Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase

on Chief-Justice Chase, by
William M. Evarts

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Title: Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase Delivered by William M. Evarts
before the Alumni of Dartmouth College, at Hanover
Author: William M. Evarts
Release Date: September 3, 2006 [EBook #19165]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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ON CHIEF-JUSTICE CHASE ***

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EULOGY

ON
CHIEF-JUSTICE CHASE,
DELIVERED BY
WILLIAM M. EVARTS,
BEFORE THE
ALUMNI OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, AT HANOVER, JUNE 24,
1874.
NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 AND 551
BROADWAY. 1874.
ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by D.
APPLETON & CO., In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington.

EULOGY
ON
CHIEF-JUSTICE CHASE.

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN, THE ALUMNI OF
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE: When, not many weeks since, the
committee of your association did me the honor to invite me to present,
in an address to the assembled graduates of the college, a
commemoration of the life, the labors, and the fame of the very
eminent man and greatly honored scholar of your discipline, lawyer,
orator, senator, minister, magistrate, whom living a whole nation
admired and revered, whom dead a whole nation laments, I felt that
neither a just sense of public duty nor the obligations of personal
affection would permit me to decline the task. Yielding, perhaps too

readily, to the persuasions of your committee that somewhat close
professional and public association with the Chief-Justice in the later
years of his life, and the intimate enjoyment of his personal friendship,
might excuse my want of that binding tie of fellowship in a
commemoration, in which the venerated college does dutiful honor to a
son, and the assembled alumni crown with their affection the memory
of a brother, I dismissed also, upon the same persuasion, all anxious
solicitudes, which otherwise would have oppressed me, lest
importunate and inextricable preoccupations of time and mind should
disable me from presenting as considerable, and as considerate, a
survey of the eminent character and celebrated career of Mr. Chase as
should comport with them, or satisfy the just exigencies of the
occasion.
The commemoration which brings us together has about it nothing
funereal, in sentiment or observance, to darken our minds or sadden our
hearts to-day. The solemn rites of sepulture, the sobbings of sorrowing
affection, the homage of public grief, the concourse of the great officers
of state, the assemblage of venerable judges, the processions of the bar,
of the clergy, of liberal and learned men, the attendant crowds of
citizens of every social rank and station, both in the great city where he
died, and at the national capital, have already graced his burial with all
imaginable dignity and unmeasured reverence. To prolong or renew
this pious office is no part of our duty to-day. Nor is the maturity or
nurture which the college gives to those it calls its sons, bestowed as it
is upon their mind and character, affected by the death of the body as is
the heart of the natural mother; nor are you, his brethren in this foster
care of the spirit, bowed with the same sense of bereavement as are
natural kindred. The filial and fraternal relation which he bore to you,
the college and the alumni, is hardly broken by his death, nor is he
hidden from you by his burial. His completed natural life is but the
assurance and perpetuation of the power, the fame, the example, which
the discipline and culture here bestowed had for their object, and in
which they find their continuing and ever-increasing glory. The energy
here engendered has not ceased its beneficent activity, the torch here
lighted still diffuses its illumination, and the fires here kindled still
radiate their heat.

Not less certain is it that the spirit of this commemoration imposes no
task of vindication or defense, and tolerates no tone of adulation or
applause. The tenor of this life, the manifestation of this character, was
open and public, before the eyes of all men, upon an eminent stage of
action, displayed constantly on the high places of the world. No faculty
that Mr. Chase possessed, no preparation of mind or of spirit, for great
undertakings or for notable achievements, ever failed of exercise or
exhibition for want of opportunity, or, being exercised or exhibited,
missed commensurate recognition or