DISCOURSE
ON THE
Life and Character
OF THE
HON. LITTLETON WALLER TAZEWELL,
DELIVERED IN THE
FREEMASON STREET BAPTIST CHURCH,
BEFORE THE
BAR OF NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, AND THE CITIZENS GENERALLY,
ON THE 29th DAY OF JUNE, 1860,
BY
HUGH BLAIR GRIGSBY, LL.D.,
MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, OF THE HISTORICALSOCIETIES OF VIRGINIA, PENNSYLVANIA, ETC., ETC.
NORFOLK:
PUBLISHED BY J.D. GHISELIN, JUN.,
No. 6 WEST MAIN STREET.
1860.
CONTENTS
- DISCOURSE.
- APPENDIX.
- No. I. Proceedings of the Bar of Norfolk on the death of Mr. Tazewell.
- No. II. Correspondence Concerning the Publication of Mr. Grigsby's Discourse.
- No. III. Characters of Mr. Tazewell, by the Hon. George Loyall; by the late
William Wirt, Attorney General of the United States; by the late
Francis Walker Gilmer, Esq., Professor of Law in the University
Of Virginia; and by William W. Sharp, Esq. - No. IV. Extracts from the Letters of Mr. Tazewell concerning Public Office.
- No. V. The Funeral of Mr. Tazewell.
- No. VI. Portraits of Mr. Tazewell.
DISCOURSE.
Gentleman of the Bar:
When the sad event occurred which has drawn us together this morning,you met in your accustomed hall, and expressed the feelings which suchan event might well inspire. You then adjourned to assist in performingthe last solemn rites over the bier of your departed friend. Clad inmourning, you attended his remains from his residence to the steamer,and, embarking with them, transported them over the waters of that noblebay which our venerable friend had crossed so often, and of which he wasso justly proud as the Mediterranean of the Commonwealth; and, in thedeepening shadows of the night which had overtaken you, and which wererendered yet deeper by the glare of the solitary candles flickering inthe wind, more touching by the ceremonies of religion, by the grief ofhis slaves, and by the smothered wailing of his children andgrandchildren, and more imposing by the sorrowing faces and bent formsof some of our aged and most eminent citizens, you deposited the honoreddust in its simple grave; there to repose—with two seas sounding theirceaseless requiem above it—till the trump of the Archangel shall smitethe ear of the dead, and the tomb shall unveil its bosom, and the oldand the young, the rich and the poor, the statesman who ruled thedestinies of empires, and the peasant whose thoughts never strayedbeyond his daily walk, shall rise together on the Morn of theResurrection.
But you rightly deemed that your duty to the memory of your illustriousbrother did not cease at his grave. You knew that, whatever may be theestimate of the value of the life and services of Littleton WallerTazewell, it was never denied by his contemporaries that he wasendowed with an extraordinary intellect, and that in popular assemblies,at the Bar, in the House of Delegates, and in the Senate of the UnitedStates, if he did not—as it was long the common faith in Virg