Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia). Various
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Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses and again returned by his constituency to the present Congress; but the hand of death interposed, and he did not live to again take his seat in this legislative hall.
The name of Lee, Mr. Speaker, has been an illustrious one in Virginia. No one can with safety challenge the assertion that that old Commonwealth has furnished, from the time of the Revolution, as many great men, in peace and in war, as any of the States of our Union. When the foundations of this great Republic were laid and constitutional principles evolved, whether the sword of the warrior or the mind and philosophy of the statesman were needed, you will find the marks and handiwork of some son of that State.
Among those great men the ancestry of Gen. Lee were conspicuous. He inherited from his great father a disposition that was frank, manly, and chivalrous. Although with these distinguished surroundings, Gen. Lee had no undue pride, reserve, or self-assertion. His nature, on the contrary, was eminently amiable, generous, and sympathetic, and at the same time he was dignified, manly, brave, and ever courteous.
Identified with the agricultural interests of his State, at one time president of the State society, and himself a practical and successful farmer and proud of his occupation, he mingled freely and congenially with that great class of our citizens upon whose shoulders repose in great measure the preservation and safety of the institutions of our common country. While he was especially devoted to the interests of the farmer, he was essentially a patriot, and loved his State and all its diverse interests with an enthusiastic devotion and yearned for her prosperity.
He was a faithful, able, and vigilant Representative, and had in the greatest degree the confidence of his constituents and the people of his entire State. No one who ever knew him could fail to implicitly trust him. His State has lost a pure and noble son; the country a wise, conservative, and faithful Representative. We who knew him here can recall his manly robust form, his genial kindly face, his frank accessible address, his unfailing gentleness of manner, his cheerful friendly voice, as he walked along the aisles of this Hall.
A man of his character and bearing could but wield an influence for good wherever his presence was.
In a republic, where the people are the state, the advice, the suggestions, and the example of a citizen so high-minded and incorruptible are of great value not only in the councils of the nation, but in the everyday walks and details of life, in his beautiful rural home, surrounded by and mingling with his country people; and it was ever the pleasure and practice of Gen. Lee to associate freely and unrestrainedly with the great body of the people. His generous and noble heart had a sympathetic touch with them and their struggles, their callings, their work.
But he has passed from us under the decree of the great Master to the great hereafter, leaving the record of a life of singular purity, directness of purpose, and freedom from guile; the record of a character unblurred, untarnished, unshadowed by the least stain; the record of a man high, noble, honorable, faithful to all the duties and relations of life.
Mr. Speaker, Virginia, one of the oldest of the Commonwealths, within whose borders lie the remains of many great names, and the energies and reserved forces of whose people in times gone by have risen to great heights, receives to her bosom her dead son and bows with sincere grief over his grave; for to her, whether her hand wore the mailed gauntlet or followed the gentler pursuits of peace, he had ever been faithful, loyal, and true.
Address of Mr. Tucker, of Virginia.
Mr. Speaker: I shall leave to others the task of portraying the life of Gen. Lee in its diversified pursuits, and shall content myself with the effort of giving to the House my conception of some of the characteristics of our deceased friend which made him throughout his life, wherever placed, a conspicuous actor in private and public affairs.
In the early period of Virginia's history lived William Randolph, of Turkey Island (a plantation some 15 or 20 miles from the city of Richmond, near the scene of the terrific battle of Malvern Hill). He was the ancestor of all of that name in Virginia, and from him was descended in direct line Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and Robert E. Lee; the last-named the father of our departed friend. How could he have manifested in his life less patriotism, justice, and courage with such exemplars of these virtues ever before him?
His mother, as is well known, was a descendant from the wife of Gen. Washington by her prior marriage with John Parke Custis. Sprung from such a lineage; trained in a school where the amenities of life as well as "the humanities" were taught in their highest excellence, he practiced from his earliest childhood a scrupulous regard for the rights and feelings of others, and an indulgence to all faults except his own.
With a self-control and equipoise which were never disturbed under the most trying circumstances, and a graciousness of manner which broke down all barriers, giving to the humblest as well as to the highest the assurance of his friendly consideration, and a mind well disciplined by education in the highest schools, it was impossible that he could have been other than a man of mark and influence in his State.
It is not claiming too much to say that Gen. Lee was the natural product of the civilization existing in Virginia during his boyhood and early manhood, which, alas, except here and there in certain localities, is fast passing away. The home, not the club, was its center; the family, not each "new-hatched, unfledged comrade," its unit. The father was the head of the family, not the joint tenant with the wife of a house nor the tenant at will of his wife. The wife and the mother was the queen of the household, not merely a housekeeper for a husband and the family. Obedience to those in authority was the first lesson exacted of the boy. Inculcated with tenderness, it was enforced with severity, if need be, until the word of the father or the expressed wish of the mother carried with it the force of law as completely as the decree of a court or the mandate of a king.
Reverence for superiors in age and deference to all, rather than arrogant self-assertion, was magnified as a cardinal virtue, not as teaching humility and enforcing a lack of proper self-respect, but rather to exalt high ideals and stimulate an admiration for "the true, the beautiful, and the good."
Fidelity to truth, the maintenance of personal honor, deference for the opinions and feelings of others, without abating one's own or aggressively thrusting them on others; a kindliness of manner to dependents, a knightly courtesy to all, but with special and tender regard in thought, word, and action toward woman, were in turn patiently taught in all the lessons of the fireside and at the family altar, and earnestly insisted upon in the formation of the character of a true gentleman. "Any man will be polite to a beautiful young woman, but it takes a gentleman to show the same respect to a homely old woman" was the stinging rebuke of a father to his son who failed to remove his hat in passing a forlorn old woman on the public highway.
The old-field school, the private tutor, the high school, whose excellence in Virginia I can not praise too much, the college, the university, led the young mind by easy stages to its full intellectual maturity.
Nowhere was the principle "Sana mens in sano corpore" more scrupulously taught than in Virginia. The rod and stream, the gun, the "hounds and horns," the chase, with the music of the pack, the bounding steed, all lent their ready aid in developing the physical manhood of the boy. In the pure atmosphere of his country home, amid its broad fields and virgin forests, contracted houses in narrow streets had no charms for him. To join the chase was the first promotion to which the boy looked as evidencing his permanent release from the nursery. The gun and dog became his constant companions, while "Old Betsey," his father's trusted double-barreled gun of many years' usage, standing in the sitting-room corner or hanging on stag-horns or dog-wood forks on the side of the wall, was the eloquent subject of nightly rehearsals of her prowess and power in the annual deer hunt "over the mountains." Skill in horsemanship was essential, and breaking colts was naturally followed by broken limbs; but manhood found a race of trained horsemen, both graceful and skillful in the saddle, unexcelled, I dare venture to assert, by any civilized people. A child of nature, the Virginia boy communed with her as his mother, and from