Show A GREAT 3IAN GONE JEFFERSOX DAVIS is no more At the ripe age of 81 he has gone to join the great cohort of statesmen and warriors whose names have been inscribed on enduring tablets and given high places in the temple of fame It is gratifying to know that his closing hours were painless that the grim monster came to him as sleep comes to a child in its cradle with its dark but potent finger his eyelids were touched and he fell asleep to wake no more in a land where blind force and brutal bigotry have dominion domi-nion but as we hope and believe in a I place where the day is endless the summer always present and the joys of existence are untinged with the bitterness ol regret for the past sorrow for the present or dread for the future As MACBETH says of DUXCAX After lifes fitful fever he sleeps well treason bath done its worst nor steel nor poison foreign malice domestic levy nothing can touch him further The expresident of the southern confederacy confed-eracy was one of the great and grand men of the century so near its close He had peculiar ideas of the functions of the government gov-ernment as regards its relations to the states but his peculiarities were shared by such men as CALHOOX and BnECKix RIDGE and to some extent CLAY in more recent tlmesand by such giants as THOMAS JEFFERSOX and AXDKEW JACKSOX in the earliest days of the republic Believing and rightfully that the status of the citizen citi-zen is a reflex of the government and that in this land the citizen while an integral in-tegral part of the nation is at the same time free and independent DAVIS and his coadjutors reasoned a priori that the village or town in which a citizen lived then the county then the district then the state and lastly the nation were likewise like-wise free and independentin other words that the great structure of the c government commenced at the bottom that power came from beneath and that therefore the separate rights of states and the individual rights of the people of the states were no more to be infringed upon than was one citizen to be infringed upon by another To put it in plain words he was a democrat pure and simple and believed altogether and entirely in the reign of the common people in quest of a common object That this belief or rather conviction took him out of the constituted authority of the United States for four long bloody and eventful years is a circumstance rather than a conclusion con-clusion He followed his convictions he remained with his own people and cast his lot with their fortunes whatever fate might decree As a soldier of his country none achieved higher or betterdeserved distinction for valorous conduct in the field or good deportment de-portment in the camp On the plains of Mexico and elsewhere at all times and in every place he was the ideal of a cultured and gallant warrior commanding in appearance ap-pearance graceful iu action gifted in mind and valiant in spirit he was truly a chevalier without fear and without reproach re-proach As a statesman in the various walks of civil life he rose to a commanding command-ing position everywhere and in everyplace every-place but it was as a member of the United States Senate that he shone most brightly because perhaps of the greater and better field in which he was engaged Those who had the good fortune to hear his last great speech in that body when about to retire from it will never forget what they heard while memory mem-ory remains the warder of the brain and those who have read it have enjoyed a feast of reason and flow of soul rarely met with among the emanations of the later day I giants of intellect It was a disquisition upon the constitution and an explanation of the different powers and principles of our government excelling in all respects anything ever uttered by DANIEL WEBSTER or any of the other great unionists It was analytical massive sublime complete it was in fine such an argument as JEFFERSON DAVIS only could have rendered and is the only monument he has now the greatest he will ever have no matter if millions be spent in erecting figures of glaring brass glowing bronze or chaste marble to his memory The wonderful capacity of his mind was not perceptibly drained even while in the shadow of the valley of death A few weeks ago he contributed an article to one of the great magazines of the country on the subject of the constitutionality of the protective tariff sytem an article which was noted and commented upon by THE HERALD shortly after it first appeared ap-peared It was a mcst masterly argument ar-gument and one that even the chief among the champions of protection on the forum or through the press have been unable to successfully assail It shed new light upon the vexed question and did more to convince those who were undetermined undeter-mined regarding not only the iniquity but the lawlessness of the high tariff system than any paper that has been contributed to modern literature within recent years at least The interests of the statesman and the gifts of the orator seem to have clung to him to the last He was born such and such he died The tongue and finger of calumny have ever been busy with the fair fame of the dead chieftain The pismires of the north have nibbled at him and the grasshoppers of the same section have kicked at him I with the hope of distracting somewhat from his great record and bedlmmlng if possible the great lustre cf his honored name In the judgment of the just on both sides all such attempts have been utterly ut-terly unavailing Either as the president of the southern confederacy or as the vie tim of northern malice he never at anytime any-time forsook the dignity of his position the instincts of the statesman or the manners man-ners of a gentleman When surrounded in his tent as he was fleeing to a more remote corner of what was then a crumbling edifice edi-fice his captors asked before going further fur-ther Are you armed If I were he replied jou would not be there asking that question And when he appeared to them and surrendered he was attired in his own proper habiliments the statements of smallminded and lowminded pennya liners to the contrary notwithstanding The secretary of war could not find a necessity for observing the unwritten lawn law-n such case made and provided for ordering order-ing the flag on the department building tJ be placed at halfmast Very well Mr PROCTOR is a little more than a northern man he is a Vermont man and a generous gener-ous gracious action is not to be looked for from him The dead chieftain has done a thousand times more in defense of that flag than the present secretary ever thought of doingdid more in the Mexican war than the whole state of Vermont thought of doing Mr PROCTOR may spit at the cold and lifeless clay of the great man who has gone but he cannot spit upon it it is surrounded by a wall of honorable history and sheltered by the glow of a patriotic peoples love The halfmasting of flags is a matter of small moment to him now the benisons of a race of people who followed and upheld him who never knew fear and who were never overcome inspirit in-spirit were with him to the last breath and have gone with him to the golden shore He will never be forgotten by those who hated him because he did not return hate for hate nor by those who loved him because he returned their love May he repose in peace |