340 B4U5I g^j Class t- y/ h±s3±Ul. 56TII CoxtiREss, 1 SENATE. ( Ddcimext Jul Sc&iioH. I I, No. 4o(i. PROCEEDINGS I\ CONGRESS rPON TlIK ACCEPTANCE OF THE STATUES ,\S II, mm iMi FIIWCIS I'. BLAIR PRESENTED HV THE STATK OF MISSOURI WASHINGTON": GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. I 900. /?^- LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, RECEIVED AUG C;i90l DIVISION OF DOCUMENTS. COXCrRRKXT RESOLUTION. J\i'so/z'fd by the Senate [the House of Representatives eoncnr- ring ) , That there lie printed and bound of the proceedings in Congress upon the acceptance of the statues of the late Thomas H. Benton and Francis P. Blair, presented by the State of Mis- souri, sixteen thousand five hundred copies, of which five thou- sand .shall be for the use of the Senate, ten thousand for the use of the House of Representatives, and the remaining one thousand five hundred shall be for the use and distribution l)y the Gov- ernor of Missouri; and the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby directed to have printed an engraving of said statues to accom- pany said jiroceedings, said engravings to be paid for out of the appropriation for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Passed the Senate Ma>' 31, 1900. Passed the House June 6, 1900. "^ * x*^ V W^ j.ia Ji*iiJ.rw.i3 :,^. "C "^ — ' 'J j3iiiia,sviaiLa»j>»* i ■i'a^'i"*''*^ CONTENTS. I'agc. J'roaYiiiiiiiS ill tlic Ihuiic of Rfprcicnlalii't's 5 Address of Mr. DocKERV, of Mi.ssouri 7 Ci..\RK, of Missouri . 16 Llovd, of Missouri 53 I'rocft'di iig s ill the Stiiatc 73 Address of Mr. \'E.sT, of Missouri 75 CoCKRELi,, of Missouri y6 Ho.\R, of Massachu.setts. . 129 Elkin's, of We.st Virginia r ;.S 3 ACCI-rTANCI-: OF THK STATUES ol" THOMAS BENTON AND FRANCIS P. HE AIR. PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE JANUARY i8, 1899. Mr. Bl.vxd. Mr. Speaker, I desire to ask unaiiiiiions consent for the present consideration of the resolution which I send to the Clerk's desk. The Clerk read as follows: Ri'solrcd, That the exerci.se.s appropriate- to the reception and acceptance from the State of Missouri of the statues of Thom.^s II. Hicxto.n and Fr.\n-cis p. BL-\ir, erected in the old Hall of the Hou.se of Representa- tives be made the special order for .Saturdav, February 4, at ^ o'clock p. ni. The vSpE.MCEK. Is there objection to the i)resent considera- tion of the resolntion? [After a patise.] The Chair hears none. The question was taken: and the resolution was ajjreed to. FEBRUARY 4, 1899. The Speaker. The Clerk will read the .special order. The Clerk read as follows: A'cso/ivd. That the exerci.scs appropriate to the reception and accept- ance from the State of Missouri of the statues of Tho.m.\s H. Bk.vTox and Fr.vnciS p. Bl.^ir. erected in the old Hall of the House of Represent- atives, be made the special order for Saturday, February 4, at 3 o'ck)ck p. m. Mr. Bl.V.nd. Mr. Speaker, I will ask the Clerk to read the following letter from the executive of the State of Mi.s.soiui. 5 6 Proceciiiiigs of tlw House on tlie Acccptancr of tlic The Clerk read as tDllows: To tlu- Si-iiali- ami Hon-sr of kcpirsoilatii'cs nf llir I'nttcd Slates. Wash- higloii , / '. C. Gentlemen: In tlic year iSg^ the general asseinljlv of the State of ilissouri passed an act making an appropriation to have statues made of Thomas H. Benton and Francis P. Bi.air, to be placed in Statuary Hall, in the Capitol, at Washington. In the act referred to, William J. Stone, Odin Guitar. Peter L. Foy, B. B. Cahoon, O. H. Spencer, and James H. Birch were constituted a commission to have the statues made ami properly placed. I am now informed b\- the commissioners that the statues are completed and read}- to be presented to Congress. I have the honor, therefore, as governor of Missouri, to present to the Government of the United States, through the Congress, the statues of the distinguished statesmen natued and to ask that they may be assigned a place in the hall dedicated to such uses at the Capitol. Very respectfully, LoN \'. STEi'HtCNS, iiovcnior. Mr. Blaxi). Mr. Speaker. I offer the following re.sokuioii. The Spe.akek. The gentleman from Missouri offers the fol- lowing resolution, which will he read liy the Clerk. The Clerk read as follows: A'esolved by the House of J\epresei!tali~ces ( the Senate eo/ieiirn/i« ] , That the thanks of Congress be presented to the State of Jlissouri for providing and furnishing .statues of Thom.^s H.art Benton, a deceased person, who has been a citizen thereof and illustrious for his historic renown and for distinguisheil civic services, and of Fr.-v.n"CIS Preston Bi..\ir, a deceased person, who has been a citizen thereof, and illustrious for his historic renown and for distinguished civic and military services. k'esolied, That the .statues be accepted and placed in the National Stat- uary Hall in the Capitol, and that a copy of tliese resolutions duly authen- ticated be transmitted to the governor of the State of Missouri. Mr. Blaxd. Mr. Speaker, there are .some gentlemen present, and others absent, who wish to print remarks in the Record on the stibject of the resolntion, and I therefore ask luianimons consent of the Hon.se that they have leave to do .so. The Speaker. The gentleman from Mis.sonri asks iniani- moits consent that members may be allowed to print in the Record remarks on the siil)ject of the resolntion. Is there objection ;■' [After a patise.] The Chair hears none. Statues of Tliomas If. Benton and l-'raneis F. Blair. 7 ADDRESS OF MR. DOCKERY, OF MISSOURI Mr. Speaker, Congress having by the act of July 2, 1S64, invited each of the States to present statues, not exceeding two in number, in marble or bronze, of deceased persons who have been tlistinguished citizens, and who, on account of civil or military services, are deemed worthy of national commemora- tion in Statuary Hall in the National Capitol, the State of Mis- souri, in the fullness of time, has availed herself of the invita- tion, and has presented the two marble statues which we to-day formally accept on behalf of the Federal Government. Various other States of the Union have already presented, from time to time, statues of their distinguished departed sons: \'irginia, one, of George Washington; Massachusetts, two, of Samuel Adams and John Winthrop; Coiniecticut, of Roger Sherman and Jonathan Trumbull; Rhode Island, of Xathanael Greene and Roger Williams; \'ermont, of Ethan Allen and Jacob Collamer; New Hampshire, of Daniel Webster and John Stark; Maine, of William King: New York, of George Clinton and Robert R. I,i\-ingston; Pennsylvania, of John P. G. Muhlen- berg and Roloert Fulton; New Jersey, of Richard Stockton and Philip Kearny; Ohio, of James A. Garfield and William Allen; Illinois, of James vShields; Michigan, of Lewis Cass, and Wis- consin, of Pere James Marquette. By the act of the legislature of Mi.ssouri, approved April 8, 1S95, a fund \Tas appropriated and a connni.ssion con.stituled, comprising Governor William J. Stone, chairman: Peter L. P'oy, esq., of the city of St. Louis: Gen. Odon Guitar, of Boone County; Judge O. M. Spencer, of Buchanan; Hon. B. B. Cahoon, of St. Francois, and Col. James H. Birch, of Clinton, who were directed to have executed statues of Thomas H. Benton and 8 Address of Air. Dockcry on tlic Acceptance of the Francis P. Blair. That commission discharged their func- tions with care and complete success, and under their pains- taking supervision models were selected and the sculptures executed in marble by the artist, Mr. Alexander Dojde, of New York City. Wr. Speaker, it is with special pride that Missouri contributes to our national pantheon these memorials of two of her most illustrious sons, Benton and Blair. Their names and their deeds not only have wrought especial blessing and reflected lasting renown upon their own imperial Commonwealth, Imt they are the heritage of the whole country as well ; and as such their marble images worthily find a place in yonder hall, side b\' side with tho.se of others of the nation's noblest children — pioneers, warriors, statesmen, inventors, benefactors — heroes all. Both Benton and Bl.^ir rendered most distinguished service in the National Legislature — Benton for five terms in the Senate and one term in the House, and Blair for parts of four terms in the Hou.se and part of a term in the Senate; so that with pectiliar fitness their sculptured images will .stand yonder and be viewed b}- generations to come, hard by the scenes of their legislative .struggles and triumphs. In Bi:xtun we behold the mightiest son of the early West — the most colossal figure in the march of trans-Mi.ssis.sippi de- velopment, striding onward head and .shoulders above all his contemporaries. It was not my good fortune to lia\-e known him, or my privilege ever to have seen him; Ijut his grand, manly character, his splendid achievements in public life, and his princely qualities as a private citizen, as I have learned them from the lips of others and as I find them chronicled in our history, command my unstinted admiration. Himself a pioneer, I take him to have been the recognized exponent of the great pioneer cla.ss, hardy, enterprising, irresistible; the S/(j//trs of Tliomas 11. Bcii/oii and rrainis P. Blair. 9 ablest expounder of their views, and the most typical repre- sentative of their aspirations. In his day and generation he was the greatest champion of the West and its interests, and the most zealous advocate of e\'er>- movement for the extension of the western boundaries of the Republic, beholding with clearer vision than most of his fellows, through the mist of coming j'ears, something of the later grandeur and glorj- which the nation has attained. And yet, de.spite the strength of his local and sectional predi.spositious, his aggressive patriotism was national and all- embracing; the love of his great heart comprehended alike the North, the South, the East, and the West. He gloried in the American Union, and his mar\-elous endowments were always freely offered to the service of his whole country. His teachings, iu their effect upon the people of his own State, did perhaps as much as any other agency to keep Mis.souri still within the sisterhood of the Union when her Southern neigh tors left it: they formed the groundwork upon which Bl.\ir afterwards so brilliantly operated to hold the State fast to her old moorings. There were giants in those days, and Benton was one of them, towering amid the greatest of his colleagues — Webster, Cla}-, and Calhoun. When it is remembered that, from the time of Monroe down to the time of Buchanan, he exercised a controlling swa\' over Western politics such as few statesmen ever did, it is not surprising that he should have left behind him such ineffaceable and monumental marks of his greatness. During his service in the Senate that body was admittedly the most influential legislative body in the world. The nation's greatest political chiefs were members pf it; and in it, from the time of Jack.son, Benton .stood forth continuously a connnand- iug figure and the most eminent representative of Jacksonian Democracv. lo Address of Air. Dockcry on tJie Acceptance of the The Republic has never produced a statesman more vahantly loyal and true to his convictions than Bentox. His faculties always responded to the call of a great emergency. His metal on such an occasion always rang true and clear. He grew .steadily wiser as he proceeded in his career. With his develop- ing maturity he became better equipped for the performance of yeoman service to the public, and it has been .said of him that, during the last period of his life — the heroic period — he ren- dered greater .service to the nation than any of his fellow Senators. In addition to his herculean achievements in statecraft, his attaiiunents in other directions attested his amazing industry, versatility, and liberal culture. Daniel Webster once remarked tliat BexTox knew more political facts than any other man he ever met, and pos.sessed a wonderful fund of general knowledge. He not only left his powerful impress upon the events in which he was an actor during his thirty-two years' service in Con- gress, but he left to posterity two veritaljle monuments attesting his ceaseless acti\-ity and study — his two great literary produc- tions, the " Thirty Years' View" and his "Abridgment of the Debates of Congress from 1789 to 1S50" — both of them acknowl- edged to be indispensable to the student of American political and governmental history. Mo.st happily has the sculptor modeled forth his physical lineaments and suggested the qualities that characterized the man. From a study of the artist's handiwork we can the better understand what good .sturdy .stuff Benton was made of — his magnificent physique, his tirele.ss energy, his masterful intellect, his indomitable will. From a contemplation of that marble figure we can fancy his aggressive courage, his .stern sincerity, his earnestness, tenacity, and uprightness; we can picture in our minds what a proud, resolute, fearless, self- reliant hero he must have been in life, and we can join in Sfatucs of Thomas H. Benton and Francis /'. lUair. i i huml)l\' iloint; him lionor for llic iinineasurahlc s^ood he wrought for his country in his own generation and for all the generations after him. Mr. Siieaker, in a nio.st remarkable way the life work of Benton and of Bl.vik merged together, to the incalculable benefit of our common State; the achievements of the younger of the two linked themselves with and supplemented those of the elder. When Benton died, in KS5S, the tide of Southern sentiment was rising like a flood, and but for the li\'ing intln- ence of the veteran statesman, then still in death, Missotu'i would probably have been overwhelmed by that tide. And notwith.standing that potent influence, it would yet have been overwhelmed had not Blair, courageous and preternaturally energetic, inter\-ened at the right moment, and with the sagacity of genius, to direct and utilize that influence. His lofty patriot- ism, spirit, and capacity saved the State to the Union and left her free at the close of the civil .strife to march onward without interruption in the paths of progress. To have accomplished this was in itself an extraordinary achievement for any man. But Bl.vik rested not there. He plunged with knightly ardor into the Titanic stru,g.gle then be.ginning, and ere long became a major-general of volunteers and a corps connnander of hi.gh efficiency. He was the most illustrious soldier that Missouri gave to the I'liion; indeetl, he was regarded as one of the most .successful of .all the chiefs of the volunteer army. Meanwhile he served also with distinction in Congress; and in the Thirty-seventh Congress, as chairman of the Hou.se Com- mittee on Military Affairs, he reported and pressed those essen- tial measures that equipped and maintained the Union armies in the field. He was a hero in council, in the camp, and on the field of battle. And after the war, voluntarily renouncing the grateful 12 Address of Mr. Dock fry on the Accvplaiicc of the political rewards that wmild ha\-e freely come to him from his own political party, he devoted his energies to the heroic and magnaiiinious but unpopular task of protecting his late enemies from injustice at the hands of his own triumphant and intol- erant partisans. In that work of self-alinegation, viewed calmly after this lapse of time, the moral grandeur of the hero shines forth with dazzling luster. A hero in the trilnilations of war, he liecame ten times a hero in the tribulations of returning peace. In the face of frenzied calunnn-, furious partisanship, and mob violence, his manly heart demanded justice for his beaten foes; and with undaunted personal coura.ge, with cool- ness and braver^' almost unexampled, he espou,sed the cause of the weak, the disfranchised, the tax ridden, and the downtrod- den, and .sought by practical means to bind up and heal the wounds of the recent strife. Like others of the proscribed class who witnessed liis intrepid conduct in behalf of my oppressed people on the most trying occasions, I may say that, in adding this hnml)le tribute to his fame, it is not prompted by a mere formal or prefunctory im- pulse, liut by a .sentiment of sincere personal affection. The political and civic honors that would have come to him innne- diately following the war, but which he denied to himself, and the later political succe.ss which he would doubtless have attained had his life been spared, are more than corapen.sated by the fervent love which all the people of Missouri cherish for his memor\-. [Loud applause.] Mr. Speaker, I desire to append to my remarks and to incor- porate in the Record a beautiful tribute to the memory of Benton and Bi,.\ik, written b>- Hon. J. H. Birch, of Platts- burg. Mo., one of the vState commissioners, and transmitted to me for that purpose. It reads: It is deemed proper that the only native-born Mi.ssourian on the com- mission, who knew both of these di.stinguished citizens during their lives, should be heard on this interesting occasion. I shall speak, therefore, Sla/itcs 0/ Tlionias H. Boilon and Francis P. Blair. 13 from personal kiiowlerlgc. Sixty years a>;i> Colonel UiiNToN ami mv father were frieniily assoeiates. 0.ur home, in tlu' villat;e where we lived, was occasionally honored by his visits. Sitting and listening to his con- versation, I wondered that I was permitted to exist in such a presence. In after years, when grown to manhood, and bitter personal enmitv had arisen between them, I recognized the fact that Haneton — for it was thus he pronounced his name — was the mo.st powerfid ])olilicaI factor in the great West. Xo one favored him in appearance, manners, or personal characteris- tics, and but few ever reached his level in intellectual power, information, or influence. His was an isolated personality. He had but few, if any. confidants. He recognized but two conditions in public life between men leadership and followers. He knew his own fitness to rule, and demanded that others obey. He sought no advice, and permitted no dissent; and criticism of his political infallibility resulted in personal an