ORATIOΝ

OF

HON. JOHN A. J. CRESSWELL

The Hon. Mr. CRESSWELL rose and spoke as follows:

MY COUNTRYMEN,-On the 22d day of February, 1732, God gave to the world the highest type of humanity in the person of George Washington. Combining within himself the better qualities of the soldier, sage, statesman, and patriot, alike brave, wise, discreet, and incorruptible, the common consent of mankind has awarded him the incomparable title of Father of his Country. Among all nations and in every clime, the richest treasures of language have been exhausted in the effort to transmit to posterity a faithful record of his deeds. For him unfading laurels are secure so long as letters shall survive and history shall continue to be the guide and teacher of civilized men. The whole human race has become the self-appointed guardian of his fame, and the name of Washington will be ever held, over all the earth, to be synonymous with the highest perfection attainable in public or private life, and coeternal with that immortal love to which reason and revelation have together toiled to elevate human aspirations-the love of liberty restrained and guarded by law.

But in the presence of the Omnipotent how insignificant is the proudest and the noblest of men! Even Washington, who alone of his kind could fill that comprehensive epitome of General Henry Lee, so often on our lips, "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," was allowed no exemption from the common lot of mortals. In the sixty-eighth year of his age he too paid the debt of nature.

The dread announcement of his demise sped over the land like a pestilence, burdening the very air with mourning, and carrying inexpressible sorrow to every household and every heart. The course of legislation was stopped in mid career to give expression to the grief of Congress, and by resolution, approved January 6, 1800, the 22d of February of that year was devoted to national humiliation

and lamentation. This is, then, as well a day of sorrow as a day of rejoicing.

More recent calamities also remind us that death is universal king. Just ten days ago our great historian pronounced in this hall an impartial judgment upon the earthly career of him who, as savior of his country, will be counted as the compeer of Washington. Scarce have the orator's lingering tones been mellowed into silence, scarce has the glowing page whereon his words were traced lost the impress of his passing hand, yet we are again called into the presence of the Inexorable to crown one more illustrious victim with sacrificial flowers. Having taken up his lifeless body, as beautiful as the dead Absalom, and laid it in the tomb with becoming solemnity, we have assembled in the sight of the world to do deserved honor to the name and memory of HENRY WINTER DAVIS, a native of Annapolis, in the State of Maryland, but always proudly claiming to be no less than a citizen of the United States of America.

We have not convened in obedience to any formal custom, requiring us to assume an empty show of bereavement, in order that we may appear respectful to the departed. We who knew Henry Winter Davis are not content to clothe ourselves in the outward garb of grief, and call the semblance of mourning a fitting tribute to the gifted orator and statesman, so suddenly snatched from our midst in the full glory of his mental and bodily strength. We would do more than "bear about the mockery of woe." Prompted by a genuine' affection, we desire to ignore all idle and merely conventional ceremonies, and permit our stricken hearts to speak their spontane

ous sorrow.

Here, then, where he sat for eight years as a representative of the people; where friends have trooped about him, and admiring crowds have paid homage to his genius; where grave legislators have yielded themselves willing captives to his eloquence, and his wise counsel has moulded in no small degree the law of a great nation, let us, in dealing with what he has left us, verify the saying of Bacon, "Death openeth the good fame and extinguisheth envy." Remembering that he was a man of like passions and equally fallible with ourselves, let us review his life in a spirit of generous candor, applaud what is good, and try to profit by it; and if we find aught of ill, let us, so far as justice and truth will permit, cover it with the veil of charity, and bury it out of sight forever. So may our survivors do for us.

The subject of this address was born on the 16th of August, 1817. His father, Rev. Henry Lyon Davis, of the Protestant Episcopal

Church, was president of St. John's College at Annapolis, Maryland, and rector of St. Ann's parish. He was of imposing person, and great dignity and force of character. He was, moreover, a man of genius, and of varied and profound learning, eminently versed in mathematics and natural sciences, abounding in classical lore, endowed with a vast memory, and gifted with a concise, clear, and graceful style; rich and fluent in conversation, but without the least pretension to oratory, and wholly incapable of extempore speaking. He was removed from the presidency of St. John's by a board of Democratic trustees because of his Federal politics; and, years afterward, he gave his son his only lesson in politics, at the end of a letter addressed to him when at Kenyon College, in this laconic sentence: "My son, beware of the follies of Jacksonism."

His mother was Jane Brown Winter, a woman of elegant accomplishments, and great sweetness of disposition and purity of life. It might be truthfully said of her that she was an exemplar for all who knew her. She had only two children, Henry Winter, and Jane, who married the Rev. Edward Seyle.

The education of Henry Winter began very early, at home, under the care of his aunt, Elizabeth Brown Winter, who entertained the most rigid and exacting opinions in regard to the training of children, but who was, withal, a noble woman. He once playfully said, "I could read before I was four years old, though much against my will." When his father was removed from St. John's, he went to Wilmington, Delaware, but some time elapsed before he became settled there. Meanwhile Henry Winter remained with his aunt, in Alexandria, Virginia. He afterward went to Wilmington, and was there instructed under his father's supervision. In 1827 his father returned to Maryland, and settled in Anne Arundel County.

After reaching Anne Arundel, Henry Winter became so much devoted to outdoor life that he gave small promise of scholarly proficiency. He affected the sportsman, and became a devoted disciple of Nimrod; accompanied always by one of his father's slaves, he roamed the country with a huge old fowling-piece on his shoulder, burning powder in abundance, but doing little damage otherwise. While here he saw much of slaves and slavery, and what he saw impressed him profoundly, and laid the foundation for those opinions which he so heroically and constantly defended in all his after life. Referring to this period, he said, long afterward, "My familiar asso-. ciation with the slaves while a boy gave me great insight into their feelings and views. They spoke with freedom before a boy what they would have repressed before a man. They were far from indif

ferent to their condition; they felt wronged, and sighed for freedom. They were attached to my father and loved me, yet they habitually spoke of the day when God would deliver them."

He subsequently went to Alexandria, and was sent to school at Howard, near the Theological Seminary, and from Howard he went to Kenyon College, in Ohio, in the fall of 1833.

Kenyon was then in the first year of the presidency of Bishop McIlvaine. It was the centre of vast forests, broken only by occasional clearings, excepting along the lines of the National Road and the Ohio River and its navigable tributaries. In this wilderness of nature, but garden of letters, he remained, at first in the grammarschool, and then in the college, until the 6th of September, 1837, when, at twenty years of age, he took his degree and diploma, decorated with one of the honorary orations of his class on the great day of commencement. His subject was "Scholastic Philosophy."

At the end of the freshman year a change in the college terms gave him a vacation of three months. Instead of spending it in idleness, as he might have done, and as most boys would have done, he availed himself of this interval to pursue and complete the studies of the sophomore year, to which he had already given some attention in his spare moments. At the opening of the next session he passed the examination for the junior class. Fortunately I have his own testimony and opinion as to this exploit, and I give them in his own language:

"It was a pretty sharp trial of resolution and dogged diligence, but it saved me a year of college, and indurated my powers of study and mental culture into a habit, and perhaps enabled me to stay long enough to graduate. I do not recommend the example to those who are independently situated, for learning must fall like the rain in such gentle showers as to sink in if it is to be fruitful; when poured on the richest soil in torrents, it not only runs off without strengthening vegetation, but washes away the soil itself."

His college life was laborious and successful. The regular studies were prosecuted with diligence, and from them he derived great profit, not merely in knowledge, but in what is of vastly more account, the habit and power of mental labor. These studies were wrought into his mind and made part of the intellectual substance by the vigorous collisions of the societies in which he delighted. For these mimic conflicts he prepared assiduously, not in writing, but always with a carefully adduced logical analysis and arrangement of the thoughts to be developed in the order of argument, with a brief note of any quotation, or image, or illustration on the margin at the appropriate place. From that brief he spoke. And this was

his only method of preparation for all the great conflicts in which he took part in after life. He never wrote out his speeches beforehand.

Speaking of his feelings at the end of his college life, he sadly said:

"My father's death had embittered the last days of the year 1836, and left me without a counselor. I knew something of books, nothing of men, and I went forth like Adam among the wild beasts of the unknown wilderness of the world. My father had dedicated me to the ministry, but the day had gone when such dedications determined the lives of young men. Theology, as a grave topic of historic and metaphysical investigation, I delighted to pursue, but for the ministry I had no calling. I would have been idle if I could, for I had no ambition; but I had no fortune, and I could not beg or starve.”

All who were acquainted with his temperament can well imagine what a gloomy prospect the future presented to him, when its contemplation wrung from his stoical taciturnity that touching confession.

The truth is, that from the time he entered college he was continually cramped for want of money. The negroes ate every thing that was produced on the farm in Anne Arundel, a gastronomic feat which they could easily accomplish without ever having cause to complain of a surfeit. His aunt, herself in limited circumstances, by a careful husbandry of her means, managed to keep him at college. Kenyon was then a manual-labor institution, and the boys were required to sweep their own rooms, make their own beds and fires, bring their own water, black their own boots, if they ever were blacked, and take an occasional turn at grubbing in the fields or working on the roads. There was no royal road to learning known at Kenyon in those days. Through all this Henry Winter Davis passed, bearing himself manfully; and knowing how heavily he taxed the slender purse of his aunt, he denied himself with such rigor that he succeeded, incredible as it may appear, in bringing his total expenses, including boarding and tuition, within the sum of eighty dollars per annum.

His father left an estate consisting only of some slaves, which were equally apportioned between himself and sister. Frequent applications were made to purchase his slaves, but he never could be induced to sell them, although the proceeds would have enabled him to pursue his studies with ease and comfort. He rather sought and obtained a tutorship, and for two years he devoted to law and letters only the time he could rescue from its drudgery. In a letter written in April, 1839, replying to the request of a relative who offered to

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