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.