With almost the first sentence they broke into loud applause. It was a tribute to the speaker, not the sentiment he uttered. The speech was a challenge throughout. He denounced the measure with such boldness and eloquence that the house was surprised, electrified, convinced. He ended the speech amid great confusion, the nature of which he did not exactly understand. He went to his seat amid the hubbub, thinking that he had disgraced himself, and that the clamor was a protest.

Gen. John C. Breckinridge, himself then a young man, and serving his second term, came up to him and spoke abruptly: "Have you any friends in this house, sir?"

Gen. Cullom sprang to his feet, mistaking his meaning, and answered defiantly:

"No, not that I am aware of, sir; but I am here myself!"

"I wanted him to understand," said the General, in relating the incident, "that I was my own particular friend, and was ready to stand to my rights."

Breckinridge added: "Well, if you've got any friends, my advice to you is to have them kill you at once. There are men who have been here for thirty years and haven't made as much reputation as you've made in that one speech. stemmed the tide, sir; you did it well.”

You've

Undoubtedly the speech made a great impression. The result was that the resolution was put to the house and defeated by a large majority. It was the direct effect of Gen. Cullom's speech. It was a surprising spectacle-the defeat of a measure, backed by a determined majority, by the single speech of a new member. Congratulations came from all quarters. The young Congressman had achieved at once a national distinction. No man, perhaps, ever in the history of Congress rose so high as the result of a first speech. No man was ever able to defeat a measure upon which was centered the hope of an enthusiastic majority, by a single oration. No man was ever before made clerk of the House, in the face of strong opposi tion, by a simple resolution. Few were ever able before to secure recognition from the outset. From his very first appearance Gen. Cullom was recognized as a man of power. He was the friend of the eminent men of the period; of Clay, Webster,

Benton, etc. He stood among them a peer, strong and capable, a superb figure.

His relations with Henry Clay were cordial. The great statesman, then far past the zenith of his fame-an old man, but a great figure still-heard Cullom's first speech upon the Kossuth resolution, sought him out and congratulated him. He recognized him as the ablest of the younger members, the rising hope of the Whig party. Somehow, though Clay was Cullom's particular friend, the relations between him and his son, James H. Clay, were never cordial. Gen. Cullom related to me the circumstances of his duel with young Clay, which I transmit as nearly verbatim as possible. Young Clay had a prominent position in Washington at the time. He was a tall, slim, supercilious and rather haughty man. On one occasion Clay was with some friends in the National Hotel and sion Clay was with some friends in the National Hotel, and his friends laughed. Cullom did not understand the allusion. and politely asked for an explanation. They laughed again among themselves. In relating the incident Cullom said:

"I was standing near him, and when he refused the second time to make an explanation, I knocked him, I think, about forty feet. He got up mumbling and went away. The next day he sent me a challenge to fight a duel. This I determined to accept. I sent for Gen. Zollicoffer, my best friend. He advised me strongly against fighting a duel with Clay, and said I could avoid it honorably. I told him I would be compelled to disregard his advice. I accepted the challenge. The rumor of the duel went like wild fire over Washington. The law with respect to duelling was very strict in the District of Columbia, so I was compelled to go over to Baltimore to avoid arrest. Clay went over the Potomac into Virginia and shot at times for a couple of days. Finally we met on the duelling grounds across the Potomac. It was early morning, a chill December morning. A great fog lay over the river, and you could discern things only at short range. A group of men emerged from the trees and approached us. It was Clay's party. My friends, Gen. Zollicoffer and Col. Foute, advanced to meet them. The latter made overtures and finally a compromise

was effected, satisfactory to Mr. Clay and myself. Our wrath was appeased, our honor respectfully maintained and satisfied, and the duel became merely a fiasco. We shook hands, but we were never cordial friends again." However, there was no break in the friendship of Cullom and Henry Clay. He was with him continuously until his death. He was present when he died and heard his last whispered words. It is indisputable that Clay regarded Cullom among his ablest allies in the Whig party.

I have heard Cullom relate the circumstances of his last illness.

"His valet," said the General, "would dress him and lay him out upon the sofa to receive and discourse with his friends. He was calm, but his mind was clear. He listened intently to all that was said, asking to be excused from talking. He took a vivid interest in everything. Now and then he would be seized with a violent, shaking cough, at the end of which he would merely say, quietly, 'Ah, I fear I have greatly sinned.' He was gentle, stately and uncomplaining in his last illness; everything he uttered was with a certain calm dignity of diction, natural to the man.”

Clay's expectations for Cullom were realized. The latter's reputation was admirably sustained in subsequent debate in an all too brief career. His reputation, indeed, had a more solid foundation than his single Kossuth speech. He made many great speeches, some far more able utterances than that, notably the one upon the Kansas-Nebraska bill. In this prolonged and memorable debate, no speech delivered in either branch of Congress was more notable for vigor and directness of statement than the speech of Gen. Cullom. It stamped him at once as a great debater, capable of profound reasoning. His language was always terse, strong and original; he was at all points alert and poised.

Cullom's relations with the great men of the period were cordial; in many cases unique and interesting. Meredith P. Gentry, of Tennessee, invited Cullom to go with him to Webster's reception. Webster was then a Presidential aspirant,

assiduously nursing his boom. It was the first of January, the day for receptions by political leaders in those days.

Cullom was fresh from Tennessee, unaccustomed to social functions, and all that was new to him.

"I found myself," said General Cullom, in telling the amus. ing story, "inside a spacious mansion, something finer than I had ever seen. I was set for bowing, and so I backed right and left. There were statues here and there, and I went about bowing to them. That was the first time I ever saw a statue indoors. When I discovered my mistake I resolved not to be fooled again. Gentry caught me by the arm and we came up face to face to a large, stately figure, perfectly immovable. He looked straight at me. There was a deep pallor on his face and no sign of emotion or life. I thought it was a statue and held back. Then a hand came up like an automatom. He gave me the tips of his digets. They were as cold as a dog's nose. This was my first glimpse of Daniel Webster. Afterwards I came to know him well. I never altered my opion of him, as a supremely great man, the greatest man of his time."

This was when the General first went to Washington and before he had made a reputation. Numberless other anecdotes of real interest as illustrating much of the spirit of the times, as well as the character of the General himself, were related to me by General Cullom, but in the interest of brevity, must be excluded.

By a resolution introduced by Russell Sage, then serving a term in Congress, Cullom served as clerk of the House of Representatives for four years. Then returning to Tennessee, removed from Carthage to Lexington, in Overton county. He was then appointed by Governor Porter, Attorney General for the Sixteenth Judicial Circuit and moved to Clinton.

When he moved into East Tennessee, which was then as now, strongly Republican, his public career, at least in politics, was at an end. He was elected Attorney General, but failed of re-election to Congress against Col. J. M. Thornburg. This was in 1876. After that time he made no attempt to enter politics. In later years he lived upon the memory of

what he had been, in the days when he was in his sphere amid stirring scenes. Even in his latest days the scenes were still vivid to him and he was fond of recurring to them. Those were the days of achievement and triumph; it was a fleeting triumph, perhaps, when we consider the long years he has lived, but it has been the source of great pleasure in the reminiscence. He became suddenly and, indeed, deservedly, a great figure, but untoward circumstances made it a fleeting glimpse. He filled the sphere completely while he held it, and the national distinction which he won was indeed something to be proud of.

Yet he has filled a sphere in Tennessee since, quite as amply, if with somewhat less distinction. Among the lawyers he is known everywhere in the State. He was, indeed, in some respects, a fine lawyer. He had great common sense and knew the law intuitively. He could instantly conceive the process of argument by which a conclusion was reached, and was acquainted with the reasoning of the law. It was enough for him to know the elementary principles of right and wrong, and knowing these he could never be taken by surprise. He was prepared by reason of his readiness and easy grasp of a subject, for any emergency. He was eminently successful as Attorney General, though he confessed never to have read a book on criminal law in his life. "Books," he was in the habit of saying, "were made for fools." The tradition of his great abilities as prosecuting attorney still lingers in those counties where he practiced. The anecdotes of him have traveled over the State, until they are known to all the older members of the bar. It is in this capacity, of lawyer and Attorney General, that he will be longest remembered in Tennessee. Wherever a group of lawyers gather you may hear the name of General Cullom. No man in the State has furnished so much material for amusing anecdote. They illustrate far better, that the raciest narrative, the real temperament of the man. He traveled over the Cumberland plateau with Judge D. K. Young, then judge of the Sixteenth Judicial Circuit, Col. W. A. Henderson and others, as Attorney General. The circuit extended from Jacksboro, in Campbell coun