Year: 1861




when the telegraph brought intelligence Oi the
death of enc of the most extraordinary men ol
our period cannot say great, for IN the true
quality and manner of greatness he was de-
6cient Nor can l speak of him as wise or use
full statesman without being false interpreter
of convictions that / do not possess. Regret
will follow him TO his narrow house, and euogy,
sincere but undiscrminating and unjust to his
character, will be a free and full Offering to a
memory fresh in the hearts of many who loved
and more who admired the bold and generous
qualities which, in public and private lie, were
the leading traits OF his character. n iull meas
nre of lust award is never made by cotempOra-
ries to any minds and actions OF their own
association. Contact, familiarity, and cOlnpe-
ttion shape estimates and opinions, which, IN
the following years, Judicial history modihes or
entirely changes. Mr.. Douglass living fame VIII
be his most valuable and highest. When we,
who have watched him from the first gmmer of
his reputation to the full blaze of his celebrity,
shall have passed away, like him, in pubhc
mourning or in private Obscurity, his errors ana
foibles will be weighed against what was really
high and noble, and just balance be struck.
Not only as an individual largely connected as
he has been with important questions, the impair
tial Judgment of him who hereafter traces his
life must be sharpened and cOlOred by the ques-
tons themselves: and with their determination,
to us. now. a matter of prOphesy he is to be
raised or depressed in the scale of true and last
ing fame.


/ can forgive much to him in my recollection
of his earlier career, in the last and most grand
position in which he placed himself in the gather
ing storm and blackness of rebellion. but
/ should not and cannot fail 10 remember
even in the sadness which sits upon me as L
write, how much Of burden, as the just ana
scrupulous future measures responsibility, VIII
rest upon him for his complication with the hap
less condition of the nation. He may not have
ainned against light. He may, with those mys-
ferrous idiosyncracies of mental organization,
have followed false gudes-erring in fatal reason
ipgs rather than in known diversions from an
honest and direct line of policy. OF this can
uot speak with full knowledge, and charity then
may dwell upon the hope that the medium
through which be saw gave to him glimpses OF
good ends, unseen to us, but clear and weli-de-
fined to him. But, with desOlation in his house
hold and dust upon bis coffin, l cannot forget
that year of 1s5O-neyer to pass from the hVing
scene or from the page Of our annals. Treason
has already paid in millions the iquidated dam
ages which human law places upon its infraction-
blood incalculable, and sorrow unmeasured, lsyet
TO appease the Divine Statute, which marks the
heavy and light sin for an equal scale OF expla-
lion. But I viii not here intermix with what
should be only regret and tribute, "reminiscences
which mingle other than the thoughts which should
keen the companionship Of the dead. The Pro-
yidence which brings forth men for its great exi-
pencies also takes them when their work is dOne'
In the grief of public loss, and in that deeper an
puisb of private bereavement, comes the cOntOa-
Zion that in the great economy of the Universe,
the time, the manner, and the place, are governed
by the Wisdom which is above all and over all,


Giving then, the full need of praise to him. the


last. whose name stricken from the roll OF his
peers, is written upon the record of our renOWn--
let US trust that he died at the appointed times


and, as we attempt in vain to heal the
scars burned upon our hearts by the loss OF the
beautiful and lOved-sO let us drop the curtain
Of our mourning upon him, remembering only his
virtues, and forgiying, if we cannot forget. what
we would blot from life which, under the ire
kistibe law of our being, could not be without
bemish, nor stand out to our sight rounded
and complete perfection.


wrote yesterday upon topic which should
have resumed to-day, but the event which Occu-
pies all thoughts has drawn to another theme.


j expressed the apprehensions of an insufii-
cient number of troops for certain protection
of the Capital-danger of a broken lue of COM
munication, with an insulation from SuccOr ex-
cept through mob resistance or actual armed and
equipped bodies Of men.


The magnitude and Importance of tie acqui-
siton to the rebels-the certainty Of sympathy
and probable assistance from abroad, and the
magnifcence of the possession with its wealth,
and more than that, its morale, to their deprcs-
sion and detection to our high expectation, gives
what may seem to be desperate enterprise,
the cOmmcndation of an undertaking justified by
policy and strongly enforced by wise and calm
consideration. Hopeless without foreign aid,
help would come TO them with such brilliant
success. Dropping, as they must be, in spirit,
with the large odds against them, such loss to
US would come back to them in gain not to
be computed in an inverse ratio. l do not look
upon it as a military movement only. do not
estmste it alone in its political bearings / sur
vey it from higher observation, and see, not
one, but many generations, whose fortunes are
to be in the issue. speak not to the present but