Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1852-11-12
From the MationaI InfeiEgeneer.
DeathIs Political hesson.

That kindly and charitable Latin maxim which
exhorts us not merely spare but if pos
sible to speak well ofthem, Is perhaps almost as
wise as it is gentle. For there are many whose
virtues remain to great degree, unfelt till they
no more; while, ON the other hand, there are peo-
pie who can do no justice to the living SO diff
cult isit, indeed, 10 judge men iairly while alive
that sagacious nation OF antiquity lthe hgypti,
ans) were accustomed (historans tell us) TO hold
regular Assizes of the Dead, where grave but no
doubt indugent men sat upon the departed, weigh.
ed all their conduct without passion, and assigned
the reputation which could not be fixed until then.
We imagneothat these must have been tribunals
that knew how to make large allowances for hui
man infrmites, listened little to the voices of envy
and detraction, and dwell, lovingly upon the good
and great qualities. In such Courts what witness
but must have hesiated to produce his rancors, TO
refuse giving up his preiudices, and to stand dis
armed by death of every injurious opinion towards
him who could harm him nomore2 Nothing, IN
deed. can be more pathetically right, as to most
men-for there are few in whom there as not
much good, or at least much matter for strong hui
man sympathies--than those mournful words ofthe
poet: %
OF them who, wrapped in earth SO cold,
| No more the smiling day shall view,
Should many q tender tale be told,
For many gentle thought is due.
All this is true of our common brothers OF the
earth; and of course still truer of such more
eminent part in the conflict of human life has ex-
posed to many personal Iesentments. And accor-
| shoSS oo-
| lemn sympathies with we have supposed as sure
to act in those Egyptian trials, one still sees, at the
death of great men, sudden sense of their true
merits seize upon their enemies themselves and turn
| obliQuy into admiration and sorrow, Such was,
some yearss since, the scene when Mi. Adams as
all at once struck down, before the nations eyes,
from that high place in the public councils which
he had SO long filled, il little combatvely, yet
ably, honestly and patrotically. Such was, far
more strikingy still, the funeral spectacle at the
death of him long in this country, from the very
s,renuousness of his public abilities and services,
| the foremost object of all love and hate, Henry
| Clay. Whateyero Of odioum men had said of him
while he lived, was cancelled by their praises and
their tears over his t,mb Sowas it the other day,
| in England. when the Iron Duke-that inf1exible
man who had, for SO many day, divided the reye
renee and the contumelies of the European world
without lining much TO care for either for any
| thing but his own idea Of his duty-yieded at last
to fate, the only thing which he ever yielded And
at this moment, we have once more the same con
soling if sad spectrcles of the posthumous justice
| which they, who had most denounced Daniel Webs
ter .re now (sincer: at LAST doing throughout the
land to Lis memory, as great and patriotic strtes-
man. 1t is easy to see that they will equally, by
like encomums and lamentations, expiate their in
justice 10 Winfield Scott, When that greatest OF
surviving public servants shall die-a- day OF re-
tributon and atonement, however, which IS yet,
| we trust, far off. ., f,s,.. 49,. ..-s