These sorrowful occasions, which are deprecated by some as involving a
loss of the time of the Senate and needless expense to the Government, I
can not think are unprofitable to us or to the country. Surely in the
mad rush and hurry of business we may be permitted to halt long enough
to take notice of the invasion of our ranks by death and to voice our
esteem for a departed member. The death of an eminent member of the
Senate or of the House is not only a loss to his immediate constituency,
but to the whole country, and, in accordance with a long and honored
usage, demands from his former associates formal and appropriate action.
After such an hour spent in the contemplation of the common end of all
that live, in introspection and retrospection, who of us does not again
take up the burdens of life with renewed resolutions to redouble our
energies to faithfully discharge every public and private duty.
My acquaintance with Mr. LEE was not intimate. I frequently met him
socially, but he did not belong to the party with which I am affiliated,
and no fortuitous circumstance occurred to bring us together in the
discharge of public duties. The incidents of his life, his public
services, and his domestic relations have been fittingly alluded to by
others, and it only remains for me to cast an evergreen upon his grave,
to add my poor tribute to his memory, and give expression to the
emotions awakened by the occasion and the exercises of the hour.
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