Address of Mr. Herbert, of Alabama.

Mr. Speaker: In this brief tribute to the memory of Gen. William H.F. Lee I should be unworthy of the friendship which it was my privilege to claim did I indulge in anything else than the language of soberness and truth. In him there was no manner of affectation; he pretended to be nothing but such as he was, and it is certain that if he had been giving directions to his biographer he would have laid down the rule announced by Thomas Carlyle, in his review of the life of Lockhart, that the biographer in the treatment of his subject "should have the fear of God before his eyes and no other fear whatever."

Froude, as biographer, claims subsequently to have applied to the life of Carlyle his own rule; and all the world knows that in the portrayal of Carlyle's faults of character the biographer left many a sting in the hearts of those who had loved the great man while he lived and who felt that the failings on which the historian had dwelt ought to have been interred with his bones. The biographer who shall perform faithfully the task of writing the life of "Rooney" Lee will not paint him as a genius like Carlyle; but, sir, if there was any single feature in the character of our friend that, laid bare to the world even by the bold hand of an Anthony Froude, would cause the faintest blush to tinge the cheek of family or friends, I, who knew him well, do not know what it was.

It is true, sir, that it was not my fortune to be thrown in contact with him in the earlier years of his life. I did not know him when his character was being shaped and molded by the generous and refining influences which surrounded him from his cradle to his manhood.

My personal acquaintance with him may be said to have begun only when he had taken his seat by my side in this Hall. But his fame had come before him. A representative of the most distinguished family in America, he had been, by this circumstance alone, conspicuous from his birth; and yet he came among us with not a spot upon his name.

During the civil war, from a subordinate position rising rapidly to high command and always in the bright light that surrounded him as a son of the most illustrious general of modern times, he bore himself as a soldier without reproach. Neither in civil life nor in war had calumny assaulted him. Such a man, entering here upon a new career, attracted attention the moment he came into this Hall.

It soon appeared to those who watched him closely that he was singularly modest. This modesty was not diffidence. He was at all times self-poised. On this floor, addressing himself to a public question just as in a private conversation among his friends, he always had the easy, unpretentious manner of the thoroughbred gentleman, but his modesty was easily apparent in an utter lack of self-assertion. He never put himself forward except when duty prompted, and then he did nothing for display; never a word did he speak for himself, but only for his cause.

He made indeed no pretensions to oratory; he had never been trained in its arts; but his mind was broad and highly cultured, he had a vast fund of vigorous common sense, and he expressed himself readily and pointedly. With these faculties he would in time have taken rank as a strong debater.

While broadly patriotic, he had at the same time a high sense of obligation to his immediate constituency, and he was patient to a remarkable degree. His district, you will remember, Mr. Speaker, lay just beyond the Potomac.

It was an easy matter for his constituents to come to the Capitol, and naturally many of them sought office at his hands. I sat near him in the Fifty-first Congress. Often have I known him to be carded out a dozen times a day; and if he ever expressed himself to me as worried by these interruptions he never failed to show by what he said that his annoyance arose not so much from the importunities of his friends as from his inability to serve them.

In address he was remarkably pleasing. Indeed, his manner was so genial, so pleasant, so hearty and sincere, that the memory of his kindly greeting will not be forgotten until the whole generation of his friends shall pass away. Who is there among his associates on this floor that will ever cease to remember him as, morning after morning in the springtime, he came into this Hall, bringing from his home a basket of roses to distribute among his friends? He was not seeking popularity. Such a thought had not occurred to him, nor did it enter into the mind of anyone here. He simply loved his friends, and he loved flowers just as he loved all things beautiful and true.

Such a man could not but be, as Gen. Lee was, a model brother, husband, and father. In all his life nothing was more lovely and beautiful than his family relations.

He had about him none of the arts of the demagogue; he was always true to himself, and therefore never false to any man. His whole walk and conversation illustrated that he was the worthy son of his noble father; that from his youth up he had profited by the precepts and example of that illustrious chieftain, who declared, in those memorable words already quoted by my eloquent friend [Mr. Tucker], that duty was the sublimest word in the English language. And, Mr. Speaker, let me say that the idea conveyed by this word duty, as taught by the father and practiced by the son, was far higher than that ideal, lofty though it was, expounded by philosophers like Plato and Cicero. With the Lees duty meant Christian duty.

With all these characteristics Gen. Lee could not but grow and continue to grow as he did in power and influence in a body like this; and had he been spared for that long career in this Hall hoped for by his friends he would have risen to eminence as a legislator.

But this was not to be. He has passed away from us forever.

When such a man dies out from among us, let critics cavil as they may about time wasted in memorial addresses. We should do violence to our own feelings did we not pause to honor his memory; we should do wrong to the American people, whose heritage they are, did we not spread before them the lessons of his life, that the whole country may venerate his virtues and the youth of the land may emulate his example.