ts high
character of a court, was presided over for the first and only time
by the Chief Justice of the United States. The trial was conducted
with marked decorum; every phase of questions touching the exercise
of executive authority, or lawful discretion, was fully discussed,
the very springs of legislative power, and its limitation under
Constitutional government, were laid bare--all with an eloquence
unparalleled save only in the wondrous efforts of Sheridan, Fox,
and Burke in the historic impeachment of Warren Hastings before
the British House of Lords. The spectacle presented was one
that challenged the attention and wonder of the nations; that of
the chief magistrate of a great republic at the bar of justice,
calmly awaiting judgment without popular disturbance or attempted revolt,
under the safeguards of law and its appointments. The highest test
of the virtue of our system of representative government, and of
the unfaltering devotion of our people to its prescribed methods, is
to be found in the fact, that during the protracted trial the
various departments proceeded with wonted regularity; the verdict of
the Senate was acquiesced in without manifestation of hostility;
partisan passion soon abated and the great impeachment peaceably
relegated to the domain of history.

The House of Representatives has an official life of short duration.
Its reorganization is biennial. The Senate is enduring. Always
organized, it is the continuing body of our national legislature.
Its members change, but the Senate continues the same now, as in
the first hour of the Republic.

In his last great speech in the Senate, Mr. Webster said:

"It is fortunate that there is a Senate of the United States; a
body not yet moved from its propriety, not lost to a full sense of
its own dignity and its own high responsibilities, and a body to
which the country looks with confidence for wise, moderate, patriotic,
and healing counsels."

Upon the first assembling of the Senate in its present magnificent
chamber nearly half a century ago, the Vice-President closed his
eloquent dedicatory address with the words:

"Though these marble walls moulder into ruins, the Senate in another
age may bear into a new and larger chamber the Constitution vigorous
and inviolate, and the last generation of posterity shall witness the
deliberations of the representatives of American States still
united, prosperous, and free."

VI
A TRIBUTE TO LINCO