.
Mr. Daniel came into the Senate in 1887. He had been known
as a very eminent lawyer at the Virginia Bar, author of two
excellent law books. He had served a single term in the National
House of Representatives. He had won a National reputation
there by a very beautiful and brilliant speech at the completion
of the Washington Monument. There were two notable orations
at the time, one by Mr. Daniel and one by Robert C. Winthrop.
These gentlemen were selected for the purpose as best representing
two sections of the country. Mr. Winthrop was, beyond all
question, the fittest man in the North for such a task. I
have a special admiration for the spirit and eloquence with
which he performed such duties. To my mind no higher praise
could be given Mr. Daniel's address than that it is worthy
of that company.
I had occasion to look at Mr. Winthrop's address some little
time ago, and, opening the volume containing it in the middle,
I read a page or two with approval and delight thinking it
was Mr. Winthrop's. But I found, on looking back to the beginning
that it was Senator Daniel's.
Mr. Daniel speaks too rarely in the Senate. He is always
listened to with great attention. He speaks only on important
questions, to which he always makes an important contribution.
He has the old-fashioned Virginia method of speech, now nearly
passed away,--grave, deliberate, with stately periods and
sententious phrases, such, I suppose, as were used in the
Convention that adopted the Constitution, or in that which
framed or revised the Constitution of Virginia.
Mr. Daniel was a Confederate soldier. He is a Virginian
to his heart's core. He looks with great alarm on the possibility
that the ancient culture and nobility of the South, and the
lofty character of the Virginian as he existed in the time
of Washington and Marshall and Patrick Henry may be degraded
by raising what he thinks an inferior race to social or even
political equality.
But he retains no bitterness or hate or desire for revenge
by reason of the conflict of the Civil War. He delivered an
address before the President of the United States, the Supreme
Court, the representatives of foreign Governments, the two
Houses of Congress and the Governors of twenty-one States
and Territories, on the 12th of December, 1900, on the occasion
of the celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of establishing
the seat of Government at Washington. That remarkable address
wa
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