e tide of time has been bereaved
as we are bereaved; for no other people has had such a man to lose.
Greece, rich in heroes; Rome, prolific mother of great citizens, so
that the name of Roman is the synonyme of all that is noblest in
citizenship--had no man coming up to the full measure of this
great departed. On scores of battle-fields, consummate commander;
everywhere, bravest soldier; in failure, sublimest hero; in disbanding
his army, most pathetic of writers; in persecution, most patient of
power's victims; in private life, purest of men--he was such that all
Christendom, with one consent, named him GREAT. We, recalling that so
also mankind have styled Alexander, Caesar, Frederick, and Napoleon,
and beholding in the Confederate leader qualities higher and better
than theirs, find that language poor indeed which only enables us to
call him 'great'--him standing among the great of all ages preeminent.

"_Resolved_, That our admiration of the man is not the partial
judgment of his adherents only; but so clear stand his greatness and
his goodness, that even the bitterest of foes has not ventured
to asperse him. While the air has been filled with calumnies and
revilings of his cause, none have been aimed at him. If there are
spirits so base that they cannot discover and reverence his greatness
and his goodness, they have at least shrunk from encountering the
certain indignation of mankind. This day--disfranchised by stupid
power as he was; branded, as he was, in the perverted vocabulary of
usurpers as rebel and traitor--his death has even in distant lands
moved more tongues and stirred more hearts than the siege of a mighty
city and the triumphs of a great king.

"_Resolved_, That, while he died far too soon for his country, he had
lived long enough for his fame. This was complete, and the future
could unfold nothing to add to it. In this age of startling changes,
imagination might have pictured him, even in the years which he yet
lacked of the allotted period of human life, once more at the head of
devoted armies and the conqueror of glorious fields; but none could
have been more glorious than those he had already won. Wrong, too,
might again have triumphed over Right, and he have borne defeat with
sublimest resignation; but this he had already done at Appomattox.
Unrelenting hate to his lost cause might have again consigned him to
the walks of private life, and he have become an exemplar of all the
virtues of a priv