The Portland daily press., 1875-11-27
The Dead Vice-President.
FUNERAL SERVICES AT
WASHINGTON.
Address of DR.. Rankin.

luUuSh UuO WGdlueE was very uuldNOiopiS 'Aio
crowd in attendance was great and many were
unable to gain admission to the building a1!er
ten o'clock. The Senate chamber was heavily
draped in mourning and Immediately IN front
of the Vice Presidents table the cataiaique was
placed The desks having all been removed
from the chamber seats were arranged on the
floor for the President and Cabinet, Supreme
Court members of the Senate and House OF
REPRESENTATIVES, and other prominent persons.
At 10. % the body was taken from the rotunda
to the Senate chamber preceded by Rev. DR..
Sunderland, Sergeant-at-Arms French, the
committee Of arrangements and pail bearers.
followed by the relatives of the deceased, among
them his brother, Mr.. Goliath and wife. The
casket,was carried by twelve soldiers and as
soon as it was placed on the catafalque two
privates of the marine corps in full uniform
took position at the head and foot and stood at
rest throughout the entire service. Numerous
crosses and crowns of white flowers were plac-
ed on the coffin, having been sent to the Capt.
toll this morning by friendslof the deceased.
AS the body was brought into the chamber
all persons upon the floor arose and Rev. DIR.
Sunderland read the passage, Lord make me
to know Thy way, Sc" and other selections
placad on the catafalvue the President accom-
panied by Secretaries Fish, Bristow, Belknap,
Robson and Chandler entered and were as
signed to the front row of seats opposite those
occupied by the Supreme Court, all of whom
were clothed in their robes of office. The COM
mittee of arrangements and the Massachusetts
committee occupied seats in the rear of the
Supreme Court and behind them were seated
nearly all the members OF the diplomatic
corps headed by Sir Edward Thornton, and
behind them were citizens of Massachusetts,
temporarily residing in Washington. On the
other side of the chamber the relatives of the
deceased were seated in the rear of the Presi-
dent and Cabinet and next to them members
Adjt. Gen. Townsend, Quartermaster Gen. In
CALLS Judge Advocate Gen. Holt, and Associ-
ate Judge Advocate Gen. Dunn, Gems. Pc
louise, Van Vliet, Meir, Barnes. Humphrey
and other army officers, eX-Attorney Gen.
Williams. Commissioners Pratt, Frederick
Douglass and many other persons of promi-
nence. The vacant chair of the Vice. President
was heavily draped in mourning. f. w. Fer
ry of Michigan, President pro tempore of the
Senate, occupied seat at the clerks desk. In
spite of the very incement weather the larger
part of the audience was composed of ladies.
Among those in the diplomatic gallery were
Mrs Grant. Mrs. Fish, Mrs. Belknap, and
Mrs BriStow.
nounced that appropriate services would now
be performed. Rev. DR.. Sunderland standing
at the clerks desk then read some more brief
selections Of scripture, after which, Rev. DR..
Rankin delivered the following discourse:
The nations emblem. which his twenty years
of public service contributed SO much to leave
high and advanced, aye to cleanse of every
stigma and shame in the worlds eye and in the
eye Of posterity, droops tenderly above him in
this honored place where the chief seat is now
vacant-a place which has SO often echoed to
his voice, and where he has always stood un.
finchingly, the incorruptable defender of hui
man dignity and human rights. We, the high
est and lowest, his fellow citizens, heirs alike
of the heritage of freedom which he has done
so much to transmit unimpaired and replenish-
ed with new life, gather for brief solemnity.
1t is fitting that our words be few.
Henry Wilson was the product of New Eng
land. If there was iron in his blood, if there
was strength in his muscle, if there vas back
ton of the sterile and rocky soil, to the cold
and inclement weather, the stern and serious
aspects of his native New England. Aye more,
Henry Wilson was the product Of the New
England idea that man is man and nothing
can be greater; and that when God made man
in His own image He made him to have domin-
ion, first over himself and then over just as
vast an empire among men as, under God, he
could subject to himself. Henry Wilson was
ambitious. Let us thank God that he was.
The speaker then proceeded to trace the early
life of the. Vice President. Henry Wilson was
ambitious, but his ambition was ambition to
serve, to bear burdens, to assume responsible !
ity, to perform labors, to stand in the front
ranks, not SO much that he might lead as that
ne might somewhere and at some time do the
country woman service like that of Washing
ton and Jefferson and Adams, and that he
might enter into the labors of those men into
whose spirit he has been baptized.
In making up our estimate Of this mans
character, and the vast achievements of his
life, let us remember that when Charles Sum-
ner, the Chevalier Bayard of freedom, whose
white colors were always seen in the thickest
of the fight and stained too with his own blood,
was studying classics in the Boston SCHOOLS
and walking beneath the favored shade
of Harvard a lad to whose moral intuition as
a Free Soil movement he was TO owe his first
seat in the United States Senate, and who was
to become his worthy associate and compeer in
this foremost body of the nation. was earning
his livelihood by day and storing his mind by
snfre, ana tnaJ when CHARLES Sumner was sit
ting at the feet of such men as Judge Story,
was in the law school at Cambridge; was trav-
elling and residing in Europe, and when he
was drinking at the fountain heads, both at
home and abroad, principles of International
and constitutional law, Henry Wilson was work.
ing in the shoe working shop at Natick until
up of his fellow workngmen, slowly lifting
himself up until he became the man whom
Massachusetts delighted TO honor In the great
cluse of human freedom. 1t is beautiful to see
how these two great men OF Massachusetts,,
born one year apart, starring SO differently in
life, educated SO differently, supported and
complimented each other In these two men,
SO unlike and yet so representative OF the eX-
tremes of American society, was the New Eng
land idea incorporated and represented on this
believed. He believed in it as the cause of
man. Aye, he believed in it also as the cause
of God. In fact Mr. Wilson never could adj
vocate anything in which he did not believe.
He was not of that facile make that could put
on semblauce OF sincerity and earnestness.
At the basis of all his actions must be the sim
cere moral conviction. He never could take
what he considered the wrong side of ques-
ton. He never was afraid of being lonely
when he was on the right side
which great men render to sacred cause.
There is another aspect Of this subject. No
great man ever helps great cause so much as
that great cause developes, elevates and en-
of Henry Wilson that he had the moral in
stinct to espouse the cause of freedom, to send
down the roots Of maturing manhood into such
strong and generous soil, and all the buffetings
and storms of the conflict which he encounter
ed only made him stronger and more heroic
He did not spouse cause tolride on it to pow
er. lie took it for better or worse to ride with
it or fall with it, and when this cause rose he
rose upon its breast, and that partly because
the cause itself and his conservation to it had
made him worthy to rise, had made him of its
truest and best opponents and champions, and
if other men have failed under the secret tests
which he withstood-it may be partly because
they were never under tuition to the same holy
you tell me tina. Henry Wilson devoted his
whole life to the cause of human freedom, that
there was no danger he would not dare, no toll
he would not endure, no self-sacrifice he would
not make to advance it and to make its prin-
cipes permanent, then you have explained to
me the phenomenon of such man.
Mr.. Wilson had remarkably active endow-
ments-prodiglous energy, industry and per-
sistence, the profoundest conception of the
sacredness and value of free institutions, a
prophetic instinct as to ultimate trumphs,
but was all the time breathing the atmosphere
and under tuition to the principles of the cause
which he advocated and that gave glow and
glory to his character and his life, as when the
morning sun greets the uDlifted dome of this
structure within which he served and where he
surrendered his spirit back to the God who
gave it.
Turning to Mr.. Wilson's Christian character,
DR.. Rankin said; sit was natural that Henry
Wilson should become Christian the very mo-
ment he gave his careful attention to the claims
of the Lord Jesus as teacher and a Saviour
1t was like him when he became Christian to
confess it before men. He never suppressed
his convictions of duty; he had never been
wanting in the outward morality of life. A
pure minded husband, a tender father, a duti-
full son, firm and untring advocate of the
temperance cause, man strictly straight for.
ward and upright in all his dealings with men,
but he saw thatlneither upon the basis of pub
lie service or private worth could he stand be-