s, and to
be engaged in the monotonous routine of deliberative bodies, was most
distasteful to him; but, true to the great maxim of his life--never to
seek or to decline a public trust--he accepted the appointment; and took
his seat in the early part of January, 1825. A casual view of his career
in that body, which extended from 1825 to 1833--a period of nearly eight
years--during which he held, at least in the estimation of Virginia, if
not of the whole Union, the foremost place, would alone occupy the brief
hour allotted me on the present occasion. The exciting questions of that
exciting period would pass in review; and the ashes are too thinly
spread over the smouldered fires of those days yet to be trodden with
safety, and certainly not with pleasure by some of those who hear me,
and who heartily joined in decreeing a tribute to the memory of Mr.
Tazewell. I will merely allude to two or three speeches and writings,
which the student of history may consult as specimens of parliamentary
ability, and as eminently displaying the caste of Mr. Tazewell's
intellectual character as well as his views on political subjects.

His _debut_ in the Senate was made on the bankrupt bill of that
session--not a regular speech, but a searching examination of the
details of the bill, which he exposed with such effect that its friends
substantially gave it up in despair. His first serious speech was
delivered on the 21st day of the same month in which he had taken his
seat, on his own motion to strike out the third section of the bill for
the suppression of piracy in the West India seas, which had been
reported from the Committee of Foreign Affairs, and had been introduced
by a forcible speech from its chairman, who was also his colleague--a
name to be pronounced with respect by every Virginian--the venerable
James Barbour then the acknowledged head of the Senate. The section
proposed to be stricken out authorized the President of the United
States in a time of profound peace to declare, on the representations of
a naval officer, any of the ports of Spain in the West Indies in a state
of blockade. The bill was likely to pass without serious opposition,
when it arrested the attention of Mr. Tazewell, who, then fresh from his
great discussions of the law of prize, exposed the danger of its
provisions in an argument which at once placed him at the head of the
Senate, and was read, though in a mutilated report, by the whole
country, with adm