Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-05-17
SPLENDID TRIBUTE TO MR. C0NKLING
Extracts from Col. r. G. Inger-
soils Grafton at Albany, N. Y.

Z IN the OdWD OF Ine eTeIOTlldilOQ-dl Il Illll'
when the country needed men of pride, o.
principle, and courage. The institution
of slavery had poisoned all the springs OF
power Before this crime ambition fel
upon its knees politicians, Judges, cler
gymen, and merchant princes bowed low
and humbly, with hats in their hands,
The real friend of man was denounced
as the enemy of his country-the real
enemy of the human race was called a
statesman and patriot. Slavery was
the bond and pledge of peace, of union
and national greatness. The temple OF
American liberty was tinished-the auc-
tion-block was the cornerstone.
1t is hard to conceive of the utter de-
moraliZation, of the political blindness
and immortality, of the patriotic dishon-
esty, of the cruelty and degradation of a
people who supplemented the incompar-
able Declaration of Independence with
the fugitive slave law.
Think of the hOnored statesmen of
that ignoble time who wallowed in this
mire, and Who, decorated with dripping
filth, received the plaudits of their fellow
men. The noble, the really patriotic,
were the victims of mobS. and the shame
less were clad in the robes OF office
But let us speak no word of blame
let US feel that each one acted according
to his light, according to his darkness.
At last the conflict came. The hosts
of light and darkness prepared to meet
upon the fields of war. The question was
presented: Shall the Republic be slave
or free? The Republican party had tri-
umphed at the polls. The greatest man
in our history was President-elect. The
victors were appalled, they shrank from
the great responsibility of success. In
the presence of rebellion they hesitated
they offered to return the fruits of vic
tory. Hoping to avert war they were
willing that slavery should become i'm
mortal. An amendment to the Consti-
tuition was proposed, to the effect that
no subsequent amendment should ever
be made that in any way should inter
fere with the right of man to steal his
fellow-men.
This, the most marvellous proposition
ever submitted to Congress of civilized
men, received in the House an over
whelming majority, and the necessary
two-thirds in the Senate. The Republi-
can party, in the moment of its triumph,
deserted every principle for which it had
so gallantly contended, and with trem-
bling hands of fear laid its convictions
on the altar of compromise.
The Old Guard, numbering but sixty
five in the House, stood as firm as the
three hundred at Thermopyle. Thad-
deus Stevens-as maliciously right as
any other man was ever wrong-refused
to kneel. Owen Lovejoy, remembering
his brothers noble blood, refused to sur
render, and on the edge of disuniOn, in
the shadow of civil war, with the air filed
with sounds Of dreadful preparation,
while the Republican party was retrac-
ing its steps, Roscoe Conkling voted no.
This puts wealth of glory on his tomb.
From that vote to the last moment of his
life he was champion of equal rights,
stanch and stalwart.
From this moment he stood in the
front rank He never wavered and he
never swerved. By his devotion to prin-
ciple-his courage, the splendor of his
his varied and profound
knowledge, his conscientious devotion
to the great cause, and by his intellectual
scope and grasp, he won and held the
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 ghast-
ly 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, scorn
and execration. He was not satisfied
until the freedman was an American cit
iZen-clothed with every civil right-un-
til 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 rever-
ence and love. Others wavered, but he
stood firm; some were false, but he was
proudly true-fearlessly faithful until
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 friends. The cry of "social
coined and uttered by the cruel
and the base, was to him the expression
of great and splendid truth. He eknew
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
he also felt, and proudly
felt, that if he were not too great to reach
the hand of help and recognition 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 grateful hon.
age of a race-and then, in life's last |
shadowy hour, know and feel that the
historian of Liberty will be compelled to
write your name.
There are no words intense enough
with heart enough-to express MY admir- |
alton for the great and gallant souls who
have, in every age and every land, upheld |
the 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
by the flight of worlds. The
history of that great party that let the
go free-that lifted our Nation
from the depths of savagery to Freedoms
cloudless heights, and tore with holy
hands from every law the words that
sanctified 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 purpose so pure