weight; our matchless edifice could not be shattered by an explosion.
Both contestants stood guard over the popular principle and would not let it be mined. They were instructed in the same school and by the same teacher. Local privilege was as strong with the one as with the other. The dispute was whether the Union should endure the strain of the race and slavery issue. The long and vexing argument was adjourned to the battlefield. In no other respect was our system even threatened. This close connection at the root made the angry divergence begin to assimilate at the very outset.
So kindred was it, that when Grant met his heroic opponent at Appomattox he says that he fell into such a reunion with him that he had twice to be reminded of the occasion that brought them together. He then conformed to it, and treated those who surrendered not as conquered, but as reclaimed. Lincoln went further. He found a Confederate legislature ready-made to his hand, and promptly permitted it to repair the situation. In thus mingling the gray with the blue he was neither color-blind nor purblind. He knew what he was doing. He desired to blend them, as emblematic of a more perfect Union. Possibly the Confederate legislature suited his purpose best.
After this testimonial it looks to me something like treason to that great name to try to exclude Confederate worth from the annals of the strife or from the glory of its grand consummation. Neither act nor actor can be profitably spared.