Indeed, so intimately connected was his name
with the name of your city for sixty years, the first words that rose on
the lips of travelled men in our own country and in England, were
inquiries respecting Mr. Tazewell. The generation of men who smiled at
his wit, whose tears flowed at his bidding, who relished his wonderful
colloquial powers, who regarded with a sense of personal triumph his
marvellous displays at the Bar and in the public councils, and who
looked up to him in the hour of danger as their bulwark and defence,
have, with here and there a solitary exception, long preceded him to the
tomb. Those men were your fathers. He performed the last sad rites at
their graves, as, one by one, year after year, they passed away; and
you, their sons and successors, and, I rejoice to add, their daughters
and granddaughters, have now met to pay a tribute to his memory. To
honor the illustrious dead is a noble and a double office. It speaks
with one accord and in a language not to be mistaken, the worth of those
who have gone before us, and the worth of those who yet survive.
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