Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-05-10
NGERS0LL'S EL0QUENCE.
HE DELIVERS A BRILLIANT EULoGY ON
ROSCOE coNKLlNG.

| in Language of Remarkable Beauty and
Fervor-A Verbatim Report.
| ALBANY, n Y, May 1O--Col. Robert G..
| Ingersoll delivered IA Inagniiicently eloquent
address last night before both houses of the
| legislature, and 1900 citizens of this state,
| on the late Hon. Roscoe Conkling The ad
dress should have been heard to be thorough
| ly appreciated but the following is verba-
| tim report Of nearly the whole Of the ora
/ ton.
| Roscoe Conkling, a great man, an orator, a
statesman a lawyer, distinguished citizen Of the
republic, 10 the zenith OF his fame and power, has
reached his journeys end, and we are met here in
| the city of his birth 10 pay our tribute To his
worth and work He earned and held proud
position In the public thought lie stood for in
| dependence, for courage, and above all for abso
| lutte integrity and his name was known and hon
ored by many millions of his fellow men
In the presence of death the good man Judges as
| he would be judged. He knows that men ARE only
| fragments that the greatest walk In shadow, and
that faults and failures mingle with the lives OF
| all In the grave should be buried the prcjudices
| and passions born Of conflict Charity should
hold the scales In which are weighed the deeds OF
| men. Pecuiiarities traits born of locality and
| surroundings-thr are but the dust OF the race
these are accidents, drupery clothes, fashions,
| that have nothing TO do with the man except to
| hide his character. They are the clouds that
| cling to mountains, Time gives clearer vision.
| That which is merely local fades away The
words Of envy are forgotten, and all there is Of
| sterling worth remains. lie who was called n
partisan is patriot. The revolutonist and out
law the founders of nations and he who was re-
garded scheming, selfish politician becomes a
statesman, philosopher, whose words and deeds
shed light.
Fortunate is that nation great enough to know
the great. When great man dies-one who has
nohly fought the battle Of n life who has been
faithful to every trust, and has uttered his high
est, nObest thought one who has stood proudly
by the right in spite of jeer aud taunt neither
stopped by foe nor swerved by friend in honor
ing him, in speaking words Of praise and love
above his dust We pay tribute TO ourselves,
How poor this world would bo without its
graves, without the memories of its mighty dead
Only the voicrless speak forever Intelligence
integrity and courage are the great pillars that
support the state. Above all the citizens of u
free nation should honor the brave and ndepcnd
ent man-thc man of stainless integrity, OF will
and intellectual force such men are the Aliases
on whose mighty shoulders rest the great fabric
of the republic. Flatterers, cringers, crawlers
time serN ers are the dangerous citizens of de
mocracY They who gain applause and power by
pandering to the mistakes, the preiudices and
passions of the multitude are the enemies Of lib
erty.
When the intelligent submit 10 the clamor Of
many anarchy begins, and the republic reaches
hition, atters the base and calumniates the great
while the true patriot who will do neither, is
often sacrificed.
Nothing is grander than when n strong, intrepid
man breaks chains, levels walls, and breasts the
many headed mob like some great cliff that meets
and mocks the innumerahe pillows of the sea. The
politician hastens to agree with the majority in
sists that their prejudice is patriotism, that their
ignorance is wisdom-not that he loves them, but
because he loves himself. The statesman the real
reformIer points out the mistakes of the multi
tude, attacks the prejndices of his countrymen,
laughs at their follies denounces their cruelties,
enlightens and enlarges their minds and educates
the conscience-not because he loves himseii, but
because he loves and serves the right aud wishes
TO make his country great and free. With him de
feat is but a spur to further effort. He who
fuses to stoop, who cannot be hrihed by the prom
ise of success, or the fear of failure; who walks
the highway of the right, and in disaster stands
erect, is the onlyvictor
Roscoe Conkling was a man of superb courage.
He not only acted without fear, but he had that
fortitude of soul that bears the consequences Of
e chs GSgrss l pursued without complaint lie was
he was proud. His knees inhcxible
the 'unwedgeable and gnarled oak but he was
not vain. Vanity rests on the opinion Of others,
pride on our own. The source of vanity is from
without; of pride, from within. Vanity is
that turns a willow that bends with every breeze;
pride is the oak that dehes the storm. One is
cloud, the other rock, one is weakness, the other
strength.
This imperious man entered public life in the
dawn of the aforementioned n time when the
country needed men of pride, of principle, and of
courage. The institution of slavery had poisoned
all the springs of power. Before this crime am
bition fell upon its politicians, judges,
clergymen, and merchant princes bowed low and
hurlbly, with their hats in their hands, The real
Ofn mi w denounced n & a of
country; the real enemy of the human race was
called n statesman and patriot. Slavery was the
bond and pledge of peace, of union, and national
greatness. The temple of American liberty was
finished the auction block was the corner stone.
1t is hard TO conceive of the utter demorallza-
ton of the political blindness and immortality, of
the patriotic dishonesty, of the cruelty and degra
dation of people who supplemented the incom
parable Declaration of Independence with the fug
tive slave law Think of the honored statesmen of
that gnoble time who widowed in this mire, and
who decorated with dripping filth, eceived the
plaudits of their fellow men, The noble, the really
patriotic, were the victims of mobs, and the
shameless were clad in robes of office.
But let us speak no word of blame-et us feel
that each one acted according to his light-ac
cording to his darkness
At last the conflict came. The hosts of light and
darkness prepared to meet upon the fields
of war. The question presented:
Shall the Republic be slave or free? The
Republican party had triumphed at the
polls. The greatest man in our history was pres
ident- elect. The victors were appalled-they
shrank from the responsibility of success. In the
presence of rebellion they hesitated, they offered
to return the fruits of victory. Hoping to avert
war they were willing that slavery should become
immortal. An amendment to the constitution
was proposed, to the effect that no subsequent
amendment should ever be made that in any way
should interfere with the right Of man to steal his
fellowmen, This, the most marvellous proposition
ever submitted to a congress of civilized men, re-
ceived In the house an overwhelming majority,
and the necessary two-thirds in the senate. The
Republican party in the moment Of its triumph,
deserted every principle for which It had so gal
lantly commended and with the trembling hands of
fear laid its convictions the altar of compro-
mise
The old guard, numbering but sixty five in the |
house, stood as firm as the 800 at Thermopyle |
Thaddeus Stevens-as maliciously right any |
other man was ever wrong-refused to kneeL Owen |
Loveioy remembering his brothers noble blood |
refused to surrender, and on the edge of disinon,
In the shadow Of civil war with the air filled with
sounds of dreadful preparation, while the Repub
lean party was retracing Its steps Roscoe Conk-
ling voted No. This puts a wreath Of glory on his
tomb. From that vote to the last moment of his
life he was champion of equal rights staunch
and stalwart From that moment he stood In the
front rank, He never wavered and he never
swerved BY his devotion to principle-his courage,
the splendor of his dction, by his varied and pro-
found knowledge his conscientious devotion TO |
the great cause auu Oy MS lnleNectllal scope ana
grasp, he won and held the admiration of his fel-
low men
Disasters in the field, revcrses 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 fOf 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 the despised
He attacked the savage statutes of the recon.
Structed states with torrent of invective scoru
and eNearaIinn He sntasnaa ,tr,tn tha