390 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Feb. 26,

Mr. President:

Upon such an occasion as this, so productive of
sadness, my own inclination is to keep my seat,
and in common with my brother Senators, who may
not address the Senate, share the unexpressed feel-
ings of bereavement felt by every Senator at the death
of our departed friend and colleague.

But knowing, as I did, not long, but for the period
of our acquaintance, quite well, the late Senator from
Calvert county, and during that time having learned
to admire his many virtues as a man, and to know his
unceasing interest in the welfare of his native State,
3 feel that I may be permitted to add my humble
tribute to the memory of a departed friend, one of our
own Body, and one who has been so suddenly and
unexpectedly taken from our midst and hurried into
"The undiscovered country from whose bourne no
tralever returns. "

Senator Talbott was a man of unusual diffidence and
retirement, yet one whose every impulse was noble
and honorable, in the privacy of friendly converse he
lias often talked to me upon matters of public interest
and it was noticeable that his sole effort was to ascer-
tain what was right, and then to follow the road which
led to its accomplishment.

In the heated and excited contest which has just been
considered by the Senate's Committee on Elections, in
which the deceased Senator was the contestee, his polit-
ical opponents, both through counsel and personally,
expressed to me, as a member of that committee,
their abiding belief in the personal integrity of
the contestee, and that if any fraud was committed in
that election he was as free as the most upright from
any participation in that fraud. This was the testi-
mony of his political opponents.

Death is never a welcome visitor. Sorrow follows in
Ms wake whenever and wherever he comes to claim a
victim. Homes, whether they be of the poor or rich, of
the aged or young, are startled and sorrowed at the
touch of the wing of the Angel of Death. But when his
victim is one in the prime of manhood, one honored
by the State of his nativity with a seat in the upper
House of her Legislative Department, with aged