The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1888-05-19

He was a student of the Constitu-
ton. He knew the boundaries of
State and Federal jurisdiction, and
no man was more familiar with those
great decisions that are the peaks
and promorotories, the headlands
and the beacons, of the law.
He was an orator-earnest, logical,
intense and picturesque. He laid
the foundation with care, with ac-
curacy and skill, and rose by "cold
graduation and well-balanced FORM
from the cornerstone of statement
to the doomed conclusion. He filled
the stage. He satisfied the eye-the
audience was his. He had that in
defnable thing called presence. Tall,
commanding, erect, ample in speech,
graceful in compliment, Titanic in
denunciation, rich in illustration,
prodigal of comparison and meta
phor, and his sentences, measured
and rhythmical, fell like music on
the enraptured throng.
He abhored the Pharisee and
loathed all conscientious fraud. He
had a profound aversion for those
who insist on putting base motives
back of the good deeds of others.
He wore no mask. He knew his
friends, his enemies knew him.
He had no patience with pretense,
with patriotic reasons for unmanly
acts. He did his work and bravely
spoke his thought.
Sensitive to the last degree. he
keenly felt the blows and stabs of
the envious and obscure, of the
smallest, the weakest; but the great
est could not drive him from convic-
tons field. He would not stoop to
ask or give an explanation. He left
his words and deeds to justify them
selves.
He held in light esteem a friend
who heard with half-belleving ears
the SANDER of a foe. He walked
highway of his own, and kept the
company of his self-respect. He
would not turn aside to avoid a foe
Ito greet or gain friend.
In his nature there was no COM
promise. To him there were but
two paths-the right and wrong.
He was maligned, misresresented
and misunderstood; but he would
not answer. He knew that character
speaks louder far than words. He
was as silent then as he is now and
his silence. better than any form of
speech, refuted every charge.
He was an American-proud of
his country, that was and ever will
be proud of him. He did not find
perfection only in other lands. He
did not grow small and shrunken,
withered and apologetic, in the pres
ence of those upon whom greatness
had been thrust by chance. He
could not be overawed by dukes or
lords, nor fattered into vertebrateless
subserviency by the patronizing
smiles of kings. In the midst of
conventionalities he had the feeling
of sufocation. He believed in the
royalty of man, in the sovereignty
of the citizen and in the matchless
greatness of this Republic.
He was of the classic mould-a
figure from the antique world. He
had the pose Of the great statues, the
pride and bearing of the intellectual
Greek, of the conquering Roman,
and he stood in the wide free air as
though within his veins there flowed
the blood of hundred kings.
| And as he lived he died. Proudly
he entered the darkness, or the
dawn, that we call death. Un-
shrinkingly he passed beyond our
horizon, beyond the twilight's pur-
pie hills, beyond the utmost reach of
human harm or help, to that vast
realm of silence or of Joy where the
innumerable dwell, and he has left
with us his wealth of thought and
deed-the memory of a brave, i'm
perious man, honest man, who bowed
alone to death.