ROBERT E. LEE.

(From address delivered at a State gathering of ex-Confederates of Missouri at Fulton, Mo.)

NE OF the greatest names in history is that of Robert E. Lee, This declaration will be as readily accepted now at the North as at the South. A man who even in the black hour of war could obey the most difficult of all divine commands and pray morning and night for the enemies whom he was fighting, was sure to receive the love and admiration of mankind. I desire for a few moments to consider this wonderful, lovable man, first as a citizen and then as a soldier.

The true citizen must possess three prominent qualities. First, he must be a gentleman. Second, he must be a good man. Third, he must have courage.

Robert E. Lee was a typical American gentleman. No more cultured, polished man ever lived; yet he was absolutely free from mannerism or affectation. He was a model of dignity and propriety; yet he was as simple in his bearing as a child. He was an unassuming yet lofty representative of the very best our civilization can produce. He was as princely as Washington or Webster or Edmund Bourke; yet he was as true a commoner as Thomas Jefferson or Daniel O'Connell or Abraham Lincoln.

Robert E. Lee was a good man. The world is rapidly reaching the conclusion that goodness is the real test of greatness. It is goodness, not intellect, that distinguishes an angel from a fiend. It is "the pure in heart" who "shall see God." And it is "the pure in heart" who have benefitted and ennobled our race. Commanding ability without moral worth has ever been a curse rather than a blessing to mankind. The world is worse that Byron, Rosseau and Voltaire lived in it. It is better that it had as its citizens John Bunyan, Wm. E. Gladstone and St. Paul. Lee possessed genuine moral worth. In the purity of his heart, the loftiness of his purpose and the cleanness of his life, he

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represented the highest type of exalted manhood. It was of such a man that the Psalmist exclaimed, "Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace." I deem it my duty to say in this connection that Lee was an ardent advocate of temperance, not only by precept, but by what is far more powerful, example. When he took the field an admiring friend gave him two flasks of fine liquor. He carried them with him, with the contents untouched, throughout the war, and then returned them to the giver. I see from the applause with which this is greeted that Lee's position and not that of a splendid old veteran who advised liquor for soldiers, in a speech this morning, meets the approbation of this great audience.

General Lee possessed courage of the very highest order. No braver soldier ever drew a sword. We admire physical courage. It is right that we should. It has its place. But this is courage of the lowest order. It is possessed by the highwayman, the pirate, the desperado and even by the eagle and the lion. But Lee went far beyond mere physical bravery. He possessed moral courage in as high a degree as any man who ever lived. No citizen was ever truer to his convictions. When the war came on, two great, antagonistic ideas were prevalent in America. The people of the South loved the doctrine of State's Rights as taught by John C. Calhoun, Alexander H. Stephens and others, while the people of the North were just as intense in their devotion to Nationalism as promulgated by Daniel Webster, Wendell Phillips and others. Lee believed in the doctrine of State's Rights. He believed in it conscientiously and intensely. Yet he was a strong Union man. He had fought beneath the Stars and Stripes, and loved the flag of the Republic with supreme devotion. He believed with the people of the South in the right of secession, but he thought, and stated openly, that in his opinion secession was unwise. He felt, and so stated, that if the South seceded untold misery would come to his people. When it was certain that his native State, Virginia, would secede, President Lincoln sent Frank P. Blair to him to tell him, that if he would resign his position in the army he would make him commander-in-chief of the armies of the Union. Lee undoubtedly knew this would crown him with victory, and in the end probably make him president of the United States. But he stayed with his convictions, resigned his position. in the army and went with his own people, although he knew they were vastly lacking in both numbers and money. Moses is scarcely to be more honored for declining the honors and glories

of Egypt, to share the lot of his own people, than is Robert E. Lee for this magnificent exhibition of self-abnegation and devotion to honest conviction. General Scott, who was growing old, and at that time head of the army of the United States, regarded Lee as his natural successor. At the close of the Mexican war he had pronounced Lee the greatest military genius America had produced. In this crisis he said to Lee, "Lee, for God's sake do not resign." Lee's reply was that he could not consult his own feelings in the matter and must go with his own people.

But, my friends, what you are doubtless most interested in, is Lee as a soldier. It is sufficient to say at the outset that no warrior in the annals of time was ever more abundantly endowed by birth with the genius of war. He belonged to a family of soldiers. One of his ancestors, Lionel Lee, crossed the British Channel with William the Conqueror. Another of the family fought with Richard the Lion Hearted in the Third Crusade, and his father was Light Horse Harry Lee of Revolutionary fame. To a natural turn for arms and intrepid courage Lee added thorough training and experience. He had been both student and professor at West Point, and distinguished himself for valor and ability in the Mexican War. It is safe to say that no soldier ever mastered the science of war more thoroughly. He acted with intense rapidity, but so familiar was he with his calling that every move he made was sanctioned by the settled principles of his profession. He was not a haphazard commander, depending only upon dash and daring for success. He rushed not to battle, exclaiming, with the mad spirit in Manfred:

"I'm the rider of the wind,

The stirrer of the storm,

The hurricane I left behind

Is yet with lightning warm."

He thoroughly planned every engagement, and then struck like lightning, but every thunderbolt was aimed with precision. No soldier has ever made more of his opportunities. He gained probably more than three-fourths of his fights, and, as I recall, he never went into a battle where he was not outnumbered. Lee, with his magnificent character and lofty devotion to duty, is now considered the common heritage of all Americans, and I do not believe that any fair man, North or South, will object to what has just been said.