Schuyler Colfax's Sine die Address of March 2, 1867

by Schuyler Colfax

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:

To be called to this responsible position by the voluntary choice of my fellow members more than fills the measure of an honorable ambition. To be cordially supported by those of all political creeds, amid the exciting scenes so frequent in a body of American legislators, is an evidence of confidence and regard I shall prize to the latest moment of my life. But to be indorsed by you all in the resolution you have spread on your Journal, and which you have adopted with such unusual significance and earnestness, beggars me in words of thanks. To be able to retire from this chair When laying down its emblem of authority, with none to reproach me, on the one hand, for infidelity to the principles I cherish, and none on the other to impugn or deny the rigid impartiality with which I have striven to administer your rules, has been my earnest and daily endeavor in the years that now are garnered with the past.

The greatest of my official predecessors, whose memory is still enshrined in so many hearts, and who eminently honored this chair, declared as the essential of a presiding officer promptitude and impartiality in deciding the complex questions of order often sprung instantaneously upon him; firmness and thoroughness in his decisions; patience and good temper toward every member; and, above all, to remain cool and unshaken amid the storms of debate and during those moments of agitation from which no deliberative assembly is exempt, carefully guarding the rules of the House from being sacrificed to temporary passions, prejudices, or interests. Never hoping to reach this high standard, it has been ever before my mind, as the sculptor studies the model of the great master of his art, hoping to leave behind him a copy not entirely unworthy of the original.

Though death has not spared our circle, and New York, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania have been called to mourn the loss of faithful representatives, we come to this closing hour with our ranks thinned less than usual by paralyzing sickness or wasting disease. We separate, after months of the conflicts and excitements of an eventful era, with a general good will as gratifying as it is creditable. We can never all meet again. But as in a distant landscape the eye rests with delight on its beauties, while its defects are thrown into unnoticed shade, may memory, as in after years we review our associations here, bring before us all the pleasures of this companionship in the national service, forgetful of the asperities which should perish with the occasions that evoked them!

But as these parting words are said, another Congress wait for our seats; and with a heart full of gratitude for your unvarying kindness, I declare the House of Representatives of the thirty-ninth Congress of the United States adjourned without day

Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 1866-1867 SATURDAY, March 2, 1867.