Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-05-15
WEDN ESSAY, MAY Is, 1859.
Death of a Foremost Man.

With the death yesterday of General
Volney E. Howard, one of the most dis
tipguished citizens Of California and of
the Republic passed away. 1t would be
difficult to name an eminent American
who has figured at the bar or in the
forum during the past fifty years OF whom
General Howard was not the peer in all
the qualities and requirements that go to
make up personality Of intellectual dis
tinction. As jurist and constitutional
lawyer he was perhaps without an equal
in this State. His orstorical powers
were graced by diction Of surprising
purity and style of captivating charm.
He was always interesting, and at times
he rose to height of eloquence which is
only reached by the greatest orators.
His celebrated speech in the Constitu-
tional Convention, on the relation OF
railroad corporations to the people, was
pronounced by even the very eminent
men upon the floor who took issue with
him, as the most mastery speech OF the
whole session. His Logic was clear and
striking; his sarcasm keen as the edge OF
Saladin's ecimitar; his power of state
ment luminous and graphic. In terse
and epigrammatic sentence he was fer
tile, and even profuse. In imprisoned
arrsignE ent, especially when his sense
of wrong or injustice was aroused, be
was whitening and overwhelming. When
in this vein, and the occasion called it
forth, he was terror TO those who fell
a'hwaIt the lancinating excoriation Of
his invective. He was most dangerous
when his expressive lip was curled with
a smile and peculiar sparkle, as if Of
humor, lurked in his piercing eye. II
was the-l that those who had studied
him on the platform would predict
the avalanche. This country has pro-
duced but few men with a more
comprehensive or absorbing mind, and
none stored with a wider or moe
judiciously selected range of literature.
His memory was one of great strength
and tenacity. Whatever he read was
slowed away, and subject to call when
required. The amplitude Of his knowledge
was truly astonishing. No subject, how
ever reconcile or complex, had escaped
the tireless industry of his research, and
he was always ready to invest it with an
interest and an originality Of treat
ment that stamped him as one
whose Investigations were accom-
panied with the penetrating power
of the deep thinker. He was states
man in the highest genie, for he believed
that all practical applications of the
science CT government should be put into
force and effect, not for class or for
classes, but for the benefit OF the whole
people. A graduate of the Jacksonian
school, he Was firm and immovable in
his political principles. His party might,
in the hands of time-servers and trim
mers, veer to tie right or to the left, but
he was as true to the point of direction
as the needle to the pole. His courageous
nature was incapable Of fear, and when he
knew and felt he was right, his firmness
became 80 fixed in its purpose that no
amount of danger could turn him from
his course. Had he been more polite,
more suave and bending in his character,
mere flexible to his own personal inter
este, he might have left his children
greater riches as the world goes, but he
could not have left them more lofty and
honorable heritage than that which de-
cends to them from his pure and I'M
unsullied name and bis great aud lasting