Bellevue gazette. [volume] (Bellevue City, N.T. [i.e. Neb.]) 1856-1858, 1857-08-27
The Late Senator Rusk.

All in Washington were horror-stricken
this morning by the announcement, per
telegraph, of the suicide of Senator Thorn
as J.. Rusk, of Texas, by shooting himself
through the head with a rife, which &C.
Cured at his home on the 29th of July,
ultimo. AS yet no particulars of the cir
cumstances under which this awful event
took place, are known to the public of the
Atlantic States. Those who knew him
intimately-and none knew him thus ex-
cept to love and revere him-will alone
fail to be surprised at the event. Previ-
Gus to his advent in the U. S. Senate in
1916, he was distinguished almost alone
as a pioneer soldier, in which capacity his
courage, his good sense and u~nvarying
urbanity won him universal popularity in
Texas, where the remarkable powers of
his expansive mind we're then as un-
known to the public as elsewhere, except
to the few who witnessed the proceedings
of the (Texas) Convention of 1916 to
form q State constitution. In the Senate
of the United States his acquisition of
great me as a statesman was as slow
and l sular, as sure. Daniel Webster,
shortly before his death, repeatedly pro-
nounced his to be the greatest intellect
among the members of that body, and such
was the opinion held by the leading minds
in this city from that day to this. He had
as great anlipathy to oratorical display as
to p~artizan politics, which enduced him at
all times to eschew oratorical demonstra-
tons upon mere political subjects, though
always firm, and faithful as the most faith
full, to the principles and measures of the
Democratic party. Among the leading
politicians of the party, more especially in
public life, it was generally conceded tina,
in case of a protracted contest in the next
Democratic National Convention over the
Presidential nomination, the choice would
have been most likely to fall upon him, as
being obnoxious to ne interest in the party,
and most confided in by all.
We knew him well throughout the las
nineteen years, and never knew any othel
public nan to be more entirely unselish
so conscientious in all his acts, public Of
private, or to possess more traits of char.
acter. AS a father, a husband, and Q
neighbor, he was loved as few men are.
In early life he frequently gave way t
, ungovernable temporary fits of dissipation
wherein he lost his usual command owe
himself. Later, however, he gradual,
gained control of his passion for such out
bursts, until they had become very rar
: with him. While in them his friends of
d ten feared that he would iniure himsel
S with weapons, and were careful as far a
n possible to keep them out of his reach.
His wife died some eighteen month
: ago, and thus the strongest cord binding
him to life was snapped. He grieved owe
her death like a child for its mother. ]
preyed upon him at all times, affectin
him daily more and more, though few
indeed were aware that the loss of III
sharer of his early toils-the best and tru
n est friend he ever had, the soother of a
e his troubled moments, the object of his pu
rest and most devoted affections for twer
ty five years or more-had broken hi
II heart; for he loathed parade in such maj
IT tiers as in everything else. That in a f
of undue excitement he should have CON
mitted suicide does not surprise us. II
leaves no ADLER American statesman be
N hind him, and the world will never behol
a more conscientious and upright publ
many WASHINGTON Star,