Evidences. It is a specific
duty,--which he had assigned to himself,--cleanly, neatly, and
thoroughly done. He knew what he was going to do, when he began; and he
knew, when he had finished what he could do. His victories, his life
through, will all be found, I think, to illustrate that sort of steady,
but determined resolution,--determined, in the sense that, before he
began, the bounds were established for the work which was to be done.

When he went to Congress, for instance, in 1824, he had been widely
known, in this part of the country at least, as a scholar who had
travelled in Europe, and as one of the leaders in the movement in favor
of the Greeks. Very naturally, Mr. Taylor appointed him on the Committee
on Foreign Relations, and in that capacity he served all the time he was
in the House. "I devoted myself," he said of that part of his life,
"mainly to the discharge of that part of the public business which was
intrusted to me"; that is, to the foreign relations. There were enough
other interests in those years to which he might have devoted himself.
But this was the sub-department which had been assigned to him, and
therefore he devoted himself to it. If it had been Indian Affairs, or
the Militia, he would have devoted himself to either of those; and I
think he would have distinguished himself in either of them as much as
he did in the other.

In this connection, it is to be observed, that, though few men worked as
rapidly or as easily as he, this same moral determination appeared in
the resoluteness with which he refused to do anything till he was
satisfied with his own preparation. The thing might not require any, and
then he made none. But if it was an occasion which he thought deserved
preparation, no haste nor pressure nor other excuse availed to induce
him to attempt what he had not made the fit preparation for. I think
nothing really made him so indignant with us who were his juniors, as
that we would half do things, instead of taking time to do them as well
as we could. Yet, when the necessity came, he could achieve things that
no other man would have dreamed of on such short notice. There are
stories of his feats in this way which need not be repeated here.

I have heard people speak of his political life, especially of late
years, as if it were a great riddle; and, in eulogies on him since his
death, I find men speaking as if he underwent some great revulsion of
character when Fort Sumter was att