An intimate association with Gen. LEE in the Fifty-first Congress and as
members of the board of trustees of Washington and Lee University at
Lexington, Va., and in private life, enabled me to form a just estimate
of his character and of those personal qualities of head and heart that
made him beloved by all who really knew him. While they have been well
expressed in the foregoing minute, I may add from my own observations a
brief summary of his noble character. His mind was eminently practical,
and arrived at its conclusions more from an unerring instinct of justice
and common sense than through the exacting processes of logic. His
judgment was rarely at fault, for his intellect was not swerved by
passion or prejudice, but was held in perfect equipoise to receive the
truth on both sides of every question. His deference to the opinions of
others and his caution in seeking the views of those on whose discretion
he relied suggested to some who did not know him that he was hesitating
in temperament. This was not true. He sought all the light possible on
every subject patiently and earnestly, and when he arrived at his
conclusion no man adhered to it more tenaciously or enforced it more
earnestly.
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