was delivered
by him, and not as it appears debased and dwarfed in the report, was one
of the grandest displays of pure intellect ever made in the Senate, and
which saved the country from giving cause of war to Spain and, perhaps
and probably, from actual war; the speech on the Census, which his
colleague who sat by his side during its delivery told me gave both
Calhoun and Webster quite as much to do as was grateful to both of them;
the speech on the Admirals; the reports from the Committee on Foreign
Affairs for seven or eight years which controlled the public opinion of
the time; that consummate ability which in its grandest displays
inspired the hearer with the belief that the speaker, great as he was,
was capable of yet greater things-_par negotiis et supra_--his speeches
so settling matters that it seemed almost vain to say anything after him
for or against, and calling the remark from Webster, when Tazewell was
making one of his last speeches in the senate, "Why, Tazewell grows
greater every day." Form your notion of what must enter into the
formation of such a character, and then you have another of those
elements that make up the character of Tazewell.

Then take your model of a man who draws his sustenance from the plough,
a private citizen, who lives privately, not because he cannot obtain
office, but because, having won the highest honors, he withdraws from
the scene and leaves the glittering rewards of public service to be
divided among those who seek them. Look for his name in the newspapers,
and you will not find it from year's end to year's end; look for deep
intrigues in local politics, and you will find no finger of his in the
dirty work. Look at the ill success of those who have engaged in public
affairs, their pecuniary entanglements, their deferred hopes, their
sleepless nights, those poisoned fountains of feeling bitter as aloes
even to the eye that looks on them as they bubble; these and such things
you may find, and find easily, but not at the door of Tazewell. He is
strictly a private citizen, engaged in his private affairs, raising and
selling at fair prices in company with his neighbors his oats and corn
and potatoes, and showing to all that the highest faculties are as
practical as the lowest, and that diligence and attention always have
their reward. Without patrimony, with a moderation in taking fees
without an example in our land, living as became a gentleman of his
position in life and af