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Xv




MEMORIAL ADDRESSES
ON THE
LIFE AND CHARACTER
OF
JOHN COVODE,
A REPRESENTATIVE FROM PENNSYLVANIA,
SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
FEBRUARY 9 AND Io, 1871.
WASHINGTON:
GOVERNMENT PRINTTING OFFICE.
1871.




I




PROCEEDINGS IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
REMilARKS OF XR. KELLE Y, OF PENNS YL VANIA.
Mr. SPEAKER: We have again been painfully reminded that there
is an appointed time to man on earth, and that he is consumed, and
vanisheth away as the cloud. When on Friday, the 6th of January,
he left Washington for a brief visit to Philadelphia and Harrisburg,
few of us appeared to have a firmer hold on life or the more assured
promise of a green and comfortable old age than my late colleague,
Hon. John Covode. Descending from ancestors on either side whose
lives had been prolonged beyond the allotted period, endowed with
a robust and muscular frame, and having enjoyed singular immunity
from disease, he was happy in the thought that at the expiration of
this Congress he was to return to private life and devote his energies
to the promotion of several enterprises in which his interests and
feelings were engaged. But it was not so appointed. He was not
to return to his place in this hall; and the execution of his cherished
purposes was to be confided to other hands.
From Philadelphia he went with his younger sons to West Chester,
Pennsylvania, to replace them in the excellent academy in which
they had been receiving those educational advantages of which
untoward circumstances had deprived their father. Accompanied by
his wife he proceeded to Harrisburg on the Ioth of January. He
was in the enjoyment of his usual vigorous health, and passed the
evening in cheerful intercourse with friends assembled at its capital
from the several quarters of his native State. Expecting to take the
early morning train, he retired early and slept, free from apprehension
of the dread summoner. About three o'clock he was awaked by a
severe pain about the heart. What wife and friends and medical
skill could do for his relief was done; but in less than two brief hours
the strong man feebly gasped the dread words, "I am dying," and
passed beyond the sphere of temporal trials or triumphs.
A distinguished citizen of Massachusetts, in the course of an




4           LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
elaborate article entitled "The Government and the Railroad
Corporations," in the last number of the North American Review, in
characterizing the people of Pennsylvania, says:
"They are not marked by intelligence. They are, in fact, dull,
uninteresting, very slow, and very persevering. These are qualities,
however, which they hold in common with the ancient Romans.
And they possess also, in a marked degree, one other characteristic
of that classic race, the power of organization, andf through it of
command. They have always decided our presidential elections;
they have always, in their dull, heavy fashion, regulated our
economical policy; their iron-masters have, in truth, proved iron
masters indeed, when viewed by other localities through the medium
of the protective system by them imposed. Not open to argument,
not receptive of ideas, not given to flashes of brilliant execution, this
State none the less knows well what it wants, and knows equally
well how to organize to secure it."
The author of this paragraph would probably have found little to
commend in the character and career of Mr. Covode, who was born
in the mountainous wilds of Western Pennsylvania many years before
that State had provided common schools for its children, and whose
childhood and youth were passed in toil on a farm and in a woolen
mill. He had not studied the writings of Kant, Fichte, or Hegel, or
even made himself familiar with those of Carlyle or Emerson. But,
ignorant as he may have been of the doctrine of intuitive perceptions
and the body of transcendental philosophy, he had, without these
aids, attained such a knowledge of the uses of material nature, and
the springs that animate,. impel, or restrain men, as made him the
welcome and trusted counselor, when maturing their grandest projects,
of men far more learned, brilliant, and distinguished than himself.
His letters contain no quotations from classic authors,'but are
replete with evidence of his sagacity, insight into the motives of
men, and masculine and matured judgment.
Mr. Covode was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, on
the I7th of March, i8o8. That his parentage was humble will be
inferred from the fact that his grandfather, Garrett Covode, a native




REMARKS OF MR. KELLEY, OF PENNSYLVANIA.            5
of Holland, was when a child kidnapped in the streets of Amsterdam
by a sea-captain, who brought him t6 Philadelphia and under then
existing laws sold liim into bondage as a "redemptioner," in which
condition he was held for some years after coming to manhood, and
was subsequently employed as a domestic servant in the household
of General Washington.  He died in I826 at the advanced age of
ninety-four years. The mother of Mr. Covode was a Quaker, and
it is among the traditions of her family that two of her ancestors,
together with a person named Wood, prepared and published a protest against the decision of William Penn recognizing the legality of
African slavery. This protest is said to have been the first anti-slavery
manifesto published in this country.
The first public office filled by Mr. Covode was that of justice of
the peace "for Ligonier and Fairfield Townships," to which he was
appointed by Governor Wolf before he was twenty-four years of age.
Then, and in this humble office, it was that his neighbors bestowed
upon him the sobriquet of honest John Covode. His office, to which
angry litigants were summoned, was in truth a court of conciliation,
in which, regardless of the emoluments of office, the judge found his
duty and pleasure in adjusting by compromise disputed claims between
neighbors and soothing their exasperation.
In I845 he was nominated by the Whig conferees of the counties
of Somerset and Westmorland as the candidate of that party for
State Senator. The district was largely Democratic and he was defeated, although he received several hundred more votes than any
other candidate on the State or local ticket of his party. At the next
senatorial election he was again nominated, and such was his personal
popularity that though both counties gave large Democratic majorities
for the general ticket, he came within fifty votes of election.  In i854
he was nominated for Congress by the Whigs of the nineteenth district, consisting of Westmoreland, Indiana, and Armstrong Counties.
His competitor had been returned at the preceding election by a
large majority, but Mr. Covode led him 2,757 votes, and was returned.
This was the Thirty-fourth Congress, and he was re-elected to the
Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth, and Thirty-seventh.




6          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
On the 5th of March, i86o, he introduced a resolution providing
for a committee of five members of the House "for the-purpose of
investigating whether the President of the United' States or any other
officer of the Government has, by money, patronage, or other improper means, sought to influence the action of Congress, or any committees thereof, for or against the passage of any law appertaining to
the rights of any State or Territory," &c.
Few who were engaged in the political struggles of those days will
forget the industry, efiergy, and ability with which Mr. Covode conducted the investigation ordered by this resolution, or the influence
his elaborate report had upon the public mind. The report was a
thorough exposure of the corrupt appliances by which the KansasNebraska legislation had been secured, and was soon in the hands of
every Republican speaker or writer in the country.
Mr. Covode was twice married, and had three sons by his first
marriage, all of whom he gave to the country upon the breaking
out of the war. George, the eldest, rose by gradual and well-won
promotion to the rank of colonel, and was killed, while leading his
regiment, at the battle of St. Mary's Church, in i864. The youngest,
Jacob, pined for more than eighteen months in the loathsome and
pestilential pen provided for Union prisoners at Andersonville. He
still lives, a broken and prematurely old man.  Mr. Covode's
industry and enterprise had meanwhile secured him an ample competence, and with his sons he was ready to devote this, too, to his
country; and while bankers and capitalists were doubting the propriety of investing in the war loan about to be issued, the telegraph
informed the people that John Covode had apprised the Secretary of
the Treasury of his purpose to take $50,000 of the forthcoming
bonds.
He was a member of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the
War.  To the labors of this committee he devoted himself with
untiring zeal until the 4th of March, i863, when, having declined a
nomination, he retired from  Congress.  Availing himself of the
knowledge Mr. Covode had thus acquired, and of his quick
perception of the motives of men, President Johnson requested him




REMARKS OF MR. KELLEY, OF PENNSYLVANIA.          7
to make a tour of observation through the unreconstructed States
and report his conclusions and the general facts upon which they
were based. But, observing the change that had taken place in the
views and purposes of the President, he soon returned and submitted
a report, which was never made public, though the House called
upon the President for a copy thereof.
Mr. Covode having refused to be a candidate, the district was
represented by a Democrat, Hon. John L. Dawson, in the Thirtyeighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses. Yielding to the demands of
his party, he however accepted a nomination for the Fortieth and
was returned by a handsome majority, and was, after a contest by
Hon. Henry D. Foster, also awarded a seat in the Forty-first
Congress. His influence was not confined to his county or congressional district.  It was felt throughout the State, not only in
politics, but in all measures projected for the development of its
boundless material resources.  Having been appointed to the
position in I869, and conducted the campaign that resulted in
the re-election of Governor Geary, he was at the time of his death
chairman of the Republican State central committee.
In comparatively early manhood he became the owner of the
woolen mill in which he had been employed when a boy. He
watched with interest our progress in the manufacture of textiles; and
labored to promote their diversification and perfection.  But his mill
did not offer an adequate field for his activity. He took a zealous
part in promoting the construction of internal improvements by
which the seaboard should be connected with the then opening
West, and on the completion of the Pennsylvania Canal engaged
largely in the business of transportation.  He was also a liberal and
energetic promoter of the construction of the Pennsylvania Central
Railroad.  On the completion of this road to Lockport, where he
lived and superintended his mill, he concentrated his stock upon th'e
western sections of the canal and engaged in forwarding to and from
Pittsburg the rapidly increasing freight moved by the railroad.
About this time he also organized the Westmoreland Coal Company,
which has developed the immense deposits of gas coal that underlie




8           LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
in such affluence his native hills. By this operation he added to the
wealth of every farmer in the county, for the army of stalwart men
now earning liberal wages by mining and handling this coal is so
numerous that it gives them a steady home market, not only for the
cereals, but the minor productions of the farm which will not.bear
extended transportation.
Mr. Speaker, what I have said is sufficient to show that Mr. Covode
was a man of power and a useful citizen. He had long been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was faithful in all the relations of life, and his story may be read with profit by the youth of
the country. Born subject to those "twin jailers of the daring heart,
low birth and iron fortune," and receiving the benefits of but the
smallest opportunities for early culture, he mastered fortune, commanded the confidence of his neighbors and fellow-citizens, and
secured for his name an honorable place in his country's history, and,
by originating and promoting beneficent enterprises, wrote it enduringly on the hills and in the homes of his native county. He left a
wife and seven children to mourn his sudden death. The results of
his provident care surround them, and their sorrow is alleviated by
the confident assurance that he who was so fondly devoted to them
has entered upon the rewards that are earned by a well-spent life.
Mr. Speaker, I submit the following resolutions:
Resolved, That the House has heard with deep regret of the death
of Honorable John Covode, a member of this House from the State
of Pennsylvania.
Resolved, That, as a testimony of respect to the memory of the
deceased, the officers and members of this House will wear the usual
badge of mourning for the space of thirty days.
Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted to the
family of the deceased by the Clerk.
Resolved, That the House, as a further mark of respect to the
deceased, do now adjourn.




REMARKS OF MR. BANKS, OF MASSACHUSETTS.            9
REMA RKS OF MR. BA NKS, OF ANA SSA CHUSE TTS.
It is a common event, Mr. Speaker, that interrupts the regular
course of legislative business, and calls upon us to reflect upon the
loss we have sustained by the death of the late honorable member
of the House from Pennsylvania, to consider our relations to each
other and to the great Author of our being. No occurrence is more
frequent. There is not a day, not an hour, scarcely a minute passes
over us that some recruit or veteran in the great army of life does
not drop by our side or within our sight.
It is not violence or crime, disease or excess alone, that gives death
its victory. It has other means of conquest than the shot and shock
of battle, the murderous affray, the indulgence of passion, or the
storm and tempest in the physical world. Th6ugh human passions
were extinct and men as guileless as the flowers of the field, still the
carnage would go on. Death would still reap its regular and prolific
harvest. There are seeds as well as instruments of death. They are
sown everywhere-in hills, in drills, and broadcast. No clime so
rugged, no soil so barren, that it will not bear this fruit. That which
falls even by the wayside or upon stony ground is not lost.
This is the harvest that never fails. No class of men escapes. Our
predecessors in these classic Halls have been, swept away by battalions.
The paths of granite and marble that lead to the Capitol have been
worn away by the unceasing and heavy tread of anxious and solemn
men that from every part of the Union have come here to meditate
upon the necessities and to labor for the improvement and preservation of the Government. Where are they now? Death has spared
but few. Of a score and a half of Congresses, perhaps more, even
now, in the infancy of our Government, not one living voice is heard,
no representative remains. The best, the bravest, the noblest of our
land, all are gone. Madison, Monroe, Adams, Polk, Clay, Benton,
Webster, Calhoun, Macon, Douglas, Broderick, Giddings, Davis,
Wilmot, Stevens, Burlingame, are but types of the hosts that have
preceded us to the only haven of rest for wearied, exhausted, betrayed
human nature.




I  LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
It is a common event, therefore, that summons us to suspend
deliberation upon the affairs of life, that we may consider for a moment
those of eternity. That which makes it seem particular with us is
that it stole upon us without our knowledge; swept from our side the
stalwart form of active and vigorous life upon which we relied for'
help in committee, in session, and in society; broke up the quorum
of associates and friends, and left us stunned, standing in helpless
silence, knowing only what shadows we are, and what shadows we
pursue. Like time, the angel of death hides its wings as it approaches. It is when they are upon us and cover us that we comprehend the depth of that shadowless valley through which it takes
its flight. How difficult it is to comprehend, in this full blaze of
light and life, that the broad-shouldered, stalwart man who stood
beside us, his voice still ringing in our ears, unceasing in his activity,
doing no wrong, seeking only the good of others, should, even while
we turned to look upon him, disappear from our sight forever, and
his spirit by translation pass to another world!
The death of Mr. Covode reminds me how much we depend upon
others for the selection and acquaintance with our most intimate
associates. I'knew him chiefly through my late lamented friend,
Mr. Burlingame.  He was the earliest among many active and
sagacious men of the Thirty-fourth Congress to analyze his character
and accord due honor to the separate elements of which it was composed.
Mr. Burlingame was a harmonizer. It was his ambition to bring
those who should act together, to understand and know each other.
No man was ever endowed with more of this divine power. He appeared to feel instinctively not merely the presence of good or evil
spirits, but to measure with unerring justice the exact degree with
which innocent and baneful qualities were mixed in human character.
He looked upon the world with the eye of childhood, but he judged
it with almost more than mortal wisdom. Without effort and without
resistance he allowed its varied characters to be photographed upon
his mind; and thus he read, as by an unseen light, the secret natures
of men by whom he was surrounded and with whom he was associ



REMARKS OF MR. BANKS, OF MASSACHUSETTS.           II
ated. He knew all qualities certainly with a most learned spirit. It
was this purpose and this power which gave him in speech, and still
more in social intercourse, the great influence which he wielded here,
and enabled him in another sphere to bring together unknown and
hostile sections of the world with mutual satisfaction and advantage.
Mr. Burlingame was naturally and at once drawn into confidential
and friendly relations with Mr. Covode, who, in a different way and
upon a different class of persons, exercised the same important and
beneficent influence. I shall never forget the delight with which Mr.
Burlingame first spoke to me of having found in his new friend a
kindred spirit. It is strange that men so unlike in condition, in
habit, and in cultivation should be so drawn together; but it is the
one common touch of nature makes the whole world kin. No two
persons exercised a higher or purer influence in the Congress which
brought them together, and their mutual esteem and friendship ended
only with their lives. It would be impossible for me to pronounce a
higher eulogium upon the character of the late member of the House
than to repeat what I have so'often heard fall from the eloquent lips
of our common friend; and I am sure no estimate of character
could be more highly prized by his family or friends, or by the members of the House around me, than a favorable judgment formed
under such circumstances and considerately expressed by the distinguished man to whom I have referred.
The peculiar and prominent characteristics of Mr. Covode were
his simplicity, sincerity, and earnestness. His convictions were clear
and strong. He was necessarily a partisan, because he adhered to
his convictions and those who supported them; but he was an honest
and generous partisan.  With the best opportunities to judge during
the most excited period of our recent political history, I never
observed in him the slightest tinge of malignity, of selfishness, or
envy. There is no character of the heated period of which I speak
that I recall with more unmixed satisfaction or higher respect.
There is no better illustration of the power of good sense, honest
purposes, and earnest devotion, unaccompanied by the advantages
of scholarship, than that which his career exhibits. He was, as his




12           LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
distinguished and eloquent colleague has said, an uneducated man;
but there are elements of power more important in the management
of human affairs than polite learning or scholastic education.
"Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude, unprofitable mass,
The mere material with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared and fitted in its place,
Doth but incumber where it seems to enrich."
Mr. Covode had this wisdom. There were few among us who
had a larger share of influence in public affairs when he gave them
his attention, or could better impress his convictions upon the masses
of the people.
Without any of the graces of oratory, his speeches, short, sententious, apposite, and replete with enthusiasm, never failed to produce
the effect which is both the purpose and result of true eloquencethat of challenging attention and working conviction. His addresses
to popular assemblies were of this character; practical, enriched with
copious illustrations, pertinent to his argument, never above the
comprehension of his auditors, and never failing to carry conviction
to those whom he addressed. The political campaigns that followed
the presidential election of I856, especially those which brought in
review the incidents of the distinguished administration of Mr.
Buchanan, gave signal evidence of his success and power.
There was a religious tinge in all his' thoughts and actions not
unlike that attributed to Huguenots and Puritans, but which gave
him a somewhat different character, Though a stern partisan he did
not counsel extreme measures. A generous policy, enforced with
unity and vigor, represented his theory of wise political action.
When party necessities carried men beyond this he was a cool,
reluctant, if not halting supporter. It has been said, and I believe
with entire truth, that it was due to the direct action and influence of
Mr. Covode that Mr. President Lincoln was led, against the advice




REMARKS OF MR. BANKS, OF MASSACHUSETTS.             13
of some of the most prominent of his supporters, to issue the order
directing the immediate and unreserved exchange of prisoners of
war during the latter period of the great rebellion.  If this be true,
no man can present a more honorable claim to the respect of the
people, without reference to political opinions or partisan relations.
This view of his character is strengthened by the fact that he never
failed or faltered in support of those measures which were deemed
necessary to protect and preserve the Government and to secure and
perpetuate the liberties of all its people.
Though we lament his death, we cannot be unconscious that our
loss is his gain. He exchanges one life for another. It is not
annihilation, but ascension that he has attained. He will suffer no
longer the disappointment which attends the expectation and the
effort to make the world virtuous by statute legislation or despotic
administration. He has passed to a higher wisdom and holier existence.  He is. done with the vanities of life, with its
" Reveries so airy, with the toil
Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up."
The death of Mr. Covode is one of the many events which impart
to all men an unaccustomed feeling of insecurity. Death produces
death and calamity begets calamity. The terrible afflictions which
within a few years have passed over the face of the earth, crushing
empires and states as well as individuals, more than ever should lead
us to recognize our dependence upon the beneficent will of the
Creator of the world. It should teach us as well that permanent
success follows only justice and truth; that there is but one lawthe law of God-to which the world should be subjected; and that"One Spirit, His
Who bore the platted thorns with bleeding brows,
Rules universal nature."




14          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
REMARKS OF MR. MERCUR, OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Mr. SPEAKER: I feel unwilling to suffer this occasion to pass
without briefly adding my tribute to a departed friend.
John Covode's life was a striking illustration of the success which
will crown the works of an earnest and laborious man. Deprived in
his youth of the advantages of a liberal education, he felt the greater
need of literally working his way to enable him to rise in eminence
and to fortune. This he determined to do. Strong physical powers,
clear practical mind, and indomitable' will, all united in impelling
him onward and upward. His was a mind that was not contented
to occupy any uncertain position.  No so-called "conservative"
doctrines ever deterred him from pursuing the right, as he saw it.
Sprung from liberty-loving ancestors, he retained all their notions of
freedom, but grafted thereon a greater love, begotten by the spirit of
this progressive age. His opinions once carefully formed, no
timidity characterized their expression. He followed his convictions
to their logical consequences. Men who united their political
fortunes with his felt a confidence that he would continue as he
began, and not turn aside and leave them without a standard-bearer
to lead them.
Neither his accumulated wealth nor his prominent position in the
eye of the nation ever estranged him from his early and less fortunate
associates. Dwelling in the small but beautiful and retired valley of
the Ligonier, in his native county of Westmoreland, he never appeared
to desire a home elsewhere. The rugged hills which surrounded his
residence seemed to give strength to his judgment and freedom to
his speech.
When, in obedience to a resolution of this House, I stood beside
his coffin, and hundreds of his neighbors and friends passed before it,
I saw unmistakable evidence of the esteem and affection which they
had borne toward him. With pride they had viewed his elevation
and success in life. They shared in his reputation. His honor was
their honor.  No jealousies had separated them. He had ever
returned to them the same social, kind, and unassuming friend.  His




REMARKS OF MR. NIBLACK, OF INDIANA.          15
was a nature to mourn with them when they mourned, and to rejoice
with them  when they rejoiced. A true type of our republican
institutions, he never for a moment lost sight of that great cardinal
doctrine that ours is "a Government of the people, for the people,
and by the people."
Suddenly stricken down in-the midst of his active life, this House
has lost one of its most faithful members, the nation one of its
watchful legislators, the State of Pennsylvania one of its best known
and most enterprising citizens, and his family a kind and indulgent
husband and father.
REMARIKS OF MR. NIBLA CK, OF INDIANA.
Mr. SPEAKER: I feel that I ought not to allow this occasion to
pass without adding a few words.
Very few persons on this side of the House, outside of his own
State, have perhaps known the deceased as long and as well as I
have. When, in December, I857, I first entered this House as one
of its members, I found him here as one of the Representatives
from Pennsylvania, and I soon afterward made his acquaintance.
He was then, I think, serving on his second term. He was one of
the very few I then met who are now members of either of the two
Houses of Congress. Although neither of us have been since continuously members of this body, yet it has so happened that this
makes the fourth Congress, I believe, in which we have served
simultaneously.
Soon after thus first meeting him we were thrown together on
some tedious and rather important committee work, which required
almost daily meetings for many weeks, and which brought us into
frequent and unreserved personal association.  That association
ripened into a rather intimate personal acquaintance, and from that
time to the day of our last meeting we always met rather as old
neighbors and familiar friends are accustomed to meet than as newmade acquaintances, representing different and distant States. And
however much we may have differed in our political views and




I6          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
party associations, nothing of a personally unpleasant character
ever occurred between us.
I have seldom since met him that he did not have some.cheerful
word to impart or something quaint and amusing to communicate.
Of course it was not in the nature of things that I should learn to
know him here as his friends and neighbors at home knew him. I
can only speak of him as he Impressed himself upon me from time
to time as I saw him here. He was evidently a gentleman of wellmarked traits of character. He had shrewdness and energy in an
eminent degree.  He too was self-possessed and self-reliant. These
qualities all combined made him at once a valuable friend and a
dangerous antagonist.  He impressed me too as a man of a
remarkably good memory, with a great aptitude for details in all
the practical affairs of life. His cast of mind, too, was eminently
practical. He had no taste for mere theories. With him the great
question seemed to be what was it best to do under the circumstances by which he was surrounded, and when that was solved he
hesitated no longer. There are some phases of political life, too,
to which he seemed peculiarly adapted. He was especially observant as to the political maneuverings of the politicians of all
parties. In such matters he was usually remarkably well-informed.
To him I have often been indebted for my first information as to
current political events which were not yet publicly known.
I will not, however, Mr. Speaker, attempt an analysis of the character of the deceased, nor will I dwell upon any of the incidents of
his official life. These have already been sufficiently referred to by
others. Sir, it was but the other day-perhaps not a week before his
death-that on my way to the Capitol I fell in with him on the
Avenue, and we came on the rest of the way together. In our rather
desultory conversation which ensued I referred to the fact that he
would not be with us in the next Congress, and inquired of him how
he felt about returning to private life again. He responded with
seeming cheerfulness, that he was quite willing to quit Congress for a
while, and possibly forever.. Referring to his age, he said it was getting time he would settle down a little more quietly than he had been




REMARKS OF MR. MAYNARD, OF TENNESSEE.            I7
for many years past. "But," said he, "I have plenty to do at home
in looking after my business; besides, political matters have not been
going right for some time in Pennsylvania, and I will then have more
time to help straighten things up there." Continuing, he further remarked: "I am good for several years' hard work yet, and I am not
going to give up politics entirely if I do quit Congress."
He was then, Mr. Speaker, apparently as full of life and of plans
for the future as any of us here to-day, and as totally unconscious
that the relentless hand of death was already stretched out to receive
him. You can judge then of my surprise, sir, of the shock which it
imparted, when on the wings of the lightning the news came to us of
his death only a few days later. No man of all my acquaintances
seemed to have a fairer hold on life for a few years to come than he.
Yet Without a note of warning he has been stricken down. From
the dust he came, and to the earth he has returned. As but yesterday
he was a part of that living, breathing, moving, restless energy we
call human life, to-day all that remains of him to us is as cold, as inert.
and as lifeless as the clay in which he rests.
What a fearful admonition of the uncertainty of human life! How
thin the drapery which separates us from eternity! And yet we go
on planning, scheming, projecting, as if we had a perpetual lease of
life, as if the "eternal years of God" were ours.
Mr. Speaker, a strong man has fallen, another chair is vacant in
this Hall, another familiar face has disappeared from among us forever. And we, his survivors, can but bow in reverence to that divine
will which has thus decreed the time and manner of his death. I
also concur in seconding the resolutions which have been offered.
REMARKS OF MR. JA YNARD, OF TENNESSEE.
The request by the friends of the deceased to take a part in these
obituary ceremonies cannot be denied. It is the common desire of
us all, when in the hour of bereavement we appeal to our fellow-men.
be they strangers or friends, in the language of the patriarch, to help
2




I8          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
us bury our dead out of our sight, and must not be unheeded. The
feeling is as old as death and as wide as humanity. All unite with
one accord in granting immunity to the grave. The forms of the
departed are gently laid away; their memory is tenderly cherished.
No man of sensibility will vex the sepulcher; and the injunction to
speak well of the dead, or not at all, is a precept which antedates
Christianity. Here all rivalries cease, all resentments are extinguished,
all contentions are hushed. The brotherhood of mortality meet at
the common gateway, wide and ever open, through which all, soon
or late, are destined to pass. Thither our bewildered footsteps, be
they swift or be they slow, are constantly tending. The soul is awed
in the presence of its own appointed doom. In tenqpore sumz, de
trelliore loquor, at nescio quid sit ltenpus, is the confession of St.
Augustine; and he might have made it, in phrase slightly changed,
of the kindred mysteries, life, death, and eternity, as well as of time.
Time is so identified with life, and death with eternity, that in speaking of the dead we unconsciously transcend the rules of judgment
applied to the living, and, passing by the infirmities incident to the
present sphere, dwell with satisfaction and comfort upon the more
solid and enduring qualities which seem appropriate to the other.
It is now almost fourteen years since I first met the deceased as a
member of this House. Though not at that time politically associated, our relations from the first were kind, soon friendly, never
intimate. At that day he was one of the most active and zealous,
and I think the most effective, opponents of Mr. Buchanan's
administration from his own State. Not a man of education or
culture, as these terms are usually understood, nor yet an orator,
according to the canons of the schools, he was what neither oratory
nor culture nor education can make; he was a worker, tireless and
fearless. He had no confidence in the Administration, and believed
it to be very corrupt; and therefore moved in the House for a
committee to investigate its action. The results were embodied in
an elaborate report, accompanied by yoluminous testimony, which
produced a deep and painful impression upon the public mind.
Justice, I am inclined to think, both to him and to Mr. Buchanan,




REMARKS OF AIR. MAYNARD, OF TENNESSEE.            19
would require the revision of the report by the light of subsequent
events. The Administration was so complicated with the incipient
rebellion, the same characters being conspicuous in both, Cabinet
officers and rebel leaders, that it requires great discrimination to
decide for what of its acts it was responsible and as to what it was
merely unfortunate. The time has not yet arrived, and if it had this
is not the occasion, to pursue the inquiry. And the suggestion is
thrown out merely for the purpose of the further remark that had Mr.
Covode lived no one would have been more ready than he to correct
any injustice into which he might have been unwittingly betrayed.
Of conscious injustice, of intended wrong, however bitter the provocation, I think he was incapable.
During the war, even while not in public life, he gave to the Government an earnest and efficient support. Like so many others of
the prominent men of that day, he offered his own son a sacrifice
upon the altar of the country; and we have all seen his eyes grow
dim with natural tears when recalling the memory of the gallant boy.
He became satisfied very early in the contest that we were virtually
resisting the power of Great Britain, and anticipated an open declaration of hostilities with that government. Though pained beyond
measure to find an enemy where he thought we had a right to expect
a friend, he did not hesitate about accepting the issue-doubtful and
destructive as it certainly appeared. He was ready to stake all he
had upon it and to abide the fate of his country. As might be supposed, he sympathized actively with the soldiers in the field; often
visiting them in camp and using great diligence in providing for their
wants, and in correcting the many irregularities incident to the volunteer service, especially in the earlier years, before either officers or
men had become trained to the art of war and inured to its hardships.
His subsequent. public career is too recent and too familiar for detail. Certain cardinal principles of action have regulated his course
in our legislation. He believed that the issues of the war should be
finally settled so as not to be reopened for the annoyance and consternation of future times; that the settlement should be confirmed by
fair and reasonable guarantees; that the colored race, emancipated




20          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
during the war, and as a war measure, should have their freedom
secured beyond peradventure as a real, substantial boon, and not as
an illusory thing; and, in short, that no man of any race or residence
should ever have reason to regret that he had actively espoused the
cause of the Union.
His politics were peculiarly of the old Whig school. The doctrines
embodied with special clearness by Mr. Clay, in what he denominated
the American system, as opposed to the British system, he deemed
identified with the highest development and the largest prosperity of
this continent. Nor was he a mere theorist. For many years I have
understood he was actively engaged in different branches of productive industry, and with marked success. His record upon all
questions connected with the material interests of the people will be
found in harmony with these views.
I have intimated that he was not a scholar. As implying a knowledge of books, beyond the Book of books, of which he was a diligent student and a firm believer, the remark is just. But in a wider
and larger sense he was not untaught. He had a fair knowledge of
men and of things. Few could more wisely decide the ends to be
accomplished or more judiciously select the means for their accomplishment.
What need that I add a single word touching the character of this
self-poised and self-reliant man? For us who knew him, none. His
kind and genial humor, his unfailing good nature, his relish for merriment, and his almost boyish fondness for the joyous and playful,
endeared him to us all as a friend to be loved and an opponent not
to be hated. And when the tidings came so sudden, so shocking to
us who as it seemed but the day before had greeted him in the House,
that without warning he had been stricken down, each felt that his
own circle had been invaded and one of its most agreeable members
taken away.
His domestic relations, I have reason to say, were unsually affectionate and tender; and the resolution of condolence with the bereaved family, customary on similar occasions, will in this instance
carry a peculiar significance.




REMARKS OF MR. GETZ, OF PENNSYLVANIA.         21
His moral character, as distinguished from his social and domestic
character, has been summed up by the popular voice in the single
epithet, "Honest John Covode." Such contemporary estimates of
character are seldom wrong and rarely reversed. And I feel sure of
being sustained in ascribing to him the attributes of one of the bestdrawn characters of antiquity:
"When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye
saw me, it gave witness to me: Because I delivered the poor that
cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The
blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me; and I caused
the widow's heart to sing for joy. I was eyes to the blind, and feet
was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor: and the cause which
I knew not I searched out. And I brake the jaws of the wicked,
and plucked the spoil out of his teeth. Unto me men gave ear, and
waited, and kept silence at my counsel. After my words, they spake
not again."
REMARKS OF M/R. GETZ, OF PENNS YLVAfNIA.
Mr. SPEAKER: "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." To
speak truth of the dead, though an ungracious duty, is honester far
than to pronounce the fulsome eulogy which makes an immaculate
saint of him who while he lived frankly confessed himself a sinner.
As a party man Mr. Covode was extreme, uncompromising, and, his
opponents thought, unscrupulous. With him politics meant warfare,
and he that was not with him was against him, and treated as an
enemy to whom no quarter was to be granted. I knew him long in
the political affairs of our State, and so radically did we differ upon
all the questions- that have divided parties during the past twenty
years that I cannot remember a single instance in which we were
in accord.  It was only when I became associated with him in
Congress that my personal acquaintance with him commenced,
and that the opportunity was afforded me of learning that he whom
I had always looked upon as an implacable political adversary




22          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
possessed traits of character that made him susceptible to the
warmest personal friendship.
Of his public career the colleagues who acted with him have
spoken, and with commendation. Of his private life as a man and
a citizen I feel free to say a few words, because I can say them in
honor to his memory. With no advantages of early education, and
with none of the adventitious aids to advancement that many of his
compeers enjoyed in their youth, he achieved both fortune and
fame by his own inherent force of character. Untiring industry,
indomitable energy, frugality without parsimony, an intellect quick
to apprehend, and a judgment remarkably acute to apply the
knowledge he acquired in his intercourse with menl, were the elements that combined to make his life, in a worldly point of view, a
success. The secret of his popularity at home consisted in the fact
that after he had risen to affluence and attained to honorable public
station, he did not, as many have done under similar circumstances,
turn his back upon the scene of his early and humble toil and take
up his abode amid the splendors of fashionable life, where his wealth
and position would have drawn toward him that society which is so
much coveted by man's vain ambition, but remained at the old
secluded homestead, on the romantic but rugged and wild mountains of Westmoreland, and employed his time and means in developing and improving not only his immediate neighborhood, but the
whole of Western Pennsylvania.
John Covode had his faults, as who of us has not? But whatever may be recorded against him in the great book of God's
remembrance, there will also be entered to his credit many an act
of kindness, many a generous deed, many a work of charity, many
a token of pure friendship. His death was sudden; so sudden and
startling that when the intelligence first reached this city it was
hardly credited.. It was a surprise to all; and may I not say that
none who knew him heard it confirmed without a pang of sorrow?
Like the great statesman of Kentucky, no man had warmer friends
and none more bitter enemies. Now that he has gone to "the
undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns," the




REMARKS OF MR. HALDEMAN, OF PENNSYLVANIA.       23
latter may properly imitate the magnanimity of Henry Clay, who,
when it was expected that he would rejoice at the death of his lifelong foe, bowed his head in sorrow and feelingly exclaimed,'"When
God lays his hand upon my enemy I take mine off."
For myself, burying all partisan animosity in the. grave that has
but lately closed over John Covode's remains, I shall henceforth
bear him in the same kindly remembrance that I know he would
have borne for me had death summoned me hence before him.
-REMARKS OF MR. HALDEMAN, OF PENNS E YLVA4NIA.
Mr. SPEAKER: Those of us from Pennsylvania who have been
somewhat engaged in public affairs have long known John Covode
by general repute; and in the brief period during which I was
personally acquainted with him I found him to correspond to
the general conception I had previously formed.. He had a kind
heart, but an unyielding will. With marked intellectual and physical
energy, the circumstances of his life were such as to develop all the
strong elements of his character. The substratum of John Covode
was true grit; the elements of his nature were granitic. Under any
circumstances and in any of the spheres of life he would have been
successful. But it was his good fortune to early feel that he was
dependent on his own efforts and his unaided energies. Life was for
him a battle, and in that battle he emerged from each successful
struggle with a more clearly defined and more self-reliant character.
The granite of his character was exposed to the blows of fortune;
but each blow was like the sculptor's chisel, developing more clearly
the well-defined lineaments and form and mind and heart of John
Covode-the man-awhom we all so familiarly knew. Adversity is
necessary to the development of true manhood. Nations and individuals who are possessed of inherent vigor and strength emerge
from great trials more complete and admirable.
Mr. Covode was not educated as the schools understand education.
The son of a "redemptioner," and thrown chiefly upon his own




24          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
resources, he obtained a better education and more complete
development from victorious contact with the world than he who,
born to ease and with all the facilities of technical education, emerges
from the university with the idea that his education is ended; when
truly he has merely acquired the educational tools with which he is
to work out such fortune and accomplish such duty as Heaven sets
him to do. The man who, like a Gladstone or a Disraeli, is born to
comparative fortune and is crammed with all the learning of the
schools, who has tasted of the delights of study and mental acquisition,
who has luxuriated amid philosophical and scientific investigation,
who has been tempted to pass his life in the serene enjoyment of his
taste for art and science and research, far removed from the
deceptions and trials and disappointments and uncongenial associations of public life, such a man who yet wrests himself away from
laborious yet delightful days, to become a leader of men and take
active part in the battle of life, deserves perhaps as much credit as
one who, like Mr. Covode, is compelled to strive, and striving, win
the prize. The one rises superior to his crushing mass of knowledge,
whether profitable or unprofitable; he becomes the master of his
acquirements, and is not mastered by them, as is too often the case.
He shows his true grit by overcoming the natural tendency to ease
and luxury, and bravely assumes his share of the burden of those who
believe that each of us owe our best endeavors to the amelioration of
the nation's and the race's condition. The other is so fortunate as to
feel the constant goad-to be developed by necessity and adversity,
but which he, too, overcomes. Each plays well his part, each fulfills
the duties Providence has set him to do, and thereby gains true
honor and esteem. Success is in the man, in the unyielding
determination to overcome obstacles, whether those obstacles arise
out of comfort and luxury, or out of adversity and want.
Each of these typical men would probably succeed in either sphere.
But it is the great merit of our institutions and civil polity that
eminent success is here possible and facilitated for nature's strong
men, no matter whether fortuitously placed high or low, with or
without the so-called advantages of fortune. Therefore, John




REMARKS OF MR. HALDEMAN, OF PENNSYLVANIA.          25
Covode's career is eminently typical. Such lives as his are the
vindication and the glory of the Republic. They are numeaous;
they are on all sides of us. They point the true moral of free
government, which is founded to cultivate and develop individual
man in all those talents and gifts and yearnings which he has
received from nature and nature's God; to give full scope for the
exercise of his faculties and secure to him his just share of reward.




PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE.
REirARKAS OF IMR. SCOTT, OF PENNSY VANIA.
Mr. PRESIDENT: Again, and for the third time during this short
session, are we reminded that the robes of office will not ward away
the shafts of death. Another of our colleagues has fallen, and we
lay aside our labors for a few brief moments to pay a tribute to his
memory.
Hon. John Covode, late Representative of the twenty-first congressional district of Pennsylvania, died at Harrisburg, on the i ith of
January. He had left this city a few days previous, proceeded to his
home, and with his wife went to Philadelphia, and made arrangements to place two of his younger children at school.  Intending to
resume his duties in the House, he started to return by way of
Harrisburg. There, in his usual robust health, he retired to rest for
a few hours before leaving for Washington. Attacked by acute pain
in the region of the. heart, he awoke, called his wife, and had
medical aid summoned. Remedies were administered, but within an
hour he died.
John Covode was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania,
on the I7th of March, i8o8. His father was of Dutch and his
mother of Quaker descent. An untarnished name was the only
heritage they had to leave their son. His facilities for acquiring an
education were very limited. His after life, however, demonstrated
that his will would yield to no difficulties which perseverance could
overcome; that obstacles in his path gave birth to the resolve that
he would surmount them.
When quite young he left his home and traveled on foot to the
State of New York, wishing to acquire a knowledge of some branch
of manufacturing industry.  He selected the fulling business, correctly calculating that one of the necessities of his native district
could be supplied by the introduction of a fulling mill. He learned




REMARKS OF MR. SCOTT, OF PENNSYLVANIA.         27
the trade, returned and established what was known for years as
Covode's woolen factory. Although small, when compared with the
huge enterprises of the present day, it supplied the wants of the neighborhood. He' was an honest, industrious, business man, and gained
the confidence of all who knew him.' Growing in knowledge and
experience, seizing the opportunities which the advance of improvements offered, he employed his energies beyond the limits of his own
vicinity, and made the welfare of other sections of the State the object
of his solicitude.
Pennsylvania had commenced, in 1826, an extensive system of
internal improvements, and many who feared the burden of'public
debt necessary to their completion shrunk back from the undertaking.
Mlen of nerve and courage were needed for that time. Of that class
was Mr. Covode. Confident.in the value of the boundless but
undeveloped resources of the great Commonwealth, he gave an
ardent support to all measures for the commencement, prosecution,
and completion of her canals and railroads. When these furnished
insufficient facilities for trade and travel he again gave his efficient
aid.  He was one of the original friends of the company incorporated in 1846 to construct a railroad from east to west through
the central portion of the State, and did much to secure its success.
When these improvements by State and company enterprise were
completed he was among the first to originate schemes for utilizing
them.  He became a transporter on the canal, and, while the
railroad was in progress, organized companies to develop the coalfields in Western Pennsylvania, which it made accessible.  In all
these he was a ruling and an active spirit, and, aided to a great'
extent by his prudent management, they have prospered largely and
rewarded his sagacity and labors with abundant success.  His
perseverance, foresight, self-confidence, hopefulness, and honesty of
purpose had all been exercised in behalf of his immediate neighborhood, county, and State, but it was not until he entered upon his
political career that those qualities became so conspicuous as to
attract the attention of the country. Before his election to Congress
in I854 he had been a candidate for the State senate in the district




28          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
composed of the counties of Westmoreland and Somerset.% Defeated
by a very small majority, the canvass demonstrated his hold upon the
confidence of the people.  His party was in the minority, but many
opposed to him politically waived their adherence to party rule,
casting their votes for him a's the Whig candidate.
In 1854 Mr. Covode was, for the first time, a candidate for
Congress in the then nineteenth congressional district of Pennsylvania, and was elected.  He was re-elected in I856, i858, and
i86o.  In the legislation immediately preceding the attempted
secession of the Southern States, he was a prominent and courageous
actor in resisting the encroachments of conspirators against the
Union, and in exposing the schemes for the extension of slavery.
In opposing the efforts to force the institution upon Kansas, he
battled with all his energy, and became conspicuous for his industry
and labors as chairman of a committee to investigate the influences
by which this result was sought to be accomplished.
In the Thirty-sixth Congress, that immediately preceding the
election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, he contributed largely
in preparing the public mind for a change in the policy on which the
National Government had been administered. When that change
came and secession followed, Mr. Covode stood unflinchingly by the
flag of his country. He was not a man of soft words and persuasive
speech.  The time had come when it was to be decided by the
arbitrament of the sword, whether the Union should be preserved
or be severed into fragments. He advocated the strengthening of
the arm of the Government to meet the attack of its enemies. His
patriotic exhortations, though not couched in the flowery language
of the rhetorician, were such as carried conviction to the minds of
the people, and roused them to a sense of the impending dangers.
From the inauguration of the rebellion until the 4th day of
March, I863, when Mr. Covode voluntarily retired from Congress,
after having served four successive terms, he was recognized as the
enthusiastic defender of his country's weal and safety, serving during
that time with vigor as a member of the Joint Committee on the
Conduct of the War. But he gave even stronger proof of his loyal




REMARKS OF MR. SCOTT, OF PENNSYLVANIA.           29
devotion than by his individual efforts as a member of Congress.
He gave to his country three of his sons to do battle in the field,
one of whom, Colonel George Covode, was killed in battle near
Richmond; another returned from the prison-house at Andersonville,
broken in health, and now remains a lingering evidence of the
cruelty there inflicted upon the unfortunate Union prisoners; a third
completed his term of enlistment and was honorably discharged.
At the close of the Thirty-seventh Congress Mr. Covode retired
temporarily from public life. Though in no official position, he did
not remain an inactive spectator of the continued struggle of parties.
In 1862 and in I864 his district was carried by the Democrats. To
effect a change in the representation he again became a candidate in
i866. His personal and political popularity, backed by his great
energy, secured an election. In i868 he was again chosen to represent his district in the House of Representatives, and in I869 he
conducted the political campaign as chairman of the Republican
State central committee.  Such is a brief sketch of the leading
incidents of his business and public life, and they, to a great extent,
indicate his character.
He was not a man of learning; he was a man of intellect.  It
was not that cultivated intellect which often leads men to be mere
thinkers, whose thoughts end in dreams and are sometimes afterward
caught up and made practical by the earnest workers of the world.
His was that busy, practical brain which made him a man of action,
a type of the untiring working men who are making their mark upon
this active century, who study their fellow-men more than books, and
who are indispensable to the earnest thinkers of the age. Earnest
thinkers and earnest workers need each other. Earnest thought is
earnest work in one sense, but not in all senses.  The earnest
thought of the commander who plans a campaign or maps out a
battle-field may be earnest work for him; but it is not that kind of
earnest work which carries forts and routs opposing armies. The
men who do this kind of earnest work should live in history, as well
as those who plan it and direct it to be done.
I saw recently a large painting of the battle of Gettysburg,




30          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
ordered by the State of Pennsylvania. It represents the pinch of
the fight-the repulse of Pickett's charge. Its central figure is a
private Union soldier-tall, muscular, with all the energy of determined action apparent in every feature and in every limb-with a
musket clenched frantically in his hands, and drawn to strike an
assailant. He seems to be the real leader of all who are behind him.
The commanding generals are in the dim distance. I thought, as I
looked upon it, that the men of action are, in our day, coming to
the front.
Such a man was John Covode. His speeches do not fill many
columns of the Globe. His actions have influenced events which will
employ the pens of many historians; and if the thoughts and the
reasonings, during our years of trial, of such men as Stevens and
Fessenden among the dead, of others whom I may not in good
taste here name among the living, shall afford food for the students
who shall come after us, the deeds of John Covode, as they stand
upon the same record, in the same years, will command the gratitude
of the patriot's heart. In the word-painting of history his name will
not be left out.
He was bold, energetic, self-reliant, and persevering. He investigated for himself, he decided for himself, and, when he decided, the
next step was to act.  Some friends were proposing to him to
examine into the practicability of a railroad up the valley of the
Platte, and wished to submit the opinion of an engineer. "Let us
go and see for ourselves," said Mr. Covode, and he went, taking
some of his friends with him. His own examination decided his
course upon that question.
But although energetic and self-reliant, he was neither repellant
nor selfish. Warm as a partisan, he was genial and generous in
social life and as a personal friend. I will not say of him that he
had no enemies; for if I did it would imply, in my belief, that he
had failed in some of life's duties. He had the nerve to do right as
he saw the right; and the man who does that, either in private or
public life, will have enemies.
He was the friend and trusted counselor of the poor and dependent.




REMARKS OF MR. SCOTT, OF PENNSYLVANIA.         31
Having himself come up from the vale of poverty, he sympathized
with the sorrows of those in want. He certainly had never read, in
the original, Dido's address to zEneas, and it may be he could not
have quoted Dryden's translation of her sentiment"I learn to pity woes so like my own,"
but he did what was better than scanning Latin or quoting English
verse. When the needy came to him  he did not exhaust his
sympathy for the poor in sentiment for their class. He ministered
to the needy man or woman before him, asking aid.
I cannot refrain from expressing here the thoughts that were
prompted by the scene at his funeral, which I attended, upon the
invitation of the committee appointed by the House. His residence
was in a deep and narrow valley. As we neared it, Hendricks
Creek, named by the ancestors of Senator Hendricks, came in sight,
wending its way along the foot of a high hill. Steep hills were on
every side of us, and it seemed that there was no outlet for the
struggling stream. But it finds its way after many windings, and,
passing through the tributaries of the Alleghany, flows on to the
Gulf, mingling its waters with that stream which, by its genial
warmth, breaks up the frozen regions of the North. Was it this
surrounding that impelled John Covode to action? Did he look out
over the high hills which, on every side, shut him from the busy
world beyond, and resolve that he, too, with his strong German
common sense, keeping him ever on the plane of right; with his
warm Quaker heart throbbing in unison with the aspirations of the
oppressed for freedom and the equal rights of man, would go out
and cast his influence into that great gulf stream of enlightened and
advancing public sentiment, which was breaking up the polar sea of
human bondage? This he had done, and he had lived to see liberty
proclaimed "through all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof."
But his race was run; and there he was dead, his sorrowing friends
and stricken wife and children, his sympathizing neighbors, all
shocked by the suddenness and severity of the affliction. The loss
sustained by that bereaved family is one which no earthly hand can
temper, no human sympathy can lessen. The loss sustained by the




32          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
community in which he lived was attested by the presence of the
people of all ranks and conditions of life, to pay the last tribute of
respect to his memory. High and low, rich and poor, were there.
On foot, on horseback, in the road wagon, in the carriage, in every
way that men and women could travel, did the long funeral procession wend its way to the little village church-yard, in the county
of his birth, to lay him in his last resting-place, by the side of his
gallant son, and surrounded by the tablets which tell the "short and
simple annals of the poor."
If a man's life has not impressed his fellow-men, his funeral will
not. But his funeral may tell how his life has impressed them; and,
standing there, no man could doubt the sincerity of the sorrow
which his death had occasioned among those who knew him best.
A bad man could not be so mourned. Taken as he was, without
warning, away from the busy scene's of life's activities, when looking
forward to new and important enterprises, his death admonishes us
who are engaged, as he was, in public cares and duties, of the
uncertainty of life and of the value of our time; that we should
"Part with it as with money, sparing; pay
No moment but in purchase of its worth;
And what its worth, ask death-beds; they can tell."
Mr. President, I offer the following resolutions:
Resolved, That the Senate has received with deep sensibility the
announcement of the death of the late Hon. John Covode, late
a member of the House of Representatives from the State of
Pennsylvania.
Resolved, That as a mark of respect for the memory of Mr. Covode,
the members of the Senate will wear the usual badge of mourning
for thirty days.
Resolved, That as a further mark of respect for the memory of the
deceased, the Senate do now adjourn.




REMARKS OF SMR. SUMNER, OF MASSACHUSETTS.         33
REAfARXS' OF MR. SUMIINER, OF MASSA CHUSETTS.
Mr. PRESIDENT: I venture to interpose a brief word of sincere
homage to the late John Covode. I call him John Covode, for so I
heard him called always. Others are known by some title of honor
or office, but he was known only by the simple name he bore. This
familiar designation harmonized with his unassuming life and
character.
During his long service in Congress I was in the Senate, so that I
have been his contemporary. And now that he has gone before me
I owe my testimony to the simplicity, integrity, and patriotism of his
public life. Always simple, always honest, always patriotic, he leaves
a name which must be preserved in the history of Congress. In the
long list of its members he will stand forth with an individuality not
to be forgotten. How constantly and indefatigably he toiled the
records of the other House declare,  He was a doer rather than a
speaker; but is not doing more than speech, unless in those rare
cases where a speech is an act?  But his speech had a plainness
which was not without effect, especially before the people, where the
facts and figures which he presented with honest voice were eloquent.
The rebellion found this faithful Representative in his place, and
from the first moment to the last he gave to its suppression time,
inexhaustible energy, and that infinite treasure, the life of a son. He
was for the most vigorous measures, whether in the field or in
statesmanship. Slavery had no sanctity for him, and he insisted
upon striking it. In the same spirit, when the rebellion was
suppressed, he insisted always upon those Equal Rights for All, without
which the Declaration of Independence is an unperformed promise,
and our nation a political bankrupt. In all these things he showed
character and became a practical leader. There is heroism elsewhere
than on fields of battle, and he displayed it. He was a civic hero.
And here the bitterness which he encountered was the tribute to his
virtue.
In doing honor to this much-deserving servant, I cannot err if I
add that nobody had more at heart the welfare of the Republican
3




34          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
party, with which, in his judgment, were associated the best interests
of the nation. He felt that, giving to his party, he gave to his
country and to mankind. His strong sense and the completeness of
his devotion to party made him strenuous always for those commanding principles by which humanity is advanced. Therefore was
he for the unity of the party, that it might be directed with all its
force for the good cause. Therefore was he against outside and
disturbing questions, calculated to distract and divide. He saw the
wrong they did to the party, and, in the relation of cause and effect,
to the country. And here that frankness, which was part of his
nature, became a power. He was always frank, whether with the
people, with Congress, or with the President. I cannot forget his
frankress with Abraham Lincoln, who, you know, liked frankness.
On more than one occasion with this good President his frankness
conquered. Honorable as was such a victory to the simple Representative, it was more honorable to the President.
His honest indignation at wrong was doubtless quickened by the
blood which coursed in his veins and the story whtch it constantly
whispered. He was descended from one of those "redemptioners"
or indented servants transported to Pennsylvania in the middle of
the last century, being a species of.white slaves, among whom was
one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The
eminence which John Covode reached attests the hospitality of our
institutions and shows how character triumphs over difficulties.
With nothing but a common education, he improved his condition,
gained riches, enlarged his mind with wisdom, and won the
confidence of his fellow-citizens, until he became an example.
The death of such a citizen makes a void, but it leaves behind a
life which in itself is a monument.
A'IEIIARIS OF JfR. SHERMA N, OF O11IO.
Mr. PRESIDENT: Again we are called upon to share in the last
sad ceremonies on the occasion of the death of one of our old
associates. Mr. Covode entered upon his public life in the Thirty



REMARKS OF MR. SHERMAN, OF OHIO.               35
fourth Congress.  He was elected a member of Congress in the
fall of i854, when for the first time the anti-slavery sentiment ofthe Northern States, aroused by the Kansas-Nebraska bill, contested
for supremacy in the administration of the National Government.
The commencement of this struggle dates back to the origin of the
Government, and indeed was inherent in the nature of the human
mind. The ideas that ruled a society where a great portion of the
people were slaves, and the ideas that controlled a people all free,
were of necessity in a state of chronic war. That they did not
sooner come in armed conflict is the highest evidence of the forbearance, obedience, and respect for law that is the distinguishing
trait of our race. But when the geographical barriers erected by
our fathers had been broken down in the interest of slavery the
conflict became inevitable. The mass of our people, with a keen
perception of the nature of the conflict, arrayed themselves into
parties distinctively founded upon'these antagonistic ideas.  Old
party divisions melted away; other issues were subordinated or
postponed; and in the House of Representatives of the Thirtyfourth Congress the conflict commenced which in the end destroyed
slavery and left us in all the States with institutions in harmony with
republican liberty.
Mr. Covode, though a Whig in politics, was elected in a Democratic district; and I met him for the first time in December, i855,
in the long struggle that followed over the organization of the
House.  From that time until his death my acquaintance with him
was intimate. He took an active but peculiar part in all the political contests of the time. And now, sir, in reviewing his life, for
the purpose of joining in this tribute to his memory, I can truthfully
say that I knew no one in public life who was a truer friend, more
faithful to his convictions of duty, less influenced by bitterness and
malignity, and who was less changed by his long political service
from the plain John Covode of our early acquaintance. It so
happened that I once visited his district and sought the secret of
his continued popularity at his home, where there had been many
political changes.  He had been engaged extensively in many




36          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
branches of business, had been very successful, had accumulated a
large fortune, from a laboring-man had become the employer of
thousands of laborers, had held high official position; and yet in
all these changes had continued the same plain-hearted, genial,
kind, and accessible John Covode.
His success did not excite envy, and even among his political
adversaries, though he was a very decided partisan, there was no
bitterness. With his political associates in the House of Representatives he was popular and influential, never contesting the higher
honors of political strife or leading in debate; yet his good will and
good offices were eagerly sought by others, and when given were
always sincere and useful. I do not think any one can truly say
he was ever misled or deceived by Mr. Covode. His sagacity in
political matters was intuitive. He felt and knew the popular pulse,
because he mingled with and knew the people as well as any man
in public life. In his popular addresses he was far more successful
than learned and polished lawyers who depended upon studied
preparation. His speeches were earnest, direct, and good-humored,
and did not lose their force though his grammar was not always
correct and his ideas were clothed in homely phrase. Mr. Covode
was one of the many who under our free institutions, without advantage of education, but with native talents, great industry, and
energy, filled the measure of a successful life.
He did great good in developing the resources of his State; he
was true to his political convictions; he was firm in his friendships;
he was a good husband and father; and now, sir, that he is suddenly
taken from us by death, treading a little time *before us the dim,
gloomy, impenetrable paths of future life, we, his old associates, can
recall his memory with kindness, respect, and affection. When we
reflect how few of the members of the Thirty-fourth Congress still
fill their places in these Hallg, and how many, both of our friends
and adversaries, are now dead-falling here and there in the changing
phases of life without creating a ripple in the great current of eventswe feel the insignificance of any one human life, however proudly
and prominently it may be for a moment in the public eye. All that




REMARKS OF MIR. CAMERON, OF PENNSYLVANIA.         37
we can do is to contribute a little, and but a little, to the general
progress of our country; and we must be content if, when our
eulogies are pronounced, our survivors may say of us what has been
truly said to-day of John Covode.'REMiA'RKS OF AIR. CA MERON, OF PEAWATSYL VANIA.
Mr. PRESIDENT: Leaving a particular statement and analysis of the
life of Mr. Covode to gentlemen more intimate with it than I am, I
design saying a few words of him and his career which I hope will
impress the youth of the country. In him we have a bright illustration of what may be attained under a political system which invites
every kind of ability to its service, which welcomes every description
of talent, and excludes none from the responsibilities and honors of
public life.
Mr. Covode encountered the difficulties which his humble extraction and poverty placed in his way with the steady courage of the
race whose blood flowed in his veins. His father was one of those
whose passage was paid from the Low Countries by service of redemption after his arrival on our shore. In early times the farmers
and small manufacturers of Pennsylvania, true to the traditions of
our State, procured this class of laborers in preference to slaves. That
they were wise in this choice it is not now, happily, necessary to
argue. But if proof were demanded it may be found in the beautiful valleys now possessed by the descendants of these imported laborers, by their high culture, by their thrift, and by the exalted honor
which marks all their dealings. And it is worthy of honorable mention, in passing, that there is not one single instance in which these
patient, honest people failed to carry out to the uttermost, and in perfect good faith, the contract by which they were enabled to come to
a land of plenty.
However much of honor and fame John Covode may have earned
by his public services, he holds a higher place in my esteem for the
true courage he possessed. I never honored him more than when,




38          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
in a speech in Philadelphia not long ago, he boldly proclaimed what
other and weaker men would have labored to suppress, and announced as a reason for his hostility to every species of human bondage the fact that his father had been sold as a "redemptionist" near
the very spot where he was then speaking to thousands on matters of
high importance; standing up an acknowledged leader in a land
famous for the number and abilities of its leading men and the average intelligence of its people.
This German element in Pennsylvania, of which Mr. Covode was
an excellent type, found itself, from very early times, in sharp rivalry
with another race with which no ordinary qualities could maintain a
successful struggle. The bold and enterprising Scotch-Irish and
Scotch were already there. While these people were furnishing the
pioneers for our constantly advancing frontier, they yet left behind
them a strong force to dispute with all comers the possession of the
land their courage had conquered from the savage and the wilderness. These and the Swedes were mainly the purchasers of the laborers who were brought from Europe, and were the owners of much of
the soil. But scarcely a generation had passed away before the hired
servants began to buy their masters' lands, to marry their masters'
daughters, and to make good their claim to full equality with those
whose bondmen they had been. For a time the Scoth-Irish made a
sturdy stand for that supremacy and superiority which seem to be
their peculiar inheritance, place them where you may. At length the
thrift, the superior patience, and the perseverance of the German
blood prevailed. They bought, and still possess, the old homesteads,
and have furnished us with an array of distinguished men of whom
every citizen of our State is justly proud; while their rivals, true to
their character for progress and enterprise, spread westward to our
borders. There they took firm root. And from that citadel of their
power they have furnished the picket-guard of civilization for the
continent. While the sons of the Germans from generation to generation inherited their fathers' lands, they continued in the simple pursuits of their ancestors. The Scotch-Irish, on the other hand, sent
their sons to colleges, and constantly asserted their claims to power




REIMARKS OF MR. CAMERON, OF PENNSYLVANIA.          39
and direction; the result of which is that this race has furnished us
with more Presidents than all others combined, and has put its
indelible impress on the political institutions of our country.
There is nothing either new or striking in what I have said; and
it may be considered as foreign to the object for whiih I arose. But
to me it seemed necessary in considering the lesson of a useful man's
life, and so germane to my purpose.
John Covode was the irreconcilable foe of slavery because, in the
traditions of his family, that detestation was the outgrowth of experience, of bitter suffering, of unmerited reproach. He loved liberty
as one to whom its beauty was a reality and not merely a sentiment.
And so the same practical traits are to be seen all through his
character.  As one denied the blessings and advantages of education, he was an unflinching friend of free schools. As an American
laborer, his life was spent in shielding American labor from the
blight of foreign competition. As a Pennsylvanian, he loved the
State which gave him birth and sepulcher to his fathers. As an
American citizen, he loved the land where he and his kindred found
refuge and honor. His was a sympathetic heart, ahd his hand was
open. He alleviated the sorrows and afflictions of his neighbors with
unstinted generosity. And the vast concourse of those that flocked
to his funeral to pay honor to his remains is conclusive evidence of
the high estimation in which he was held by those who knew him
best.
And this, after all, is the touchstone of true popularity. The
attendance of the great men of the nation who represented Congress at his burial; of the refined gentlemen, his associates in
business and in humanitarian projects; of the eminent men who left
everything to add their tribute of respect to the obsequies of their
friend, was indeed honorable to them and just to his memory. But
the simple, manly grief of his neighbors far outweighs all these, and
casts an honor over his grave which all else was incapable of,reflecting.
Confident that I have spoken but imperfectly of Mr. Covode's
character, I yet feel that what I have said is not in vain.  Some




40          LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN COVODE.
youth, struggling in obscurity against an adverse fortune, and beset
with difficulties which appear at times insurmountable, will read of
our dead colleague's struggle and victory, and take fresh courage.
If even one such shall thereby emerge from his difficulties, and give
to his country and his fellow.men the strong common sense and the
acute understanding of another John Covode, my object'will have
been attained. And I cannot pay higher honor to the dead than to
present his life as an example to the young men of our country,
claiming, as I do, the liberty of age and experience to press this
example on their attention, and pointing them  to the struggles,
the success, and the end of the life of our departed friend.
I second, sir, the resolutions offered by my colleague.








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