“Whatever advanced age, long experience, great ability, vast learning, accumulated public honors, a spotless private character, and a firm religious faith, could do, to render anyone an object of interest, respect, and admiration, they had done for this distinguished person; and interest, respect, and admiration, are but feeble terms to express the feelings with which the members of this House and the people of the country have long regarded him.

“After a life of eighty years, devoted from its earliest maturity to the public service, he has at length gone to his rest.  He has been privileged to die at his post; to fall while in the discharge of his duties; to expire beneath the roof of the capitol; and to have his last scene associated forever, in history, with the birthday of that illustrious patriot, whose just discernment brought him first into the service of his country.

“The close of such a life, under such circumstances, is not an event for unmingled emotions.  We cannot find it in our hearts to regret, that he has died as he has died.  He himself could have desired no other end.  ’This is the end of earth,’ were his last words, uttered on the day on which he fell.  But we might also hear him exclaiming, as he left us—­in a language hardly less familiar to him than his native tongue—­’Hoc est, nimirum, magis feliciter de vita migrare, quam mori.’

“It is for others to suggest what honors shall be paid to his memory.  No acts of ours are necessary to his fame.  But it may be due to ourselves and to the country, that the national sense of his character and services should be fitly commemorated.”

Mr. Holmes of South Carolina arose and addressed the House in most eloquent strains.  The following are extracts from his eulogy:—­

“The mingled tones of sorrow, like the voice of many waters, have come unto us from a sister State—­Massachusetts weeping for her honored son.  The State I have the honor in part to represent once endured, with yours, a common suffering, battled for a common cause, and rejoiced in a common triumph.  Surely, then, it is meet that in this, the day of your affliction, we should mingle our griefs.

“When a great man falls, the nation mourns; when a patriarch is removed, the people weep.  Ours, my associates, is no common bereavement.  The chain which linked our hearts with the gifted spirits of former times, has been rudely snapped.  The lips from which flowed those living and glorious truths that our fathers uttered, are closed in death!  Yes, my friends, Death has been among us!  He has not entered the humble cottage of some unknown, ignoble peasant; he has knocked audibly at the palace of a nation!  His footstep has been heard in the Hall of State!  He has cloven down his victim in the midst of the councils of a people!  He has borne in triumph from among you the gravest, wisest, most reverend head!  Ah! he has taken him as a trophy who was once chief over many States, adorned with virtue, and learning, and truth; he has borne at his chariot-wheels a renowned one of the earth.