University of Virginia Library

THE LATE CHARLES HAMMOND,
OF CINCINNATI.

The death of Mr. Hammond has smitten a large
circle of personal and political friends throughout
the Union with grief; though it was an event
which we have been daily expecting for months—
for occasionally we would hear that there was
hope, which made us forget that Death sometimes
delays the blow, to make his aim the surer. When
the news reached us that he was better, we would
flatter ourselves that it was a prognostic of recovery,
when we should have reflected that it was
but a gleam of sunshine through the closing clouds
—but the quietude of increasing debility, which
had not energy to be restless.

For many months he was confined entirely to
his room, and for many weeks past entirely to his
bed, in which he could not change his position
without assistance. With heroic fortitude he bore

his sufferings, with resignation he bowed to the
high behest, and breathed his last as quietly as an
infant sinks to rest.

Truly, we may say in the oft quoted language
of Scripture, not often more justly applied: “A
great man has fallen this day in Israel.” Mr.
Hammond's talents were of the highest order. As
a lawyer, he was sagacious and profound; he not
only applied to the case before him the energies of
a great mind, but he traced it up to the first principles,
and illustrated it by the light of various
knowledge. While the subtlety of his discrimination
partook somewhat of scholastic refinement, he
was remarkable for generalizing his subject, and
viewing it philosophically. Though he never
figured in the cabinet or on the bench, and held,
but for a short time, many years ago, a seat in the
Ohio State Legislature, yet his editorial disquisitions
prove him to have been a statesman who took
his views from the fathers of the constitution, and
who could expound it as though he sat at its adoption.
As a constitutional lawyer, he was thorough
and practical. He handled the great questions, as
they arose, with the ease of a county court lawyer
filing a declaration on a promissory note. In such
questions he delighted. His celebrated argument,
many years ago, on the constitutionality of the
Bank of the United States, was pronounced by
Judge Marshall the ablest effort on the subject he

had ever heard. The graces of the orator were
denied to Mr. Hammond, but “he spoke right
on,” and with a force, directness, and mental
power, which commanded the closest attention.
He was very fond of the study of theology; and
when he first went to Cincinnati, he held an
anonymous controversy with a certain clergyman,
in which he gained so decided an advantage, that
the clerical gentleman was at some pains to learn
who his antagonist was; and when he did so, he
called on Mr. Hammond and begged him to drop
the controversy, and spare him. When the controversy
occurred in Cincinnati between Bishop
Purcell and Mr. Campbell, Mr. Hammond was a
constant attendant; and all who heard him converse
on the subject, who did not know how various
was his information, were astonished at his display
of Biblical learning. He kept himself acquainted
with the current literature of the day. Such
authors as he held vicious he would not read,
farther than to catch their opinions; and if he
spoke of them in his paper, it was with stern denunciation.
Of the imaginative writers of the day,
Walter Scott was his favorite; and he was very
fond of James's works. In almost the last conversation
the writer of this held with him, he spoke
of the latter's “Gentleman of the Old School” in
terms of praise. Bulwer and Byron he would not
read. In the authors of Queen Ann's time, he
was deeply versed; Dryden, Pope, Swift, and Addison
were as familiar to him as his law books. He
was, too, a general reader of history, and no partial
garbling of the historian could bias his accurate
judgment of the actor and the event. In our
own history, next to Washington, the man whose
memory he loved the most was Chief-Justice Marshall.
He used to say that the argument of the
Chief-Justice, in the case of Jonathan Robbins, on
the floor of Congress, was, take it all in all, the
most argumentative and conclusive speech on record.
Philip Doddridge, who died some years
since, in Congress, was the friend whose memory
he cherished the warmest. He thought him one
of the finest minds the country has produced; and
it was a mental luxury to hear him repeat passages
from his deceased friend's speeches, and
narrate anecdotes of his intellectual triumphs.

But Mr. Hammond was not more distinguished
for the qualities of his head than for those of his
heart. While he was inflexibly upright in his judgment
of men, he had an apologizing indulgence for
the frailties of humanity, which yielded assistance
even where he condemned; and which loved to recount
the traits of better deeds, even in the condemnation.
His charity was not confined to words;
it was, in fact, practised more than preached.
When the cholera was at its height in Cincinnati,
the writer of this dwelt in Front Street below Elm,

and one of the inmates of the family being prostrated
by the scourge, he was sitting at his door
about twelve o'clock one night, anxiously looking
out for the doctor. At this time Mr. Hammond
came up from the lower part of the street, and
asked after the sick person. After answering, as
the writer had seen him pass by before, and never
knew him to do so except during the cholera, he
inquired what brought him down there in what was
called the most infected part of the city. “Why,”
said he, “there is an old man down here whose
father I knew; he was a great Indian fighter; I
have got a person to nurse him, and I step round
occasionally to see that he does his duty.” A
hundred anecdotes like this could be told of him.

The late venerable Matthew Carey observed to
the writer, and he was certainly a judge of men,
that he considered Mr. Hammond not only one of
the ablest, but one of the most philanthropic men
he had ever known.

Mr. Hammond's integrity was stainless. He
would not have compromised the independence of
his character for any earthly consideration. His
editorial career proves this. If ever to a man the
phrase of the poet could be applied—

it was to Mr. Hammond. Of servility and time-serving,
he had a hatred that amounted to abhorrence.
When it became necessary, in his opinion,
to comment upon the public conduct of any man,
or any set of men, Mr. Hammond never asked
himself what injury he or they could do him; his
inquiry was, what injury has been done to others,
and why was it done? To the last he felt a deep
interest, not only in our general, but in State and
city politics, and so expressed himself.

In politics, he was what is called a Federalist of
the old school, what demagogues are fond of calling
an aristocrat; but there was no aristocracy in Mr.
Hammond, saving that of personal independence.
He loved to live plainly. His wants were few. He
seemed only to value money as far as it enabled him
to assist others. The glare of fashion he despised.
He, who was called by certain politicians the aristocrat,
was seen on the most familiar terms with his
humblest neighbors, with whom he delighted to
converse, while he was too apt to cut short a
colloquy with those who held themselves entitled
to his consideration. Wealthy pretension,
without merit, he frowned down if it but glanced
dictation, or passed it by with cold indifference.
For meanness he had a loathing; while the generous
action or the noble sentiment brought the tear
to his manly eye. Often, when attempting to narrate
an affecting incident, his feelings would choke
his utterance, and he would change the subject.

For religion he had a profound respect, and always
so expressed himself.

Mr. Hammond had his frailties; but it is not for
the writer of this notice to dwell upon them. It
was said of the Roman Cato, that he “sometimes
warmed his patriotism with wine,” and that was
the “head and front” of Mr. Hammond's offending,
and no more.

Almost the first hand which greeted the writer
when he landed, a stranger in Cincinnati, was that
which is now cold in death; from that hour until
the last it always was extended to him in kindness.
He feels as if one of the great sources of his pride,
gratification, and instruction, was dried up, and is
ready to exclaim with Fisher Ames over the bier
of Alexander Hamilton: “Penetrated with the
fond recollections of the man, my heart grows liquid
while I write, and I could pour it out like water.”

A few days before his death he requested to be
buried without any pomp, and that a plain slab,
bearing his name and the date of his birth and
death, should be placed over him.

His monument is in the memory of the philanthropic,
the intelligent, and the good, and in those
hearts round his hearth, who have garnered up so
many affectionate memorials of him, and who cherish
his virtues and practise them.