Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1888-05-17

! III lHc ooildlb. Inc hepuDucdn party,
in the moment of its triumph, deserted
every principle for which it had so
gallantly commended. and with trembling
hands of fear laid its convictions on the
alter of compromise
The Old Guard numbering but sixty
five in the House, stood as firm as the
500 at Thermopyl@. Thaddeus Ste-
vens-as maliciously right as any other
man was ever wrong-refused to kneel.
Owen Lovejoy, remembering his broth
er's noble blood, refused to surrender,
and on the edge of disunion, i'm the
shadow of civil war, with the air filled
with sounds of dreadful preparation,
while the Republican party was retrac-
ing its steps Roscoe Conkling voted no.
This puts a wreath of glory on his
tomb. From that vote to the last mo-
ment of his life he was champion of
equal rights, stanch and stalwart. From
that moment he stood in the front rank.
He never wavered and he never swerved.
BY his devotion to principle, his cour-
age, the splendor of his diction, by his
varied and profound knowledge, his
conscientious devotion to the great
cause, and by his intellectual scope and
grasp he won and held the admiration
of his fellow men.
Disasters in the field, reverses at the
polls did not and could not shake his
courage or his faith. He knew the
CHASTITY meaning of defeat. He knew
that the great ship that slavery sought
to strand and wreck was freighted
with the worlds sublimest hope. He
battled for Nations life, for the rights
of slaves, the dignity of labor, and the
liberty of all. He guarded with a
fathers care the rights of the hunted,
the hated and despised. He attacked
the savage statutes of the reconstructed
States with torrent of invective, scorh,
and execration. He was not satisfied
until the freedman was an American
citizen clothed with every civil right;
until the Constitution was his shield,
until the ballot was his sword. And
long after we are dead the colored man
in this and other lands will speak his
name in reverence and love. Others
wavered, but he stood firm; some were
false. but he was proudly true-fearless-
ly faithful unto death. He gladly,
proudly grasped the hands of colored
men who stood with him as makers of
our laws, and treated them as equals
and as friends. Tho cry of Social
equality" coined and uttered by the
cruel and the base, was to him the ex-
preston of great and splendid truth.
He knew that no man can be the equal
of the one he robs- that the intelligent
and unjust are not the superiors of the
| ignorant and honest-and he also felt,
and proudly felt, that if he were not too
great TO reach the hand of help and rec
ognition to the slave no other Senator
could rightfully refuse.
We rise by raising others, and he
who stoops above the fallen stands
erect. Nothing can be grander than to
sow the seeds of noble thoughts and
virtuous deeds, to liberate the bodies
and the souls of men, to earn the CRATE
| full homage of race. and then, in life's
last shadowy hour, to know and feel
that the historian of liberty will be COM
PEELED TO write your name. There are
no words intense enough-with heart
enough-to express my admiration for
the great and gallant souls who have in
every age and every land upheld tho
right, and who have lived and died for
| freedoms sake In our lives have been
the grandest years that man has lived
that time has measured by the flight of
worlds The history of that great party
that let the oppressed 90 free, lifted our
n ton from the depths of sayagery 10
freedoms cloudess heights, and tore
with holy hands from every law the
words that santifed the cruelty of man,
is the most glorious in the annals of our
race. Never before was there such a
moral exaltation-never party with a
purpose so pure and high. 1t was the
embodied conscience of Nation, the
enthusiasm of a people guided by wis
dom, the impersouation of justice, and
the sublime victory achieved loaded
even the conquered with all the rights
that freedom can bestow.
Roscoe Conkling was an absolutely
honest man. Honesty is the oak around
which all other virtues cling. Without
that they fall, and, groyeliug, die in
the weeds and dust. He believed that
a nation should discharge its obliga-
tons He knew that promise could
not be made often enough or emphatic
enough to take the place of payment
He felt that the promise of the Govern
ment was the promise of every citizen
that National obligation was per-
sonal debt, and that no possible COM
bination of words and pictures could
take the place of coin. He uttered the
splendid truth that "Tbe higher obliga-
tions among men are not set down in
writing, signed and sealed, but reside
in honor" He knew that reputation
was the sacrifice of honor--the death of
the National soul He knew that with
out character, without integrity there
is no wealth, and that below poverty,
below bankruptcy is the rayless abyss
of reputation. He upheld the sacred
ness of contracts, of pligbted National
faith, and helped to save and keep the
honor of his native land. This adds
another laurel to his brow.
He was the ideal representative faith
ful and incorruptible. He believed that
his constituents and his country were
entitled to he fruit of his experience, to
his best and highest thought No man
ever helH The stahaard OF responsibility
higher haL he. lie voted according to
his Judgment, his conscience. He made
no bargains-he neither bought nor
sold.
To correct evils, abolish abuses and
ipaugurate reforms he believed was not
ONLY ''e duty but the privilege of leg
is.ator. He neither sold nor mortgaged
himself. He was in Congress daring
the years of vast expenditure, of war
and waste, when the credit of the Ma
ton was loahed to individuals, when
claims were thick as leaves in June,
when the amendment of a statute, the
change of a single word, meant millions,
and when empires were given to cor
porations. He stood at the summit of
his power-peer of the greatest
leader tried and trusted. He had the
tastes of Prince, the fortune of
peasant, and vet he never sweryed. No
corporation was great enough or rich
enough to purchase him. His vote
could not be bought "for all the sun
sees, or the close earth wombs, or the
profound seas hide His hand was
never touched by any bride and on his
soul there never was sordid STAN
Poverty was his priceless crown. Above
his marvellous intellectual gifts-above
all place he ever reached-above the
ermine he refused-rises his integrity
like some great mountain peak, and
there it stands, firm as the earth be-
meath, pure as the stars above.
He was great lawyer. He under
stood the framework. the anotomy,
No. Ia Il T.