MR. PRESIDENT After a short interval we are called upon again to recognize the hand of death doing his work amongst us. Another of our colleagues has obeyed the summons. Clothed in his robes of office, he has finished the work assigned him and sleeps amongst the fathers, himself one of that patriarchal host. "The hand of the reaper took the ear that was hoary," ripe, matured and perfect. A long, distinguished, useful life, filled with the service of his country, always forming a portion of its proudest history, has closed amidst its continuous duties closed amidst scenes of domestic endearment, varied by obedience to the call of his country in her hour of need, and at the last illuminated by the radiance of that friendship which legitimately surrounds the great and good man at the end of his life. When I saw him in this hall, a reverential feeling pervaded and possessed me. I listened to his counsels, learned from his experience, and never before so fully realized the conception of the poet who assigned to Nestor the office of composing the difficulties and solving the perplexities which beset the Grecian council before the walls of Troy. We have all been impressed with the unimpaired vigor of his mind, as well as his kind and dignified concession on measures where there was no sacrifice of principle to expediency. None of us have forgotten the Roman dignity with which he changed his vote upon a great measure in order that the law might go forth to the country with the prestige of unanimity.
The son of a revolutionary sire, whose life constitutes so much of the history of that struggle, the fire of patriotism early kindled upon the altar of his heart, continued to glow and burn with increasing intensity, until his name, now enrolled with that of his distinguished father; will descend with renewed claims to the gratitude of posterity.
Of the political history of President Tyler it is not my purpose to extend my remarks; we have already heard most interesting details, as far as time would permit; for should anything more than a reference be made to a career of fifty years, with small intermission, in the service of a country which delighted to honor him, it would protract these proceedings to an undesirable length. To the biographer and the historian this work must be assigned. From the year 1811, as a legislator, a lawyer, and the chief magistrate of the State, in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the presidential chair, he filled all the offices in the gift of the people until he attained the highest which they could bestow. Educated in and belonging to the Republican State-rights school, he never failed in all his public acts to recognize those doctrines, reserving for the close of his honored and useful life the crowning act which made those doctrines practical and operative. Retiring from the presidency, like Cincinnatus, to his farm, within the circle of a loving family, he was cheered by the hope, which all wise men cherish, of that greatest of earthly blessings, that he might close his course in peace and quietness. This realization was denied him, for his country called for him again, and he once more responded to her call, in the last, the noblest service of his life. For whilst we admire the stern consistency of his public life; his resistance of the Missouri compromise upon the broad grounds of its unconstitutionality; his solitary vote in the Senate against the Force bill; the sagacity which he displayed in the great measures of his administration; the wisdom with which, in utter disregard of party tactics, he surrounded himself with the greatest and best of councillors; the moral courage with which he emancipated the people from the thraldom of the money-changers, whose fetters were well nigh fastened upon them; the separation of the Treasury from the banks, and the annexation of the vast domain of Texas, they all pale before the history of the last year of his life.
Troubles, which many feared and some anticipated with the certainty of conviction, came upon us, and the veteran once more, in armor of proof, led his countrymen to resistance. He saw that honor and independence were perilled, and his great soul knew not how to hesitate. As an ambassador of Virginia to the President of the United States, he demanded, with a dignity becoming his mission, why it was that the guns of Fortress Monroe, built upon Virginia's soil for her protection, were turned against her bosom—a fact which, although existing, was by that functionary denied. As a member of the State Convention, and as President of the Peace Congress, his high purpose and continual claim of the rights of the South marked him as the "Chief of the Fathers," on whose firmness we could rely and in whose wisdom we could confide. The masterly speech delivered on his return to the convention from the Peace Congress, which exposed the impotent and degrading conclusions proposed by that body to his State, will be long remembered. It was the great point in that discussion, it was a triumph over the last effort at submission, and our lamented colleague, looking secession and its consequences in the face, feared not to advise and to lead in the consummation which now presents us to the world as the Confederate States of America. The great master of English poetry has said of glory, "that, like a circle in the water, it never ceases to enlarge itself till by broad spreading it disperses to naught." However beautiful and true this illustration may be in general, it fails in describing the glory won by our illustrious colleague; the centrifugal force increased with the extent of the surface of its influence, each succeeding circle stronger and more distinct, until the last, rising into a wave, reflected a light which adorned its whole circumference with the radiance of the bow of promise. Our eyes have been refreshed by that light; we have witnessed the vigor of his thoughts and the power of his eloquence, equalling, if not surpassing, his best days. His name will be venerated as long as civil liberty and national honor is cherished by the South. To say more of this great passage of his life would be to attempt to "add fragrance to the violet, to gild refined gold, to give smoothness to ice." His name is embalmed in the record of these events, and their irresistible logic will establish his claims to the reverence of mankind.
But, sir, I must be allowed a few remarks upon the high social and moral qualities of President Tyler. This is a theme on which it is delightful to speak; it is impressed upon my heart by the recollection of early kindness, the origin of a friendship of more than forty years—the value of which is more justly appreciated when cut off by the cold hand of death. I am not alone in the sadness with which this event, connected with similar circumstances, has filled my bosom. The same acknowledgment of kindness, and a similar sense of obligation, is made and felt by many who now listen to me. The number who thus feel is limited only by the extent of his vast acquaintance with the generations which have grown up around and about him. It was often said of him by some of those who reviewed his unprecedented success in securing the confidence of his countrymen and the high positions to which he attained, to have been a fortunate, a lucky man. This is an unphilosophical, a contracted view of his character and the current of events in which he mingled. Luck and fortune, sir, are heathen words, and the want of them is usually the excuse for failures when the cause was to be found in those who have failed. His kind heart and generous instincts, combined with a thorough knowledge of human nature, taught him that it was as necessary to happiness and usefulness to increase his stock of friends as for a merchant to enlarge his capital when he extended his business. Time and death were continually curtailing the number of those who were young when he was young; and he renewed his strength by generous and disinterested attentions to the rising generation. To inspire them with hope when launching upon the ocean of life, to aid virtuous enterprise, to cheer the desponding, and give the light of his experience to those who sought it, was his peculiar delight. He wisely, benevolently regulated his intercourse with the young. “Age is dark and unlovely," and the verdure which may adorn it, and the flowers which may relieve its barren aspect, must be borrowed from them. He who, conscious of the advantages of age and experience, withdraws himself from those to whom he might be a benefactor, repelling their efforts to conciliate his regard and his confidence, must expect a lonely old age. He will stand like some solitary tree in an extensive plain, the sport of every blast, the victim of the storm, whilst the friend and counsellor of the young will, like the monarch of the woods, be surrounded by a young forest which shelters and protects it, reflecting the brightness of their foliage, borrowing vitality from their proximity, and, at the appointed time, sink so gracefully that we are scarcely conscious of its decay. Our lamented friend appreciated all this, and, during his long and distinguished life, often felt the support of hosts who, won by former kindness, rallied to his support when fiercely assailed and almost overcome. Such events were of necessity connected with such a political life as his.
Universally bland and conciliatory in his intercourse with the people, he scorned the artifices and the aims of the demagogue, regarding him as the worst, the most dangerous and unprincipled enemy of human liberty. Fixed in his opinions of constitutional law and the sound principles of its administration, he was sometimes constrained to abandon party associations, always avowing, as the reason for such an abandonment, that the party with which he was associated had departed from the principles of their organization. He was thus unjustly reproached with a disregard of party allegiance and that adherence to its discipline which, in the eyes of many, is worse than treason to the State. He looked above such paltry calculations, and was thus more than once in a minority,—a word, the very thought of which carries dismay to a trading politician,—a word which had no terrors for him. Sustained by the truth and the conviction that he was right, the hour of desertion by those in high places was the moment of his triumph, when, looking above and beyond the clamors which surrounded him, he, by a talismanic power, surrounded himself with an impregnable array of wisdom, talent and statesmanship which secured more and greater advantages to the South than any administration within the last half century. With no party, either in the Senate or House of Representatives, he conducted the affairs of the Republic with unexampled success, and has lived to silence all complaint and unite all hearts in a common mourning at his death.
President Tyler was not vindictive, he was not unjust, he was not even harsh in his judgment when he might complain of wrong. He outlived all misconstruction of his motives, and his last days were illuminated by the undivided admiration of his countrymen. He knew the value of kindness and loved to speak kind words. "Kind words are the brightest flowers of earth's existence; they make a very paradise of the humblest home this world can show. They are jewels beyond price, and more precious to heal the wounded heart and make the weighed down spirit glad than all the blessings earth can give." Here was the secret of his luck, the cause of his good fortune. His hosts of friends increased with his years; here his wealth was inexhaustible; he drew upon a bank that always honored his drafts-the love, the gratitude of those endeared by kind offices, "for gratitude is the music of the heart when its cords are touched by the breezes of kindness." From associations like these he has sunk gracefully to the tomb, and in this view of the subject, why should we grieve?-sorrow we may, but murmur we dare not.
For him was not reserved physical decay to combine compassion with our reverence; no twilight of the mind, like a polar sunset, making darkness visible. But with form erect and step elastic, he moved amongst us, and was of us, while his mind, like the tropic sun, retained its size and brightness, until it sunk beneath the wave of death. We have none of those painful recollections which often intrude themselves upon us, when the great and good sink into senility and vegetate out of existence.
"Life ebbs from such old age unmark'd and silent
As the slow neaptide leaves yon stranded galley.
Once she rock'd merrily at the least impulse
That wind or wave could give her; but now her keel
Is settling in the sand. Her mast has ta'en
An angle with the sky from which it shifts not.
Each wave receding, shakes her less and less,
Till bedded on the strand, she shall remain
Useless as motionless."
No such sad finale awaited him. Like a gallant ship returning home after a long and prosperous passage over the ocean, the haven is reached, the anchor let go, and life's voyage is ended.
Sir, this scene is to me a painful but instructive lesson. As we advance in years, the loss of those long regarded as friends is indeed irreparable. To the older of us it announces that the time is short, our duties urgent; what we do must be done quickly and done well, remembering our duty to God and to posterity; to us all, that we are strangers, pilgrims, travellers for a short season, surrounded by fearful responsibilities, and the certainty of death. Let us look above and beyond every consideration, but that which we profess to represent, the interests and welfare of our bleeding country. Let our fortune be hers; her safety and honor our highest aim. Rejecting all lower motives, let us emulate his patriotism, who, with all the endearments of his family around him, could cheerfully die in her service, leaving his widow and infant children to his country and his God. Two of our number, after a brief illness have bowed their heads and died; let us seek the Christian's hope as the assurance of the Christian's heaven.
Sir, a great light has been extinguished in this hall; but there is a home once brightened by it which has lost much of its brilliancy. The mild, the lovely ray, which softened and relieved that stronger light, now in sadness shines alone. I witnessed its genial influence in the face of the sick, the dying statesman. I heard him speak of his wife and his young children, and commit them to God and his country. May he who has said "leave your father. less children to me smile upon and bless the bereaved household with his blessing, which maketh rich and addeth no sorrow therewith.
SOURCES: Lyon Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, pp. 676-81; Congress of the Confederate States of America, Proceedings on the Announcement of the Death of Hon. John Tyler, January 20, 1862, pp. 25-33.
