Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

Whether on that August morning after death, he saw a more glorious sun rise with unimaginable splendor above a celestial horizon, or whether his apathetic and unconscious ashes still sleep in cold obstruction and insensible oblivion—we do not know.

Whether his strong and subtle energies found instant exercise in another forum, whether his dexterous and undisciplined faculties are now contending in a higher Senate than ours for supremacy, or whether his powers were dissipated and dispersed with his parting breath—we do not know.

Whether his passions, ambitions, and affections still sway, attract, and impel, whether he yet remembers us as we remember him—we do not know.

These are the unsolved, the insolvable problems of mortal life and human destiny, which prompted the troubled patriarch to ask that momentous question, for which the centuries have given no answer: “If a man die, shall he live again?”

Every man is the centre of a circle, whose fatal circumference he cannot pass. Within its narrow confines he is potential, beyond it he perishes; and if immortality is a splendid, but delusive dream, if the incompleteness of every career, even the longest and most fortunate, be not supplemented and perfected after its termination here, then he who dreads to die should fear to live, for life is a tragedy more desolate and inexplicable than death. [40]

Of all the dead whose obsequies we have paused to solemnize in this chamber, I recall no one whose untimely fate seems so lamentable, and yet so rich in prophecy, as that of Senator Hill. He had reached the meridian of his years. He stood upon the high plateau of middle life, in that serene atmosphere where temptation no longer assails, where the clamorous passions and contention, such as infrequently fall to the lot of men, no longer find exercise. Though not without the tendency to meditation, reverie, and introspection which accompanies genius, his temperament was palestric. He was competitive and unpeaceful. He was born a polemic and controversialist, intellectually pugnacious and combative, so that he was impelled to defend any position that might be assailed, or to attack any position that might be intrenched, not because the defence or assault was essential, but because the positions were maintained, and those who held them became, by that fact alone, his adversaries. This tendency of his nature made his orbit erratic. He was meteoric, rather than planetary, and flashed with irregular splendor, rather than shone with steady and penetrating rays. His advocacy of any cause was fearless to the verge of temerity. He appeared to be indifferent to applause or censure, for their own sake. He accepted intrepidly any conclusion that he reached, without inquiring whether it was politic or expedient.

To such a spirit partisanship was unavoidable, but with Senator Hill it did not degenerate into bigotry. He was capable of broad generosity, and extended to his opponents the same unreserved candor which he demanded for himself. His oratory was impetuous, and devoid of artifice. He was not a posturer or phrase-monger. He was too intense, too earnest, to employ the cheap and paltry decorations of discourse. He never reconnoitred a hostile position, nor approached it by stealthy parallels. He could not lay siege to an enemy, nor beleaguer him, nor open trenches, and sap and mine. His method was the charge and the onset. He was the Murat of senatorial debate. Not many men of this generation have been better equipped for parliamentary warfare than he, with his commanding presence, his sinewy diction, his confidence, and imperturbable selfcontrol.

But in the maturity of his powers and his fame, with unmeasured opportunities for achievement apparently before him, with great designs unaccomplished, surrounded by the proud and affectionate solicitude of a great constituency, the pallid messenger with the inverted torch beckoned him to depart. There are few scenes in history more tragic than that protracted combat with death. No man had greater inducements to live. But in the long struggle against the inexorable advances of an insidious and mortal malady, he did not falter or repine. He retreated with the aspect of a victor, and though he succumbed, he seemed to conquer. His sun went down at noon, but it sank amid the prophetic splendors of an eternal dawn.

With more than a hero's courage, with more than a martyr's fortitude, he waited the approach of the inevitable hour, and went to the undiscovered country.