Year: 1875

IL Is with q mOurniul tenderness tina


We recall the familiar traces of thos


strikingly handsome and expressive


features which marked him us one o


the most commanding of men. W.


dwell with aflectionate feelings upol


the strong and noble face, the furrow,


of the cheek, the clear cut lines of the


mouth, the large and eloquent eyes, Us
| the portrait bends down upon us from
! the gallery of memory. And us we are


reminded that the picture has vanished
| from the real world, that the imposing


form has passed from us forever into
the ruin of decay, we are filled with q


sorrow that almost disqualilies us for


the work of sketching character 50


exalted and of embalming memory
so majestic.


In disposition he was as gentle and


tender as child. Neither penury nor


atlliction, nor disappointment, nor


abuse, nor prescription, nor neglect


could disturb his sedate, equable tenn


per. Just rs it was when he presided


over the senate as the most popular


vice president in the United States, it


remained when he had returned from


exile, reduced in fortune, with all his


early hopes stacked in defeat, and with


all his early aspirations fading before


the darkness of an august calamity.


John c. Breckenridge was not with


out ambition, but it was not the am


bition that sought the monument for


the monuments sake. 1t was the sub


lime aspiration of n generous mind


which possessed faculties transcending


all professional limitations, and which


pined only for wider fields of useful


ness, and nobler theaters of action.


Enthusiastically nominated for presi-


dent against his earnest protest by the


Baltimore convention, but appreCia-


ting the peril to his country, which he


foresaw would result from division in
the democratic party, he commission
ed friend to visit Mr.. Douglas and
suggest that both withdraw from the
contest that compromise candidate
might be selected who would be able
to restore harmony and invoke peace.


He was always the master and not the
slave of that love of fame which Mil
ton tells us is "the sublime infrmity
of noble minds.n "He tasted of the
cup of Circe, but he was fascinated by
its sweetness He subordinated every
aspiration to duty, and obeyed its call,
whether it directed him along theflow-
cry paths of successful enterprise or
over forbidding walks which led him
only to penury and persecution. We
see him, one of the most graceful and
powerful orators of the senate, with
the dazzling splendor of an almost un-
paralleled career before him, turning
with disdain from the trophies offered
by new and triumphant party, and
preferring to cast his lot with cause
consecrated by his conviction and hal
lowed by his love of right, but which,
with prophetic vision, he early saw
could only reward him with the pains
and penalties of prescription. He was
devoted to the old flag, but he refused, in
the presence of the assembled senate
"to follow it over the ruins of the con-
He scorned alike the gold
and the elephants of Pyrrhus.


1t is only in such conflicts of duty
with ambition that true herOism is
and the nobleness of
great nature disclosed. 1t is easy to
follow duty when aspiration points in
the same direction, but when the hour
of sacrifice comes when danger and
darkness gather about the former, and
the promises of glory are linked with
the latter, it is then that true courage
is evinced and true heroism asserts its
It is the firm but fatal
step Of the martyr who takes hb- posi-
ton at the stake and stands unmunted
when faggots are piled around him,
and the cracking flames separate the
flesh from the soul which scars away,
too great and noble for its tenement of
clay.


A philosophic historian, in eXplor-
ing the records of men, has remarked
that there are few characters which
have stood the closest scrutiny and the
severest tests, which have been tried
in the furnace and have proved pure ;
which have been weighed in the bal
ance and not found wanting which
have been declared sterling by the gen
eral cons ent of mankind, and which
are visibly stamped with the image
and superscriptiOn of the Most High
But when some future Macaulay shall
narrate the events of our bloody drama,
and reproduce the portraits of those
who were its most conspicuous actors,
he will find indelibly stamped upon
the character of Breckenridge both the
image and the superscriptiOn of God.


His mind was one of those rare gifts
of nature which is capable of contract
ing itself to the humblest duties or of
itself to the highest require
ments of human effort. We see him,
the leader of great party, conde-
to become the commander of
a small brigade, and declaring that he
was ready to shoulder his musket with |
his sons and become private in the
ranks of an army which he subse-
commanded. After being sec
retary of war and directing the move
ments of all the armies of a confeder-
acy that thundered for four years for
peace at the gates of the north, and
more than once lighted its camp fires
in the foreground of Washington, he
offers his services to the sheriff of Fay
cite county to put down the petty dis
orders of a precinct.


But he was greatest on the greatest |
occasions. In the council at Charlotte |
court house, which determined upon |
the surrender of the slouched and dis |
pirited remnant of a once powerful
army, he still possessed the stoutest |
heart and the most inflexible courage. |
Since the war he has summed politics |
and avoided all expressions which |
might augment the burdens of peo-
pie in defense of whom he had fought |
and for whom he had shown his will |
Iingness to die. He readily distin- |
puished what was accidental and tran
STORY in politics from what was immu- |
table and essential, and, while ready |
TO adjust old institutions to a new state |
Of society, despised that vulgar herd |
who are always willing to barter the |
most sacred principles of human
liberty for the mere pittance of
success. He preserved |
the whiteness of his soul,
and pursued a course which showed
him as great in defeat as in victory, as
noble in neglect as in the most eleva-
ted station. His was the most daunt- |
less spirit in the chamber of death. |
When physicians were bending with
heavy hearts over his emaciated and
broken form; when relations and
friends were ehoked with sObs and
with the agony of 20 great a
loss; when there were hurryings to and
fro and tremblings of distress, be alone
was calm and resolute. He died as he
had lived, the same intrepid and i'm,