Davis was a traitor with
a vigorous denial. When I made a motion excepting Jefferson
Davis from the benefit of the bill to pension the soldiers
of the Mexican War, Mr. Lamar compared him to Prometheus,
and me to the vulture preying upon his liver. He was the
last person from whom I should have expected an expression
of compliment, or even of kindness in those days. Yet when
the question of my reelection was pending in 1883 and the
correspondent of a newspaper which was among my most unrelenting
and unscrupulous opponents thought he might get some material
which would help him in his attacks, called upon Mr. Lamar
in the Democratic cloak room, and asked him what he thought
of me, Mr. Lamar replied in language which seems almost ridiculous
to quote, and which was inspired only by his indignation
at the attempt to use him for such a purpose: "Sir, Massachusetts
has never been more powerfully represented in the Senate,
not even in the time of Daniel Webster, than by Mr. Hoar."
It was with feeling of great pleasure that in 1886 I saw
Harvard confer her highest honor on this delightful Mississippian.
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