Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-06-27

and could try to jostle aside the presumptious
possessor Of recognized superiority; but his
envy, though IL laid open how, deeply his
selfllove was wounded, had hardly tinge of
malignity, and never led him to derelictions
for the sake of revenge. He did his frame
injustice when, later in life, he represented
himself as suffering from prosecutions on ac-
count Of his early zeal for independence he
was no weakling to whine about injured
feelings; he went to his task, bright and
CHEEKY, and brave; he was the hammer and
not the anvil; and II was for others to fear his
prowess and TO shrink under his blows. His
courage was unHinchiug in debate and every
where else he never knew what fear Isl; and
had he gone into the army as he once longed
to do he would have taken there the virtues
of temperance, decision, and intrepidity. To
his latest old age his spirit was robust buy
ant and Joyous; he saw ten times as much
pleasure as pain in the world; and after his
arm quivered and his eye grew dim, he was
ready to begin life anew and fight its battle
| over again. q nlil. nl
I'm his youth he fell among skeptics, read
Bolingbrokes works five times through and
accustomed himself to reason freely and
think boldly he esteemed himself a pro-
| found metaphysician, but only SKINNED the
speculations of others; though at FIRST des-
tined to be a minister, he became a rebel to
| Calvinism, and never had any very fixed re-
| ligious creed; but for all that he was q
staunch man of New England, and his fond
partiality to its people, its institutions, its
| social condition, and its laws, followed him
into Congress and its Committees, and social
life, tinctured his judgment, and clinched his
| prepossessons, but the elements in New
England that he loved most, were those which
were eminently friendly to universal culture
and Republican equality. A poor farmers
son, bent on making his way in the world, at
twenty years old beginning to earn his own
bread, pinched and starved as master of II
stingy country school, he formed early habits
of order and frugality, and steadily advanced
to fortune; but though exact in his accounts,
there was nothing niggardly in his thrift,
and his modest hospitality was prompt and
hearty. He loved homage, and it made him
blind to those who flattered him he gave his
confidence freely, and often unwisely; and
while he watched the general movement of
affairs with comprehensive sagacity, he was
| never calm observer ofindividual men. He
was of the choleric temperament; though his
frame was compact and large, yet from ply
| sical organization he was singularly sensitive;
could break out into uncomfortable rage, and
with all his acquisitions, nev4r learned to
rule his own spirit but his anger did not SO
much drive him to do wrong, as to do right
ungraciously. No man was less fitted to gain
| his end by arts ofindrection; he knew not
and almost thought aloud; whenever he
sought to win an uncertain person to his sup
| port, his ways of courtship were uncouth, so
| that he made few friends except by his weight
of character, ability public spirit, and in
| tegrity, was unapt as the leader of party,
and never appeared so well as when he acted
| himself
| Hating intolerance in all its forms, an i'm
| passioned lover of civil liberty as the glory
of man and the best evidence and the best re-
suit ofcivilzation, he Of sll men in Congress;
was mcomRarable as dogmatisti essentially
I iigft-minded: loving to teach with authority;
pressing onward unsparingly with his argu-
| ment; impatient of contradiction; unequaled
| as a positive champion of the right. He was
\ the Martin Luther of the American Revolu-
| ton, borne on to utter his convictions fear
lessly by an impulse which forbade his acting
otherwise. He was now too much in earnest
and too much elevated by the greatness OF
| his work, to think of himself; too anxiously
| desiring to aid, to disparage those who gave
it. In the fervor of his activity, his faults dis
appeared. His intellect and public spirit all
| the noblest parts of his nature, were called
into the fullest exercise, and strained to the
uttermost of their healthful power. Com
| bining more than any other, fairness of sight
| and fxedness of belief with courage and
power of utterance, he was looked up to as
the ablest debater in Congress. Preserving
some of the habits of the lawyer, he was re-
| duudant in words and cumulative in argu-
ment; but his warmth and sincerity kept
him from the affectations of pedant or a
rhetorician. Forbearance was no longer in
season; the irrepressible talent Of persever-
! ing, peremptory assertion was wanted /;
the more he was borne along by his own
| vehement impulses the better now his coun-
| try, humanity, the age the hour, demanded
that the right should be spoken out his high
| excitement had not the air Of passion, but
| appeared, as it was the clear perception OF
| the sublimity of his task. When, in the life
of statesman, were six months of more inn
portance TO the race, than these six months
in the career of John Adams? on. M