The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1892-10-15
1oMRs oE DEAD PRESIDENTS.
Great Men who Impressed Their owR
Chars oter on the Office They Held.

Character on the Office They Held
have to-day visited, as every AnNeri-
can who travels this way should visit,
the grave of Lincoln in the lovely Oak
Ridge cemetery at Springfield; where
also his wife and two of his sons, and
his eldest grandson are buried. The
monument above these graves is heavy
and imposing piece of work, durable
and costly, but not specially beautiful
or appropriate. No president of the
United States has such u mausoleum,
though the burial place of Washington,
beside that magnificent Potomac river,
and amidst the trees planted by himself
at Mount Vernon, is more in keeping
with his reserved and lofty nature.
OF the early presidents this is the
burial story: Washington was buried
at Mount Vernon, sixteen miles from
the city of Washington. John Adams,
beneath the portico of the Unitarian
church in Quincy, Mass. In the church
stands q memorial slab in his honor,
but the body lies in a vault almost
directly under the entrance Thomas
jefferson was buried in the family ceme-
terry at Monticello; James Madison in
the family ground at Montpelier,
Orange county, Va, and James Monroe
in cemetery between Second and
Third streets, New York City, where he
died at the house of his son-in-law. 1t
would be well for Virginia to remove
the remains of these two friends of JEFF
ferson to his own lofty burial place
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suitable monument for the first three
democratic presidents. Near John
Adams is buried his son, John Quincy,
the second president of that name.
The first western president, and a
typical western man, Andrew jackson,
the Tennessee planter, is buried on his
own estate, the Hermitage, eleven miles
from Nashville, domed temple cover
ing his grave Martin Van Buren,, his
successor, lies in the Reformed Church
cemetery of Kinderhook, N. Y, and
William Henry Harrison, first inferred
at Washington, was removed to North
Bend o., where his vault was until re-
Gently much neglected John Tyler
was inferred in Hollywood cemetery,
Richmond, Va, and no monument or
stone has been erected over his grave.
James X. Polk lies at the corner of Vine
and Union streets in Nashville, Tenn,
costly monument under a canopy
marking the spot which now like Mon
| roe's grave at New York, is in the midst
of the city. 1t would be well to remove
| these remains to Jackson's Hermitage,
which is now public property, for Polk
was Jacl1son's disciple.
As we all know, the remains of Grant
| lie in a vault at Riverside Park, New
York, near the Hudson; those of Gar
field in Lake View cemetery at Cleve-
land-places appropriate and command
ing--and over both suitable monuments
| have been or will be placed. The less
conspicuous presidents attract less
notice to their graves. Gen. Taylor
was first inferred at the Congressional
cemetery at Washington and thence re-
moved to Taylor cemetery, near Louis
vile, KY, while Millard Fillmore was
buried at the Forest Lawn cemetery in
Buffalo, n. Y, and Franklin Pierce in
Minot cemetery at Concord, N. IL.
james Buchanan lies in Woodward Hill
cemetery, Lancaster, Pa. Andrew
johnson was buried in private inclo-
sure at the top of a hill near Greenville,
| Tenn, where he lived before and after
a national misfortune made him presi-
dent.
In country so vast as ours there can
be no one or two or ten cemeteries for
our great men; and it is well to have
them buried in different localities,
where the grave of each may become a
place of pilgrimage to those who re-
member their merits and forget their
faults. In the order of true greatness
they will perhaps stand thus hereafter
if we may judge by so short an inter
val what the final verdict of time will
be; Washington first and a long way
the foremost, for reasons which all rec
ognize; Lincoln next, as the second
founder of the republic, and the eman
cipator of servile race; Jefferson
third as the political soothsayer of the
eighteenth century, and the founder O
a permanent party in this republic
jackson fourth, as the rough embodi
ment of forces called into action by JEFF
ferson; then Madison, the two Adamses
Grant Cleveland, and the forcible me1
of the third and fourth rank; and final
ly the able, but inconsiderable mel
who have held the high position with
out adding much to its authority o
their own reputation.
For good or for bad, the four presi
dents first named, and half dozen o
those who followed them, impressed
their own character on the office they
held and themselves derived additiona
glory from holding it, This was tru
even of jefferson, whose administra
tion ended feebly, of Madison, who be
gan with misfortune but ended well
, and of jackson, with all his conspicu
, GUS faults 1t was eminently true o
) Lincoln, who, in his short reign of fou
: years-for it was as much reign a
, that of any monarch-rose faster ant
{ more permanently to fame than any
predecessor save Washington. ThC
) swift-moving events of civil war malr
his administration seem thrice as lon
3 as it was.
. The memorials of Lincoln suspended
Y in the room below his monument testi
t fly wondrously to the mark he had mad
2 on his age, in these four years Of wa
= and emancipation. Something of thi
was the effect of his great office; bu
S much the MOST of it sprang from hi
: own original and superior character
character in its way as remarkable a
a that of Cromwell, but recognized a
n benefcent far earlier and more general
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