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 REMARKS 
 
 \ o 
 
 HON. HENRY B. ANTHONY, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 PRESENTATION OF THE STATUE OF MAJ. GEN. GREENE, 
 January 20, 1870, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 PRESENTATION OF THE STATUE OF ROGER WILLIAMS, 
 January 9, 1872, 
 
 BY 
 
 THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND 
 
 TO 
 
 THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 F. & J. RIVES & GEO. A. BAILEY, 
 
 REPORTERS AND PRINTERS OF THE DEBATES OF CONGRESS 
 
 1872.
 
 tf LIBRARY 
 
 G^H^ 
 
 The Khode Island Statues in the Capitol. 
 
 HON. HENRY' B. ANTHONY, 
 
 OX THE 
 
 PRESENTATION OF THE STATUE OF MAJ. GEN. GREENE, , 
 January 20, 1870, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 PRESENTATION OF THE STATUE OF ROGER WILLIAMS, 
 January 9, 1872, 
 
 BY 
 
 THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND 
 
 TO 
 
 THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 P. & J. RIVES & GEO. A. BAILEY, 
 
 REPORTERS AND PRINTERS OF THE DEBATKS OP CONGRESS 
 
 1872.
 
 PRESENTATION 
 
 STATUE OF MAJOR GENERAL GREENE. 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 20, 1870. 
 
 Mr. President, I am charged we are charged, ray colleagues of the two Houses of 
 Congress and myself by the Governor of the State which we represent, with the honor- 
 able duty of presenting to Congress, in his name and in the name of the General Assembly 
 and the people of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, a marble statue 
 of Nathanael Greene. 
 
 This statue has been placed in the old Hall of the House of Representatives, in pur- 
 suance of an act of Congress, by which that beautiful Chamber, itself rich in precious 
 memories, is dedicated to historic valor, to patriotism, to statesmanship, to learning, to 
 conspicuous excellence in all the elements that constitute national greatness. 
 
 The heroic age of our country is enveloped in no fable, and the historian is not driven 
 to doubtful miracles, to marvels and portents to add to the dignity of its origin, nor need 
 he resort to fanciful legends to increase the interest of his narration. The stalwart men 
 who planted the colonies from which these States arose have left the authentic memorials 
 of their principles and their actions, their trials and their triumphs. And the men whose 
 valor achieved the independence of the country, and whose wisdom founded the institu- 
 tions of the great Republic, are separated from us by so short a period, and one of such 
 active historical inquiry, that their lives and characters stand before us, almost as if they 
 had lived in our daily presence. 
 
 By the act of Congress referred to, each State of the Union is invited to place in the 
 old Hall of the House of Representatives the statues of two of her illustrious citizens, 
 already consecrated by death, who flourished in any period of her history. Rhode Island, 
 which has earliest responded to the invitation, has selected for this honor two of her 
 early heroes, one from the colonial and one from the revolutionary period. 
 
 The first is Roger Williams, the great Founder of the State, who first declared and 
 maintained the principle at the foundation of all true civilization, SOUL LIBERTY, the right 
 of every man te worship God according to his own conscience, responsible to no human 
 laws, restrained by no interposition of Church or State. Of Roger Williams there exists 
 no portraiture, nor, so far as I am aware, any reliable description of his perston or hia 
 features. He lives, not in the breathing marble or upon the glowing canvas, but immor- 
 tal, in the everlasting principle which he first asserted and vindicated, and which, now 
 recognized as an essential part of human society, was then regarded as nothing better 
 than impracticable and mischievous fanaticism. The State, unwilling that the great 
 name of her Founder should be unrepresented in this solemn assemblage of fame, has 
 decreed in its commemoration an ideal statue, made from such scanty materials as tra- 
 dition has supplied. She could do no more, and she felt that she should do no less. 
 
 In this respect the memory of Greene is more fortunate. His statue is from authentic 
 likenesses, and represents him " in his habit as he lived," in the full prime and vigor of 
 his manhood, and in the height of his fame. It was executed by Henry Kirke Browne,
 
 whose name, already of high reputation, will receive fresh honors from his latest work. 
 As a product of American art it is confidently submitted to the judgment of criticism. 
 
 Mr. President, we have just passed through, not yet altogether through, the severest 
 trial in the historyof our country. The popular heart beatshigh with grateful admiration 
 for valor and conduct proved in the field, for wisdom displayed in the cabinet. The 
 country joyfully decorates her heroes with her freshest laurels, and heaps upon her 
 soldiers and statesmen her selectest honors. We, Senators, interpreting the will of the 
 nation, have been prompt to render, from this Chamber, our contributions to the 
 national gratitude. And it is right that it should be so. The Republic is stronger as 
 well as juster when thus honoring her defenders, and presenting such rewards to the 
 emulation of the rising generation. 
 
 But while we render all due honor to living valor, while we proudly hand over to the 
 Muse of History the mighty names that have illustrated our recent annals, it is well to 
 freshen the recollection of those whose fame she has long had in her keeping. While 
 we celebrate the praises of those who have saved the country, let us not forget those 
 without whom we should not have had a country to be saved ; those who, in the 
 beginning, few in numbers, feeble in power, scant of resources, but strong in the prin- 
 ciples which they had inherited with their oppressors, armed with the stern virtues that 
 are born of difficulty and nurtured in peril and privation, dared to defy the might of 
 England, who trod the pathway of victory with bleeding feet and upheld the banner of 
 independence with hands that were wasted by famine. 
 
 While the names of Vicksburg, Fort Donelson, and Roanoke Island, South Mountain, 
 and Antietam, and Gettysburg, and Appomattox, should be kept fresh in the memory 
 of the country, let not the earlier glories of Lexington, and Bunker Hill, of Princeton, 
 and Trenton, and Stony Point, of Cowpens and Eutaw Springs, of Saratoga and York- 
 town, be ever forgotten ; nor yet those of Chippewa, Plattsburg, and New Orleans. 
 
 Among those who, in the revolutionary period, won titles to the national gratitude 
 never disavowed, he whose statue we have placed in the Capitol stands, in the judgment 
 of his contemporaries and by the assent of history, second only to the man who towers, 
 without a peer, in the annals of America. 
 
 1 shall not attempt an analysis of his character, nor an enumeration of the great 
 deeds upon which his fame securely rests; nor shall I discuss that fertility of resources 
 by which he supplied an army from an impoverished country, without disaffecting the 
 population, that marvelous skill and conduct, by which he wrung the results of victory 
 from the very jaws of defeat, and with inferior forces drove and scattered before him a 
 well-appointed, disciplined enemy, flushed with the insolence of conquest; that self- 
 reliance and persistence by which he refused every suggestion to abandon the southern 
 campaign, and from the field of disaster declared "I will recover the Carolinas or perish 
 hrthe attempt." How well he proved these words no idle boast, how well he kept his 
 pledge I do not propose to repeat. All this has been recently done by an abler hand. 
 A literary monument, more durable than marble, destined to a permanent place in the 
 literature of the language, has just been completed to his memory, by one who inherits 
 his blood and his name, and whose pen is worthy of his grandfather's sword. 
 
 But I cannot refrain from bringing to the attention of the Senate some passages from 
 the eulogium pronounced upon General Greene, by Alexander Hamilton, before the 
 society of the Cincinnati. It was expected that Washington would be present, but 
 illness kept him away; but there were many there who hud served with the orator and 
 with the departed chief. No man was better fitted than Hamilton to discuss the 
 character and services of Greene. No audience was better fitted to judge of the justness 
 of the estimate which he put upon them: 
 
 " From you who knew and loved him I fear not the imputation of flattery, or enthusiasm, when 
 I indulge an expectation that the name of Greene will at once awaken in your minds the images 
 of whatever is noble and estimable in human nature. The fidelity of the portrait I shall draw will 
 therefore have nothing to apprehend from your sentence. But I dare not hope that it will meet 
 with equal justice from all others; or lhat it will entirely escape the cavils of ignorance and the 
 shafts of envy. For high as this (treat man stood in the estimation of his country, the whole extent 
 of his worth was little known. The situations in which he has appeared, though such as would 
 have measured the faculties and exhausted the resources of men who might justly challenge the 
 epithet of great, were yet incompetent to the full display of those various, rare, and exalted endow- 
 ments, with which nature only now and then decorates a favorite, as if with intention to astonish 
 mankind. 
 
 "As a man, the virtues of Greene are admitted; as a patriot, he holds a place in the foremost rank; 
 as a statesman, he is praised ; as a soldier, he is admired. But in the two last characters, especially 
 in the last but one, his reputation falls far below his desert. It required a longer life, and still greater 
 opportunities, to have enabled him to exhibit, in full day, the vast, I had almost said the cnonnou* 
 powers of his mind. 
 
 "The termination of the American war not too soon for his wishes, nor for the welfare of his 
 country, but too soon for his glory put an end to his military career. The sudden termination of
 
 his life cut him off from those scenes which the progress of a novf, immense, and unsettled empire 
 could not fail to open to the complete exertion of that universal and pervading genius which qual- 
 ified him not less for the Senate th;m for the field. 
 
 "In forming our estimate, nevertheless, of his character, we are not left to supposition and con- 
 jecture, we are not left to vague indications or uncertain appearances, which partiality might 
 varnish or prejudice discolor. \V"e have a succession of deeds, as glorious as they are unequivocal, 
 to attest the greatness and perpetuate the honors of his name." * 
 
 "He was not long there before the discerning eye of the American Fabius marked him out as the 
 object of his confidence. 
 
 "His abilities entitled him to a preeminent share in the councils of his chief. Ho gained it, and 
 ho preserved it, amid all the checkered varieties of military vicissitude, and in defiance of all the 
 intrigues of jealous and aspiring rivals. 
 
 "As long as the measures which conducted us safely through the first most critical stages of the 
 war shall be remembered with approbation ; as long as the enterprises of Trenton and Princeton 
 shall be regarded as the dawnings of that bright day which afterward broke forth with such resplen- 
 dent luster; as long as the almost m;igic operations of the remainder of the memorable winter, dis- 
 tin*uished not more by these events than by the extraordinary spectacle of a powerful army 
 straitened within narrow limits by the phantom of a military force, and never permitted to trans- 
 gress those limits with impunity, iu which skill supplied the place of means, and disposition was 
 the substitute for an army; as long, I say, as these operations shall continue to be tho objects of 
 curiosity and wonder, so long ought the name of Greene to be revered by a grateful country. 
 
 " To attribute to him a portion of the praise which is due, as well to the formation as to the execu- 
 tion of the plans that effected these important ends, can be no derogation from that wisdom and 
 magnanimity which knew how to select and embrace councils worthy of being pursued. 
 
 " The laurels of a Henry were never tarnished by the obligations he owed aud acknowledged to 
 a Sully." 
 
 After reviewing his service in the Jersey battles, the eulogist passes to the southern 
 campaign, where Greene, by the express selection of Washington, was placed iu com- 
 mand: 
 
 " Henceforth we are to view him on a more exalted eminence. He is no longer to figure in an 
 ambiguous or secondary light; he is to shine forth the artificer of his own glory the leader of 
 armies and deliverer of States I" ********** *** 
 
 "Greene, without further delay, entered upon that busy, complicated, and extraordinary scene 
 which may truly be said to form a phenomenon in war a scene which almost continually presents . 
 us, on the one hand, with Tictories ruinous to the victors; on the other, with retreats beneficial to 
 the vanquished; which exhibits to our admiration a commander almost constantly obliged to 
 relinquish the field to li is adversary, yet as constantly making acquisitions upon him; beaten to-day; 
 to-morrow, without a blow, compelling tho conqueror to remove the very object for which he had 
 conquered, and iu a manner to fly from the very foe which he had subdued." 
 
 Speaking of the bold determination of Greene after the battle of Guilford Court- 
 House to return to South Carolina, instead of going to the rescue of Virginia, threat- 
 ened by a junction of Cornwallis and Arnold, Hamilton says: 
 
 "This was one of those strokes that denote superior genius and constitute the sublime of war. It 
 Wiis Bcipio leaving Hannibal in Italy to overcome him at Carthage! 
 
 "The success was answerable to the judicious boldness of thp design. The enemy were divested 
 of their acquisitions in South Carol in a and Georgia with a rapidity which, if not ascertained, would 
 be scarcely credible. In the short space of two months all their posts in the interior of the country 
 were reduced. The perseverance, courage, enterprise, and resource displayed by the American 
 General in the course of these events commanded the admiration even of his enemies. In vain was 
 he defeated in one mode of obtaining his object; another was instantly substituted that answered 
 the end. In vain was he repulsed from before a besieged fortress; he immediately found other 
 means of compelling its defenders to relinquish their stronghold. Where force failed, address and 
 stratagem still won the prize." 
 
 Washington measured his words with care and was chary of praise. In a letter to 
 Greene, upon his retirement from the office of Quartermaster General, he wrote: 
 
 " You have conducted the various duties of it with capacity and diligence, entirely to my satis- 
 faction, and as far as I have had an opportunity of knowing, with the strictest integrity. When 
 you were prevailed on to undertake the office in March, 1778, it was in great disorder and confu- 
 sion, and by extraordinary exertions you so arranged it as to enable the Army to t;ike the field tho 
 moment it was necessary, and to move with rapidity after the enemy when they left Philadelphia. 
 From that period to the present time your exertions have been equally great. They have appeared 
 tome to be the result of system, and to have been well calculated to promote the interests and 
 honor of your country. In fine, I cannot but add that the States have had in you, in my opinion, 
 an able, upright, and diligent servant." 
 
 General Greene died at the age of forty-four. What might the country have reason- 
 ably expected from the full life of the man who, at so early an age, had accomplished 
 so much? The administrative qualities that he manifested throughout his whole mil- 
 itary service designated him for a great civil career which, probably, would not have 
 stopped short of the highest honors of the Republic. Bat a true life is measured by 
 what it accomplishes, not by the time that it lingers. He lived long enough to secure 
 for his name a place high on the enduring records of his country, forever in the affec- 
 tions of the American people.
 
 6 
 
 On the 8th of August, 1786, Congress, on a report of a committee consisting of Mr. 
 Lee, Mr. Pettit, and Mr. Carrington, adopted the following resolutions: 
 
 " Resolved, That a monument be erected to the memory of Nathanael Greene, esq., at the seat of 
 the Federal Government with the following inscription: 'Sacred to the memory of Nathanael 
 Greene, esq., a native of the State of Khode Island, who died on the 19th of June, 1786, late major 
 general in the service of the United States, and commander of their Army in the southern depart- 
 ment." 
 
 "The United States in Congress assembled, in honor of his patriotism, valor, and ability, have 
 erected this monument. 
 
 "Resolved, That the Board of Treasury take order for the execution of the foregoing resolution." 
 
 This measure of national gratitude was not carried out. 
 
 We think that we shall not be charged with undue State pride if we submit that the 
 marble which we now present to you is a worthy commencement of the collection which it 
 inaugurates, and which is to hand down to the future the glories of the past, the Valhalla 
 of America. Others will be placed by its side, worthy of the august companionship. 
 The future citizen will walk with patriotic awe among the effigies of his country's grandeur, 
 and gather inspiration as he surveys their venerated forms. States yet to be admitted 
 into the Union will crowd yonder Hall with the statues of their founders, defenders, 
 and benefactors, till the great Dome of the Capitol shall be too small to cover the silent 
 assembly of our immortal dead. 
 
 I send to the Chair a letter from the Governor of Rhode Island, which I ask to have 
 read. 
 
 The Secretary read as follows : 
 
 STATE OP RHODE ISLAND, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
 
 PROVIDENCE, January 3, 1870. 
 
 SIR: In accordance with a resolution of Congress, passed July 2, 1864,-inviting each State to furnish 
 for the old Ilall of the House of Representatives "two full-length marble statues of deceased persons 
 who have been citizens thereof, and illustrious for their renown, or from civic or military services, 
 such as each State shall determine to be worthy of national commemoration," the State of Rtuxle 
 Island, by a vote of its General Assembly, has caused to be made two marble statues, one of Roger 
 Williams, the Founderof the State, the other of Major General Nathanael Greene, a distinguished 
 officer of the Army of the Revolution. 
 
 I have now t he honor to inform you that the statue of Mnjor General Nathanael Greene, by Mr. H. K 
 Browne, an American artist, is finished, and has been forwarded to Washington and delivered to 
 the architect of the Cnpitol. 
 
 With high respect, I have the honor to remain your most obedient servant. 
 
 SETH PADELFORD. 
 To the PRESIDENT of the Senate of the United States, Washington, D. C.
 
 PRESENTATION 
 
 STATUE OF ROGER WILLIAMS, 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 9, 1872. 
 
 Mr. President, I had not intended to interpose any remarks, at this time ; for although 
 it is always an easy and a pleasant duty for a Rhode Island man to discuss the character, 
 to recount the history, and to celebrate the praises of the great Founder of our State, I 
 have received no intimation, from those who had charge of the subject at home, that 
 anything from me was expected or desired. And yet, sir, it is hardly possible for a 
 Rhode Island Senator to remain entirely silent, when, in this high presence, the theme 
 is Roger Williams; and I am sure you will not deem it an intrusion or an invasion of 
 the province of my colleague, to whose abler hands this matter has been committed, 
 and who has so well performed the duty assigned to him, if I detain you, very briefly, 
 before the question is put. 
 
 My colleague has well said that it was a happy idea to convert the old Hall of the House 
 of Representatives into the Pantheon of A merica. The idea originated with my distin- 
 guished friend who sits upon my right, [Mr. MORRILL, of Vermont,] then a leading 
 member of the House, as he is now of the Senate. It was indeed a happy idea to 
 assemble in the Capitol the silent effigies of the men who have made the annals of the 
 nation illustrious ; that here, overlooking our deliberations, inspiring cmr counsels, and 
 animating us by their example, they may seem to guard the greatness which they founded 
 or defended. 
 
 And I do not deem this proceeding an idle form, but rather a high ceremonial of the 
 Republic ; and I anticipate, with a patriotic pleasure, that it will be repeated, from time 
 to time, until every State shall have sent her contribution to this assemblage of heroes 
 and patriots and statesmen and orators and poets and scholars and divines of men who, 
 in every department of greatness, have added luster to the American name. And as 
 often as this scene shall recur, when Virginia shall send to us the statue of Washington, 
 which cannot be too often repeated in the Capitol; and with it that of Thomas Jefferson 
 or of Patrick Henry; when North Carolina shall send us Nathaniel Macon, and South 
 Carolina shall send us Sumter or Marion, and Georgia shall send us Oglethorpe ; when 
 Kentucky shall send us Daniel Boone and Henry Clay, and Tennessee shall send us 
 Andrew Jackson, and Illinois shall send us Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, 
 and Missouri shall send Thomas H. Benton ; when New York shall send us Peter 
 Stuyvesant and Alexander Hamilton ; when Connecticut shall send us Roger Sherman 
 and Jonathan Trumbull I believe they are here already, I know that the blood of both 
 is represented in this Chamber by men coming from States that were not born when the 
 names which their Senators worthily bear were first made illustrious ; when Vermont 
 shall send us the stalwart form of that hero who thundered at the gates of Ticonderoga 
 "in the name of the Continental Congress and the great Jehovah;" when New Jersey 
 shall send us the great grandfather of the Senator who sits on the opposite side of the 
 7
 
 UCSB LIBRARY 
 
 8 
 
 Chamber [Mr. STOCKTON*] and the uncle of the Senator who sits nearer me, [Mr. FRE- 
 LINGHUYSEX ;] when Pennsylvania shall send us William Penn and Be-ijamin Franklin, 
 and when Massachusetts, pausing in the embarrassment of her riches, looking down the 
 long list of her sons who, in arms, in arts, and in letters, in all the departments of 
 greatness, have contributed to her glory, shall, with. hesitating fingers, select two to 
 represent that glory here ; then, and on every such occasion. I trust that the spirit of party 
 will cease, that the voice of faction will be hushed, and that we shall give an hour to the 
 past. We shall be the wiser and better for it. 
 
 In all our history no name shines with a purer light than his whose memorial we have 
 lately placed in the Capitol. In the history of all the world there is a no more striking 
 example of a man grasping a grand idea, at once, in its full proportions, in all its 
 completeness, and carrying it out, unflinchingly, to its remotest legitimate results. 
 
 Roger Williams did not merely lay the foundation of religious freedom, he constructed 
 the whole edifice, in all its impregnable strength, in all its imperishable beauty. Those 
 who have followed him, in the same spirit, have not been able to add anything to the 
 grand and simple words in which he enunciated the principle, nor to surpass him in the 
 exact fidelity with which he reduced it to the practical business of government. 
 
 Religious freedom, which now, by general consent, underlies the foundation princi- 
 ples of civilized government, was, at that time, looked upon as a wilder theory than any 
 proposition, moral, political, or religious, that has since engaged the serious attention 
 of mankind. It was regarded as impracticable, disorganizing, impious, and, if not 
 utterly subversive of social order, it was not so only because its manifest absurdity would 
 prevent any serious effort to enforce it. The lightest punishment deemed due to its 
 confessor was to drive him out into the howling wilderness. Had he not met with more 
 Christian treatment from the savage children of the forest than he had found from "the 
 Lord's anointed," he would have perished in the beginning of his experiment. 
 
 Mr. President, fame, what we call human glory, renown, is won on many fields and _ 
 in many varieties of human effort. Some clutch it, with bloody hands, amid the smoke 
 and thunder of battle. Some woo it in the quiet retreats of study, till the calm seclusion 
 is broken by the plaudits of admiring millions, of every tongue and of every clime. 
 Some, in contests, which, if not bloody, are too often bitter and vindictive, seek it in 
 the forum, amid "the applause of listening senates," caught up and echoed back by 
 the tumultuous cheers of popular adulation. All these enjoy, while they live, the 
 renown which gilds their memories with unfading glory. The praise which attends 
 them is their present reward. It stimulates them to greater exertions and sustains 
 them in higher flights. And it is just and right. 
 
 But there is a fame of another kind, that comes in another way, that comes unsought, 
 if it comes at all ; for the first condition for those who achieve it is that they shall not 
 seek it. When a man. in the communion of his own conscience, following the lessons 
 of his own convictions, determines what it is his duty to do, and, in obscurity and 
 discouragement, with no companions but difficulty and peril, goes out to do it when 
 such a man establishes a great principle of human conduct or succeeds in achieving a 
 great amelioration or a great benefit to the human race, without the expectation or the 
 desire of reward, in present honor or in future renown, the fame that shines a glory 
 around his brow is a reflection from the "pure white light," in which the angels walk, 
 around the throne of God. 
 
 Such a man was Roger Williams. No thought of himself, no idea of recompense or 
 of praise interfered to sully the perfect purity of his motives, the perfect disinterested- 
 ness of his conduct. Laboring for the highest benefit of his fellow-men, he was entirely 
 indifferent to their praises. He knew, for God, whose prophet he was. had revealed it 
 to him, that the great principle for which he contended, and for which he suffered, 
 founded in the eternal fitness of things, would endure forever. He did not inquire if 
 his name would survive a generation. In his vision of the future, he saw mankind 
 emancipated from the thralldom of priestcraft, from the blindness of bigotry, from the 
 cruelties of intolerance ; he saw the nations walking forth in the liberty wherewith 
 Christ had made them free ; he saw no memorial of himself, in marble or in bronze, 
 or in the general admiration of mankind. More than two centuries have passed since 
 he flourished ; nearly two centuries have passed since he died, buried like Moses, for 
 "no man knoweth of his sepulcher;" and now the great doctrine which he taught 
 pervades the civilized world. A grateful State sends up here the ideal image of her 
 Founder and her Father. An appreciative nation receives it, and, through her accred- 
 ited representatives, pledges herself to preserve it among her most precious treasures.