be an outcome in ever-recurring events, it is the outcome of a
tremendous social and political struggle. Sir, it hardly suits the
occasion to refer to the origin of this struggle or to trace its
progress, but the effort for popular government is discernible through
many centuries. As we come nearer to our time it becomes more
intelligent and determined. Our great Declaration was its best
pronunciamento. Our written Constitution was its most concise
expression. The events that produced them founded a normal school for
patriotism. In it was perfected a new departure. Fealty to lord and king
was supplanted by fealty to human rights. Proclaimed in the council
chamber, these rights had to be won in the field. Yorktown completed our
first endeavor at nation-making; we graduated masters at Appomattox. The
first proclaimed the prowess of the Confederation, the second testified
to the strength of the Union. Both astonished the world. Both transpired
in Virginia.

Conspicuous in this analogue of our history were the Lees of Virginia.
They have a lineage too illustrious for praise. Its escutcheons are too
bright for adornment. It reaches back for centuries loyal to honor and
to truth. Him we mourn to-day was a gifted scion of that great name. His
highest distinction was won in Confederate arms.

Thank God, I can now speak of our civil war with satisfaction and not
with reluctance. I allude to it with a satisfaction akin to that one
feels in gazing upon a plain fertilized by an inundation. Flowers spring
up, birds sing, and golden grain nods in the sunlight. But our civil war
was more like an upheaval than like a deluge. It shook every timber in
the grand structure with which we had surprised the world. Other
governments have fallen of their own weight; our matchless edifice could
not be shattered by an explosion.