tiality with which he for many years presided in this court, first as Associate and afterward as Chief-Justice." The day appointed by your honors having now arrived, I rise at the request of my brethren of the bar to offer resolutions passed by them, and to give utterance in some measure to my own appreciation of the exalted character and services of the illustrious dead. Charles H. DuPont was born in Beaufort District, in the State of South Carolina, on January 27th, 1805. He lost his father at an early age. His mother, judging from the jewel she gave the world in her son, must have been what the mother of the Gracchi would have been if she had enjoyed, like the mother of Judge DuPont, the chastening influences of the Christian religion. Judge DuPont, in his old age, often spoke of his mother in terms of the tenderest filial affection. Although she had been dead for many years her virtues were as fully impressed upon his heart, and her likeness as clearly photographed upon his memory, as though he had seen her but recently. When he was about the age of ten years, his mother sent him to be educated in the State of Ohio, partly by working on a farm and partly by going to school. Whether laboring on a farm or going to school contributed most to the formation of the character of the man whose memory we are now assembled to honor, I will not undertake to say. When I reflect on the thousands of educated men whose hands have learned the art of "picking and stealing," simply because in youth they had not been taught the noble art and duty of earning a living by honest labor, I am disposed to think that the mother of Judge DuPont conferred upon her son quite as great a blessing when she caused him to be taught to labor on a farm with his own hands as when she caused him to be taught the knowledge of the school-room and college. He was transferred from the farm and school in Ohio to Franklin College in the State of Georgia, where he graduated in the year 1826. His college life seems to have been a scene of perpetual sunshine. It was a theme on which he was never tired. He delighted to tell, till his last days, with the joy of youth sparkling in his eyes, the names of his classmates, how they stood in their class, and their respective virtues and talents; and when, in the recital, he came to the names of those who, like himself, had illustrated their family, or rendered services to their country, his face would glow with an emotion which told better than words could do how sincere was the joy of his heart, how exalted the pride of his soul. If they had been his own brothers he could not have rejoiced more in their success. I have often thought how wonderfully heaven blessed this man in enabling him to be so happy in witnessing the happiness of oth ers. Shortly after he graduated, to wit: in the year 1827, he came to Gadsden county, Florida, and purchased a plantation near Quincy, which he cultivated, and on which he lived, and at the same time he commenced the practice of the law. Strange to say he succeeded both as a planter and as a lawyer. The law, though a jealous mistress, not generally toler ating the attentions of her votaries to any but herself, seems in his case to have been so enamored of her favorite that she permitted him to engage in what pursuits he pleased, and yet granted him her favors. Doubtless the ardor of his devotions while at her shrine made amends for his occasional absences in the worship of others. Being successful both at the law and in planting, he soon collected about him all the comforts and many of the luxuries of life. He built in the town of Quincy an elegant and capacious mansion, which was long the seat of refinement and the very home of hospitality-a hospitality so admirably dispensed that the guest forgot that he was receiving a favor, and felt sure that he was conferring one by partaking of it. Thinking of the hospitality of Judge DuPont in those early days, I am reminded of the description given by the poet Ossian of the hospitality of one of his heroes: "The light of heaven was in the bosom of Cathmor; his towers rose on the banks of Arha; seven paths led to his halls; seven chiefs stood on the paths to call the strangers to the feast; but Cathmor dwelt in the wood to avoid the voice of praise." The voice of his fellow-citizens, however, did not long permit our Cathmor to dwell in the wood of retirement. Soon it called him to be the judge of the county court of Gadsden, then to represent his county in the House of Representatives, and then in the Senate. Returning to the enjoyments of private life, to the practice of his profession, and the cultivation of his plantation, his days seemed destined to float down the stream of time without a ripple. But how little do we know what changes a day may bring about. How fallacious are the hopes of man. Amidst the domestic, professional, and social bliss which Judge DuPont was at this time enjoying, and expecting a long duration of, there came upon the still air, in the year 1836, the wild war-whoop of savage Indians, followed by the screams of women and children under the inflictions of the tomahawk and scalping-knife. The people cast around hurried glances in search of a man suitable to lead them to war. They soon found such a man in Charles H. DuPont; him they elected their General, and he led them to the field, teaching them on the march and in the camp to regard him as a tender father, but in the hour of battle as the fierce avenger of murdered women and children, and themselves as his instruments. It is for the pen of the historian to tell how well he discharged his duties as a soldier. He continued in the military service till the end of the war, and again returned to the walks of private life and the enjoyment of the large estate which he had now accumulated. But scarcely had he time to contemplate his fortune before securing debts, arising out of endorsements for friends and a banking institution with which he had been connected, swept the whole away and left him without a dollar. The accumulation of years had vanished in a day. From being a man of great wealth he was now penniless. What should he do? spend the balance of his life in making his friends miserable by telling them how miserable he was himself? Should he take to the bottle for consolation? Should he ask God to terminate his miserable existence? Not so, thought Judge DuPont. There were still enough happy people in Should he give himself up to despondency, and the world to make him happy by looking at them. He was yet in the prime of life, and said to himself: "It is true I have lost one fortune, but enough of life and strength are left me to make another," and so without a word of repining he went to work and did make another even larger than the first. Thus again, in the midst of domestic happiness and surrounded with all the comforts and luxuries which wealth can give, he was willing thus to spend the balance of his days. But his friends said to him, this must not be. You must go up higher. You must be one of the Associate-Justices of the Supreme Court of our State. You have shown us how to bear prosperity and adversity; you have shown us how to plant and how to practice law, how to preside as county judge, how to fight a savage foe, how to perform the duties of Representative and Senator, and now we want you to go into the Chief Temple of Justice and minister as High Priest at her sacred altars. "He was not made of stone; But flesh and bood like other men, And subject to their kind entreaties." So he accepted the office of Associate-Justice in 1854, and served until his term expired, and was then promoted in 1860 to the office of ChiefJustice of the Supreme Court of the State, which he continued to hold until two and a half years after the late civil war, when the reconstruction act of Congress remitted him once more to the sweets of private life. The manner in which he discharged his duties as a member of this court is best shown by the Florida Reports, from volume six to volume twelve inclusive. From a perusal of his opinions in those volumes it will be seen that he was an able, honest, learned, studious and industrious judge, and these reports will be a noble monument to his memory, so long as men shall continue to revere the great principles of our judicial system. But his firmness, dignity, gentleness, blandness of manner, his noble bearing and courteous demeanor toward the other members of the court and the members of the bar, particularly the younger members, do not and cannot and do not appear in the reports, and will be forgotten when his contemporaries shall like himself have passed away. When Judge DuPont retired from the office of Chief-Justice into private life, after the war, he had become an old man. His fortune which, as we have said, was ample, had now again vanished, and he was a poor man, for though he was still the owner of large bodies of land, yet, as his lands were not saleable and as he had no laborers with whom to cultivate them, they became a tax and a burthen instead of a blessing. In addition to this, he owed some debts which he could have payed without difficulty in previous years, but which now pressed upon him with the weight of a mountain. But he did not repine and despond and die out of his difficulties as some have done. Far from it. He knew that his respectability did not depend on his possessions or on his positions. He recognized the truths taught in the couplet "Honor and fame from no condition rise Act well your part, there all the honor lies." He would have considered it a greater honor to be a good Justice of the Peace than a bad Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court. He would have considered it a greater honor to be an honest day-laborer than a dishonest President of the United States. Nor was his happiness in the slightest degree interfered with by this change in his circumstances, for his happiness had always been derived, not from wealth or power, but from doing the very best he could in whatever situation Providence might please to place him, and in witnessing the happiness of others. Under the influence of these teachings he maintained a resolute soul and a cheerful face. He sold his fine house in town to pay a debt, and removed to his plantation in the country where he commenced life in 1827, and there, at the age of seventy years, he engaged with his own hands in the cultivation of his crops with as much ardor and perseverance as he had displayed in his youth. Through the cold of winter and the heat of summer, day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, for eight long years, he was there seen bravely laboring with his axe, or hoe, or at the plow-handles. But not for one hour during this protracted effort to secure the necessaries of life for his family did he cease to think of the public welfare. He organized an agricultural society in his own county, and by his numerous writings and public addresses endeavored to rouse his countrymen from the lethargy in which the war had left them into renewed energy and prosperity, his daily example being even more eloquent than his words. The agricultural society of this State owes it to itself to write a history of his efforts in its behalf. At length, his political friends having gained ascendancy in the State, Judge DuPont once more heard the voice of his country calling him into her service. She desired him to accept the important mission of visiting the States of the great Northwest, of setting forth the advantages of his beloved Florida, and inviting immigrants to come and live within her borders. When this call was made upon him, Judge DuPont was suffering as none can suffer, except those who experience a similar calamity. He had just lost the wife of his youth, a most lovely and excellent lady, to whom he was very tenderly attached. He had been able to bear the loss of property, the loss of office, and the pressure of poverty and old age without a murmur, but this blow was too heavy for him. At first he did not respond to the call, but after an interval of some weeks, by the aid of his strong will, he rallied and signified his readiness to enter upon the duties assigned him. VOL. XVI-1 I can well imagine that at this period he felt the sentiments, if he did not use the language, of Fingal: "The days of my years begin to fail; I feel the weakness of my arm; my fathers bend from their clouds to receive their gray-haired son. But before I go hence one beam of fame shall rise; so shall my days end as my years begun, in honor; my life shall be one stream of light to bards of other times; I will leave my fame behind me like the last beams of the sun when he hides his red head in the West." He visited Tallahassee, the mere shadow of his former self, a noble spirit almost disembodied, to make preparations for his long journey, and these being completed he immediately commenced it. His strong will and great hope of being useful to his State sustained him till he reached the city of Minneapolis, in the far Western State of Minnesota. There death laid its cold hand upon him, and we soon received a telegram from Col. Stevens and Dr. Fell, to whom the gratitude of Florida is forever due for their kindness to him, informing us of his extreme illness. A loving and beloved son hastened to him. He insisted on being brought immediately back to his dear Florida, and would listen to no sug gestions of delay. He reached Quincy on October 13, 1877, thanked God that he had been permitted once more to see his home, his family and his friends, and on the next morning, a beautiful Sunday morning, at five minutes to seven o'clock, in the house of his son-in-law, Captain Wm. B. Ma lone, surrounded by his weeping children and friends, and lamented by all the people of his State, he calmly yielded up his noble spirit to the great God who gave it. "To live with fame The Gods allow to many, but to die Selects from all her choicest boons of fate, And with a sparing hand, on few bestows." I must add that from his earliest manhood, through all the vicissitudes of his checkered life, as a lawyer, as a planter, as a statesman, as a judge, as a general, in poverty and in wealth, in prosperity and in adversity, he was an humble, ardent, devout, active and leading member of the Meth. odist Episcopal Church. Semper paratus, the motto of his native State, he had adopted as his own, and when the final summons came it found him ready. Having now contributed my leaf to the chaplet with which we are met to crown the memory of our lamented friend, I give way to others who will follow me, and who are more able than myself to speak of his servi ces to his country and to delineate the strong points of his intellectual and moral character. He has done the work of a good man Crown him, honor him, love him; Weep over him tears of woman, Stoop manliest brows above him! In conclusion, I have the honor to submit to the court the following tribute from the bar, to-wit: (Mr. Walker then read the preceding resolu tions.) |