Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1885-06-04
From Conrier-Journal.
IIVWI IVWFtfT -UVFtF fItIIs
PEN PICTURES
Of Notable Characters Ia Inertcan
Public Life.
american
Matt Carpenter.
BY " SAvoYARD."

Matt Carpenter.
Matt. Carpenter stood in the front rank
of the men of his day. He would have been
conspicuous character in any age or cline.
His abilities, natural and acquired, were at
once solid and brilliant. He was one of the
most genial men that ever lived, and as gen.
erous as prince. There was nothing sordid
or selfish about him, and he had a sovereign
contempt for money, as he had for the arts
of the demagogue. Of all the members of
Congress who supported the measure known
as the salary grab" he alone commanded
the respect, if not the admiration, Of the
country, for the bold and aggressive stand
he took in the matter. As lawyer he was
the equal of the greatest, and Judge Black
said that his peer was never called 10 the bar
in England or America. In the Senate he
took high rank, and but for his carelessness
or contempt for parliamentary distinction he
would have been the master of the body.
He much resembed the great and accom-
plshed statesman of whom Dryden wrote:
Ofpleasing wit and frequent thought
Endowed by nature and by learning taught
To move assembly.
/ heard him once. His voice. flexible
and musical, was like the ripple of pellu-
cid brook. His language, chaste and ele-
CANT was like a chapter from Victor Hugo,
and his whole discourse as argumentative
as a decision of Mansfield, and as conyin-
cling as a speech of Webster. 1t was not till
then that could appreciate the compile
ment.that Ben johnson paid TO Bacon
"The fear of every man that heard him was
lest he should make an end" He died in
his prime, all too soon for his fame, and left
a void in the Senate that will not soon be
/ filled. lie was not fautless. He was hu-
man, an unmalicious Alcibiades. Balzac
says: " The worst Of all defects is to be free
from defects" The Redeemer said to the
young man who had kept the law, Some
thing yet thou lacketh." How true the
couplet of Keats:
Even bees, :he little almoner of spring bowers
Know there is richest fruit in poison flowers.
And Christ died for the man who slipped
that poison.
Roscoe ConIiing.
Roscoe Conkling is different order Of
man. He is more of the Roman than the
Grecian Carpenter more of the Grecian
than the Roman. One was a Nineteenth
century Alcibiades, the other Nineteenth
century Corolanus. In one respect the A
merican Congress has never produced the
peer Of Conkling. In facility, felicity and
fecundity of expression he stands without
rival and without peer in our parlimenta-
~ history To find his equal we must con-
suit the prose writings Of Edgar Allan Poe,
or the essays of the Spanish publicist, Cas-
tellar to find his superior we must 90 to
Shakespeare himself. The writer of this is
a Bourbon Democrat, intensely and radi-
caly Southern by birth, by education and
by association. He hates many ideas that
are held sacred in the North with an intense
and cordial hatred, but he can see excel
lencies even in an enemy. Mr.. Conkling
is master of pure and magnificent die
ton, such as flowed from the lips Of So
crates, and which Cicero declared Jupiter
would use if Jupiter spoke Greek"
The student of American eloquence should
consult the Congressional Globe for the ses-
sion Of 1912, or, perhaps, the session just
preceding, when the great debate on the
French Arms Sales came on in the Sen
ate The administration Of Gen. Grant, at
that session, withstoOd an opposition more
formidable for ability than any other Of our
Presidents ever contended with. Besides
the Democratic Senators, whose ranks con-
tanned Thurman, Bayard, Cassidy, McCree-
~ and Garrett Davis, the assailants num-
bered such great names as Sumner, Schurz,
! Trumbull, DOolittle and Upton. On the
side Of the Administration were Conkling,
Sherman, Fessenden, Morton and Freling-
huysen. But Conkling was the leader and
bore the brunt, and we'll did he sustain the
cause Of his chief In somewhat varied,
though not extensive reading, I have never
seen the wealth, power and beauty of the
English language better exemplifed than in
the speeches of Conkling during that debate,
which was protracted for more than fort
night. It was battle of the giants. Sum-
ner brought to that gladiatorial contest all
history and all literature Schurz, very
Mephis:opheles Of debate, brought all the
powers of his subtle and incisiye mind,
trained in the schools of both hemispheres /;
TrumbulI brought all the learning Of the
bar and all the illustrations Of precedent
and all the authority of statutes. But Conk-
ling met them all, received their blows in