In tracing the career of a great lawyer, we should follow him through the courts in which his life was spent; but here, unfortunately, no records appear which can throw any light upon the subject. The grandest efforts of counsel are made in the presence of the court and of the jury, and of those spectators who may happen to be in the court-room at the time, and are soon forgotten. Many heroes, the poet tells us, lived before Agamemnon, but are forgotten, because they had no poet to record their praise; and, before the days of the stenographer, the most brilliant harangues in our inferior courts perished with the breath of them who uttered, and of those who heard them. Such has been the fate of Mr. Tazewell. Of all the speeches which he addressed to the courts and juries of Norfolk, from 1802 to 1821, not a vestige remains; and all that we know is, that he was employed on one side or other of all the important cases of that interval; and that he exhibited abilities which easily placed him at the head of the bar of the Commonwealth, and attracted the attention of all who, whether in foreign countries or our own, held any connexion with our city. I shall pass over his criminal cases altogether, though they abound in striking passages; and of his civil cases in the courts of the State during his practice, I shall select two only, and rather by way of allusion than in full detail, one of which was tried at the beginning of this period, and the other in 1821 near its close.

About the year 1798, an eccentric individual named John Taylor, but better known as Solomon John, to distinguish him from two other persons of the same name living in Norfolk at the same time, a man of wealth and position, but believed to be slightly deranged in some respects, was returning from a hunting excursion, and, stopping at Burk's Gardens, which have long since given way to the houses now composing Hartshorne's Court, deliberately discharged his piece, which was loaded with small shot, at a crowd of people, and wounded a man named Rainbow in the leg, which was at length amputated. Rainbow instituted a suit, an action of trespass on the case, in the Borough Court, and filed a declaration in that form. Tazewell, as Taylor's attorney, offered to demur to the declaration, a mode of pleading which, though old as the English law itself, was a novelty in the borough; and the Court refused to receive it. Mr. Tazewell took a bill of exceptions to the District Court at Suffolk. The point of the demurrer was that the action should have been trespass vi et armis. The District Court affirmed the decision of the Borough Court; and an appeal was taken to the Court of Appeals, which reversed the decision of the inferior courts. Until this time the distinction, which is merely technical, had been hardly perceptible to the courts of England and of this country, and was by no means settled law; but thereafter the points of difference were regarded as clearly defined; and both in England and in the courts of the United States, the case of Taylor vs. Rainbow has always been cited as conclusive of the question.

The other case, which was one of the last in which he appeared at the Virginia bar, was Long vs. Colston, and was argued in 1820, in the Court of Appeals. His associate in the case was Mr. Wickham, and the opposing counsel were Gen. Walter Jones and Mr. Stanard; and it was decided by Judges Roane, Cabell, and Coalter. The arguments of Tazewell are not stated; but Mr. Gilmer, who reports the decision, laments that no official reporter was present "to give to the profession even a sketch of the profound and comprehensive views of the counsel." The question was on the doctrine of Covenant; and I am told by learned counsel who have examined Mr. Tazewell's notes in the case, that this was, in their opinion, the greatest forensic display ever made in this country.

I recall an anecdote which was current at the time, and which shows the effect of Tazewell's argument on the court. Roane, one of the judges whose reputation has been held almost sacred in Virginia, was not prejudiced in favor of Tazewell, in consequence of old political feuds; but he was so transported by his argument that he could hardly think or speak of anything else during the day. It is said that, on the day of the argument, Roane had invited a party to dine with him, and after the adjournment of the court went to his study at home, where he appeared moody and abstracted. Meantime his company had arrived, and, as the Judge still lingered in his office, his wife went to him and informed him that the company was waiting; but all she could get from him were such broken sentences as these: "Yes, the first man that ever argued a law case," "the greatest of all our lawyers," "beyond all comparison our first lawyer;" while she, abandoning him to his reveries, led the guests to the table.

An incident which shows the character of Tazewell in an amiable point of view deserves a passing allusion. When he had retired for some time from general practice in our courts, he was induced to argue in the Superior Court in Portsmouth a memorable case of insurance in which he had been consulted; and, for the benefit of the junior members of the bar, he discussed all the difficult and leading points of the case at full length, and with all his ability, and made an impression upon the court, and upon the bar, which was gratefully and delightfully remembered.

The Cochineal case, rather from the rumors growing out of it, than from the case itself, which, however, embodied some important doctrines of the law of prize, and a large sum of money, deserves a passing allusion. The name of the case is the Santissima Trinidad, and the St. Andre, which was argued in the Supreme Court of the United States in 1822, on an appeal from the Circuit Court of Virginia, and is reported in seventh Wheaton (283-355). This was a libel filed by the Consul of Spain in the District Court of Virginia, in April, 1817, against 89 bales of cochineal, two bales of jalap, and one box of Vanilla, originally constituting part of the cargoes of the Spanish ships Santissima Trinidad and St. Andre, and alleged to be unlawfully and piratically taken out of those vessels on the high seas by a squadron consisting of two armed vessels, the Independencia del Sud, and the Altravida, under the command of Don Diego Chator, who sailed under a commission from the Government of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata—that Government having been, or being a dependency of Spain, and its independence not having been acknowledged by Spain or by the United States. Tazewell was employed by the Spanish Consul, M. Chacon, whose person is so familiar to our older citizens; and he gained the case in the Federal District and Circuit Courts, following it, contrary to his usual custom, to the Supreme Court. The case was argued in 1822, Winder and Ogden for the appellants, and Tazewell and Webster for the appellees. The questions involved were points of the law of prize, and are too technical for this presence; but the speech of Tazewell, condensed and mutilated as it is in the report, is an admirable specimen of argument on purely legal topics which were to be worked out in the new political relations of the world, and to be settled by the law of nations. He gained the case in all the courts. John Randolph attended the trial in Washington, and was evidently alarmed at the trepidation which was always visible in Tazewell's manner on arising to address a court in a great case, and especially in a new scene, and felt some misgivings about the result. The trepidation, however, soon passed away; and when Tazewell proceeded to establish point after point, and was in the full headway of his argument—a large audience, consisting of the ablest lawyers and statesmen of the Union, watching every syllable that fell from his lips, and following him through the mazes of his mighty plea—Randolph could restrain himself no longer, but said in a tone audible to those about him: "I told you so—I told you so; Old Virginny never tires."

It is known that Mr. Pinkney was engaged for the appellants; and much interest was excited at the approaching contest between two men whose peculiar province was the law of admiralty; but before the appointed time, Pinkney was summoned to another and higher tribunal; and among those who deplored the loss which our whole country suffered in his death, none was more sincere than Mr. Tazewell. A friend, who had heard the current rumors concerning the death of Pinkney in connexion with the case, ventured to ask Mr. Tazewell about the truth of the matter. He instantly said that it was all a fiction,—that Pinkney, who was of a full temperament, died of an inflammatory disease (as we all know from his life by Wheaton); that there were no extremely difficult points in the case, and that, if there had been, Pinkney feared the face of no man living. Of Mr. Tazewell, intellectually and physically as he appeared at this time, an eloquent likeness is presented in the sketch of Francis Walker Gilmer.[5]

Tazewell had argued the Cochineal case in Norfolk and in Richmond before it reached the Supreme Court, and had exhibited such an abounding wealth of argument, it was believed that his last speech would be a mere reflection of its predecessors in the cause; but he was as wary as he was able; and, knowing from the magnitude of the case it would be carried up, and would be maintained by the greatest legal talents of the age, he wisely reserved some of his strongest points for the court of the last resort. When General Taylor, who went up to hear the final argument, returned to Norfolk, he told the bar, that to his surprise Tazewell had taken six new points in the case.

When M. Chacon, the Spanish Consul, called on Mr. Tazewell to engage him in behalf of the Spanish claimants, he was informed that he would undertake it in all the other points, if those connected with the then recent treaty with Spain, under which he had been appointed a commissioner by Monroe, were assigned to other counsel; and he suggested the name of Webster. He ever held the abilities of Mr. Webster in the highest respect; and when asked, on reaching Norfolk after the argument, what he thought of Webster, who was then, comparatively, a young man, he said he was excessively clever, but a lazy dog.

We now approach an epoch in the history of parties which materially involves the consistency of Mr. Tazewell as a politician. Although he had not been in public life since his withdrawal from Congress, he held no unimportant place in popular estimation. His course in the House of Delegates during four troublous years, and in the House of Representatives where he had taken an active and fearless part in the fierce strife for the election of a President, had commended him to the affections of that majority which has ruled the politics of Virginia since the adoption of the present federal constitution. He was the son of a beloved statesman who had fallen while in the innermost councils of that great party, and whose name was held in honor. His talents had now gained him a position among the ablest members of the bar; and his old political associates looked to him for aid in the crisis which was drawing near; and they looked in vain. This aspect of his political life it is my office to present before you.

Up to 1805 the administration of Jefferson was floating, to use one of his own figures, on the full tide of successful experiment. The obnoxious measures of the federal party, where repeal was possible, had been repealed. The alien act, which Tazewell condemned not only as unconstitutional but to the last degree unwise, as tending to repress the emigration of those who would not only settle our waste lands, but to serve to defend the country during the crisis which he saw was rapidly approaching, and the sedition act, had expired by their own limitation. The judiciary act, which had been passed and carried into effect in the descending twilight of the late administration, had been repealed. Economy had been introduced into the public expenditures; and a considerable portion of the public debt had been extinguished. The foreign policy of the administration had been as successful as the domestic. Partly by chance, partly by that wise foresight which anticipates the possibilities of the future and provides for them, the administration had acquired from France the vast domain of Louisiana; and thenceforth the exclusive navigation of that mighty river, on which hitherto we dared not lift a sail or dip an oar without the consent of a foreign power, and on the banks of which, since its transfer from Spain to France, we had been vainly begging a place of deposit, became the birthright of every American citizen.

But this flattering prospect was soon to be overcast. England and France had long been at war; and, at the period of which we are treating, France had become the ruthless bandit of the land, and England the wanton pirate of the sea. Each desired the cooperation of the United States in the war—and each determined, in the event of our refusal to take part in the controversy in its favor, to cripple our commerce by all means within its reach. That commerce, fostered by our accidental position as neutrals when the two great commercial nations of the world were at war, had reached a marvellous height. Its keels vexed every sea. Its flag was now seen in the frozen circles; and now it reflected from its waving folds the fervors of the southern cross. Our merchants, springing, as it were, in a single night from the station of ordinary dealers and dependents on foreign countries to that of arbiters and rulers of the commerce of the globe, were equal to their new position; and our sailors, responsive to their will, gathered with their Briarean arms the wealth of every realm. Foreign statesmen in the recesses of the cabinet, and economists in the closet, beheld with amazement the rapid growth of our marine. They saw a nation, which had not then attained its seventeenth year, enjoying a commerce which nearly equalled in tonnage that which England had been gradually forming from the date of the Norman Conquest to that hour—a period of near eight hundred years. At such an epoch a strict neutrality in respect of the contending powers was the dictate alike of duty and interest. But such a policy was distasteful to England and France; and the result was the issuing of his successive decrees by Napoleon from Berlin and Milan, and the promulgation of the successive British orders in council. These iniquitous measures, the last mentioned of which, the British orders in council, have been since pronounced illegal by the courts of England herself, declared our ships with their cargoes forfeitable to England if they touched a French port, and to France if they touched a port in England or her dependencies.

In such a conjuncture opinions might well differ in respect of the proper means of redress. The administration of Jefferson sought it by long, able, and most urgent appeals to the sense of justice of the contending parties, but sought in vain. When mere diplomacy, though managed by the consummate ability and adroitness of William Pinkney at the court of St. James, and by our ablest men fit the court of Napoleon, proved fruitless, the administration, at the earnest solicitation of its representatives at the hostile courts, determined to sustain our diplomatic action by such legislative measures as were likely to reach the interests of the contending powers. Non-intercourse and the embargo, which kept our ships in port, followed; and the administration, still pressing upon the belligerents the injustice and impolicy of their conduct, awaited the effect of their restrictive policy. Meantime its opponents were neither idle nor silent; and one long, universal cry rose from all the commercial cities. Their ships, the merchants said, were rotting at the wharf; if kept at home, they would soon become worthless; if sent to sea, they could but be taken. It was urged by the merchants that, even if England and France sequestered a number of their ships, still the profits earned by such as might escape confiscation would cover their losses on their investments. An able minority in Congress sustained the views held by the mercantile interest; but a large majority of both Houses of Congress, and of the people, approved the policy of the administration.

At this eventful moment a new political party, consisting almost wholly of Southern men, sprung into being. What added to its importance was, that, though ridiculously small in respect of the numbers who composed it, the members possessed great parliamentary eloquence and tact, and had previously been regarded as among the firmest friends of the administration. Its numbers were indeed so small both in Congress and out of it, as to exercise no weight in the call of the ayes and noes, or at the polls; but its members mingled in every debate, wrote plausible essays in the papers, and used all justifiable means as well as some that were questionable, in attaining their ends. Of this party, Mr. Tazewell, though never a member, and only a casual coadjutor, was considered to belong; but there was no evidence to show that he approved the vile scheme of its leaders of embroiling the country in a war with Spain. On the contrary, he held that the true remedy of existing grievances in the first instance was an immediate declaration of war against both belligerents, which, now that the curtain is lifted, we see was the true remedy of the hour; but that, if from prudence a declaration of war was withheld, it was unwise, by a total cessation of our most gainful commerce, to inflict upon our own people all the injuries which war would produce without any of the advantages that might accrue from a successful prosecution of hostilities; that the commercial regulations of England and France, though bearing disastrously on us, were chiefly designed to injure each other during actual war; and that, being war measures, they would determine on a restoration of peace, when we could obtain from the respective powers full redress for all our grievances.

He accordingly opposed the election of Mr. Madison to the presidency, whom he regarded as the impersonation of the restrictive policy which he had defended in his diplomatic writings, and from the press; and which was deemed the pledge of its continuance; and, in the spring of 1809, voted for the federal candidate for Congress, in opposition to Newton, who, though coming from a sea-port, had gallantly upheld the commercial policy of Jefferson, and who was returned by a decisive majority.

That epoch was the most mortifying in the annals of our country; and posterity must decide whether any action of ours could have averted the difficulty, and on whose shoulders the responsibility shall rest. When I reflect upon the incidents of that day; when I recount the millions of American capital sacrificed by the remorseless rapacity of England and France; when I call up from their graves the hundreds and thousands of American sailors, the sons of the men who had fought at Bunker Hill, who had led the forlorn hope at Stony Point, who had bled on the sweltering field of Eutaw, and who had stormed the outworks at York; when I reflect that such men were forcibly taken from their ships, and were compelled to fight the battles of England, to be doomed to the prison-ship, or to be scourged by the lash, and that not one dollar of those pilfered millions has yet been paid by one of the belligerents; and that all those injuries are yet unavenged;—passions, which I fondly hoped had long been quenched in my bosom, flame once more; and I am led to cherish with still deeper affection that Federal Union which will enable us henceforth to right such wrongs even though attempted by the combined navies of the world.

The same reasons which induced Mr. Tazewell to oppose the restrictive policy of the administrations of Jefferson and Madison, led him necessarily to oppose the war of 1812 with Great Britain. He believed that, if a declaration of war had been expedient at any period of the commercial difficulties with England and France, the proper time for declaring it was when the offence was given, and when our commerce was at the height, and our ability to sustain hostilities was proportionally greater; that the administration, having waived the opportunity of making a declaration in the first instance, and deliberately adopted the policy of diplomacy and of commercial regulation as the proper means of relief, our resources meantime having become crippled and our revenue almost annihilated, it was bound to adhere to it during the existing crisis; that the long and expensive war had impaired the resources of England and France, who would soon be compelled from mere exhaustion to make peace, and with the restoration of peace our difficulties would necessarily terminate, and we might demand redress for the grievances which we had sustained at their hands; that a declaration of war with England would be substantially, as it turned out to be, a receipt in full for our enormous commercial losses caused by her orders in council, which losses must then be assumed by our own government, or fall on the merchants, who would be crushed by their weight; that peace among the belligerents might happen at any moment, while a war with one of them would certainly involve a large expenditure of blood and money, and might continue at the pleasure of the belligerent long after a general pacification in Europe; and that, if war was to be waged as a measure of redress for our violated rights, as both belligerents were equally guilty, it should be declared against both.

In weighing the reasons on which any measure of public policy is founded, we must always refer to the time when the deed was done and to the position of the actors. At the present day, looking at the results which are believed to have flowed from the war of 1812, and especially our victories on the sea, we are inclined to blame those who opposed its declaration, and extol the wisdom and gallantry of those who approved it. This test, however, is neither philosophical nor just; and, as a proof of the soundness of Mr. Tazewell's opinions, or that at least they were not taken up, as has been alleged, from hostility to a democratic administration, we may state the fact that Madison himself, of whose administration the war shines as the crowning honor, was, like his predecessor in the presidency, opposed originally to its declaration; but was overruled or over-persuaded by the able and gallant young men whose eloquence carried that measure through Congress; and it should ever be remembered that, if the declaration had been postponed a few weeks, the repeal of the British orders in council would have rendered it unnecessary; and the thousands of precious lives and the millions of treasure which it cost would have been saved to the country.

If war, with all its possible compensations, be at all times a dangerous and uncertain measure—if all the treasures and glories which human hands can hold, and the imaginations of men may compute, in the estimation of the true patriot as well as the true Christian, sink into dust, when compared with the unnecessary and wanton sacrifice of the life of the humblest citizen of the Republic—if the war with England cost millions of wealth, and the shedding of the blood of tens of thousands of our fellow-men,—then it is something to say that, if the policy of Tazewell had been pursued for a few weeks—a policy which, so far as war was concerned, had been, up to its declaration, the deliberate policy of Jefferson and Madison—that war which had been postponed to the dawn of the pacification in Europe, would not have occurred.

The question for posterity to decide is, not whether, if we judge by results, Tazewell was right or wrong—a mode of judging too fallacious and too dangerous in human affairs, and subjecting the responsibility of human actors to too fearful a test,—but which, even if applied to the course of Mr. Tazewell, would confirm, beyond question, the wisdom of the policy which he advised at the time; but the question is, whether his policy was not such as a great statesman, intent solely upon the welfare of his country, might not have pursued, not only without impairing the public confidence in his patriotism, integrity, and attachment to the cardinal principles of his political faith, but such as, even with the facts then before him, reflected high credit upon his sagacity and courage.

But whatever were his views about the policy of declaring war at any particular time, no sooner was war declared than he gave it a cordial support. In concert with the administration, and in connection with his friend and associate, Gen. Taylor, to whom was assigned the command of the forces at Norfolk, he exerted all his powers to put our port in a posture of defence. He hailed, especially, our victories on the sea with enthusiastic applause, and ever rejoiced that the treaty of Ghent was preceded, at least in this country, by the glorious Eighth of January.

To confirm the remark that Mr. Tazewell, though opposed to the restrictive policy of Jefferson, was still friendly to that statesman, and was unwilling to be considered hostile to him, I may recall to the recollection of my elder hearers an incident which created much amusement when it occurred. It appears that, in the winter of 1807, when Tazewell had been sent to the Assembly to attend to some local interests of Norfolk, a caucus of the republican members had been called in Richmond with a view of denouncing those who opposed the restrictive policy as deserters from the party. When the night of the caucus arrived, Tazewell, who was confined to his bed by sickness, heard of the gathering for the first time. Ill as he was, he hastened to the place of meeting, and, with his head bound with napkins, and in haggard attire, made his appearance in the middle of the caucus. The clever young men who then managed the machinery of the party were struck dumb by his presence as by that of an apparition. Then Tazewell spoke. He reasoned upon the impolicy of forcing a third party into existence, when, while he was speaking, the winds might bear over the waters the revocation of the British orders and the French decrees, and all would be well. He showed that, while he disapproved a single measure of the administration, he heartily approved its general policy, and the constitutional doctrines which composed its faith. There was no reply. The meeting dispersed, and my democratic friends have ever since been cautious how they undertook to read clever fellows out of the party.

In 1807 occurred one of those painful incidents which roused the people of that day to madness—which fills the heart, even at this late day, with pain and sadness, but which has such a connection with Mr. Tazewell, that I, a Norfolk man, addressing Norfolk men, cannot pass it by in silence. On the early morn of the 22d of June, a frigate, built by your own mechanics, in sight of your city, baptized in the waters of your own Elizabeth, bearing the name of your own noble bay, and under the command of as gallant a Virginian as ever trod a deck, lifting her anchor in the Roads, put out to sea on the errand of her country. On the following day, unsuspecting of danger, she was attacked by the British frigate Leopard, and became her prize. The commander of the Leopard, when he had taken from the Chesapeake certain men whom he alleged were deserters from the British flag, declined to take further possession of the captured frigate, which returned to the Roads. Three of our men were killed, and sixteen wounded, during the attack. These wounded men were brought to the marine hospital, and received every possible attention. One of them died, and was buried with all the solemnities of public sorrow.

When the fatal tidings were known, there arose a piercing shriek of agony and grief, followed presently by the low, touching wail from the stricken heart of the nation. And then, the louder and the longer for the delay, came the cry for vengeance, which burst from the lips of a whole people. The promptness and dispatch with which the British frigate acted indicated deliberate design; and the suspicion instantly flashed across the public mind that the consular authorities of England in our port were privy to its execution. The outbreak in Norfolk was terrible. Had Col. Hamilton, the consul, not been long and intimately known and loved by the people, he would have been taken from his house and gibbeted on the square, as an expiation of the blood of our countrymen, wantonly shed, in a time of peace, by a British captain. An unfortunate British officer, who came up from one of the four frigates in the bay, had well-nigh been torn in pieces by the infuriated people. In such a conjuncture the ordinary forms of government were overlooked, and the citizens in full assembly, the venerable Mathews in the chair, appointed, as in the days of the Revolution, a Committee of Safety. A preamble, setting forth in becoming terms the outrage on the Chesapeake, was adopted, and it was resolved that there should be no intercourse with the British frigates in our waters, or with their agents, until the decision of the federal government was known, under the penalty of being deemed infamous; and the Committee of Safety, consisting of fourteen of our most worthy citizens, some of whose descendants are now within the sound of my voice, were authorized to take such measures as the emergency demanded.[6]

As soon as Commodore Douglas read the resolves of the Norfolk meeting, he addressed an insolent note to the mayor of the borough, in which he declared that if the resolutions were not instantly annulled, he would prohibit every vessel bound in or out of Norfolk from proceeding to her place of destination. This letter was written on board the Bellona frigate, on the third of July. "You are aware," said this haughty Briton, "that the British flag never has, nor ever will be insulted with impunity." After some further remarks, he adds: "It therefore rests with the inhabitants of Norfolk either to engage in a war, or remain on terms of peace." And he closed his letter by saying that he had proceeded with his squadron, which consisted of four fifty-gun frigates, to Hampton Roads, to await the answer of the mayor of Norfolk, which he hoped would be forwarded without delay.

It is in this stage of the proceedings, which he probably regulated from the first, that I shall introduce Mr. Tazewell to your notice. No community was ever placed in a more delicate dilemma. The stoppage of our commerce would produce great inconvenience, and there was no force which the federal government could command at all competent to raise the embargo; and at any moment blood might be shed. The people, meantime, were in a tempest of rage. I have heard, from men who saw those times, that, if the British commodore had put his threat in execution—if, in so doing, as would have been inevitable, he had taken another human life, or shed another drop of American blood, not only would war have followed, but something worse than war, which, even at this distance of time, we tremble to contemplate. The blood of innocent Englishmen would have been shed everywhere as a propitiation to the manes of our murdered countrymen. Under these circumstances Tazewell dictated the celebrated letter of the mayor of Norfolk, which was admired over the whole country, not only for its spirit, but for the admirable tact with which it put the British commodore in the wrong. That letter, which was written on the Fourth of July, begins with this paragraph:

"Sir, I have received your menacing letter of yesterday. The day on which this answer is written ought of itself to prove to the subjects of your sovereign that the American people are not to be intimidated by menace; or induced to adopt any measures except by a sense of their perfect propriety. Seduced by the false show of security, they may be sometimes surprised and slaughtered, while unprepared to resist a supposed friend. That delusive security is now passed forever. The late occurrence has taught us to confide our safety no longer to anything than to our own force. We do not seek hostility, nor shall we avoid it. We are prepared for the worst you may attempt, and will do whatever shall be judged proper to repel force, whensoever your efforts shall render any act of ours necessary. Thus much for the threats in your letter."

Of this letter Tazewell was appointed to be the bearer, and, attended by a friend whose son is now a leading member of our bar,[7] delivered it to Commodore Douglas on board the Bellona frigate in the presence of the captains of the fleet. An account of the scene is fortunately preserved by his own pen in a letter to the Mayor; and it is plain to see that the British captains, among whom was Sir Thomas Hardy, to whom Lord Nelson addressed in his dying moments that affectionate request, surprised and overwhelmed by the address and ability of Tazewell, recanted all their threats; and in their letter of the 5th breathed nothing but amity and peace. Whoever will read the letter of Commodore Douglas of the 3d of July, and his letter of the 5th, will see the most amusing instance of backing out in the annals of diplomacy. The federal government now took the case in hand, and the committee of safety in an eloquent address resigned the authority with which they had been invested by the people.

One of the obvious results of the peace of 1815 with Great Britain was the active employment of our commercial marine. During the war the seeds of new enterprises had been sown, and much of that capital which had previously been employed in navigation had been diverted, and fresh capital was required in its place. There was a general desire for the creation of new banks; and as the principles of banking, which have become more familiar since, were in 1816 comparatively unknown to those who composed a majority of the assembly, it was important that Norfolk should be ably represented in the assembly. At this time the existing banks, which had suspended during the war, had not resumed the payment of specie. On the subject of banks, Tazewell though brought up by men who had been almost ruined by a paper currency and hated the name, his own father having been one of the most active statesmen in forcing a resumption of specie payments after the peace of 1783, was not unwilling that commercial men should employ the agency of banks under proper restrictions; and having been elected by the people of Norfolk to the House of Delegates without his knowledge and during his absence from home, he took his seat in that body in 1816. Let it be remembered, that when he took this trust from the people of Norfolk, he was constantly engaged in the highest duties of his profession; that he was not only employed in courts, but was consulted by foreign clients—by the merchants of London and by the Court of Rome; and that his absence from town in the performance of his duties in the assembly would result in the loss of thousands at a time when he was far from being a wealthy man; and we will have some idea of the principles which guided his conduct in respect of the public service. He sought nothing—he asked nothing from public bodies or from the people, but he recognized the obligation resting on every citizen to serve his country; and when an emergent case occurred, and he was called out by the people, he never declined office, but entered into it at every personal sacrifice, performing its duties with such success and such ability as to leave an impression upon the times in which he lived.[8] He practically defeated the wild banking schemes of the session by the insertion of a specie clause which was readily adopted by the friends of those measures, but which, as was designed, made their schemes impracticable.

But his great effort in the assembly of 1816 was his speech on the Convention bill of that year. He spoke in reply to the late Gen. Smythe of Wythe; and in an argument of uncommon power, which formed one of the eloquent traditions of the House when I took my seat in it twelve years later, he answered the objections urged against the existing constitution, and sustained that instrument in all its length and breadth. His speech produced a wonderful effect upon all who heard it. The late Philip Doddridge, one of the ablest and most decided of all Mr. Tazewell's opponents in state and federal politics, but ever abounding in that magnanimity which flourishes most in the finest minds, always spoke of the argument of Mr. Tazewell in reply to Gen. Smythe as extraordinary—as surpassing any that he ever heard in a deliberative assembly. He told me so in conversation, and he afterwards spoke of it in the same exalted strain in the House of Delegates and in the Convention of 1829. The result of the Convention discussion was, that, though a bill calling a Convention passed the House by a small majority, it was lost in the Senate; and a compromise was effected between the East and the West by reorganizing the basis of representation in the Senate on white population according to the census of 1810. In this as on most other occasions the testimony magnifying the speeches of Tazewell come from a hostile quarter.

His election to the Senate of the United States in 1824 was one of the severest trials of his life. Having withdrawn alike from the inferior and appellate courts, he anxiously desired to spend the reminder of his days in the bosom of his family, and to mingle no more in public affairs. To undertake any special service in behalf of his country was always a grateful employment; but to leave his home for months, 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 admiration and applause. The effect of the speech may be seen in the fact that the obnoxious section, though upheld by the eloquent and patriotic patron of the bill, by the gallant Hayne and by others, was stricken out by the decisive vote of 37 to 10. Had it remained in the bill, in less than ninety days it might have produced a war with Spain.[9]

On the election of Mr. John Quincy Adams to the Presidency, and especially after the delivery of his first message to Congress, he became hostile to his administration, and opposed its prominent measures. His most remarkable performance was his speech on the exclusive constitutional competency of the executive to originate foreign missions without the advice and consent of the Senate. As a constitutional thesis, without respect to the time of delivery,—for, although Mr. Adams asserted the power, he at the same moment waived its exercise,—as a specimen of his manner of treating a great constitutional question when numerous authorities and precedents are to be examined and set aside, this speech deserves to be studied. With the exception of Gen. Marshall's speech in the case of Jonathan Robbins, it stands preeminent in our political literature as a model of profound research, of thorough argumentation, and of overwhelming strength. The reader at this day feels that he is borne along by a force which is not only equal to the occasion, but above it, and which it is vain to resist. The speech is no mean system of logic and of the rules of evidence in itself. And in connection with this speech I may mention the speech on the same subject, which he delivered some years later, in reply to Mr. Livingston, and in which the topic is discussed with new illustrations. These two speeches alone survive in any fulness of all his forensic exertions. The speech which Mr. Tazewell himself thought the best he ever delivered in the Senate, was on some one of the bankrupt bills of his term of service; but of this speech not a passage can now be found.

Nor would it be practicable to present here even a condensed view of the reports which he drew either as the head or as a member of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Almost any one of those reports would have built up a respectable reputation for its author. I shall only specify his report on the Panama mission, which mainly settled the public mind in relation to that measure; and his report on the Colonization Society, in which, incidentally—and by the way, he demonstrated conclusively the constitutional right of the United States to acquire territory. When it is remembered that Mr. Jefferson took a different view of this question at the time of the acquisition of Louisiana, and believed an amendment to the constitution necessary to the validity of the purchase; the originality as well as the ability of Mr. Tazewell appear in a favorable light.

Meantime his reputation had been extending far and wide. In Virginia some of our older politicians had not become, nor were they ever, fully reconciled to him in consequence of his course during the administrations of Jefferson and Madison; but these were gradually disappearing from the stage, and he now seemed to be regarded by the great body of the people as the most popular man of his time; and he was reelected unanimously to the Senate, or, to speak with strictness, with only four scattering votes. One instance may show the height on which he stood at this time. His second election to the Senate was made the order of the day for the 1st of January, 1829: the day had come; the order was about to be read from the chair; and I was about to rise in my place in the House of Delegates to nominate him for reelection, when a gentleman, advanced in life, who had rendered valuable service to his country, hailing, too, from a central part of the State, came to my seat and implored me to allow him, as the crowning honor of his life, to nominate Mr. Tazewell for reelection. I think I may safely affirm, from close observation at the time both at home and abroad, that the abilities and character of Mr. Tazewell were held in higher estimation, and even veneration, in Virginia and out of it, at this period, than those of any of her statesmen since the retirement of Jefferson and Madison from the public service. It was a commingled feeling of admiration, awe, and pride.

It is a coincidence in the lives of Mr. Tazewell and his father, that the father was elected to the Senate of the United States to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of John Taylor of Caroline; and that the son, after an interval of thirty years from the election of the father, was chosen to fill the vacancy in the Senate made by the resignation of the same individual; and that father and son were twice elected president of the Senate.

The views of Mr. Tazewell on the important topics which arose out of the efforts of South Carolina in relation to the tariff policy of the federal government, can only be alluded to in the briefest manner. He was opposed to the doctrine of nullification as expounded by the South Carolina school of politicians, and did not regard it as a peaceful and constitutional mode of redress; while he condemned the doctrines of the Proclamation of Gen. Jackson as destructive of the rights of the States, and as opposed to the true theory of our federal system. In a series of numbers which appeared in the Norfolk Herald and were republished in the Richmond Enquirer, he traced in the most elaborate of his compositions extant the history of the formation of the present federal constitution, and expounded its theory in a strain of argument as nearly approaching a demonstration as topics of that nature allow. These articles were published in pamphlet form at the time; and, with the exception of the numbers of Senex which appeared in the Herald and Enquirer, and were republished in pamphlet in England, and reviewed in the London Quarterly, on the policy of Mr. Adams' administration respecting the West India trade, are the only serial contributions, as far as I know, he ever made to the periodical press.

The only one of the vexed questions which harassed the administration of Gen. Jackson that Mr. Tazewell, after his retirement from the Senate, discussed in public, was the removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States by the Treasury order of October, 1833. The reasons of the Secretary of the Treasury for issuing that order were communicated in detail to Congress on the 3d of December following; and his report was discussed in both Houses for several months with an ability and warmth never before displayed in a congressional discussion. The people caught the excitement; and public meetings were held in all the commercial cities; and memorials were forwarded to Congress urging the immediate restoration of the deposits to the vaults of the bank. Each memorial, as it was received by a Senator or Representative, was honored with a speech from some master spirit. And now the most menacing monetary crisis occurred which the country had ever seen. In a little less or more than six months the Bank of the United States had shortened its line of discounts ten millions of dollars; and all the State banks in self-defence were compelled to follow the example of that great institution. Confidence ceased to exist. No man in business could look ahead a single day without fear and trembling. Men spoke in whispers, and walked doubtfully as if the earth might quake beneath their feet. The result was a change in the party relations of those who lived in towns without a parallel in our history. And it was soon seen that a new party was forming in comparison of which the tertium quid party of Jefferson's administration was a mere bubble floating on the surface of the stream. In that tempest was rocked the cradle of that large and intellectual party, which assumed the appellation of Whig, which won some splendid victories, which encountered some decisive defeats, which then slept awhile, and which has recently burnished its armor anew for a fresh campaign.

Richmond set the example among us of holding meetings of the people, with a view of urging the restoration of the deposits to the Bank. Watkins Leigh and Chapman Johnson made on that occasion an appeal to the people of Virginia in favor of a restoration, which was heard from so respectable a source with the attention it deserved. The Assembly then in session, which, when elected, had been favorable to the administration of Jackson, faltered in their faith, instructed the senators in Congress to vote for a restoration of the deposits, and on the resignation of Mr. Rives, who upheld the policy of the administration, elected Mr. Leigh in his stead. Even the Richmond Enquirer, its polar star momentarily obscured, was tossing helplessly on that tempestuous sea.

In this state of things, some of the citizens of Norfolk, of both parties, as those parties had previously stood, highly distinguished by social position, by talents, by wealth, and by their intimate connection with our banking institutions, called on Mr. Tazewell, and requested him to take the chair at a public meeting to be held on the 8th of January, 1834. He consented to do so, and on taking the chair delivered one of the most graceful, most nervous, and most eloquent speeches that ever fell from his lips. In language not to be misunderstood, he denounced the act of removing the deposits from the Bank of the United States, advised their immediate restoration, and condemned the whole series of the measures of the President of the United States in relation thereto. A gentleman happening to be present who had heard Canning, Brougham, and Sir Robert Peel from the hustings and in the House of Commons, declared that the speech of Mr. Tazewell fully equalled their grandest efforts on such occasions; and all who heard it pronounced it a wonderful work of argument, eloquence, and declamation combined. A few days after the meeting, Mr. Tazewell was elected Governor of the Commonwealth.

The conduct of Mr. Tazewell on this occasion I leave to history. It was my misfortune to differ from him, and to strive against him in public meetings, by resolutions, by speeches, and by essays in the public prints, and to have been on the side of the victorious party; and I owe it to candor to say that, after a deliberate investigation of the arguments and the circumstances of that time with such faculties as God has bestowed upon me, my views through the twenty-seven years that have since passed remain unaltered; but now that my illustrious friend is gone, and as I measure that chasm which his death has made in the Commonwealth, leaving none equal to him or like him behind, and especially in my own bosom—a chasm which, at my time of life, can never, never be closed—I have looked with fear and trembling over all I said and wrote on that occasion, and I am gratified to find that, although I spoke with as great freedom of men and things as the occasion, in my opinion, demanded, I spoke personally of Mr. Tazewell as a son should speak of a father, and with that exalted respect with which I ever regarded his colossal character.

Still, if Mr. Tazewell had been a man of narrow mind, our friendship would have ended, and the instruction and delight which I have derived from his conversation for the last twenty-seven years—a period in which I have doubled my own age—would have been lost. But, independent himself, and the proudest man I ever knew when the faintest shadow of vassalage was sought to be cast upon him, he valued independence in others, and his wide experience taught him that the friend who would not hesitate to stand up firmly against him when he thought him wrong, would be the last to skulk from his side in the hour of danger, and from the defence of his memory when his head was low.

While I leave the wisdom of his course in relation to the deposit question and in the executive chair of the commonwealth to the award of history, I recall one lesson which may be read from his acts, which is, that he never was, strictly speaking, a party man; that while he held to his dying day the theory of our federal system which he had adopted in his youth, and in defence of which he prepared, as has just been said, in his old age, with his vast stores of learning and experience unrolled before him, the most elaborate and conclusive exposition which that system ever received; his course on the restrictive policy and on the removal of the deposits, irrespective as it was whether he carried along with him one or a thousand of his associates, shows that on great questions involving mere expediency he would burst the trammels of party, and act with his old and inveterate opponents against the darling measures of his political friends. I have said that he was not, and could not well be, in a series of years, the unvarying adjunct of any party. He looked upon a subject through so many lights,—the lights of the past, the lights of the present, the lights of the future; he saw such a tissue of good and evil so inextricably intermingled in human projects; he saw so much that was questionable in the best party measures; so much that was not bad in what seemed the worst; and so much that could be accomplished by doing nothing, that, though he was prompt above most men in decision, and to the last degree practical, his enthusiasm was cooled by philosophy, and he was never very much exalted or depressed by the success or failure of political schemes.

While Mr. Tazewell was engaged in his senatorial career, he was elected by the Norfolk district a member of the Convention which assembled in Richmond on the fifth day of October, 1829, to revise the first Constitution of Virginia. The character of that body is familiar to all; some of the most illustrious names recorded in our annals were inscribed upon its rolls,—Madison, Marshall, Monroe, Watkins Leigh, Charles Fenton Mercer, Chapman Johnson, Philip Doddridge, Robert Stanard, Philip P. Barbour, Morris, Fitzhugh, Baldwin, Scott, Cooke—that wonderful man whose train was always tracked by fire, John Randolph, and a host of younger statesmen who have since risen to eminence, and who, like their elder colleagues, have, I am grieved to think, nearly all passed away, were among the members, and were engaged day after day, for three months and a half, in performing the office which their country had committed to their hands. The most distinguished men of the Union,—statesmen whose own names were historical, men of letters, merchants who remembered that the wealth of the counting-room and the wealth of statesmanship were indissolubly bound together, old planters, clever young men from Virginia and from nearly all the southern States, came to behold its meeting, to see its members, and to hear the debates; and, as if to invest the scene with a yet lovelier hue, beauty, brightened by intelligence and glowing with patriotism, shed its softened light over that imposing spectacle. In that body, in which an ex-president of the United States presided, in which another ex-president was at the head of a committee, in which the chief justice of the United States was at the head of another committee, in which there was no place of honor for judges, governors, ministers to foreign courts, speakers of the House of Representatives, and senators of the United States, above their fellow-members, the eye of the visitor soon singled out Mr. Tazewell. He was the grandest figure of a man among them all. His fame was then at the height, and his large stature, his full stern features, lighted by a wide grave blue eye, his solemn gait, all inspiring awe as he leaned in his seat or passed through the hall—were in fair keeping with that intellectual image of him which had previously existed in the mind of the beholder.

To trace with any minuteness the course of Mr. Tazewell through more than three of the most anxious months of his life would far exceed my present limits, and as I have already treated this topic in a separate work, and have been required to treat it again, I shall simply say here, that Mr. Tazewell made the opening speech in support of a resolution which he offered, and which marked out the course of the campaign which he believed to be best adapted to attain the general end in view. Had that resolution been adopted, I now believe, as I believed then, that a constitution would have been formed which would have lasted for half a century, and that Tazewell, as a skilful and fearless mediator between the East and West, would have performed the office with glorious success. But the passions of men raged high; extremes were the order of the day, and each party stood pledged to its favorite scheme. His first regular effort on the floor of the Convention was in reply to Mr. Monroe, and gave him the opportunity of expounding his theory of interests as the basis of a political system—a system as beautiful as true. His speech presented a fair specimen of what the discussions on the basis question ought to have been—not of the elaborate dissertation which lasted two days, but of the vigorous living speech, which, while it reviewed critically intermediate points in passing, kept the main subject steadily in view, and of which the House of Commons has afforded us so many illustrations. When the house rose, a gentleman, who was perhaps the most accomplished scholar in the State, said to me that the speech of Tazewell was the first truly parliamentary speech delivered during the session, and drew the distinction between a legitimate debate and a discussion by dissertations. I recall a happy effort of Mr. Tazewell on the subject of the election of governor by the people, which was possessed of singular beauty and order. The effect of that speech was the settlement of the question.

But the occasion which impressed his hearers most deeply with a sense of his abilities, was a discussion on the tenure of the judicial office, in which Chief Justice Marshall, Philip P. Barbour, Stanard, Scott, Giles, and others took part. Each speaker was conscious of the powers of his opponent; posterity, in the presence of the skilful reporter, as well as the existing generation represented by some of the ablest men, were the spectators of the combat; and a visible air of solemnity pervaded the manner of each. The question was precisely that which sprung from the repeal of the judiciary act of 1800 by the Congress of 1802, and is the nicest of all our party questions. It was a magnificent display of parliamentary tact and intellectual vigor; and I do not think that an hour of my life ever glided so insensibly away as while I listened to that debate. Blows fell fast and heavy. I saw Judge Barbour, who, though president of the Convention, as the house was in committee, engaged in the debate, fairly reel in his seat from one of Judge Marshall's massy blows, which he returned presently with right good will; but Tazewell, if I may use a figure which presented the pith of the argument of one side, and which was frequently used by both,—Tazewell fairly "sunk the boat" under the Chief Justice. The views of Tazewell prevailed; and in such a contest, in which all were kingly, and in which the combatants were magis pares quam similes—rather equals than alike—if the victor's wreath could with propriety be awarded to a single individual, I do not think I err in saying that it would have been assigned by a majority of the hearers to Tazewell. As an illustration of the effect of his manner and argument on the minds of able men who were opposed to him in State politics, which then raged fiercely, a gentleman from the West, who held for several years a seat in the House of Delegates and in the Council, speaking of the debate to me on the day it occurred, said: "Why, Tazewell trod down those great men as if they had been children."

When the Convention adjourned sine die, every heart melted, and all animosity soothed by the last words of the president, I saw Tazewell approach Madison and Marshall, and exchange parting salutations. He could go no further; the members pressed round him: but, old as he then was, for he had reached his 56th year, he little dreamed that he was destined to outlive almost all of those young and gallant spirits that then loved and greeted him. He was the last survivor of those who sate in the House of Delegates during the eighteenth century; and of the Convention of 1829, out of 96 members who composed it, he attained to a greater age than has yet been attained by any member of the body, not excepting Madison, whom he exceeded by one month and five days, and surviving all but twenty; and three of that twenty have come here this day to honor his memory.[10]

Perhaps the best description of his manner at the bar would be to say that he had no manner at all. In addressing juries, he talked to them, I am told, ordinarily as he would converse with the same number of men in society on the merits of the case; and his gestures were those which might be used without serious remark in animated conversation. His postures were sometimes negligent enough; he had a contempt for rant, and hated show and pomp. His voice was pleasant, and of ample compass for an ordinary court-room, and he never dealt in vociferations; indeed, his style of argument to the jury, as well as to the bench, would have been impossible to a boisterous talker. While his manner was natural, his matter seemed equally void of art. When by the examination and cross-examination of witnesses, he had obtained his facts, he formed his theory of the case, and unfolded it to the jury in the simplest possible way. It was plain to see, however, that the argument was a continuous chain of demonstration, every link of which seemed to be of equal strength. Some of his speeches to the jury, could they have been preserved as they were delivered, would have been invaluable specimens of dialectics for the use of students. I heard the late William Maxwell say, that it was vain and even fatal to attempt before a jury to find the defective links in the chain of Mr. Tazewell's arguments, for the process would become too refined for their comprehension; and that his own mode of argument in such cases was to let the reasoning of Tazewell pass, and press with all his force some plain views of the case. Some lawyers are successful in the elenchical mode of argument—to use a logical term—that is, in demolishing the structure of their opponents, while they fail in the deictic, that is, in raising on its ruins an impregnable fabric of their own; but it was difficult to decide which process was the most thorough in the reasoning of Tazewell. In putting his arguments before a jury he showed great adroitness. He either knew himself or learned from others the calling of every juryman; and as he proceeded with his case, if he saw a dangerous man among them, he drew his figures from his particular calling, and not unfrequently made the man believe that his standing in his own business depended upon his bringing in a verdict in his favor. When the passions were to be assailed, he indulged in a style of fervid appeal which was the more effective as it was rare; and his speech in Shannon's case was often referred to by Wirt as a fine piece of eloquence in the popular acceptation of the word.

His mode of addressing the bench differed, of course, from his jury speeches. He was less familiar in his manner and in his talk, and his argumentation was more severe; and he was evidently more at home, or rather more congenially employed; and he brought as much learning to bear upon the case as was politic for the time. Here, too, he showed no great deference to manner as a means of victory. When Gen. Taylor was addressing the late judge St. George Tucker, who was deaf, the judge requested him to come nearer and speak louder; but the General, observing that a certain space between the judge and himself was indispensable for the proper exercise of his faculties, declined the request; Tazewell, however, who replied to Taylor, had no scruples in the case, but, approaching the judge's ear, poured the stream of his argument into its inner portal. It sometimes appeared that in addressing inferior courts he went too much into detail, instead of resting his case on its great points; but it is probable that Mr. Tazewell had taken the true gauge of the judge's mind, and was right after all; and it is certain that in important cases, in which appeals would probably be taken, he reserved his strong points for the higher tribunal.

Those who heard even his latest speeches at the bar have almost all passed away. It was thirty-four years ago that I heard him for the first time in public. At a meeting of the citizens of Norfolk, held in the Town Hall, to give expression to their feelings on the occasion of the death of Jefferson, which occurred on the Fourth of July, 1826, he was called to the chair, and, before taking it, addressed the large assembly for twenty-five or thirty minutes, on the character of the great man whose death they had met to commemorate. He was at that time a senator of the United States, and in the height of his fame; and to hear him speak was then a great novelty, which attracted hundreds to the hall. Though then a youth of nineteen, I can recall his manner and the outline of his speech. He seemed to speak as a man of fine personal appearance accustomed to public speaking and of a good address, who was deeply impressed by the solemnity of his theme, might be expected to speak. His voice was a volume of sweet, full, natural sound, unmarked by any artistic training or modulation, and such as would flow from a well-bred man in animated recitation; and his gestures were those which rose spontaneously and unconsciously with the thought, and were wholly unstudied; thus presenting an obvious contrast to the manner and action of his friend Randolph, whose every attitude, the slightest motion of whose finger, the faintest intonation of whose voice, whose every smile and frown, natural as they seemed, were the deliberate reflection of the closet.

Three years later, in the Virginia Convention of 1829, I heard all that he uttered in committee and in the body; and his manner was such as I have just described it to be. Although he had full command of the whole armory of parliamentary warfare, he had none of that violent gesticulation or loud intonation which fashion or taste has lately introduced among us, but which would not be tolerated a moment in the British House of Commons. His first speech, which was in support of his own resolution proposing a method of procedure in the discussion of the Constitution, though fine and effective, was delivered under somewhat unfavorable circumstances. He stood some distance from the Chair and on a line with it, so that he was compelled to face the audience instead of the Speaker, and to pitch his voice to a key that could be heard throughout the length of the hall and the crowded galleries, and an occasional hoarseness, the result of overstraining, was apparent during his speech. He mentioned this circumstance to me as we left the hall, as the first intimation he had of having lost that control of his voice which had hitherto been equal to every occasion. But when he followed Mr. Monroe, he happened to be in a better position on the floor; and his voice retained its usual fulness, and was pleasing to the ear. And afterwards in the Baptist church, to which the Convention adjourned, in his speech on the election of Governor, his voice was fresh and musical; and in the grand debate on the judiciary tenure, when the debaters were near each other and the Chair, he spoke with full command of his voice, and with great animation. In fine, his manner, including the management of his voice and gesture, approached nearer the English model of debating than that which has been gradually gaining ground in this country, and was most appropriate to his style of thought and discussion.

Tazewell, with all his intercourse with the world, with all his habits of speaking, and with all his marvellous endowments, was a remarkably modest man. His modesty may unfold a clew to the explanation of his whole career. He said himself that he never rose to make a speech without serious trepidation. In the cochineal case, it was obvious to the court and to the spectators. I have seen him, when he had been speaking ten minutes, not fully assured. It was only when personal danger, as in a memorable criminal case, in which even brave men were for a time appalled, was present, that his trepidation disappeared, and he became fearless and defiant.

Nor was the modesty of Tazewell confined to the bar. It pervaded his whole life; and when his fame was coextensive with the Union, and when his presence inspired awe in companies of able men, a close observer could detect in his tones or in his manner that he was not wholly at ease. It was only when the ice of a gathering party was fairly broken, that he was thoroughly self-possessed. Like Judge Marshall, he had a profound sense of respect for the female sex; and his attentions to women were rendered with a delicacy and a gallantry that were enhanced by the reflection that such a man was not wholly at ease in approaching them. And nobly did woman repay his courtesy and his affection. As I dwell upon this aspect of his life, the image of her who was the bride of his youth, the partaker of his splendid fame, and the delight of his declining years, rises before me. I behold her as she moved in that happy household, bestowing not a thought upon herself, but intent on making others happy. I see her as she enters the room in which her husband is discoursing on learned topics to those who are grouped around him, and I see him pause as that "ocean-eye" rests benignantly and affectionately upon her. I shall never forget the moment when thirty-five years ago I saw her in her own house for the first time; how cordially she pressed my hand; how kindly she talked to an orphan boy of a father he had never known; and how soon she put an awkward youth of seventeen at his ease. The characteristic grace of that admirable woman was her love of domestic life. With her the throne of human felicity was the family altar. Life with her, as it ever was with those elder Virginia matrons whom she resembled, was too serious a business for pomp and show. Had she been inspired with a passion for display, had she coveted the fleeting honors of a residence at a foreign court, or in the metropolis of our own country, a single word from her lips would have obtained all she wished. But her heart, like a true Virginia mother as she was, was in the midst of her family; and though she properly appreciated the talents of her husband, and was willing that they should be exerted in the public service, she knew him well, and believed that he would be happier in his own home than when he was beset with public cares, or galled by those tortures with which ambition wrings its victims. And when her last day had come, and the union of more than half a century had been dissolved, and her husband had seen her beloved remains put away in that solitary tomb by the sea, the charm of life was lost to him; and he calmly awaited the hour when he should be laid by her side. Nor did the generous care of woman cease with her death. When his hour was come, and he was placed beside her, his daughters, who had tended him for years with unceasing devotion, were borne in almost a dying state from his tomb.

He was keenly alive to the pleasures of friendship; and he maintained his affection for his early schoolmates unbroken to the last. His reverence for Mr. Wythe passed all words. Randolph loved him through life; and Tazewell reciprocated his affection with equal warmth. The tide of his affection for John Wickham from his childhood flowed full and strong. The relations which existed between them could be seen in the letter I read some time ago, and were earnest, tender, and affectionate. The affection which Tazewell cherished for Wickham, kindled, as we have seen, over the spelling-book and the Latin grammar, and showing itself in tears in his sixty-fifth year, grew with his growth, and was enhanced by that elevated sense of appreciation with which each regarded the other. It was pleasing to see them together when the descending shadows of age were upon them, and when each had performed those deeds which are now deemed the greatest of their lives. It would be hard to say whether they stood to each other in the relation of father and son, of brothers, or of equals. Wickham was eleven years older than Tazewell, and had taught him to read. It was evident Mr. Tazewell regarded Mr. Wickham with the greatest deference. It was, however, something more than the deference with which one eminent man advanced in life would show to another eminent man still more advanced; it was the deference of the warmest friendship to an individual who not only reciprocated the feelings of affection, but who possessed all the moral and intellectual qualities that can adorn human nature. He considered Mr. Wickham not only the most accomplished lawyer this country ever produced, but the wisest man he ever knew. I have heard him say that the speech of Mr. Wickham on the doctrine of treason in Burr's trial would have been pronounced new and able in Westminster Hall; and that it was the greatest forensic effort of the American bar. Tazewell's abiding affection for Wickham was such, that he drew upon it in favor even of his young friends. When, at one-and-twenty, I took my seat in the House of Delegates, and, not dreaming of mixing in society, was preparing for a course of study during the long winter nights, one of the first calls I received was from Mr. Wickham. With me his name had passed into history. His great speech, which I had read and studied as I had read and studied the speeches of Chatham and of Burke, was made in the year I was born. But I soon found that he was a living and breathing man. His gentle kindness, his incomparable address, his charming talk, and his cordial hospitality pressed upon me, assured me that his heart still glowed with its ancient kindness: and when I recall the hours which I spent at his elegant home; when I recollect the names of Marshall, Leigh, Johnson, Stanard, Harvie, and others whom I have seen at his hospitable board; when I recall that living galaxy of beauty which flashed in his thronged halls, and of which the sweetest and the brightest were his own household stars,—now, alas! extinct and gone; and his own noble presence and demeanor, which drew from the spoiled and fastidious poet Moore the expression of his admiration and applause, it is with feelings of deep and tender regard, and of grateful veneration, that I offer this tribute to his memory.

The question has often been asked whether Mr. Tazewell was fond of literature and had the elements of a literary man. His early opportunities were not favorable for acquiring a profound knowledge of classical learning. In his day Latin and Greek, the foundation of all true taste in letters, were not taught in William and Mary at all, except in the grammar school. That Tazewell knew enough of Latin to translate easily a Latin author, and even to write the language grammatically, is certain; but that he never rose to that excellence in those tongues to which his old tutor Mr. Wythe attained is equally certain. But of English literature he had drunk deeply. He had Bacon, Locke, Burke, Pope, Shakspeare, Swift, Hume, Gibbon, Johnson, Gillies, Addison, and Roscoe, within three feet of his elbow for the last forty years of his life. In English political history, such as might be gathered from the ordinary historians, and from such books as Baker's Chronicle and Rushworth, he was profoundly skilled. The history of the law from the days of Magna Charta to the passage of the reform bill of Earl Grey's administration, was the study of his whole professional and public life. He not only knew every leading event, every great statute, but he had the minutest details at command, and was always pleased to descant upon a British statute, or on an epoch of British legislation. The excellent volumes of Lord Chancellor Campbell have made a knowledge of the history of the law an easy accomplishment; but Tazewell never read them, and drew his information from the original sources. In the history of Virginia he was, without exception, the greatest proficient of his time. Whatever was told by Smith, Beverly, Keith, Stith, and Burk with his continuators, or by Hening in the statutes at large, or in the journals of the House of Burgesses and of the House of Delegates, or could be gathered from the living voice for eighty years, he knew intimately and could recall at a moment's notice. In respect of the political history of the United States from the adoption of the federal constitution to the day of his death, his knowledge was accurate, ready, and profound. Indeed, if we except the first five years of the federal constitution, it may be said that his actions were a part of that history. He had discussed, in the House of Delegates, the leading measures of the Washington and Adams administrations, and sixty years ago he sate at a stormy period in the House of Representatives of the United States.

But the excellence of Mr. Tazewell consisted not so much in knowing the acts and thoughts of other men, as in the philosophy which he drew from the great facts in all history. He was not in the German, or even in the English sense, a reader of many books; but there was hardly a topic of literature or history which he had not studied, and respecting which he had not elaborated a theory of his own. Even in law he was more apt to work out a question which required a solution than to turn to the books of reports. Neither at the bar nor in the senate was he fond of quoting authorities; but such as he did quote were of the highest merit, and he made them do him yeoman service. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses were favorite books with him. He thought the report of John Quincy Adams on weights and measures one of the ablest works in political literature.

The tendency of his mind and character was wholly practical. Common sense was his polar star. He must be judged not as a scholar or a lawyer or a statesman merely, but as a man of business who was required to accomplish a given purpose. If that purpose was to be accomplished by writing, he took up his pen; if by speech, he rose at the bar and pleaded the case, or in the senate and made a speech. But when the end was attained he thought no more about the means which he had used in attaining it, whether by writing or speaking, than the carpenter who has finished a house thinks of the scaffolding by which he was enabled to complete it. Hence Mr. Tazewell never corrected a speech for the press, if we except two instances; and his greatest speeches are either wholly lost, or exist in the merest outline. But, looking to the result, he was almost invariably successful, at least in the sphere in which he acted; and on the attainment of his purpose forgot the means by which he reached it. If his speeches such as they are, his reports on public questions, his legal opinions, his essays and tracts on political and historical topics, and his private letters, were collected together, the variety of his powers and his singular abilities would strike every reader; and that his works ought to be preserved in volumes is a matter of public interest and is due to his memory.

I have said that Mr. Tazewell should not be considered as a mere scholar, a mere lawyer, or a mere statesman, but in that most august of all characters, the citizen of a commonwealth. But to show what manner of man he was to my younger friends, let us regard him in the aspect of a lawyer, and as he stood in the three great departments of his profession. In criminal law he was easily the first. It was the opinion of a gentleman, his early contemporary at the bar, who has united in his own person in a more eminent degree than was ever before known in Virginia the rare qualities of a writer on metaphysics, history, and literature,—an opinion expressed to me since the death of Tazewell,—that he was the ablest criminal lawyer of his age, and that he would sooner confide an important criminal case to him than to any other living man. This is but an echo of his general reputation in this department of the law. Analyze the qualities necessary to form a great criminal lawyer—his various power of speech, his skill in the evisceration of facts, his tact and ability in arranging the best line of defence possible in the case, the skill in addressing the jury, and the skill, of a different sort, in addressing the court, his superior generalship in the conflicting and unexpected developments during a trial which threaten instant defeat, his fearlessness, and that perfect self-possession which not only conceals his own fears and weaknesses, but avails itself of the fears and weaknesses of others, and of that deep insight into human passions, penetrating far beyond the eye, or the ear, or the ordinary reason: count the attainments which such a man must possess to win supremacy in such a sphere, and we must assent to the general opinion which places supremacy in such a sphere one of the highest achievements of human intellect and character. Then contemplate that excellence which is shown in the conduct of civil cases as contradistinguished from criminal—that various power here, too, of speech, in itself the lesson of a life to learn—the skill, too, in addressing juries and the court with equal effect; that knowledge of the law in its innumerable doctrines, principles, and decisions, which made the study even in Lord Coke's day the work of twenty years; the prompt application of this learning to the rapid matter in hand; the magical use of the faculties of the mind and the wondrous discipline which they must have undergone, every hour, every minute demanding a stretch of thought and an adroitness of discrimination which have justly classed the dialectics of the bar above all the dialectics of the schools; and the moral as well as intellectual qualities necessary in an adept in the varying practice of municipal law; and here, too, we will yield to the general opinion which places excellence in this single department one of the highest achievements of mind; and then recall what such a judge as Spencer Roane, the ablest and sternest judge of the age, and politically hostile to Tazewell, said when Tazewell pleaded the case of Long vs. Colston before the Court of Appeals. Then let us follow the profession beyond and above the region of municipal law into the higher walk of the Laws of Nations, and of that great practical part of those laws, the law of admiralty. Consider what eminence is, and what it involves, in this department which the master spirits of ancient as well as of modern time selected as their peculiar sphere; what the talents are that may contend with the greatest intellects of the age in that greatest of all our gladiatorial arenas, the Supreme Court of the United States, and what various and rare excellencies must unite in forming a man who may stand forth and share in such generous battle, and, still more, shall come off victorious from such a field. And when, by blending all these characters, each great in itself, and worthy of the ambition of the highest talents and of the longest life, into a single character, we have made a fame which the grandest intellects of modern times might glory in attaining, we have but one of the elements, developed during a comparatively short period only of his career, that make up the reputation of him whose memory we have met this day to honor.

Then, if you please, regard him as a senator, representing the sovereignty of Virginia in our more than Amphictyonic Council. Take any speech which he delivered during his term of service—the speech on the Bankrupt law; the speech on the Piracy bill, which, as it 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.