ADDRESSES 
 
 DEATH or HOI. JACOB COLLAMER, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 TUVRSDAV, DECEMBER 14, tS65. 
 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 GOVERNMENT I' R I N T I N G OFFICE. 
 
 lj±J_ I 
 
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 ADDRESSES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 DEATH OF HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 Thursday, December 14, 1865. 
 
 Address of Mr. Foot, of Vermont. 
 
 Mr. Pkesident: I rise to ask the Senate to suspend, 
 for this day, its dehberations upon pubhc aifairs, that 
 we may oifer fitting and appropriate tribute to the 
 character and the memory of one who has long been 
 associated with us in the national councils, but who is 
 with us now no more. Since our assembling here at 
 this present session, we have all had occasion to re- 
 mark — none of us can have failed to remark — the 
 absence of one of our number; one whom we have long 
 been accustomed to meet and to hold counsel with in 
 these halls. An elder brother, who has long mingled 
 with us in our deliberations here; a wise and discreet 
 statesman; a learned and judicious counsellor; a pure 
 patriot; a just and an upright man, has been removed 
 from among us by the hand of death. A venerable 
 form, long familiar to our sight, has been taken away 
 out of our presence. I bring no new message to this 
 
l)()(ly — for it lias already Ijceii heralded throughout the 
 eountry — yet none the less sad, in making the formal 
 announcement to the Senate of the death of my late 
 colleague, Hon. Jacob Collamer. It is eminently tit 
 and l)ecoming, Mr. President, as it is also in accordance 
 \\ ith an appn^ved and sacred custom, that we pause for 
 an hour in the ordinary routine of our (hiily labors, that 
 we may consecrate that hour to the virtues and the 
 memory of a deceased and lamented associate, who has 
 shared so long and so largely in our regards and in the 
 pul)lic confidence, for his mature wisdom and for his 
 great moral excellence. 
 
 "Your colleague, Judge Collamer, is dead!" was the 
 startling telegraphic message I received at my home 
 about five weeks ago. He expired at his residence in 
 AYoodstock, Vermont, on the evening of the 9th of 
 November past, after a Inief illness of little more than 
 a single week — at his own home, in the midst of his 
 own affectionate and devoted household; in the full 
 exercise of his intellectual faculties; with an abiding 
 and unshaken faith in the Christian religion; and in the 
 cherished hope of a blissful immortality. 
 
 But three \\eeks Ijefore his decease he visited Mont- 
 pelier, the capital of the State, some fifty miles distant 
 from his residence, to attend the funeral services of a 
 younger and favorite In'other. Having paid the last sad 
 offices of respect and affection to a brother's memory, 
 he returned to his own home; but, alas! only to lay 
 himself down so soon to die. By this dispensation, so 
 sudden and so sad, the Senate of the United States has 
 lost one of the oldest, most experienced, and most 
 
 i- 
 
^^UBBaHaHbUMM 
 
 HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 
 
 trusted of its members; the country, one of the ablest 
 and purest of its statesmen; society, and the church of 
 which he was a member, one of their worthiest and 
 brightest exemplars; my own State, her most eminent 
 citizen; and this day there is mourning through all her 
 borders. 
 
 Jacob Collamer was born in Troy, in the State of 
 New York, the 8th day of January, A. D. 1791, and was, 
 therefore, at the time of his decease, in the seventy-fifth 
 year of his age, and, in advancement of years, was the 
 senior member of this body. In early childhood he 
 was removed, with his father's family, to Burlington, 
 Vermont. There his early life was spent; there he 
 was educated; there his academic years were passed. 
 He entered the University of Vermont at the age of 
 fifteen, where he graduated in 1810 with credit and 
 commendation for good conduct and scholarship, thus 
 giving early promise and hope to his friends of future 
 eminence and usefulness. This promise and these 
 hopes were not doomed to disappointment. 
 
 Immediately upon the conclusion of his collegiate 
 course, he entered the law office of the late Judge Aldis, 
 of St. Albans, then an eminent and leading lawyer at the 
 bar in the State. Having passed through the usual pre- 
 paratory course of legal studies, he was admitted to the 
 bar in 1813, and entered at once upon his professional 
 career. After remaining a few months at St. Albans, 
 and thence stopping for a year or two in the town of 
 Randolph, he finally settled at Royalton, in the county 
 of Windsor, where he resided during the whole period 
 of his active professional career, and until he removed 
 
to Woodstock, in the same county, in 1 836, where he 
 continued until the time of his death. Here his ad- 
 vancement in professional business and reputation was 
 alike rapid and gratifying, and soon placed him in the 
 front ranks of the leading men of his time at the bar. 
 Forensic laurels, fresh and fair, gathered thick and fast 
 upon his youthful brow, and he became at once the 
 compeer, as he was the contemporary, of Prentiss and 
 Phelps, and Royce and Bates ; of Van Ness and Uphani ; 
 of Skinner, and Hall, and Everett; and early took rank 
 even with the senior and more advanced champions of 
 the i)rofession, like Daniel Chipman, and David Ed- 
 mond, and Chauncey Langdon, and Horatio Seymour, 
 and Charles K. Williams, and Dudley Chase, and Jona- 
 than H. Hubbard, and Charles Marsh, and William C. 
 Bradley, wlio had long held supremacy at the bar in our 
 State. It was in a school of practice like this, it was in 
 contact and collision with minds like these, that his own 
 powers were cpiickened and invigorated, and in which he 
 was early trained and disciplined to habits of close appli- 
 cation and study, and which became the fixed habit of 
 his life, and was, indeed, one of the chief elements of his 
 success, and which enabled him to reach and to maintain 
 the post of eminence and distinction, accorded to him 
 by the popular judgment, in the front ranks of the legal 
 profession. 
 
 During the period of his active professional practice, 
 although his time and attention were chiefly engrossed 
 in his professional duties, yet, besides holding for several 
 years the local offices of Register of Probate and of 
 State's attorney for the county of Windsor, he was at 
 
 m y 
 
four different times elected by the people of Royalton 
 to the popular branch of the State legislature. He 
 served through these several sessions, devoting himself, 
 with his accustomed vigilance and fidelity, to the in- 
 terests of his constituents and of the State, and took a 
 prominent and influential part in the debates and the 
 business of the body of which he was a member. 
 
 In January, A. D. 1836, and while then a judge upon 
 the bench, he was a delegate from his town to the con- 
 stitutional convention then holden at Montpelier, to 
 consider and to act upon certain proposed amendments 
 to the State constitution, the most important of which 
 was a proposition to abolish the old "gubernatorial 
 council," so called, and in its stead to constitute a legis- 
 lative branch having co-ordinate powers with the House 
 of Representatives, ■ to be called the " Senate." This 
 proposition was vigorously opposed in the convention, and 
 brought out a protracted and perhaps the ablest parlia- 
 mentary discussion ever had in the State upon any 
 single question. The convention contained an unusual 
 number of the leading and foremost men of the State. 
 Judge CoLLAMER led the debate in the afiirmative of 
 the question. The proposition was carried, and I feel 
 myself authorized to say, mainly through his influence. 
 
 In 1833, and after a successful and even brilhant 
 career at the bar of just twenty years, he was placed, 
 by vote of the legislature, upon the bench of the su- 
 preme court of the State, a position for which he pos- 
 sessed peculiar and pre-eminent qualifications, and which 
 he held by successive elections nine years, and until he 
 was returned by the people of his congressional district 
 
 lai* 
 
to the national House of Representatives. As a jviflgc 
 ii])()n the bench, he added lustre to the reputation lie 
 had already acquired as a lawyer at the bar. He pos- 
 sf^ssed intellectual and moral qualities most essential 
 and requisite to the best discharge of the duties of a 
 higli judicial magistracy — a clear and discriminating 
 mind, an impartial judgment, strong practical good 
 sense, a prt)found and instinctive sense of right and 
 wrong, patience of investigation, an inflexil)le integrity, 
 and a sincere and earnest desire to reach a just and 
 correct conclusion. He held the scales of justice, 
 therefore, with a firm and even hand. All these quali- 
 ties were brought into practical ap})lication, and were 
 beautifully exenn)lified throughout his whole judicial 
 career; and when he retired from the bench he laid 
 aside the judicial ermine untarnished, and "without 
 spot or wrinkle or any such thing." 
 
 From the bench he was transferred l)y the voice of 
 the i)eople of his district to the United States House of 
 Representatives, where he took his seat in 1843, suc- 
 ceeding Horace Everett, long a distinguished member 
 of that body. By successive elections, he continued an 
 active and useful member of the House, though most of 
 the time in a small political minority, until March, 1849, 
 when he was called to the cabinet of President Taylor, 
 as one of his confidential and constitutional advisers, 
 and placed at the head of the General Post Office De- 
 partment. Under his judicious and energetic adminis- 
 tration the vast and complicated machinery of that 
 Department was brought into system and order and 
 efficiency. He held this position until the death of 
 
President Taylor, in July, 1850, when, with all his 
 associates in the cabinet, of whom the distinguished 
 senator from Maryland, [Mr. Johnson,] now present, 
 was one, he resigned his place, and returned, a private 
 citizen, to his home in Vermont. 
 
 He was not long permitted, however, to remain in the 
 quietude of private life. The people of his State still 
 demanded his services in a j)ublic capacity, and in the 
 following October he was chosen, by the legislature. Pre- 
 siding Judge of the court in the judicial circuit in which 
 he resided. He held this office through four years by 
 successive legislative elections, discharging its duties 
 with "all diligence and fidelity," and to the entire popu- 
 lar acceptance and approval, when in October, 1854, he 
 was elected to the Senate of the United States, and he 
 took his seat as a member of this body the first Mon- 
 day of December, 1855. He was re-elected to his seat 
 here in 1860 with an almost unprecedented degree of 
 unanimity. He has been with us and of us just ten 
 years. His course through all this decade, embracing, 
 as it does, perhaps, the most important period in the 
 history of the Republic, is familiar to us all — it is 
 familiar to all the country. During this period, and on 
 this forum, where grave questions of state; where 
 questions of j^eace and war; where questions of foreign 
 and domestic policy ; where questions of trade and com- 
 merce; questions of finance and revenue and taxation; 
 here where every variety of question pertaining to gov- 
 ernmental administration is presented for consideration, 
 for discussion, and for final determination — here in this 
 forum, he has won for himself a national reputation, an 
 
honorable and an enduring name as a learned and al)le 
 senator; as a wise and discreet counsellor; as a judicious 
 and upright legislator; in short, as a Christian states- 
 man — and a Christian statesman, it has l>cen well and 
 truly said, is the glory of his country — who has borne 
 himself erect and above reproach through all this career, 
 and kept himself "unspotted from the world." By the 
 very constitution of his nature he revolted at every 
 form and species of fraud and corruption, or of wrong 
 and injustice. No man ever ventured to approach him 
 with the offer of a price for his honor. Jobbers in 
 iniquity came not into his presence. Purity of motive 
 and integrity of purpose, unsullied and unassailed, were 
 alike the law and the rule of his life, in public or in 
 private action. All of us who have known him longest 
 and known him l:)est will, with one accord, concede to 
 him the possession, in an eminent degree, of what 
 Cicero commends as the boni senatoris prudentia — the 
 "wisdom of a good senator." 
 
 It is no less our duty, Mr. President, than it is our 
 grateful privilege, in the midst of this sorrow, in this 
 high place, and in the presence of the American peo- 
 ple — if I may borrow the language of another on a like 
 occasion — to pay the tribute of our recognition of the 
 national loss in the removal of those to whom we have 
 been accustomed to look, especially in times of doubt 
 and difficulty, for direction and for counsel. Such a loss 
 is the more deeply felt, occurring at a period like the 
 present, when questions novel and of paramount im- 
 portance, growing out of a new and changed condition 
 of public affairs, are to he considered and determined — 
 
questions vital to the best interests of the country, and 
 involving the highest welfare, and even the very in- 
 tegrity and faith of the government. The national 
 heart has been laden with mourning and grief at the 
 loss of many gallant and noble and patriotic sons of the 
 Republic — numbering in its list of the mighty dead the 
 chosen Chief Magistrate of your country — during this 
 passing year now drawing to its close, to whom we 
 were all looking for counsel and for guidance in these 
 times of perplexity and trial. In the midst of these 
 great bereavements we have only to bow in humble 
 submission to the will of Him who chastiseth "not 
 willingly," and who "doeth all things well." It is only 
 left to us to cherish the memories of the good and 
 great who have been taken from us; to imbibe the spirit 
 of their teachings; and to follow on, so far forth as we 
 may do it, in the light of their examples. 
 
 Like most of the distinguished men of our time, 
 and especially of our country; like most of those who 
 have risen to the high places of power and trust; like 
 most of the men who stand at the head of affairs in 
 the various departments of life, whether political, pro- 
 fessional, literary, commercial, or other pursuit; like 
 most of the men who in our day and country have 
 made their impress upon society, and who have written 
 their own history upon the times in which they lived — 
 like these men, Jacob Collamer was emphatically 
 the author and the arbiter of his own fortunes. He 
 owed nothing at all to the factitious aids or the ac- 
 cidental circumstances of birth or fortune or family 
 patronage. Under God he made his own fame and 
 
his own fortunes. With his own hands he cleared the 
 rugged pathway wliich led him up to the entrance d(jor 
 of the temple of honor and renown. He made his own 
 good name, and made it known and honorable among 
 men. With the advantage of a gifted mind, and with 
 a resolute purpose to fulfil the great end of his being — 
 the service of God and his country — by application and 
 industry, by energy and perseverance, and an honest 
 and an honorable life of well-doing, he formed his own 
 character and won his own distinction, and left it as a 
 rich inheritance to his children, and as an example to 
 those who shall come up after him. 
 
 Other and like examples abound through all our his- 
 tory. So did Daniel Webster, in whom the son of an 
 hund)le Salisbury farmer among the granite hills of 
 New Hampshire becomes in after years, and by popular 
 appellation, the "gi'eat expounder of the American Con- 
 stitution;" the great American senator; the great A?ner- 
 ican statesman, who stands, by the common recognition 
 of mankind, as the intellectual monarch of his age. So 
 did Abraham Lincoln — darum nomen — the poor Ken- 
 tucky boy; the martyr President, who, under God, 
 had saved a country and redeemed a race; the martyr 
 President, who having saved his country from the 
 great rebellion of all history, and redeemed a race 
 from the bondage of centuries, falling by the assassin 
 hand of treason, went down to the grave amid a 
 nation's tears, and amid the requiem of a nation's 
 wailing, yet bearing with him to the tomb, more of the 
 world's affections, more of its sympathies, and more of 
 its honors too, than were ever accorded to other man. 
 
or prince, or potentate of earth; and whose highest 
 eiilogium is spoken in the universal lamentation. And 
 so — I beg pardon, if in the least I offend against the 
 proprieties of this occasion, or of this presence — so 
 did Andrew Johnson, the humble mechanic from the 
 mountains of North Carolina, who now, by the will of 
 the American people, and by a providential dispensa- 
 tion, wields the power and challenges the homage of 
 the First Magistrate of the nation, and on whose will 
 or word to-day, more than of other living man, hang 
 the destinies of this American Republic. These are 
 great examples. These are illustrious examples. Our 
 history is full of them. They are as beacon-lights along 
 the dim and crowded pathway of human life. They 
 are for instruction, for guidance, for encouragement, for 
 inspiration to the rising and the coming generations of 
 American youth. 
 
 "The fame which a man wins for himself is best; 
 That he may call his own." 
 
 Jacob Collamer was endowed with a rare combina- 
 tion of intellectual and moral qualities of a high order; 
 a capacious mind, at once active, clear, and discrimina- 
 ting — a mind, too, in which the analytic powers and the 
 reflective faculties were largely developed; and he was 
 also gifted with a retentive memory. He was capa- 
 ble of fixed and continuous application of his mind to 
 the examination and analysis of whatever question he 
 took in hand. These faculties were all sharpened and 
 strengthened by varied reading and acquirement, and 
 by hal^its of careful study and reflection. He possessed, 
 in a remarkable degree, the power of condensation, and 
 
of arranging the various points or propositions involved 
 in any subject under discussion, in the most clear and 
 logical order, and which enabled him to present them 
 with great force and perspicuity to the minds of others. 
 He always secured respectful attention and deference 
 to his opinions, whether in pul)lic debate or in private 
 discussion, for the clearness and force with which he 
 presented his views. He often enforced or illustrated 
 an idea or proposition l)y the timely introduction of 
 some apt and racy and often amusing anecdote. 
 
 If he was not always eloquent, he was always in- 
 structive. If he was not an orator in its ordinary ac- 
 ceptation, he was more and better than a mere orator. 
 He was a reasoner — a clear and logical reasoner. He 
 was an excellent talker — an excellent public as well as 
 private or social talker. He had the faculty of making 
 himself understood, and consequently of making his 
 sul)ject understood. He addressed himself to the rea- 
 son and the understanding, rather than to the impulses 
 or the fancies of men. It was his aim and his effort 
 to convince the judgment by force of argument, rather 
 than to move the passions by the appeals of eloquence, 
 or to please the fancy by the beauties of rhetoric. If 
 he had not the highest order of what, in popular phrase, 
 is called genius, he had more solid comrnon sense than 
 any man of genius, and was master of its practical use. 
 
 A thoughtful and conscientious man, as he was, he 
 spoke always and only from the convictions of his own 
 judgment. His opinions, especially upon grave and im- 
 portant questions, were not hastily formed nor incon- 
 siderately expressed, but only after the most careful and 
 
mature reflection. Hence his opinions always com- 
 manded great respect and deference, and carried with 
 them a corresponding weight and influence. His 
 opinions, especially upon legal and constitutional ques- 
 tions, or upon questions of international law, were 
 always received with profound deference and regard. 
 His intelligent and independent judgment, his strong, 
 practical good sense, and his mibending integrity of 
 purpose, imparted to all his opinions uncommon weight 
 and value. 
 
 His whole life, public and professional, whether at 
 the bar or upon the bench, whether in a high executive 
 department or in the halls of legislation, has been 
 assiduously devoted to the cause of truth and justice. 
 Few public men have left a more excellent or a more 
 honorable record. 
 
 With his high intellectual endowments were happily 
 blended the kindlier affections of the heart; and to all 
 these were superadded the purer and holier graces of a 
 Christian faith and of a consistent Christian life. In 
 1825 he made public profession of his faith in the 
 Gospel of Christ, and united with the Congregational 
 church in Royalton, then the place of his residence. 
 Through all these forty years, his life, in all its vaned 
 modes, no less in the public than in the private walks 
 of society; no less in the national councils than in the 
 social and domestic circle; furnishes a practical and 
 beautiful illustration of the beneficent influence and 
 power of the religion he professed. 
 
 The loss of such a man is, indeed, a loss to the nation ; 
 it is a loss to the State; it is a loss to society. But we 
 
have only to know tliat it is God's doing, and "be still." 
 This bereavement I hardly need to say, Mr. President, 
 falls with terrible and crushing severity upon an in- 
 teresting and stricken family household. But I am not 
 at liberty to enter the sanctuary of this grief I may 
 not lift the curtain which veils from pu1)lic view, the 
 deep sorrow which sitteth and wecpcth there. 
 
 Mr. President, he whose death we now lament is 
 gone to l)e with us here no more. His work on earth 
 is done. He strikes a golden harp among the seraphim 
 on high. His precepts and his example are left to us 
 for our instruction and our profit. Ha])py, indeed, will 
 it be if we shall so })rofit by them that we shall l)e 
 ready, as he was ready, lor the final summons, in that 
 hour which is coming to us all — and to some of us is 
 not far oH^ — when this world and its worthlessness shall 
 fade from our sinking vision. 
 
 Mr. President, I offer the following resolutions: 
 
 Resohcd, That the Senate has received with fleep sensibility the 
 announcement of the death of Hon. Jacob Collamer, late a senator 
 of the United States from the State of Vermont. 
 
 Resolved, That the members of the Senate, from a sincere desire 
 of showing every mark of respect due to the memory of Hon. Jacob 
 Collamer, will go into mourning by wearing crape on the left arm 
 for thiity days. 
 
 Resolved, That, as a further mark of respect for the memory of 
 the deceased, the Senate do now adjourn. 
 
 Ordered, That the Secretary communicate these resolutions to 
 the House of Representatives. 
 
 S' 
 
Address of Mr. Harris, of New York. 
 
 Mr. President: It is not for Vermont to mourn 
 alone; New York claims the privilege of standing by 
 her side in this hour of her affliction, of bending with 
 her in grief over the grave of her illustrious senator. 
 He was the son of Vermont by adoption, of New York 
 by birth. The elevated position he so long occupied, 
 the extensive influence he so long wielded, the honor 
 awarded to him by all, may justly excite the pride of 
 both his native and his adopted State. A man of sin- 
 gular worth and rare virtue has been lost to both. 
 
 As senators, we may well unite in paying our tribute 
 of respect to the menu)ry of one so justly honored, and 
 pause in our deliberations to bestow our homage upon 
 one so justly beloved. The Senate has, indeed, lost one 
 of its ablest statesmen, one of its purest patriots. In 
 honoring such a man, we honor ourselves. 
 
 When we met in this chamber a few days ago, I am 
 sure the thought was present to every mind that one of 
 our number was not here; that one seat had been made 
 vacant; that the oldest, the most experienced, and per- 
 haps the wisest of our body, was gone. It is hard for 
 us to believe that the venerable form so familiar to us 
 here will no longer stand in our midst; that he who so 
 lately was the object of our reverence has already been 
 carried away into sepulchral darkness; that we shall 
 never again listen to words of wisdom and patriotism 
 from his lips. Those who knew him best will miss 
 him most. In the Senate, where his counsels had been 
 
so prominent, his death will be felt as no common be- 
 reavement. We do well to mourn his loss. 
 
 How frequently, Mr. President, we have been called 
 to honor the Senate's dead, to pay the homage which 
 friendship is ever prompt to offer to those who have 
 been our associates in the nation's council! This is the 
 eighth occasion, since I became a member of this body, 
 when the Senate has paused to render its public tribute 
 to the memory of its dead. The eloquence of Douglas 
 and Baker is no longer heard in these halls. Bingham 
 and Pearce and Thomson and Bowden and Hicks no 
 longer appear in their wonted places. Thus, one after 
 another, familiar faces disappear, and the great and the 
 good pass from among us. But of them all, not one 
 will be more missed from the Senate than he to whose 
 memory we now pay the last tribute of affection and 
 respect. 
 
 It is not my jiurpose to speak in detail of the life or 
 the character or the public services of our lamented 
 friend. To do so would be to repeat what has been so 
 well and so beautifully said by the senator who has 
 preceded me, in the eloquent eulogy to which we have 
 just listened. He has traced the course of Judge Col- 
 lamer from the earliest beginning of his career to his 
 latest hour, showing how, by his energy, his intellectual 
 power, and his moral worth, he reached the high position 
 he so long occupied. 
 
 I did not know him, as did the senator from Vermont, 
 
 when in the prime and fi-eshness of his life. When we 
 
 first met, the hand of time had touched him. But even 
 
 then I saw enough to realize what he might have been 
 
 ^ ,„■ „ ___, „.,„.,,..._ ^ 
 
wlien in the full maturity and vigor of his manhoorl. 
 He had passed the allotted period of human life; yet 
 even his latest years were devoted, with equal fidelity 
 and success, to the service of his country, and to the 
 last he continued to exhibit the fruits of a mind well 
 disciplined by early habits of industry and well furnished 
 with the rich stores of a long experience. In him were 
 happily combined those elements which constitute a 
 sound and judicious statesman. A man of great per- 
 sonal dignity, he was justly esteemed for the excellence 
 of his judgment and the purity of his character. His 
 most prominent characteristics were, I think, sound 
 discretion, clear discernment, good common sense, and 
 great honesty of purpose. No purer patriot ever par- 
 ticipated in the councils of the nation. 
 
 He did not often occupy the attention of the Senate 
 in debate, but when he did rise to speak he was sure to 
 receive the most respectful and earnest attention. Such 
 was the directness and force of his argument, so affluent 
 were his resources, both of wisdom and experience, so 
 minute was his knowledge of public affairs, that all 
 present, senators and spectators, became eager and 
 instructed listeners. 
 
 He had looked upon life with an observing eye. No 
 man was more thoroughly conversant with the great 
 interests of the country. His memory seemed almost 
 exhaustless, and from its treasures he was ever ready to 
 draw instruction for the benefit of others. It was, 
 however, in his private and friendly intercourse that I 
 learned most to admire him. I count it among the 
 
 i!' 
 
felicities of my life that I \^'as pcriiiitted to know him, 
 and in some degree to enjoy his friendship. 
 
 But he has been taken from us in the midst of his 
 usefulness. His sun went down in l)riglitness; no twi- 
 li<;lit oliscured its setting. When his appointed time 
 had come, disease, "not tardy to perform its destined 
 office," dismissed him from earth, and he has gone to 
 his heavenly rest. 
 
 Judge CoLLAMER was happy in the circumstances of 
 his death. Of him it may be said, as it was of John 
 Quincy Adams, that "no excesses of a profligate youth, 
 no vices of middle life, had shattered and hurried to a 
 premature dissolution the lx)dy in which his incorrupt- 
 ible spirit resided. Nothing in his habits of life inter- 
 fered with nature, to whose gentle influences it was left 
 to destroy gradually, and to restore in a good old age to 
 its parent dust, the perishable part of our friend. The 
 law of mortality, which knows no exception among the 
 passing generations of our race, was executed in his 
 case with as much tenderness and reserve, so to speak, 
 as is ever permitted by Providence." 
 
 He was not left to be an object of compassion to his 
 friends and admirers. No painful contrasts forced them 
 to revert in nu'mory to Ijetter days. But with a mind 
 unimpaired, with an interest in life unabated, with a 
 self-command which protracted sickness had not de- 
 stroyed, he passed to his rest. Thus we pay our last 
 tribute to the memory of one whose life has been long, 
 and useful, and illustrious. In private life he was with- 
 out reproai^k As a lawyer, he was an ornament to his 
 nolde profession; as a judge, he was learned and up- 
 
 m^ 
 
riglit; as a senator, he occupied the front rank among 
 the statesmen of our country. There may have been 
 those whose career has been more briUiant and dazzhng, 
 but there have been few whose labors have been more 
 useful, or who have secured for themselves a reputation 
 more enviable or enduring. We all respected and ad- 
 mired him while living, and, now that he is dead, we 
 render our sincere homage to his memory. Never 
 again will he grace this chamber with his presence; 
 never again shall we hear his voice. He has passed 
 through the vicissitudes of a long and eventful life; he 
 has met and manfully fulfilled the duties allotted to him 
 upon earth. Death came to him in the ripeness of his 
 years and his fame. No stain rests upon his honored 
 name. His life was full of moral beauty; and with 
 mingled feelings of reverence and lov^, we commemorate 
 his virtues and lament his loss. 
 
 Address of Mr. Johnson, of Maryland. 
 
 Mr. President: The loss of such a man as Jacob 
 CoLLAMER to the public councils at any time would 
 have been deeply lamented. In the existing condition 
 of the country the feeling is deepened, and the event 
 justly esteemed a serious calamity. He had been so 
 long in the public service, his course was so w^ell known, 
 the character of his mind so frequently and so favorably 
 illustrated, his wisdom so uniformly exhibited, and during 
 our recent perils, and the complications consequent upon 
 
them, his patriotism as well as his wisdom was so con- 
 spicuous and comprehensive, that wherever his death 
 became known it was recognized as a great national 
 affliction. And so it is. Valual)le as we, his associates 
 especially, know were his teachings and example during 
 the past four years, now that the shock of arms has 
 ceased, the flow of fraternal blood arrested, and the 
 authority of the government everywhere reinstated, 
 there yet remain questions of great interest to be ad- 
 justed, upon which his advice would have l^een of great 
 importance. From my intimate knowledge of him, I 
 deplore his loss the more because I am satisfied that he 
 would have greatly assisted us in so solring those cpies- 
 tions as to make our Union more perfect than it ever 
 has been — making it a Union supported by the hearts 
 of the people as well as by the force of constitutional obli- 
 gation. The measures calculated to effect at the earliest 
 moment this great and priceless result require high 
 intellectual and moral qualities — qualities so elevated 
 as to be inaccessil)le to the weaknesses and prejudices 
 which are often, to the impairing of their usefulness, 
 seen to control even cultivated minds. It is from the 
 general conviction that these qualities were possessed 
 by our deceased associate, that the voice of regret at 
 his decease was so general. 
 
 The universal sentiment seemed to be that under the 
 guidance of wisdom such as his, all would be well; that 
 his exposition of the policy suited to the vital difficulties 
 of the hour would be so clear and statesmanlike as 
 materially to influence the deliberations of Congress, 
 inform and satisfy the public judgment, and hasten their 
 
safe and speedy settlement. And well might this im- 
 pression prevail, for to such a work the mind of Judge 
 CoLLAMER was admirably adapted. Nature had en- 
 dowed him with excellent mental capacity, and he had 
 cultivated it with great care and diligence. His knowl- 
 edge of the institutions and history of our country was 
 alike exact and profound. He had studied them not 
 only in their details, but in their philosophy. He came, 
 therefore, to the consideration of all measures of pub- 
 lic policy with great advantages. Impressed with the 
 conviction that our institutions, if administered as our 
 fathers designed, contained every power necessary to 
 secure individual liberty and the public welfare, he was, 
 whether in war or in peace, for keeping every depart- 
 ment of the government within the limits prescribed 
 by the Constitution. To transcend these under any 
 exigency he ever repudiated as inadmissible and dan- 
 gerous. With a mind strongly conservative by nature 
 and training, while doing full justice to the different 
 opinions of others, he at all times opposed as a solemn 
 duty measures or principles projected or maintained by 
 any department of the government which he believed 
 were unwarranted by the Constitution. This he ex- 
 hibited in strong terms in his admirable and instructive 
 speech of the 12th of February, 1862, on the Treasury- 
 note bill. Referring to the doctrine of necessity as 
 justifjdng or excusing the exercise of powers not dele- 
 gated by the Constitution, he said: 
 
 "I do not know how other members of the Senate look upon the 
 obligation of their oath to support the Constitution of the United 
 States. To me it is an oath registered in heaven as well as upon 
 
earth, and there is no necessity that, in my estimation, will justify 
 me in the breach of it. I think those men who are now risking 
 their lives upon the high places of the field to support the Constitu- 
 tion are not to be treated in this hall by us with the concession that 
 we are ready, if the necessity calls for it, to break it. All that our 
 rebel enemies are engaged in is the overthrow of the Constitution, 
 and all that we are contending for is its maintenance and preserva- 
 tion." 
 
 In the deljate, too, on the confiscation bill his view 
 on an important question of public law is also illustra- 
 tive of him. The doctrine he announced on that occa- 
 sion, though not held by all statesmen of the present 
 day, is now of great practical moment as well as of 
 vital interest to thousands of our citizens. 
 
 Referring to the asserted obligation of the people of 
 the South to suljmit to the authority of the de facto 
 governments which prevailed there, and to the legal 
 consequences of such sidjmission, he observed: 
 
 " However loyal their feelings, a government dc facto is over them. 
 They cannot get away. They have nowhere to go. They have 
 nothing to go with. What would you have a man there to do] 
 What has this nation a right to demand of him?" 
 
 And among other instances, relying upon what he 
 justly characterized as the "bright and high" example 
 of Chief Justice Hale in taking office under the usurped 
 government of Cromwell, he stated that in his opinion 
 a citizen otherwise loyal did not commit treason by 
 submitting to or even by holding office under a de facto 
 government; and his concluding words upon this sub- 
 ject were these: 
 
 " Such, sir, is the respect paid by the world, and especially that 
 part of the world from which we spring, to a de facto government, 
 
 i " ^' -^ ' -^-^- -.-- — . — - [gj 
 
and the nations of the earth deal with them as governments, no 
 matter what the usurpation." 
 
 I have no purpose, and certainly the present would 
 be a very unfit occasion to indulge it if I had, to exam- 
 ine into the correctness of this proposition or its appli- 
 cation to the late rebellion. The speech is referred to, 
 as was the one before quoted, because it accounts in 
 part, I think, for the impression so widely entertained 
 that a conservative and enlightened statesman in the 
 inscrutable providence of God had been taken from us 
 at an epoch in our country's history when his services 
 could not have failed to be of great value. But irre- 
 spective of all particular exhibitions of it, it was not 
 surprising to those who knew Judge Collamer in ad- 
 vance that he proved so well fitted to the duties of the 
 important positions to which his State called him. An 
 habitual student, with a mind perfectly honest, with a 
 long experience at the bar and on the bench of his own 
 State, (a bar and l^ench ever distinguished for ability and 
 learning,) he came to the councils of the general gov- 
 ernment thoroughly prepared to meet their highest 
 demands, and this the result proved. From the first he 
 ranked among the ablest of our jurists and statesmen, 
 and continued to maintain that rank to the last. As long 
 as the nine volumes of the Vermont reports of cases 
 during his judicial career remain, the exactness and 
 depth of his legal knowledge will serve to guide and 
 inform the profession and promote everywhere the 
 cause of enlightened jurisprudence; and while the de- 
 bates of Congress during the period of his service in 
 either branch are left, we who are yet here, and those 
 
who shall succeed us, will find in his speeches lessons 
 full of instruction and replete with patriotism on almost 
 every question of public policy or of constitutional law 
 that can arise. In the purity of his life, too; the industry 
 with which he discharged his various official functions; 
 in his freedom from prejudice, his constant regard to the 
 rights and interests of all the States, and in his uniform 
 courtesy to his associates, we have an example at all 
 times to be honored and followed. 
 
 Mr. President, it was my good fortune to have been 
 associated with him, not only in the Senate, but for 
 some fourteen months in the executive councils during 
 the administration of General Taylor. Before tliat 
 period I only knew him as a distinguished puldic ser- 
 vant; but in those months our relations Ijecame, to my 
 great benefit and gratification, intimate, leading to a 
 friendship which it is a great pleasure to me now to 
 remember was never even for a moment disturbed. 
 Those who are acquainted with his administration of 
 the Post Office Department during that time know that 
 it was in all respects admirable. Its vast and compli- 
 cated business, throughout his administration, was never 
 more ably conducted. I feel that it is unnecessary, in 
 the presence in which I stand, to say more of his public 
 career. No praise of it, however great, would those 
 who have been with him in this chamber consider 
 exaggerated. And for the same reason would it be idle 
 for me to do more than to allude to his social qualities, 
 for these we all knew and delighted in. The })ublic 
 business of the day ended, its cares dismissed, and 
 private intercourse resumed, which of us does not 
 
 ^ 
 
recollect that his conversation was always improving 
 friendly, and entertaining I To allude to it even affords 
 but a melancholy pleasure, as it so forcibly reminds us 
 of the great private affliction we have sustained. But 
 in our bereavement we are not without consolation. 
 The sad evil did not occur until our friend had served 
 his country most faithfully and well, and particularly 
 during the last four years of its severe trial with un- 
 surpassed ability and the purest patriotism. 
 
 It is a further consolation that it did not occur until 
 the crisis of our nation's peril had flivorably terminated; 
 until the fratricidal blow aimed at its life by wicked 
 ambition, proving for a time able to mislead the hon- 
 est masses of the South, was so utterly defeated and 
 crushed that its renewal is impossible, and until the 
 authority of the Constitution and laws was restored and 
 submitted to in every part of the land. Our consola- 
 tion, however, would . have been the greater if he had 
 been suffered to remain until he could have seen 
 established that stronger bond of union than Consti- 
 tution and laws alone can give, which is to be found in 
 mutual sympathy and affection; until he had seen us 
 again, and more perfectly than ever, one people, ac- 
 knowledging the same political principles, influenced 
 by the same motives, and impelled by the same purpose 
 of working out, under and by virtue of the governments 
 of the Union and of the States, a prosperity and renown 
 greater than we have possessed in the past, and, aban- 
 doning forever the heresy of secession, and al)olishing 
 the special institution, (the causes, direct or indirect, of 
 the late convulsion,) resolved to make our Union, to 
 
which we owe all of our happiness, individual and 
 social, that we have heretofore enjoyed or can hope for, 
 not only firmer than ever, but, as far as human effort 
 can accomplish it, make it perpetual. 
 
 If this additional privilege had been vouchsafed him 
 by Providence, our departed associate and friend would, 
 I believe, have left the world without other pang than 
 that acute one which is inseparable from the sundering 
 of domestic ties, (ties never stronger than in his case,) 
 and in the fidl assurance, which takes from death its 
 sting, and from the grave its victory, of that judgment 
 in mercy which a firm l)elief in the truth of the Chris- 
 tian dispensation assures him who holds it will l)e 
 awarded to a well-spent and religious life on earth. 
 
 Address of Mr. Fessenden, of Maine. 
 
 Mr. President: Among the distinguished men ^\•h() 
 during the past ten years have occupied these seats, I 
 regarded Senator Collamer as having no superior. He 
 was not among those, if any such may be found, selected 
 through his own skill in political combinations, in reward 
 for party services, to advance the interests of personal 
 followers, or on account of individual popularity. AVith 
 great directness, not to say abruptness, of speech, ex- 
 treme tenacity of opinion and purpose, and apparently a 
 somewhat proi)ortionate disregard of the opinions of 
 others when differing from his own, he was not likely 
 to gather around him and retain the attachment of a 
 
party devoted to himself, or to interest large numbers 
 of men in his individual success. Notwithstandinof 
 these obstacles in his political path, few among our 
 eminent public men have been more successful in at- 
 tracting and retaining the confidence and regard of the 
 people among whom he lived, and inspiring with pro- 
 found respect those with whom it was his fortune to be 
 associated in the conduct of public aifairs. 
 
 That this was so may be accounted for in some 
 measure by the character of the people whom he so 
 long and so ably represented, and in a still greater de- 
 gree by the possession of intellectual and moral qualities 
 which overshadowed all such trifling defects, if so they 
 may be considered. The small but noble State of 
 which he was a most distinguished citizen has long 
 been accustomed to look for its official representatives 
 among those most eminent for virtue in private, and 
 capacity for usefulness in pul)lic, life. It has ever seemed 
 to act upon the idea that pul)lic trust should be confided 
 to the most faithful and public honors conferred upon 
 the most capable and deserving of its sons. Thence it 
 has followed, not only that its domestic affairs have been 
 well and ably conducted, but that its weight in the 
 councils of the nation has been largely disproportioned 
 to the extent of its territory and the number of its 
 people. 
 
 Mr. CoLLAMER was the possessor of qualities which 
 could not fail to attract the attention and to secure the 
 confidence of a people able and disposed to estimate 
 men at their true value. Though his love of approba- 
 tion was largely developed, he was more anxious to 
 
deserve than to receive it. Ambitious to secure the 
 respect of others, he never forgot that without his own 
 it would be worthless. Gifted by nature with great 
 quickness of apprehension, discriminating powers of a 
 high order, a just thinker, an admiral)le logician, and 
 withal a student l^oth from taste and habit, he could not 
 but become an able lawyer, more distinguished, perhaps, 
 for the exactness of his professional learning than for 
 the extent of its range. That leaniing, however, em- 
 braced all the subjects coming within the sphere of his 
 practice and involved with the pursuits of those among 
 whom he lived, and \\liose interests he was called upon 
 to protect. 
 
 Carrying to the bench of his State such habits of 
 study and thought, and such intellectual powers, and 
 with them a most delicate conscientiousness, he could 
 not be otherwise than an eminent and upright magis- 
 trate — eminent even among the able and learned men 
 who, from its earliest history, have adorned its judicial 
 annals, and given to American law character and re- 
 nown. It is not, however, for me to speak of him at 
 length either as counsellor or judge, inasmuch as I 
 never happened to witness his efforts at the bar or 
 upon the bench. Yet, though living in another and not 
 an adjoining State, his professional and judicial reputa- 
 tion was such as could not be confined within the 
 limits of his circuit, and his name had been familiar to 
 me long before it was my good fortune to meet him 
 where, upon a broader theatre, and at a great crisis in 
 his country's history, requiring the exercise of the best 
 
powers of the human mind, he was destined to perform 
 a most useful and honorable part. 
 
 Our lamented associate brought to the Senate, at the 
 commencement of the thirty-fourth Congress, a rich 
 experience in legislation, gathered in the halls of his 
 adopted State and in the national House of Representa- 
 tives. With a man like him, time never was suffered 
 to pass unimproved. Intrusted with public affairs, to 
 make himself familiar with all that pertained to them, 
 to master the details of business, and to guard with 
 vigilance the public interests, were to him solemn and 
 religious duties. To this end he spared no labor how- 
 ever severe, and shrunk from no task however burden- 
 some. With such habits, and thus ripe in intellect and 
 experience, he commenced his senatorial career, not, 
 like many others, with everything to learn, but fully 
 anned, master of his weapons, and ready for the great 
 conflict upon Mdiich he was about to enter. Time 
 never finds a gi'eat occasion without finding, also, earlier 
 or later, the men fitted to meet it. Familiar with his 
 country's history, learned in its laws, thoroughly imbued 
 with its principles of government, in the best sense a 
 patriot, thoughtful and wise in council, firm in purpose, 
 and spotless in character, our associate and friend was 
 admirably fitted to meet the duties of a perilous hour. 
 How well and bravely those duties were performed w^e 
 can all bear witness. Spared to see the clouds of civil 
 war, which had so long darkened over his beloved 
 country, finally dissipated, and the sun of peace rising 
 in unobscured brilliancy, he passed away from earth too 
 soon, as it would seem to our imperfect vision, and 
 
 ©=■ 
 
 -"'-■"■~"-'™"~" 
 
while very much to Avhich his sagacity and prudence 
 might have largely contributed still remains to be done. 
 
 Conspicuous in the del)ates of the Senate, Mr. Col- 
 lamer, though of prepossessing personal appearance 
 and ready in speech, was not remarkable for oratorical 
 power, and at no pains to ornament his discourse with 
 rhetorical illustration. His remarks were always suited 
 to the occasion, and confined strictly to the question in 
 debate. Plain, simple, and unpretending in manner 
 and style, always severely logical and master of his 
 subject, he was invariably heard with attention, and 
 with the expectation, never disappointed, that new light 
 would be cast upon the question, however elaborately it 
 might have been previously discussed by others. His 
 speeches were well considered, but never assumed the 
 shai)e of orations, carefully written out, adorned with 
 rhet(H-ical flourish, and "pointed with inverted commas." 
 The closet was to him a place for prayer and thought, 
 for forgiveness of injuries, real or fancied, and for the 
 cultivation of good will to man, rather than a lal:)oratory 
 of vituperation, open or covert, whether of men or 
 measures. Quick at repartee and somewhat imi)atient 
 of interruption, his retorts were sometimes caustic, but 
 had no tinge of malice. If their sting was felt it left 
 no wound; while the rich vein of humor, which never 
 failed, and an inexhaustil)le fund of apposite and amusing 
 anecdote, always illustrative and nu)st luq)pily related, 
 rendered his efforts alike interesting to a miscellaneous 
 audience and instructive to his associates. 
 
 You and I, Mr. President, have long known and felt 
 how delightful our lamented friend was in private and 
 
social intercourse, how playful and genial was his wit, 
 how fertile he was of anecdote, how keen of observation, 
 and how instructive his conversation, both in lighter and 
 graver moods. No one of his associates in this chamber 
 can l)etter than myself bear testimony to his kindness 
 of heart, his readiness to impart infomiation, and give 
 the advantage of his learning and wisdom to those 
 about him, whenever sought or needed. Seated by his 
 side, session after session, for many years, I habitually 
 asked his advice and sought his aid whenever embar- 
 rassed by doubt or difficulty. The patience with which 
 he listened, and the ready kindness with wiiich he 
 responded, imparting from his rich store all that was 
 needful, compelling me to make his thoughts my own, 
 could not but secure my gratitude and win my affection. 
 I venerated and loved the man as one regards an elder 
 brother, upon whose superior knowledge and wisdom, 
 and unselfish singleness of heart, he feels that he may 
 in all emergencies safely rely; and I grieve for his loss 
 as one laments the breaking of a link in that chain of 
 life's pleasures which he feels to be growing shorter 
 and shorter day by day. 
 
 At a period like the present, calling for so much wise 
 experience and unselfish devotion in our national coun- 
 cils, the loss of such a man cannot but be severely felt. 
 And yet, in the inscrutable ways of Providence, it well 
 happens that the termination of no single life is ever 
 permitted to produce more than a momentary ripple 
 upon the great ocean of human affairs. Whatever 
 impress the individual may make upon the time in 
 which he lived is soon trodden out by myriads of ad- 
 
 ii ^" ^^^ ----^ -^^ - -.^---.- - """" ii 
 
vancing footsteps. Other hands take up the unfinished 
 work, and it goes on without any perceptible stay or 
 interruption. The noljlest ambition of man is, there- 
 fore, to perform well and faithfully the part assigned 
 to him, and he is fortunate if content with what he may 
 receive, and humbly thankful if spared responsibilities 
 beyond his abihty to bear. It may be truly said of our 
 departed friend that he was true to his own conceptions 
 of duty, both in public and private life. And if he was 
 not without a love for worldly distinction and eminent 
 place, that love was subordinate always to his convictions 
 of right, and his highest aim was to serve fiiithfully, and 
 to divine acceptance, as a Christian soldier, in the great 
 battle of life. 
 
 Address of Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut. 
 
 Mr. Peesident : The Nestor of the American Senate 
 has been called from the scene where his counsels have 
 been so often heard, and his wisdom was so justly 
 honored. Whatever of eloquence, of learning, of skill 
 in debate, may remain in this body, the death of Judge 
 CoLLAMER leaves a void here which will not easily be 
 supplied. Whoever aspires to fill his peculiar place, 
 and exert a similar influence, must possess not only 
 equal abilities and a character as pure, but a judgment 
 enlightened like his by the lessons, and a mind stored 
 with the fruits, of a long and varied experience. 
 
 If, in our estimate of the dead, we are sometimes 
 
mmwammmmKmwentmmmr'aBmmtmmmmwv 
 
 HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 35 
 
 liable to pass beyond the measure of a just appreciation, 
 we may be assured that whatever language of eulogy 
 is applied to him, we are in little danger of exceeding 
 a correct judgment of his merits. In the Senate, and 
 wherever else he was called to act, he was a man 
 so marked and peculiar that his superiority in many 
 striking respects was at once acknowledged. It was 
 my good fortune to know him somewhat intimately; 
 first in the House of Rejiresentatives, and more lately 
 in the Senate. AYhile he was conspicuous in both 
 these positions among the celebrated and able men with 
 whom he was associated in public affairs, there were 
 certain qualities, intellectual and moral, in which he was 
 not surpassed by any of the distinguished characters of 
 his time. And, first of all, he was a just man. His 
 integrity was a pervading and governing characteristic 
 of his nature; which not only controlled his conduct, 
 but shaped his sentiments and opinions, so that he 
 seemed gifted with an unerring judgment of right and 
 wrong. Enlightened by this high sense of justice, his 
 reasoning faculties could scarcely fail in the attainment 
 of truth ; and for him to refuse its acknowledgment or 
 resist its sway was an impossibility. Hence it was 
 that in those intellectual processes for which he was so 
 distinguished, he seemed never to be contending merely 
 for polemic victory, but rather to be illuminating, by 
 the light of his unclouded reason, the path which his 
 controlling sense of justice compelled him to pursue. 
 It was impossible to follow him in the steps of his 
 irrefutable logic ,without being struck by his perfect 
 sincerity, as well as by the strength of his reasoning; 
 
 m- 
 
and the arguments by which his own mind was con- 
 vinced, seldom failed to convince his hearers. Thus as 
 an advocate he compelled the assent of courts and juries 
 to his propositions. But it was as a judge that he 
 seemed in his peculiarly appropriate sphere. Here, his 
 hio-h sense of right and his unrivalled reasoning powers 
 combined to render his legal judgments almost infallible; 
 and the suitors to whom justice was dispensed by him 
 seldom complained even of his adverse decisions. 
 
 To us our venerated and deeply-lamented friend was 
 chiefly known by his punctual and constant attendance 
 and his faithful labors in this body, in the business and 
 debates of which he took a leading part. Here for 
 many years we have listened to his words of wdsdom, 
 and have been guided by the light which he shed upon 
 every subject which he discussed; yet I cannot recall 
 an instance in which he exerted those great abilities, 
 with which he was intrusted for the good of man- 
 kind, for the purposes of ostentation or self-display. 
 The arts of eloquence he apparently little esteemed. 
 These, with the graces of rhetoric and the felicities 
 of expression, he left entirely to others, satisfying him- 
 self with a plainness of language, and often with a 
 homeliness of phrase, which sometimes gave an added 
 strength to his unanswerable reasoning. In the midst, 
 however, of his closest argumentation, the flash of wit, 
 the quaint stroke of humor, the apt and illustrative 
 anecdote, would occasionally vary tlie current of thought 
 and relieve the attention which might otherwise have 
 been wearied by the severe and exact logic to which 
 he usually so rigidly adhered. Nor should it be for- 
 
 mm 
 
©- 
 
 HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 37 
 
 gotten that, with all his power in debate, he was 
 generous and considerate of others. No harsh or unkind 
 word ever escaped his lips. He seldom indulged even 
 in repartee, passing in silence any attack, real or sup- 
 posed, upon himself, and applying his powers only to the 
 sul)ject-matter of his discourse. As he was respected, 
 so he was respectful and courteous in debate, treating 
 others with the same consideration and regard which 
 all conceded to his own pure character and superior 
 abilities. 
 
 In the truest and best sense of the word. Judge Col- 
 lamer was a conservative. To conserve, to defend, to 
 uphold and maintain the government, the Union, the 
 Constitution, the laws of the United States — this was 
 his constant effort, the mission and the labor of his 
 life. He did not believe, however, that true con- 
 servatism consists in upholding ancient error, or per- 
 sisting in wrongs because they seem by the lapse of 
 time to have become irremediable, or by custom and 
 usage to have grown inviolable. On the contrary, he 
 thought that what is good in a government may best be 
 defended and preserved by seeking the proper occasion 
 to correct abuses and rectify mistakes. A genuine 
 conservative, he was not the blind advocate of existing 
 evils nor the stubliorn apologist of the past. He knew 
 when to yield to unavoidable vicissitudes, when to favor 
 necessary changes, wdien to originate improvements 
 and suggest alterations, as well as when to resist the 
 visionary schemes of reckless innovators. He sustained 
 no policy merely because it was old; he favored no 
 measure merely because it was new. 
 
 
m 
 
 38 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 
 
 I have spoken of Judge Collamer as he was seen 
 in the performance of his pubHc duties. There was 
 another side of his character, in which the persuasive 
 advocate, the inflexil)le judge, the vdse and pohtic 
 • statesman, appeared in a more genial and winning hght. 
 In the unrestrained intercourse of private Hfe and the 
 flow of ordinary conversation there was a chann in his 
 society which those who knew him intimately cannot 
 soon forget. The judge and the senator were forgotten 
 in the brilliant and delightful companion, the generous 
 and sympathizing friend, the wise, the candid, the far- 
 seeing man. 
 
 In the fulness of his years, after a life of usefulness 
 and of honor, and in the assurance of a Christian hope 
 of a blessed immortality, he has gone to his reward. 
 Of those who survive him, of those who in coming 
 years are to succeed him here and elsewhere, few 
 can equal him in ability and in virtue. His intel- 
 lectual and his moral traits partook of the antique 
 mould, rather than of the modern type of character. 
 Yet, though rare and peculiar, they are not inimitable, 
 and to the nol)le and aspiring youth of our countrj', 
 whose hearts beat high with the love of civil liberty, 
 and who are fired with a generous ambition to benefit 
 and exalt the human race, they furnish an example 
 worthy of earnest emulation and full of the highest 
 encouragement. They may see him in youth studious, 
 laborious, and virtuous; in manhood, exerting all his 
 powers for the good of mankind; and in his ripened 
 age, still in the full possession of his facidties, and con- 
 scientiously performing aU his duties, crowned with 
 
 @- 
 
m 
 
 HON JACOB COLLAMER. 39 
 
 public honors and the respect and affection of a grateful 
 j^eople. They may learn, also, from his life, that the 
 greatest talents do not eclipse the higher and purer 
 light of a truly Christian character; and they cannot 
 fail to perceive the superiority of moral over intellectual 
 greatness, when they observe that with all his pre- 
 eminent abilities, the most striking characteristic of 
 Jacob Collamer was his perfect integrity. 
 
 Address of Mr. Riddle, of Delaware. 
 
 In sorrow for the necessity, with pleasure for the 
 privilege which the sad necessity has created, I, too, 
 Mr. President, second the resolutions before us. 
 
 Eulogy is not my forte. Obituaries are to me un- 
 pleasant. Eulogies I would not attempt; obituaries 
 sometimes become an imperative duty. If perchance 
 the one is blended with the other, it shows at least that 
 the heart is holding such dominion over the mind as to 
 impel utterance to honest sentiments. 
 
 In the death of Jacob Collamer, I think Vermont 
 has lost one of her brightest jewels, the Senate one of 
 its most courteous members, and the country one of its 
 greatest statesmen. He was great in feeling, great in 
 thought, great in principle, and great in action. He 
 was not a Cicero, because he wanted, in some respects, 
 Cicero's elocution; he was not a Demosthenes, because 
 he wanted the oratory of Demosthenes; he was not a 
 Csesar, because he wanted Caesar's ambition, obstinacy. 
 
 •m 
 
@ . __. ,,_,i i 
 
 40 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 
 
 and extravagance. He was a Gracchns — greater than 
 Cicero — -greater than Demosthenes, and greater than 
 Caesar, for all practical purposes in the Senate. The 
 compeers of Calhoun, Clay, Webster and Wright, by 
 his demise, are nearly, if not entirely, extinct. 
 
 But for the illumination of their minds, reflected by 
 the archives of our country, we would be left compara- 
 tively in the dark to grapple with the difficulties which 
 surround us; hence the greater the loss. Would that 
 he had lived to aid in the great work of reconstruction 
 which we are, I hope, about to inaugurate. 
 
 My first acquaintance with Mr. Collameb was in 
 1849 or 1850, when he was Postmaster General of the 
 United States, the duties of which office he discharged 
 with signal ability and general satisfaction. I do con- 
 fess that the impressions which he made upon me 
 at that time were different from those of later days, 
 when we became better acquainted and more intimate. 
 He was apparently an austere man, but there was as 
 little of harshness or rigidity in his composition as of 
 any man who ever lived. Honesty, dignity, and self- 
 possession, i)rominent characteristics of the man, nat- 
 urally created such an impression, and especially upon a 
 young man who differed from him materially upon most 
 political questions, and who was predisposed to oppose 
 his administration. This apparent austerity in a meas- 
 ure separated us, but the union, like the welded link in 
 the chain, only united us more strongly when made. 
 
 An epitome of his life I would gladly give you, but 
 that has been furnished by his surviving and venerable 
 colleague. It may, nevertheless, be proper for me to 
 
allude — I trust it will be considered modestly — to his 
 deportment as a senator, his position as a jurist, and his 
 character as a statesman. Some men when they acquire 
 the position of senator, (I use the word "acquire" with- 
 out wishing it to be literally applied to the deceased,) 
 seek popularity ratlier than labor to direct to proper 
 channels the popularity which their good acts and posi- 
 tion have created. This is the rock, mark my word for 
 it, upon which Great Britain is bound to split. In 
 other words, some men embrace the "isms" of the 
 day — I use the manufactured word "isms," not knowing 
 any other so comprehensive — ^I'ather than breast the 
 storm which such "isms" naturally engender, and which 
 must ultimately destroy every vestige of republican 
 institutions if persevered in. Judge Collamer was 
 not of this class; and in this respect he must have 
 elevated himself in the estimation of the honorable 
 men of Vermont. He believed, and I think correctly, 
 that if our ship of state was to be stranded, it would 
 be by flmaticism, and the denial to the States of their 
 reserved rights under the federal Constitution. His 
 last speech before this body justifies me making such 
 a declaration; but political expressions, or even ex- 
 pressions which lean that way, are not relevant to this 
 occasion. I may, however, be permitted to add, that 
 "his solid qualities as a man, and his evident desire to 
 observe the right as a guide in political matters, won 
 for him many friends, even among those who, like 
 myself, differed from him essentially in the conclusions 
 to which he arrived." I have thus, Mr. President, 
 merely briefly alluded to his views to show that a great 
 
 m 
 
man can, to a great extent, shake off the shackles of 
 party, be sustained by an honest constituency, and shine 
 out, in the estimation of an enhghtened world, as a 
 patriot and statesman. Such was Judge Collamer. 
 No senator ever doubted his honesty; no senator ever 
 questioned his integrity; and when he arose to address 
 you, Mr. President, he was recognized, as he should 
 have ])een, over many of us, in consequence of his age, 
 experience, ability, and acknowledged statesmanship. 
 If this be a compliment, God grant his friends may 
 duly appreciate it. 
 
 I sjieak, sir, perhaj^s, apparently with too much feeling, 
 but it fortuned I was his companion upon his return 
 home after the adjournment of the last Congi-ess. I 
 may say that during our last journey I learned to know 
 him better, and, if possible, respect him more. I knew 
 he was mifamiliar with selfishness. His laudable am- 
 bition was satiated. His country, with which I may 
 say he was born, was his adopted child. He had grown 
 up with it. In boyhood he fought its early battles; in 
 manhood he contended for its institutions; and in old 
 age, when death was dawning upon him, he enunciated 
 the noblest principles of his life, and the only principles 
 which can save this government. I leave to senators 
 and the country to judge what these principles are. 
 
 Before to-day I did not know Judge Collamer's 
 religious views. I knew he was spiritually inclined, and 
 I believe no man can be great without such inclination. 
 It is the germ from which true greatness grows, cultivate 
 it as you may. It enlarges the heart, l3rightens the 
 intellect, and gives true nobility to the soul. It is 
 
 11 
 
m 
 
 equally certain that many assume it for base and mer- 
 cenary purjioses, and they are the pests upon society; 
 but Judge CoLLAMER, I may say, and let the remark 
 not appear sacrilegious, it assumed. He was honest 
 enough to admit his errors; bold enough to confront his 
 enemies; conscientious enough to concede his faults; 
 and humble enough to pray to his God for forgiveness. 
 
 During the journey to which I have alluded I ad- 
 vanced the idea that although man was mortal, govern- 
 ment, the creature of man upon this earth, properly reg- 
 ulated, might become immortal; that morality and love 
 for the neighbor were the essential attributes of lasting 
 power and sovereignty, and that sovereignty maintained 
 under such instincts would become immortal. To this 
 the judge partially dissented, but expressed a desire to 
 read a work upon the sul)ject, a copy of which I sent him 
 a few months before he died. 
 
 He also expressed a desire to read the works of 
 Emanuel vSwedenborg, whom he considered as one of 
 the greatest men and writers of his age; but feeling, as 
 it were, that his days were numbered, he said to me in 
 a suppressed tone, "It is too late to commence such an 
 undertaking." Thus we parted, and parted forever, un- 
 less to meet in the same mansion in another and better 
 world. 
 
 May the Green Mountain boys of Vermont decorate 
 his grave with the verdure and natural grandeur of their 
 hills; and may the constitutional principles which he 
 enunciated and advocated be indelibly impressed upon 
 their minds ! I would want this, to use a paradox, be 
 an unwritten inscription upon his tomb. 
 
 i)- 
 
Address of Mr. Sumner, of Massachusetts. 
 
 Mr. President: Since Henry Clay left this chamber 
 by the gate of death, no senator has passed that way 
 crowned with the same honorable years as Mr. Col- 
 lamer; nor has any senator passed that way whose 
 departure created such a blank in the public councils, 
 unless we except Mr. Douglas. He was our most ven- 
 erable associate ; but his place here had not shrunk with 
 time. He was, when we last saw him, as important to 
 our del)ates and to our conclusions as he had ever been. 
 He still possessed all those peculiar powers of argument 
 and illustration, seasoned with a New England salt, 
 which he had from the beginning. He was not so old 
 that he was not often the life of the body. 
 
 When he came into the Senate, it was after long and 
 various experience as lawyer, judge, representative in 
 the other house, member of the Cabinet, and then 
 again as judge, in all which characters he had been 
 single, pure, honest, fliithful, and laborious. Though 
 little of a traveller, he had seen much. He had also 
 read much, and he had done much. But all the results 
 of observation, study, and action had so passed into his 
 nature as to become a part of himself If he expressed 
 an opinion even on law, it seemed to come from him- 
 self, and not from books He was the authority. And 
 yet he was fond of books, whether in his own profes- 
 sion or in other departments of study. 
 
 His fidelit}^ assumed the form of accuracy in all that 
 he said or did. He spoke accurately, and he was 
 
 IS- 
 
especially accurate with his pen. Perhaps nobody was 
 apter in the style or language of legislation. He was 
 an excellent draughtsman, although, without doubt, too 
 professional for a taste not exclusively professional — ^in- 
 dulging in traditional phrases and those favorite super- 
 fluities of the lawyer, said and aforesaid. The great act 
 of July 13, 1861, which gave to the war for the sup- 
 pression of the rebellion its first congressional sanction, 
 and invested the President with new powers, was drawn 
 by him. It was he that set in motion the great ban, 
 not yet lifted, by which the rebel States were shut out 
 from the communion of the Union. This is a landmark 
 in our history, and it might properly be known by the 
 name of its author, as "Collamer's statute." 
 
 All who ever sat with him in the committee-room 
 will long remember the carefulness with which he gave 
 his counsels and the completeness with which he ex- 
 plained them. Perhaps his wisdom and facility in 
 business were nowhere more manifest. I seize this oc- 
 casion to confess most gratefully my own personal obli- 
 gations to him in this interesting relation. 
 
 The same character which appeared in the commit- 
 tee-room showed itself in conversation, enlivened by a 
 constant humor. He, too, had his "little story" for 
 illustration; but in this respect he differed from the 
 late President as one of his own Vermont mountains 
 differs from an outstretched and laughing prairie of the 
 west. In manner he was Socratic. The curious ob- 
 server, fond of tracing resemblances, might fancy that 
 in the form of his head, and even of his person, he was 
 not unlike the received image of Socrates; while his 
 
colloquial powers might recall Socrates again, as lie is 
 pictured by the affectionate Xenophon, "handling all 
 who conversed with him just as he pleased." He had 
 also the same anticpie simplicity, and I doubt not he 
 would have followed the wise man of Athens bare-foot 
 in the waters of the Ilissus. I would not push this re- 
 semblance too far, and I use it only for illustration, 
 not for parallel. And yet, as I bring to mind our de- 
 parted friend, he seems to assume this classical figure. 
 Call him, then, if you please, the Green Mountain 
 Socrates. 
 
 Debate, except on the highest occasions, is only con- 
 versation in jjublic. With him it was conversation 
 always. He spoke, as he conversed, with the same 
 pith and humor, and with the same facility. But his 
 facility did not tempt him. In this gilded amphitheatre, 
 where the speaker is sacrificed to the galleries, as of old 
 the gladiator was sacrificed to make a Roman holiday, 
 he declined all display, and simply conversed; and such 
 was the desire to hear him, that we gathered near to 
 catch his words. He was not a frequent speaker, and 
 he never spoke except when he had something to say; 
 nor did he speak for effect abroad, but only for effect 
 in the debate. Of course, he was too honest and too 
 considerate of the Senate to speak without the prepara- 
 tion of reflection and study. Though at times earnest, 
 he was never bitter. He never dropped into the 
 debate any poisoned ingredients. 
 
 Sometimes he spoke with much effect, especially on 
 matters of law or finance, or business. On the great 
 question which for a generation overshadowed all others, 
 
ll'? 
 
 HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 47 
 
 and finally wrapped the country in the "living cloud of 
 war," he was sincerely anti-slavery, but with certain 
 short-comings, which in this impartial tribute ought 
 not to be concealed. His lenity toward our monster 
 enemy showed itself unconsciously when he spoke of 
 mahgnant rebels as "those southern gentlemen who 
 had seceded;" and then again when, at an earlier date, 
 he spoke of "two civilizations;" but he bore kindly the 
 reply that civilization was only on one side. And yet 
 on two occasions in this chamber he strove for the 
 right very bravely, so that his position was historic. 
 One of these was many years ago, shortly after he came 
 into the Senate. The other was only last year. The 
 historian and the biographer will describe these scenes. 
 One of them is the fit subject of art. 
 
 The earliest of these occasions was when, under the 
 influence of the President of that day, backed by Jeffer- 
 son Davis in the cabinet, an illegal government was set 
 up in a distant Territory, which, in defiance of the 
 people there, proceeded to institute an infamous Black 
 Code borrowed from slavery. The President counte- 
 nanced the illegal government and smiled upon the 
 Black Code. The representatives of slavery in both 
 houses of Congress, with their northern allies, indifferent 
 to human rights and greedy only of political power, sus- 
 tained the President in his disregard of that fundamental 
 principle of the Declaration of Independence that " gov- 
 ernment stands on the consent of the governed." The 
 contest was unequal. On the one side was a struggling 
 people, insulted and despoiled of their rights; on the 
 other side was the President, with all the vast powers 
 

 of this republic, with patronage less than now, but very 
 prevailing, and with a great political party which gave 
 to him an unhesitating support. The contest reached 
 this chamber. Naturally it came before the Committee 
 on Territories, where happily the good cause was repre- 
 sented by Jacob Collamer, of Vermont. The interest 
 increased with each day; and when the committee 
 reported, a scene ensued without example among us. 
 The reports of committees are usually handed in and or- 
 dered to be printed ; but now, at the impassioned call of a 
 senaatorfrom South Carolina, the report of the committee, 
 whitewashing incredible outrages, was read by the chair- 
 man at the desk of the Secretary of the Senate. The chair- 
 man left his seat for this purpose, and stood face to face 
 with the Senate. For two hours the apology for that 
 usurpation, which had fastened a Black Code upon an 
 inoffensive people, sounded in this chaml^er, while the 
 partisans of slavery gloated over the seeming triumph. 
 There was a hush of silence, and there was sadness also 
 with some, who saw clearly the unpardonable turpitude 
 of the sacrifice. Mr. Collamer followed with a mi- 
 nority report, signed hy himself alone, which he read at 
 the desk of the Secretary, standing face to face with 
 the Senate. Jesse D. Bright was at the time our 
 President, but he had installed in the chair on that 
 momentous occasion none other than that most deter- 
 mined artificer of treason and drill-sergeant of the 
 rebellion, John Slidell, who sat behind, like Mcphis- 
 tophcles looking over the shoulder of Truth, while the 
 patriot senator standing before gravely unfolded the 
 enormities which had been perpetrated. Few who 
 
were present then now remain; but none who were 
 present then can fail to recall the scene. The report 
 which Mr. Collamee read belongs to the history of the 
 country. But the scene comes clearly within the do- 
 main of art. In the long life of our departed friend it 
 was his brightest and most glorious moment — beyond 
 anything of honor or power, whether in the Cabinet or 
 on the bench. For what is office compared to the 
 priceless opportunity, nobly employed, of standing as a 
 buttress for human rights? 
 
 The other signal occasion, when he showed much of 
 the same character, and was surely inspired by the 
 same sentiment, was during the last year, when the 
 illustrious President, who now sleeps in immortality, 
 undertook, in disregard of Congress and solely by ex- 
 ecutive power, to institute civil governments throughout 
 that region of the Union where civil governments had 
 been overthrown — imitating, in the agencies he em-, 
 ployed, the Cromwellian system of ruling by "major 
 generals." The case of distant and oj^pressed Kansas 
 was revived. Who can forget the awakened leonine 
 energy of the aged senator when, contrary to his cus- 
 tom, he interrupted another in debate to declare his 
 judgment against the power of the President to insti- 
 tute permanent civil governments "to last beyond the 
 war!" The dividing line was clear. The President 
 might exercise a temporary military power, but Con- 
 gress must lay the foundations of permanent peace. 
 This simple principle was, of course, only the corollary 
 of that rule of Jeiferson, which has become one of the 
 commonplaces of our political system, asserting "the 
 
supremacy of the civil over the miUtary authority!" 
 The eggs of crocodiles can produce only crocodiles; 
 and it is not easy to see how the eggs laid by military 
 power can be hatched into an American State. 
 
 This interjected judgment was afterward developed 
 in a speech, which for sententious wisdom and solid 
 sense is, perhaps, the best he ever delivered. It is not 
 long, but, like the Roman sword, it is effective from its 
 very shortness. He spoke with the authority of years, 
 but he spoke also with another peculiar authority, for it 
 was he who drew the act of Congress which placed the 
 rebel States under the ban. Positively, earnestly, and 
 most persuasively he insisted that Congress should not 
 abdicate its control of this question. His conclusion 
 was repeated again and again. It was for Congress, he 
 said, to say when that state of things existed which 
 would entitle the rebel States to perform their functions 
 .as integral parts of the Union. It was for Congress to 
 decide this question, and not for the President, except 
 so far as the President unites in an act of Congress by 
 his signature. And he asked, "When will and when 
 ought Congress to admit these States as being in their 
 normal condition?" To which he answers, "It is not 
 enough that they stop their hostility and are repentant. 
 They should present fruits meet for repentance. They 
 should furnish to us, by their actions, some evidence 
 that the condition of loyalty and obedience is their true 
 condition again, and Congress must pass upon it; otlier- 
 ivise ive have no securities. And I insist that the Presi- 
 dent, by making peace with them — if you please, by 
 surceasing military operations — does not alter their status 
 
until Congress ^msses upon it." Then, again, filled witli 
 the thought, he exclaims, "The great essential thing 
 now to insist upon is that Congress shall do nothing 
 which can in any way create a doubt about our power 
 over the subject." And still pleading against executive 
 interference, he says, "I believe that when re-establish- 
 ing the condition of peace with that people, Congress, 
 representing the United States, has power, in ending 
 this war, as any other war, to get some security for the 
 future. It would be a strange thing if it were not true 
 that this nation, in ending a civil as well as a foreign 
 war, could close it and make peace by obtaining, if not 
 indemnity for the past, at least some security for future 
 peace!' This was the last speech of our patriot senator. 
 It is his dying legacy to his country. Let all, from 
 President to citizen, heed its words. The aspiration 
 so often expressed to-day that he were now alive to take 
 part in the restoration of the rebel States is fulfilled. 
 He lives in his declared opinions, which are now echoed 
 from the tomb. 
 
 Say not that I err, because here, at his funeral, seek- 
 ing to do him honor, I exhibit him bravely standing 
 front to front with executive power, wielded by a Presi- 
 dent who was instigated by Jefferson Davis, and then 
 again bravely standing front to front with executive 
 power, wielded by the gentle hand of Abraham Lincoln. 
 In the first case it was to save an outraged people; in 
 the other case it w^as to vindicate the powers of the 
 people of the United States in Congress assembled to 
 provide guarantees and safeguards against that wicked- 
 ness and perjury which had deluged his beloved country 
 
witli blood. Say not that I err, because now, at liis 
 funeral, anxious that his best actions should not be for- 
 gotten, I commemorate this championship. He is dead, 
 but the good he has done cannot die. And hereafter 
 faithful senators, struggling with executive power, will 
 catch a new inspiration from his example. A bishop 
 of the church tells us that "all is not lost while there is 
 a man left to reprove error and bear testimony to the 
 truth; and the man who does it with becoming spirit 
 may stop a prince or senate in full career, and recover 
 the day." Where this spirit has Ijeen shown — where 
 an honored associate has earned this title to fame — 
 I insist that it shall be made known. The bat- 
 tles of regiments are inscribed on their colors. I 
 now inscribe on the colors of Jacob Collamer the 
 civic batj;les which he fought. ^ Swords of honor are 
 placed on the coffins of lamented generals. I now place 
 on the coffin of a lamented senator the simple trutliful 
 record of his acts. 
 
 Address of Mr. Poland, of Vermont. 
 
 Mr. Peesident: I had intended not to occujiy the 
 attention of the Senate by any obseiTations of my own 
 upon this occasion. My distinguished colleague, mIio 
 was for so many years associated in public life with 
 Judge Collamer, not only in this, but also in the other 
 house of Congress, was so eminently fitted, both in 
 thoughts and words, to do justice to his fame and mem- 
 
oiy, and to express tlie deej) regret and grief of the 
 people of our State at his loss, that I did not feel at 
 liberty to weaken what he might say by any feeble 
 utterance of my own. The knowledge, too, that other 
 distinguished members of this body, long associated 
 with Judge Collamer, not only as senators, but in 
 other high departments of the public service, would 
 address the Senate upon the announcement of his 
 decease, was an additional circumstance urging me to 
 silence. But more mature consideration has brought 
 me, within a very few hours, to a different detennina- 
 tion, and to the belief that in justice to m3'self, as the 
 successor of Judge Collamer to a seat in this branch 
 of Congress, and to the people of the State which so 
 highly trusted and honored him, my own feeble voice 
 ought to be added to the general mourning over his 
 lamented decease. « 
 
 My colleague and other senators who have addressed 
 us at the present time have far better knowledge of 
 the career of my lamented predecessor, as a statesman 
 and a member of the general government, than myself, 
 for they were associated with him, and witnessed his 
 daily labors in those great departments; while my 
 knowledge was merely that of the people at large, 
 derived from the published proceedings and debates, 
 and the current history of public affairs. This reason 
 alone is ample why I should not trespass upon a theme 
 already so sufficiently and eloquently presented. 
 
 But the greatness and usefulness of my predecessor 
 consisted not alone in his distinguished services to his 
 State and nation in the two houses of Congj'ess, and I 
 
54 • OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 
 
 as a Cabinet minister. He was eminently distinguished 
 as a lawyer and a judge; and in these respects I doubt- 
 less knew him better than any other member of this 
 body except my colleague; and the few words I desire 
 to say will relate mainly to his professional and judicial 
 character and reputation. Professional reputation and 
 fame, however well earned and deserved, (except at a 
 few fiivorite points, and in the national tribunals,) are 
 always local in their character, and extend little, if any, 
 beyond the sphere of actual administration; hardly 
 ever outside the lines of a State. 
 
 And the same is true of judicial reputation, earned 
 upon the bench of the State courts, unless the judicial 
 career of the recipient extends over an unusual period 
 of time. The reason for this is sufficiently apparent 
 from the fact that the professional and judicial labors 
 of lawyers and j.udges are generally bestowed upon 
 matters of mere private concern and individual interest, 
 and, however important and useful to the parties them- 
 selves, excite but little interest in the public mind. 
 Much the larger part of Judge Collamer's professional 
 life had passed before I knew him personally, for he 
 had been already three years upon the bench of our 
 supreme court when I came to the bar in 1836. From 
 that time until his retirement from the bench in 1842 
 I was a practitioner before the court of which he was 
 a member. During the short period that elapsed be- 
 tween his retirement from the lower house of Congress 
 and his return to the bench in 1850, he resumed the 
 practice of his profession; and during that time I was 
 a member of the supreme court of the State. Under 
 
HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 55 
 
 the new organization of the judiciary of the State in 
 1850, Judge CoLLAMER was made judge of the second 
 judicial circuit, and held that office until his election to 
 the Senate in 1854. During this period I held the 
 same office for the fourth judicial circuit, and it was 
 during this time only that I was ever brought into very 
 intimate personal relations with him. 
 
 I learn from members of the profession, who were 
 contemporary with Judge Collamer in the earlier por- 
 tion of his professional career, that his excellent natural 
 abilities, together with his thorough and accurate 
 knowledge of the law, obtained by close application 
 and study; his diligence and faithfulness in attending 
 to the interests of his clients, and especially his un- 
 swerving honesty and integrity, soon brought to him 
 large professional employment, and that his sphere of 
 practice and reputation steadily enlarged up to the time 
 he left the bar for the bench. He was ever exact and 
 thorough in his preparation, to the smallest details, and 
 in the conduct of trials was always watchful that no 
 proper presentation or argument beneficial to his client 
 should be omitted. Nor did he ever fail to see and to 
 avail himself of all proper advantage given him, either 
 by the weakness of his adversary's cause or by any lack 
 of professional skill shown in its support. But his 
 practice of the law was honorable and manly; he never 
 sought advantage for his client's cause by the use of 
 craft and cunning, so often resorted to by less scrupu- 
 lous members of the profession. But it was more in 
 his character as an advocate that his peculiar and char- 
 acteristic fairness was exhibited. He always presented 
 
 m i 
 
every legitimate argument in favor of his cause forcibly 
 and effectively. 
 
 But lie never resorted to subtle and ingenious sophis- 
 tries to disguise and conceal a dishonest cause or to en- 
 trap and bewilder the triers. His style and manner 
 as an advocate, especially befora juries, was peculiarly 
 his own. His presentation of a cause to a jury was as 
 cool, deliberate, and dispassionate as his argument of 
 a dry question of law before 'the court, or a question of 
 puljlic affairs in the Senate. He never appealed to the 
 passions or prejudices of his auditors, whoever they 
 w^ere, but sought always to move and convince their 
 judgments. He abhorred and detested every form of 
 deceit and fldsehood in others, and disdained the use 
 of it himself 
 
 Such an advocate was of course ever listened to 
 with the highest respect, and his arguments received 
 all that consideration to which his ability and candor so 
 well entitled them. 
 
 Judge CoLLAMEE came to the bench a ripe, 
 thoroughly trained lawyer. His popularity as a judge 
 was all that could have been expected from a man of 
 his talents and attainments. He was especially fortu- 
 nate and gifted as a presiding judge at jury trials. 
 His ready and accurate knowledge of the law, his keen 
 and quick apprehension, his extensive acquaintance 
 with men, and the motives and incentives to human 
 conduct, and especially his strong and intuitive love of 
 justice, enabled him at once to master a case, and de- 
 tect the true from the false, and, without apparent 
 effort, to make the truth of the case manifest to others. 
 
HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 57 
 
 His manner and deportment upon the bench were al- 
 ways kind and considerate; he Ustened patiently to 
 even slow and plodding counsellors endeavoring to ex- 
 plain and illustrate what he already saw clearly. 
 
 He was ever prompt, fearless, and inflexible in his 
 decisions, with nothing of timidity or favoritism, always 
 so painful when exhibited on the bench. It is saying 
 no more than the truth, that he was one of the most 
 efficient and satisfactory nisi prius judges who have 
 ever sat upon the bench. 
 
 His published opinions while a judge of the supreme 
 ■ court are models of judicial composition. For ac- 
 curacy of learning, terseness of statement, clearness 
 and comprehensiveness of style, I do not know where 
 they are excelled. 
 
 Had Judge Collamer remained upon the bench to 
 the end of his life, like Chief Justice Shaw, of Mas- 
 sachusetts, or Chief Justice Gibson, of Pennsylvania, 
 I have no doubt his judicial fame would have equalled 
 that of those eminent jurists. 
 
 I have no need to speak of the character of Judge 
 Collamer in his more private and personal relations, 
 or his rare and generous qualities and gifts as a social 
 companion. All who were ever associated with him in 
 any capacity will ever retain a loving remembrance of 
 his kind and genial nature, his keen and pleasant wit, 
 his love and fund of anecdote. His duties as a hus- 
 band and father, as a citizen and Christian, were ever 
 faithfully and conscientiously fulfilled. 
 
 In brief, sir, I have never known any man who came 
 nearer attaining the full measure of what I believe to 
 
 '© 
 
58 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 
 
 have been the great object of my predecessor m the 
 performance of all the duties of life, from the hmnblest 
 to the highest, to be a just man before God and his 
 fellow-men. 
 
 The people of his and my State have ever held him 
 in the highest respect; they mourn his loss in common 
 with the whole nation, and they will ever cherish in 
 their hearts the memory of his wisdom and his virtues. 
 
 Fortunate may each of us consider himself, if, at the 
 end of the journey of life, he be able to leave behind 
 him a reputation so full of usefulness and a character 
 so pure and unsullied. 
 
 The resolutions were unanimously adopted, and the 
 Senate adjourned. 
 
 m 
 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 Thursday, December 14, 1865. 
 
 A message from the Senate, by Mr. Forney, its 
 Secretary, communicated resolutions adopted by the 
 Senate relative to the decease of Hon. Jacob Colla- 
 MER, late a senator from the State of Vermont. 
 
 On motion of Mr. Morrill, the resolutions were 
 taken from the table and read, as follows: 
 
 Resolved, unanimously. That the Senate has received with the 
 deepest sensibility the announcement of the death of Hon. Jacob 
 CoLLAMER, late a senator of the United States from the State of 
 Vermont. 
 
 Resolved, unanimously, That the members of the Senate, from a 
 sincere desire of showing every mark of respect due to the memory 
 of Hon. Jacob Collamer, will go into mourning by wearing crape 
 on the left arm for thirty days. 
 
 Resolved, unanimously, That, as a further mark of respect for 
 the memory of the deceased, the Senate do now adjourn. 
 
 Address of Mr. Morrill, of Vermont 
 
 Mr. Speaker: The resolutions just received from 
 the Senate announce, what recurs with painful regu- 
 larity, that death has again thinned our numbers, and 
 that we, members of Congress, sooner, perhaps, than 
 others in different walks of life, are doomed to an early 
 dismissal from among the living. In this instance, it is 
 true that our deceased friend, the late senator from 
 
 m 
 
Vermont, had reached fulbiess of years and of honors; 
 but his constitution had been so admirably preserved, 
 that those of us who had recently associated with him 
 were glad to believe he had yet many years in store of 
 useful and lustrous service. His sudden departure 
 surprised the country and his colleagues as much as 
 his own family, and he will be as sincerely lamented 
 by the public as by his friends and relatives. It was 
 my happiness to have been admitted to his intimacy; 
 and I shall speak of him in terms of affection, my feel- 
 ings not allowing me to do less, but at the same time, 
 as he would himself have most desired, with entire 
 justice. 
 
 Hon. Jacob Collamer would have been seventy-five 
 years old had he Hved until the 8th of January next, 
 having been born at Troy, New York, January 8, 1791. 
 With his flither, a soldier of the Ee volution, he moved 
 to Burlington, Vermont, where he received his educa- 
 tion, and graduated at the Vermont University in the 
 class of 1810. After being admitted to the bar in 
 1813, he made a brief campaign in the last war with 
 England, as a lieutenant of artillery in the detached 
 militia of the United States service; and there was no 
 portion of his history to which he referred with more 
 pride. Having settled in Eoyalton, he represented the 
 town, while successfully pursuing his profession, in the 
 State legislature in 1821, 1822, 1827, and 1828; was 
 member of the State constitutional convention in 1836, 
 and was made associate justice of the supreme court of 
 Vermont in 1833. He was continued on the bench 
 until 1842, when he was elected a member of the 
 
House of Representatives in the Congress of the 
 United States. Re elected in 1844 and 1846, he was, 
 at the expiration of his service in this house, immedi- 
 ately called to the Cabinet of President Taylor. Upon 
 the death of the President, he resigned his place in 
 1850. The same year he was again placed as judge in 
 the supreme court of Vermont, and so remained until 
 1854, when he was elected a senator of the United 
 States for six years from 1855. At the expiration of 
 the term he was re-elected. At his first entrance 
 upon his duties in the Senate he was placed upon the 
 Committee on Territories, of which Judge Douglas 
 was chairman, and made the celebrated reply of the 
 minority (March 12, 1856,) to the report of that dis- 
 tinguished gentleman on the Territories of Nebraska 
 and Kansas. The compact statement of facts, the 
 logical deductions therefrom, and the powerful con- 
 densation of the summing up at the conclusion, at once 
 established his reputation in that body of which he 
 became so marked a member. At the close of his 
 career he held the position of chairman of the Com- 
 mittee on the Post Office and Post Roads, chairman of 
 the Joint Committee on the Library, and was also a 
 member of the Committee on the Judiciary. He re- 
 ceived the honorary degree of LL.D. from the Vermont 
 University in 1849, and from Dartmouth College in 
 1857. SuiFering from a sharp attack of congestion of 
 the lungs, induced by a cold caught while returning 
 from the funeral of a brother, Senator Collamee died, 
 from an organic disease of the heart, on the evening of 
 Thursday, November 9, last, at his residence, in Wood- 
 
 'P 
 
stock, attended by the love and watchful solicitude of a 
 devoted family, w^liere the pastor of his church, on the 
 following Sabbath, performed impressive funeral ser- 
 vices, without pomp or show, and where the people of 
 the town and the bereaved family, as the sun was 
 slowly sinking in the west, followed him with tears 
 and sorrow to his quiet tomb. 
 
 His constant elevation produced no change in the 
 modesty of his demeanor, and there was no station, in 
 this long recital of his public employments, which he 
 did not fitly fill and adorn. 
 
 At the start in life, young Collamer was a Jeffer- 
 sonian republican. Later, when parties assumed other 
 names, he was a whig, and always distinguished for 
 the thoroughness with which he examined all ques- 
 tions, for his moderation, for the courtesy with which 
 he ever treated political opponents, and for his scorn, 
 which he took no pains to conceal, of demagogues. 
 Though stoutly maintaining his own predilections, he 
 reviled with cruel words neither parties nor persons; 
 and now, that his course is run, he is at peace with all 
 the world. 
 
 As a judge, he was distinguished for swiftness in the 
 despatch of business, for ability and stern impartiality, 
 and for the perspicacity of his opinions, as orally de- 
 livered or as recorded in reports. While in office, 
 though habitually urbane, he never forgot the gravity 
 and dignity of his judicial position, which sometimes 
 gave the impression of hauteur not actually felt. He 
 was a good disciplinarian, and, therefore, occasionally 
 curt, as when the time of the court was unnecessarily 
 
 W 
 
consumed by illogical or irrelevant speeches; and the 
 unfortunate members of the bar, or partial observers, 
 may have thought he was sour and cold, when he was 
 really, to those who knew him, a man of excellent 
 humor, and as appreciative of merit as of demerit. 
 While he had a full grasp and comprehension of the' 
 principles of law, his memory never failed to supply 
 instances in which those principles had been illustrated 
 and applied. Under his administration, jurors had little 
 difficulty in the solution of nice questions of law and 
 fact, however intimately blended: and the authority of 
 jurors under his guidance and teachings suffered no 
 depreciation, but their functions and capacity appeared 
 to be vindicated upon every trial. In a State which 
 has not been deficient in eminent jurists, including such 
 men as Chipman, Chase, Van Ness, Phelps, Prentiss, and 
 Williams, in the past, not to say anything of the living, 
 the name of Collamer is, and will be, ranked as a 
 worthy peer. He was an upright judge. 
 
 It will be remembered that the cabinet of General 
 Taylor, in its high order of character and ability, has 
 rarely if ever, been surpassed in the history of our 
 country, and it was, in fact, what cabinets were designed 
 to be, the wise council of the President. Among such 
 distinguished associates it is fair to say the late senator 
 was not dwarfed by contrast with any. In the dis- 
 charge of the practical duties of his department he is 
 still remembered by official veterans yet lingering there 
 for his untiring devotion and intelligent application to 
 that business of the government which comes to the 
 knowledge and touches the daily accommodations of 
 
 m 
 
more persons than that of any or all other of the execu- 
 tive departments. By his report it appears that the 
 excess of the revenues of the General Post Office over 
 the expenditures in 1849 was S400,000, but soon after 
 it ceased to be even self-sustaining,, presenting annual 
 •deficits until the present year. While Postmaster Gen- 
 eral he organized a division in his department to attend 
 to all foreign mails, foreign postal arrangements, and 
 ocean steamship lines. The existing postal treaty with 
 Great Britain, at his entrance, just agreed upon, was 
 carried out by him, and all Ihe details for that purpose 
 perfected. The various subsequent international postal 
 arrangements show the wisdom of such treaties, and 
 they are still executed in the department according to 
 the original plan. The administration of the office 
 while in the hands of Mr. Collamer met with no com- 
 plaint, which is the highest compliment this extended 
 and ever-extending department can achieve. 
 
 While in the Senate he commanded the confidence 
 of all its members, and the measures he introduced 
 were not only easily carried in the committees of which 
 he was chairma:"., but when they were brought into the 
 Senate nearly always passed without even a division. 
 He participated in all the important debates, bringing 
 those acceptable offerings which aid in the solution of 
 subjects under discussion; and, without making any 
 dazzling display, or aspiring to any domination, justly 
 wielded a large influence over his fellow-members. If 
 he was not their Mentor, there was no other senator 
 whose counsel upon all subjects was more frequently 
 sought, or more generously a[)preciated. 
 
 m* 
 
Nature had dealt liberally with him, having given to 
 him a fine figure as well as a full and well-poised mind; 
 and -in his youth the graces of his person bespoke favor. 
 In his age he not only spoke Hke a senator, but with 
 the mastery of a piercing eye, that "spoke audience ere 
 the tongue," looked like one, and, as such, his words 
 were accepted as wise among wise men. In his con- 
 versation he led, when he led at all, with useful topics 
 for discussion, and then pursued them with unflagging 
 animation, not monopolizing all the time, but ever and 
 anon showing himself an engaged and gentle hstener, 
 as ready to be pleased with the wit of others as with 
 his own. An hour with him produced no impression 
 of a sermon or a comedy, but his sense and humor 
 were so commingled that those who enjoyed such in- 
 tercourse felt that neither the one nor the other could 
 have been more dignified and useful, nor more pleasant 
 and exhilarating. To all his natural advantages, to 
 all his varied experience, he added patient industry 
 and force of character. He decided nothing by in- 
 tuition — not looking for Jupiter to come to his aid 
 from the clouds — but, helping himself, he always dili- 
 gently studied subjects as they came up in all their 
 parts and relations; so that his opinions, whether in 
 the social circle, on the bench, or in the Senate, far 
 from being crude or extravagant, were the fruit of wise 
 reflection, and no man reasoned more independently, 
 or was less afraid to stand alone. 
 
 Senator Collamer was not a wide and desultory 
 reader, though well versed in history and standard lit- 
 erature — including many quaint and rare old books — 
 
66 OBITUARY ADDRESSES. 
 
 bat he was a very diligent and conscientious student 
 of the books he loved, retaining forever any mastery he 
 had once acquired over them, and among them none 
 were more thoroughly read and inwardly digested than 
 the Bible. A model in the regularity of his habits, 
 modest and republican in his style of living — in his 
 tastes as well as principles — he maintained a character 
 of spotless purity in all the relations of life, public and 
 private, and his own home was made happy by his 
 presence. His piety was unaifected, and he was a 
 regular attendant, wherever he dwelt, upon divine wor- 
 ship. He was liberal and public-spirited in proportion 
 to his means, though an economical manager of his own 
 affairs as he was of those of his country. In his o\\'n 
 State at the time of his decease he was regarded as 
 her foremost man, and his loss will be mourned by the 
 nation as the loss of one of its great men. 
 
 I believe he desired to be regarded as a Christian 
 statesman, and any terms added to these he would have 
 considered as terms of diminution. He preferred to be 
 quietly right rather than to be conspicuous and wrong. 
 He sought to convince, not to be eloquent. He was 
 impressive rather than impulsive. He appealed to the 
 reason of men, and did not aim to excite their temper. 
 He tried to make his audience understand the weight 
 of the argument, not to please them with the beatitudes 
 of rhetoric, The truths to which he gave utterance 
 were calculated, in their naked simplicity, sometimes 
 in their puritanic, gritty homeliness of phrase, to stand 
 the tests of all time; but he took no care to embalm 
 his works with the ornaments of the schools or the 
 
spoils of literature, in order to win that fame which 
 style often secures even to shallow thinkers. It was 
 breadth of view, and not felicity of diction, he aimed 
 at. He borrowed little from others. His intellectual 
 structures were built of timber he had freshly cut and 
 hewn on his own domains, redolent of the perfume of 
 the forest, and were not piled up from dead drift-wood, 
 quotations which float on the surface of learning, so 
 tempting to merely literary wreckers. Though always 
 bravely in earnest, and self-conscious of his power, he 
 had no hot blood, teeming with a luxuriant progeny of 
 hyperbole and fancy, but his unembellished words al- 
 ways kept on a level with his argument — clear, cogent, 
 and inspiring the hearer wdth the idea that the speaker 
 was wiser, freighted with more thought upon the sub- 
 ject, than himself Knowing that the human mind 
 wearies with long-continued attention, he was accus- 
 tomed to enliven his speech with an occasional apposite 
 anecdote, of which he possessed a wonderful opulence, 
 but they were always chaste, and never delayed the ar- 
 gument. They were single flashes of wit, which shed 
 light over the subject in hand, while the speaker and 
 hearer were a long way further on in their journey. 
 Though it was obvious that he had a keen relish for 
 wit, he more worshipped the light which shines forever 
 than the momentary billiancy of the meteor, and was 
 more truly great in the irresistible logic with which he 
 was wont to intrench himself and bid defiance to op- 
 ponents. 
 
 He scrutinized novelties, and was slow to exchange 
 a present inheritance for future prospects. But, if he 
 
 ®' 
 
was not an innovator, he was ready to sustain and de- 
 fend any well-considered and substantial improvement. 
 Conservative from natural temperament, as well as age 
 and experience, he yet never was unwilling to strike at 
 any tangible evil or governmental abuse. 
 
 The Constitution of his country he had read with 
 profound attention, and, upliolding it in all its parts? 
 mainly in accordance with the school of Madison, he 
 strove to be the guardian of the natural rights of the 
 people, as well as the just authority of the government. 
 He loved liberty and revered law. Loving his own 
 State dearly, and watchful of all her rights, he never 
 hesitated to subordinate her sovereignty to that of the 
 nation. His merits in the Senate as a constitutional 
 lawyer of ample learning and uncommon sagacity 
 were cheerfully acknowledged there, and his fame, if it 
 did not leap over, extended as wide as the boundaries 
 of our country. 
 
 Though his views were usually in harmony with 
 those of the people of his own State, the transcendent 
 regard they had for him and his exalted character per- 
 mitted him to differ with them upon some questions, as 
 they felt, whatever differences there might be, that they 
 were the result of patriotic and independent opinions of 
 a full-grown man. 
 
 He abhorred war considered as a trade or profession, 
 was jealous of the supersedure of laws by military 
 rule, and had serious forebodings as to its influence on 
 public morals; but he had large faith in the American 
 people, in their intelligence and traditions; and, in re- 
 sponding to the wager of battle by a wicked and 
 
 i- 
 
rebellious people, he was for the energetic and full ex- 
 ercise of the military power of the country. Chary of 
 legislative weapons, he had no doubt at all of the effi- 
 ciency of martial resources. 
 
 In the Senate others may have excelled' him in 
 learning, in genius, in sarcasm, in oratory, but no one 
 surpassed him in stores of knowledge, in admirable 
 clearness of statement, in lofty purpose, in direct and 
 vigorous argument, nor in that combination of sound 
 opinions which make the intelligent statesman. 
 
 Such a life — with no words his friends could wish 
 to blot, with no acts that do not contribute to his 
 praise, closing with his country's plaudit, "AVell done, 
 thou good and faithful servant," triumphantly closing 
 with the Christian's hope in the resurrection — appeals 
 to us by the force of its illustrious example, that we 
 may so make up our final record that those who sur- 
 vive us may be able to say, as we do now, "Behold, 
 with no remembered sins of youth, here are the 
 splendors of an age, a long age of good works." 
 
 I offer the following resolutions: 
 
 Resolved, That the House of Representatives of the United 
 States has received with the deepest sensibihty the intelligence of 
 the death of Jacob Collamer, late a senator in Congress from the 
 State of Vermont. 
 
 Resolved, That the members and officers of this house, as a 
 proper mark of respect for the personal character and long and 
 faithful services of Hon. Jacob Collamer, will go into mourning 
 by wearing crape upon the left arm for the period of thirty days. 
 
 Resolved, That, as a further mark of respect for the deceased, this 
 house do now adjourn. 
 
Address of Mr. Woodbridge, of Vennont. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: After the remarks of my distinguished 
 colleague, who has so justly analyzed the character of 
 the late Judge Collamer, it will not be appropriate for 
 me to detain the House longer than to pay a tribute of 
 love to the memory of my departed friend. 
 
 Judge Collamer ^^'as for many years a leading law- 
 yer of Vermont. He looked upon law as the perfection 
 of human reason, and studied it as the highest and most 
 perfect science. Hence he spurned the garbage of the 
 outer courts. He never touched the offals of the sacri- 
 fice, but worshipped at the inner shrine of the temple, 
 whose architectural proportions are just; whose parts 
 are orderly and harmonious; where justice is found 
 married to law, and controversy guided by the spirit of 
 truth, rather than the spirit of victory. By well-directed 
 study he became one of the finest juridical scholars of 
 the age, and when called from the bar to the bench 
 sustained an equal rank with the scholarly and accom- 
 plished Prentiss, the metaphysical Williams, and the 
 distinguished Phelps, whoge legal powers were as 
 measureless as those of Daniel AVebster. 
 
 As a judge, Mr. Collamer was without fear and 
 without reproach ; and his opinions are models for their 
 elegance and simplicity of diction, their unerring logic, 
 and their freedom from any of that party bias which 
 sometimes soils the ermine of the bench. 
 
 His career as a senator is known to the whole 
 country. In the most distinguished body of the nation 
 
he had no rival in spotless integrity and purity of char- 
 acter, and no superior in debate. It has never been 
 my fortune to know a man who could state a proposition 
 more clearly, and enforce it with more unerring and 
 unanswerable logic, than Judge Collamer; and when 
 he made an argument every senator knew that he 
 spoke the honest convictions of his own enlightened 
 judgment. In the great struggle through which we 
 have passed he calmly waited the logic of events, or, 
 more properly speaking, the indications of God, and 
 then fearlessly urged the policy which he deemed to 
 be right. 
 
 As a lawyer, as a judge, as a representative in Con- 
 gress, as Postmaster General, as senator, he was always 
 unswerved by private or party interests, and preserved 
 a reputation as spotless as a child. 
 
 The crowning glory of Jacob Collamee's character 
 was, after all, best exhibited at home. You all recollect 
 the sweetness of his face. He seemed, as Sydney 
 Smith said of Horner, to have the ten commandments 
 written there. He was a devoted husband and father, 
 a kind and generous neighbor, and in the highest sense 
 of the word a Christian gentleman. 
 
 And now that he has gone, across the silent gulf which 
 separates the living from the dead, the pleadings of his 
 life are heard. It is for us to reverently listen. Let 
 us imitate his virtues, so that when we are called to 
 join our fathers it may be said of us, as it can be safely 
 said of our lamented friend, the world is better that he 
 has lived. 
 
 @- 
 
Address of Mr. Raymond, of NeAv York. 
 
 Mr. Speaker; I regret to say, sir, that I am entirely 
 unprepared to commemorate in any fitting terms the 
 character and services of the eminent senator whose de- 
 cease has been announced. Indeed, after what has been 
 so well and so fully said of his life and public services, 
 by those from his own State who knew him so thoroughly 
 and who loved him so well, I feel that any extended re- 
 marks from me would be simply beside the proprieties 
 of the occasion. But I trust the House will bear with 
 me while, in a few words, I comply with the request of 
 those of his own State upon this floor, that I would at 
 least express my own sympathy with them in their loss, 
 and my concurrence in their estimate of his character. 
 
 It was my good fortune to know the late Senator 
 CoLLAMER for many years last past. It was one of the 
 most pleasing incidents of the annual festival of our 
 university commencement, to those of us who were then 
 in college, that he was to be present, as he was always 
 present, when commencement day came round, to re- 
 hearse to us the history of the troubles through which 
 he had to pass to achieve the education to which he 
 attributed his success in life, and to give to us, as no 
 one could do so well, those counsels and suggestions of 
 which we all stood so much in need. I learned then 
 to admire his character and to love him for his kind con- 
 sideration toward us, so much his juniors, so ready, so 
 eager always to profit by his example and his counsels. 
 It was not my fortune in after life to know him inti- 
 
 i, m 
 
mately. I used to see him only as we see each other 
 in the casual meetings of public life; but the more I 
 saw him the more I honored him, the more profoundly 
 I respected the great gifts he brought to the public ser- 
 vice, and the high moral considerations by which his 
 public actions were always guided. 
 
 His mind was clear, acute, and strong. He never 
 failed to discriminate accurately between all the views 
 of every subject he discussed. His logic was clear and 
 strong. There was nothing in his discharge of public 
 duty that ever was low or narrow. He always rose to 
 the level of every subject, and he did it without an effort, 
 for the highest subjects were only on the level upon 
 which his mind constantly moved. He was entirely 
 free from the small ambitions and smaller jealousies 
 that too often encroach upon the large generosities that 
 alone give dignity to the details of public life. In 
 everything that he did he consulted the dictates of his 
 conscience. He acted in public, as in private, with a 
 view to what he believed to be justice and truth, and 
 the highest good of those in whose behalf he spoke or 
 acted. 
 
 Senator Collamer was not much given to theorizing 
 on public affairs. I think, if I have not mistaken the 
 tendency, drift, and principle of his public action, that he 
 looked upon government and the offices of government 
 as experimental in their nature; and the question which 
 guided his conduct was not, what ought to be done on 
 the highest theory we can frame — "What would I do if 
 I could have my own way in everything?" but, "What 
 is the best thing, on the whole, which, under the present 
 
 ®s 
 
circumstances, it is competent for us to accomplish?" 
 He was, therefore, as far removed as possible from that 
 class of public men whom the French are accustomed 
 to designate doctrinaires. He was a practical, direct, 
 straightforward statesman, in the largest and best sense 
 of that great and noble word. 
 
 I think Senator Collamer, moreover, shared largely, 
 perhaps was to a certain extent the cause of, that mod- 
 eration, that steady conservatism in tone and temper, 
 which has always characterized the noble State from 
 which he came. It has always seemed to me that 
 Vermont, more thoroughly and more truly even than 
 any other State of the Union, presents a perfect model 
 of a republican commonwealth. I know of no State 
 certainly where I believe the great principles of social 
 equality obtain a more thorough foothold than in that 
 Green Mountain State. I know of none in which the 
 personal and civil rights of every human being obtain 
 a more prompt, a more thorough, a more cordial re- 
 cognition. 
 
 And I should state, equally to the honor of that 
 noble State, that she is always steady in her judgment 
 of public affairs; and Senator Collamer shared her 
 steadiness of judgment and action. Never carried 
 away by the mere caprices or gusts of the public tem- 
 j 'per, he was still always profoundly respectful and 
 deferential to that settled and permanent tendency and 
 conviction of the public mind which, perhaps, is the 
 surest test of political truth and expediency to which 
 any person in public or private life can possibly refer. 
 
 Vermont, Mr. Speaker, has been fortunate in the 
 
 -®) 
 
character of her pubhc men, from a time beyond which 
 my memory does not reach in her history. She has 
 always had in her pubUc councils men who conferred 
 lustre upon her and gathered honor to themselves, by 
 the manner in which they met every duty which de- 
 volved upon them. Some of their names, in various 
 departments of the public service, have been cited by 
 the honorable gentlemen whose words preceded mine. 
 They are names that will live in history. They are 
 names that reflect honor upon the professions with 
 which they were connected. Vermont still has in the 
 public service — in both houses of this Congress, in the 
 diplomatic service of the country, in the press, and 
 everywhere else where public action can promote the 
 public good — men whose names will be remembered 
 for the good they have done the world. 
 
 But among them all she has no name — and it would 
 be the highest wish I could frame for her, that in some 
 future day she might have some name — that will oc- 
 cupy a higher place in the respect of all who knew him, 
 and a more profound position in the love and esteem of 
 those who are immediately connected with him, than 
 that of Jacob Collamer. 
 
 Address of Mr. GtRIDER, of Kentucky. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: I take pleasure in bearing some tribute 
 of respect to the distinguished senator who has lately 
 departed from this life. I had the honor at an early 
 day, in this hall, to be associated with Jacob Collamer, 
 and the honor. of a personal acquaintance with him, 
 
living witli liim in the same mess. I had opportuni- 
 ties at least of becoming acquainted personally with 
 his temper, with his qualifications, and with his private 
 and individual feelings, as well as with his public con- 
 victions, in the position he then occupied, and I felt 
 that it was due to Judge Collamer to bear some 
 testimony to that high appreciation which we always 
 entertained as to his qualifications in every position in 
 which the country placed him. 
 
 Judge Collamer was not a man of display. He 
 needs no eulogy from any individual upon this floor. 
 He has marked his character upon the records of his 
 country. Long in public life, he proved himself com- 
 petent and true and faithful in every position to which 
 he was appointed. But I need not speak of his record. 
 It is before the country. It is recognized with delight 
 and pleasure, not only in his own neighborhood, but 
 well understood and gratefully appreciated in the West. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, you have already heard delineated the 
 variety of position which he occupied ; and well may 
 his friends appeal to the public records, and to the 
 conflicts which have occurred in political life, and ask 
 where Judge Collamer has been derelict, and when 
 there was ever imputed to him any feeling but one of 
 patriotic devotion to his country, and devotion to the 
 highest interests of humanity. 
 
 Gentlemen who were familiar with him all know 
 that he was not a man of rhetoric and poetry. He was 
 a man of logic, of argument, of discrimination, of in- 
 tegrity, and of firmness. He studied what he said 
 I said what he thought, and executed his purposes with 
 
regard, not to the approbation of men upon the right 
 hand or upon the left, but with regard to that appro- 
 ; bation which is better and higher than all — the appro- 
 : bation of his own conscience, in view of that eternal 
 ; responsibility that awaits us all beyond the grave. 
 ; Sir, I loved Jacob Collamer. I have seen him in 
 ; the social circle. I have seen him in the highest 
 \ 'circles of this government. I had the honor to be a 
 ; messmate of his when Taney and McLean and Story 
 ; and a host of other distinguished men formed, as it 
 , were, a family circle. I heard their interchange of 
 i thought and conversation. I had an opportunity to 
 j contrast and determine the quality of Judge Colla- 
 ! mer's mind and his attainments ; and they were prom- 
 I inent and distinguished. He was always ready, always 
 i quick to discern, to discriminate, to enunciate, to illus- 
 1 trate; he was peculiarly favored in the quality of his 
 j mind for pointed, clear illustration. 
 
 But, gentlemen, as I have said, his history is upon 
 the record. Let me make one remark as to his per- 
 sonal qualities. He was gentle and kind and affable to 
 all around him — to the humble and poor as well as 
 others. Judge Collamer had a hand of congratulation 
 to give to every man whom he believed to be an honest 
 man; and yet, while he was thus condescending and 
 affable, he felt that he himself was a man in attain- 
 ments, in consideration, and in importance, equal to 
 the highest. 
 
 In the social circle no one was so interesting, so 
 illustrative, with such a fund of anecdote and instruc- 
 tion, and so full of kindness and gentleness. Not an 
 ^ . g 
 
1 
 
 angry word did I ever hear fall from him. But, 
 gentlemen, allow me to say that, according to my 
 convictions, we ought to estimate his character more 
 from other considerations which have not, on my part, 
 at least, been mentioned. He was not only a man of 
 integrity and morality, but he was a Christian man 
 and a Christian gentleman, and in this fact I trust his 
 friends, and especially the home circle, may find the 
 power of submission and ample sources of consolation. 
 A Christian gentleman, as he was, his death, although 
 it may be to his country and his lamily a bereavement 
 and a loss, to him it was great gain. 
 
 I may be excused for stating a fact, for facts are 
 illustrative of character more than words. When I 
 had the honor to be in Congress — in the House — with 
 Judge CoLLAMER, we had a congressional prayer meet- 
 ing. I remember distinctly that Judge Collamer, as 
 a Christian gentleman, was uniformly there and par- 
 ticipated in the devotional exercises. They were of 
 frequent occurrence, and he used to attend, and Judge 
 McLean, and a circle of the distinguished men of the 
 legislature of that day. I have, therefore, the right 
 to hope and to infer, and to cheer the disconsolate 
 and the bereaved with the enunciation, that though 
 he has left us, and his services are no longer ours, 
 or his kind cheer for his family circle, yet to him 
 it was but a glorious exchange, and in that exchange 
 we may find the highest consolation, not only here in 
 this hall, but everywhere throughout the country, and 
 more peculiarly in the family circle, where, I hope, his 
 wife and his friends may be cheered with the bright 
 
prospect that they shall, according to Christian prin- 
 ciples, meet him again and recognize him as a purified 
 angel — no more amidst the conflict and labors of" human 
 existence, but pure and holy and blest as the angels 
 of God. 
 
 Address of Mr. Alley, of Massachusetts, 
 
 Mr. Speaker: I rise to express my cordial concur- 
 rence in the resolutions now under consideration; and 
 before the question is put, I wish to add a few words 
 to what has already been said in honor of the memory 
 of the distinguished senator whose decease has been 
 announced. 
 
 To those of us who have listened, as many of us 
 have so often, to his words of eloquence and wisdom at 
 the other end of the Capitol, nothing which I can say 
 can add anything to their appreciation of his great 
 attainments, vast resources, practical wisdom, high 
 character, and eminent usefulness. But to those who 
 did not know him so well it may not be unimportant 
 to hear, in addition to the fitting tributes already 
 spoken, something more of the characteristics which 
 so distinguished the able senator and patriot whose 
 death we so deeply mourn, from another whose good 
 fortune it was to know him somewhat intimately. It 
 happened to me upon my first entrance into Congress 
 to be placed upon a committee of this house, upon 
 which I have served several years since, corresponding 
 in name and duties with one in the other branch of 
 
 m 
 
Congress, of which Judge Collamer was the head. 
 It gave me a most excellent opportunity, as well as 
 great pleasure, to witness, sometimes in counsel with 
 others, but more frequently in private consultation, his 
 excellent sense, sound judgment, practical wisdom, and 
 incorruptible integrity. Few men comprehended so 
 easily — in fact, I have scarcely met one that could 
 elucidate so clearly and fully, the most abstruse and 
 difficult propositions. His simple and clear statement 
 of any subject was in itself almost a demonstration. 
 The clearness of his perceptions was, indeed, truly 
 remarkable. Without ostentation or display, he com- 
 municated his stores of knowledge and wisdom most 
 cheerfully to willing and grateful listeners. 
 
 I have heard some of his associates in the Senate 
 and scores of others remark that he was the wisest 
 man in that august body. And all who knew him will 
 agree that he was, at least, among the very best and 
 greatest of those eminent men: and who could desire 
 for his fame higher praise than this? But it was not 
 as a senator merely, or the wisdom which he displayed 
 as a legislator, which constituted his only or chief claim 
 to high distinction. He had the reputation, as has 
 already been stated, of being a great lawyer in no 
 ordinary sense; for he was not only learned in the 
 principles and technicalities of the law, but it is ad- 
 mitted that he understood and comprehended the true 
 spirit of the law better and in greater degree than 
 many of the most distinguished lawyers of the land. 
 To say that one is a great lawyer in the highest sense, 
 as was justly said of him, is to say that he was a great 
 
 <m 
 
man. I know that it is not iinfrequent, upon such an 
 occasion as this, for partial friends to indulge in exag- 
 gerated praise and high-wrought eulogium; but it is 
 but simple justice to say of the late senator from Ver- 
 mont that he was wise, pure, and patriotic in as emi- 
 nent degree as any of the public men now upon the 
 stage of action. And to a nice sense of justice he 
 added a mature judgment in the consideration of all 
 subjects, formed upon careful examination and reflec- 
 tion. He was amiable in temper, and that, together 
 with an originating mind, stored so full as it was by 
 study and culture, made him a great favorite of all 
 with whom he came in contact. He attained great 
 influence, not by frequent and much speaking, but by 
 solid reasoning and dispassionate argument. He never 
 relied upon anything for success but legitimate and 
 argumentative appeals to the understanding alone. 
 
 Such was Jacob Collamer: the wise senator, the 
 able statesman, the great lawyer. But he is gone, and 
 we shall never behold Mm again on earth. How mel- 
 ancholy the reflection, that one so learned, so able, and 
 so useful, and withal so beloved, should be thus removed 
 from this great field of usefulness and honor, to be seen 
 no more forever ! Such lessons teach us how little of 
 lasting enjoyment is to be found in struggles and toils 
 for honor and fame, except the purpose of such efforts 
 is to secure noble ends. Ambition for place and power, 
 when inspired by a desire to accomplish the greatest 
 good to mankind, is not unworthy the highest aspira- 
 tions of the great and good. But hov/ suggestive the 
 thought and the truth that — 
 
" When fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest blast, 
 Though loud the sound, the echo sleeps at last ; 
 And glory, like the phcenix midst the fires, 
 Exhales her odors, blazes, and expires." 
 
 The frequent recurrence of such scenes as these 
 admonishes us^how slight is our grasp upon life, and that 
 we, too, must soon be called from the labors and strug- 
 gles of earth to render an account of our stewardship 
 while here ; and well shall it be with us if we shall be 
 able to present as good a record, "when time with us 
 shall be no more," for faithfulness and duty well per- 
 formed, as fell to the lot of our departed friend. 
 
 Address of Mr. Wentworth, of Illinois. 
 
 Mr. Speaker: I am unwilling that the West should be 
 unheard on this occasion; and I have no other apology 
 to offer for my remarks now except that I regret that 
 some abler man from the West had not deemed that 
 the privilege devolved upon him. 
 
 I entered Congress at the same time with Judge 
 CoLLAMER in 1843, and I had not long been associaetd 
 with him before I marked him as a man of signal 
 ability, and destined to take that high rank which has 
 been so unanimously accorded him. I concur in all 
 the noble traits of character which the gentlemen who 
 have so eloquently preceded me have enlarged upon. 
 But there are some points which they have overlooked 
 that I deem too prominent to be omitted and do justice 
 to so great a man. He distinguished himself for his 
 
 @. 
 
HON. JACOB COLLAMER. 83 
 
 kindness and fatherly care of the new States. While 
 he scrupulously canvassed all our measures and op- 
 posed those which he deemed extravagant, yet he may 
 have been considered a very liberal man to us, and I 
 could mention many works of western improvement 
 that stand out as monuments of his justice and fore- 
 sight. 
 
 Judge CoLLAMER was an economical man, and care- 
 fully investigated every claim that was brought before 
 Congress, and those of his fellow-members who had not 
 examined them never had any fears in following him 
 if he only assured them that he had carefully examined 
 the matter. He looked as I do upon economy, as one 
 of the best safeguards of our government, and as one 
 of the essential requisites of a statesman. He thought 
 that no man should be more liberal of the public 
 money than he was of his own. He viewed economy 
 in public affairs as nothing more nor less than strict 
 honesty. The same sterling economy which character- 
 ized him in the legislative department he practiced in 
 the executive department. As Postmaster General he 
 tolerated no extravagance; and when I have said this, I 
 need not say his department was tainted with no cor- 
 ruption. And if the history of the Post Office Depart- 
 ment is ever written, his administration will be noted 
 as economical, cheap, and honest, and he will stand 
 equal to, if not ahead, in this respect, of the purest men 
 who have ever adorned the national Post Office. 
 
 As to his ability I have only to quote my own case 
 to show what effect he was capable of producing upon 
 minds that were even prejudiced against his views. I 
 
 m 
 
was here daring the last inauguration ceremonies, and 
 when I came here I had not the views that 'I now have 
 with reference to the reconstruction of the States. I 
 had a conversation with one of the ablest men in this 
 country upon that subject, and, I might add, with a gen- 
 tleman now occupying what I consider the highest posi- 
 tion in this republic. His views and mine at parti^ig did 
 not exactly coincide. His last words were, "I would like 
 to have you read the late speech of Senator Collamer, 
 if you have not done so." As I had not, he took particu- 
 lar pains to send to his own library, and got for me the 
 only copy he had, which he prized very highly, and 
 trusted to his good fortune to get another. To that 
 speech I owe the convictions which have dictated the 
 votes which I have cast upon this floor. That speech 
 convinced me, and I know no other way for a public 
 man to vote than in accordance with his convictions, 
 leaving the consequences, not to the dictation of selfish 
 organizers of political parties, but to that Creator to 
 whom a man is as much responsible for his official as 
 for his private acts. 
 
 The gentleman from New York (Mr. Raymond) has 
 told us that Judge Collamer was conservative. Until 
 those words I had not made up my mind to address 
 the House on this occasion. I deemed it my duty 
 then to define JudiJ:e Collamer's conservatism. He 
 was for preserving his government, and he was for de- 
 stroying everything that stood in the way of com- 
 mending that government to the protection and 
 blessinti: of Divine Providence. He was a conservative 
 of the right and a radical destructive of the wrong. 
 
The gentleman from New York might have said of him, 
 that he was a radical conservative. He knew no ex- 
 pediency, he knew no policy, as against the equality of 
 all mankind before the law ; and that is the sense in 
 which an immense majority of this house can be called 
 conservatives. 
 
 The gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Grider) spoke of 
 Mr. CoLLAMER as a conscientiously religious man, and 
 he might have added that his religion was of that kind 
 which made him believe, and carry into actual practice 
 the belief, that men should be as equal before the bar 
 of their country as they were before the bar of God. 
 Judge CoLLAMER met the black man on earth as he 
 knew he would meet him in heaven. 
 
 The resolutions of Mr. Morrill were then adopted. 
 
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