Part 2

Here was a man that could not bend or yield, alloy or qualify, surrender or retreat. Here was an incorruptibility proof against bribes, and too original in legislatives halls, an originality, if not of suggestion yet of heroic act. Here was an obstinacy not of will, but idea; for ideas are more obstinate than any human will in the world. Here was a necessity not of whim but duty, such as was laid on the great apostle to the Gentiles to preach the Gospel, and drove Luther to the Diet of Worms. I aim at simple truth as I speak. Such stubbornness will surely accomplish great results and always fetch an echo from the human breast. I abstain from overstatement. Love must not falsify or exaggerate. It is no compliment to exalt another by belying ourselves. Our friend belongs to history now; and the offerings of a discriminating respect are part of its material. I must think of him less as hewn by the Divinity than carving himself. Like one of the straws a swallow bears to build its nest, let my poor word go to the fashioning by many hands, of the niche of his fame. His head had its limits; but there was no outside to his heart! The great man's servant, secretary, keeper of his house, farmer of his estate, has something valuable to say of him; and the humblest coeval's contribution will not be refused or despised. Voicing the feeling of no party, for him or against, I but touch the ground of that secret respect to his character and aim which not only favorers but foes are constrained, unitedly, unanimously, instinctively, to pay.

"Little heeds he what is said; They have done with all below;"

Such were the commonplaces of the old theology founded on the notion of a senseless rest of the dead, or their departure to an infinite distance from our earthly abode. But we reconsider such views. He, who was so sensitive to his fellow-citizens' regard, can hardly be insensible now, or unconscious of our sincere honor. I would speak as in his presence and to his ear! His clear voice will be no longer heard in our assemblies, or his commanding form cast its welcome shadow through our streets.

But the moral stature, with which, as in mental height, he transcended the common sons of men, shall be seen and felt.

Nor can the recollection for ages pass how, as a brave knight, with superb courage, horsed on ideas for the saving of the land, he flung defiance from boldness unsurpassed at the giant wrong,--that dragon and old serpent, the form Satan took for us, the _Barbarism of Slavery_, and _Slavery sectional not national_, as he entitled the greatest speeches he made. His somewhat artificial manner, method, and phrase only clothed or cloaked an indigenous force of conscience, which was a piece of nature, a divine monolith or monogram, if his intellect were not. His meaning no man, white or black, in the land doubted or could misunderstand.

If his forensic efforts had been to a nice taste better in some respects, the improvement might have made them in others for general effect worse or of less effect. They were at least faithfully prepared from a width of observation and stock of information seldom equalled, and set forth with a consecutive order of formal logic worthy of a master in the schools.

Twice has been his conspicuous entry into this town: first, after he was outraged for his freedom of utterance in his place; next, yesterday, in whatever connection the spirit may have with the forsaken robe which it cannot desert or lose all feeling for at once.

How, but as a man of principle, shall he stand for-ever in our memory and in the human mind? Let his name, like that of Washington, be a lasting rebuke to venality, selfish ambition, bribery, and all political intrigue! He is one more added to the band of blessed bigots which, wiser than any conformists, all our pilgrim fathers were.

"You can rest soon," he said to the familiar friend and companion in clerkly labor who was rubbing the hands fast growing cold in death. No chafing can restore what turns to the clay of which it was made. The flowers you form into his name will fade, but to cherish his honor we will never cease. Let his body be "buried in peace: his name liveth evermore."

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FOOTNOTES:

[A] "Will chloroform make the operation less beneficial?" he asked. "I could not lie," said the Doctor, "and said, Yes."--"Then I will not take it," he replied.

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