George F. Hoar

Great as is her wealth and her material interest, she shares with Massachusetts the honor of being among the foremost of American States in educational conditions.

If our guest had nothing of his own to recommend him, it would be enough to stir the blood of Massachusetts that he represents that honored State, another New England in her interests and in her opinions.

In his death a great and salutary force was subtracted from the public life of the country, and especially from the public life of the great State to whose history he had contributed so large and noble a part.

Chandler was a remarkable example of what I have often noticed, how thoroughly the people come to know the true character of a public man, even when the press of the whole country unite to decry him.

I hold it one of the chief proofs of the kindness of divine Providence to the American people in a time of very great peril that their leaders were so different in character.

But without the aid of the men whom he could influence and who honored him, and to whom his great faults were as great virtues, the Union never would have been saved, or slavery abolished, or the faith kept.

He was a strong pillar of public faith, public liberty, and of the Union.

He was strongly stirred by simple and great emotions--love of country, love of freedom, love of justice, love of honesty.

He saw through all the foolish sophistries with which the defenders of fiat money, or debased currency, sought to defend their schemes.

But he was strong as a rock, true as steel, fearless and brave, honest and incorruptible.

He was, in my judgment, the ablest administrative officer without an exception who has been in any executive department during my public life.

He had in this respect no superior in his time, save Lincoln alone.

To this principle of interpretation, all strict or narrow criticism, founded on its literal meaning, must yield.

But he believed that the Constitution should be interpreted in the light of the Declaration of Independence, so as to be the law of life to a great, powerful and free people.

When he came to the Senate he found there no more powerful, brave or unyielding defender of liberty.

When he died I think there was no other man left in the Senate, on either side, whose loss would have occasioned a more genuine and profound sorrow.

With his departure from the Senate, and that of his colleague, General Wade Hampton, ended the power in South Carolina of the old gentry who, in spite of some grave faults, had given to that State an honorable and glorious career.

He deserves great credit, among other things, for his hearty and effective support of the policy of enlarging the Navy, which, when he came into public life, was feeble in strength and antiquated in construction.

He was zealous for the honor of the country, and never sacrificed the interest of the country to party or sectional feeling.

He said we should have open minds to hear the arguments and the evidence to be introduced, as if it were a solemn trial in a court of justice.

He declared they came there with their minds made up on the case, a condition of mind which was absolutely unfit for a grave judicial office, in the discharge of which all party considerations and preconceived opinions should be banished.

I once told Saulsbury, when he was discoursing in that way, that he must be descended from Adam by some wife he had before Eve, who had nothing to do with the fall.

In writing these recollections, I have dwelt altogether too much on little foibles and weaknesses, which seem to have something amusing in them, and too little, I am afraid, on the greater qualities of the men with whom I have served.

It is quite important that the President of the Senate should be a pleasant-natured gentleman, and the gentleman in the Senator will almost always respond to the gentleman in the Chair.

I do not accept it as a tribute to any personal merit, but rather as a recognition of the independent position which I have long occupied in the politics of the country.