Mr. SPEAKER: I have not been in the habit of speaking upon occasions of this kind, but it is one of the joys of my life, a very great joy indeed, to feel that I had a place in the heart of the gentleman whom we are now commemorating. I knew him very well, and in many respects I regarded him as one of the most fortunate men whom it was ever my pleasure to know. While many men here are struggling for fame, while many of them will leave the struggle heartsick, weary, defeated, he had that power, that charm, so precious and so lovely, of attaching men to him by the ties of affection. Little children loved him. There was a benignancy, a sweetness of demeanor, which attracted them to him, and while his name may not be sounded in the trump of fame, yet the subtile power of his gentleness and goodness has permeated many lives, will shape many destinies, and will have a force in the history of the world greater than that which will be exerted by many who will succeed him here. He was a soldier, yet he was gentle and kind. He was a descendant of a long line of honored ancestry, yet he did not believe that mere wealth was necessary either to respectability or to greatness. He was a farmer and loved the soil. He looked upon the ripened grain as the flower of human hope and as a minister to human needs. He loved the breath of cattle, and he regarded the occupation of an agriculturist as the noblest and the best in which a man could be engaged. He was a true son of the soil--hearty, simple, gentle, true. But, sir, the particulars of his career, both public and private, have been recounted by those who knew him well; have been recounted with great force, with great eloquence and propriety. There is, however, one part of that career to which I wish to refer. He was engaged in the memorable struggle which convulsed this nation from center to circumference and which fastened the gaze of the civilized world. I wish upon this occasion to say emphatically, that wherever we may have stood in that struggle, whatever was good and great in any man participating on either side of it is a precious heritage to the entire American people to-day. We proved that, North, South, East, West, we had not degenerated in the qualities which make a nation great. Grant and Lee, Sherman, Sheridan, and the two Johnstons have gone from us forever, and every day the green sward of peace, the flowers of affection, are placed above the grave of some hero of the blue or the gray. But I love to think that above these graves stands the Genius of American freedom, serene and grand, and bids the world behold how brave the sons of the Republic were in the past; how united they are in one purpose and one destiny in the present; how certain they are to be a people noted for reasonable liberty, for perfect union, and for sufficient material power to be formidable and just alike to the other nations of the earth.