IN MEMORY OF EX-SENATOR CHAPMAN.
At the hour of 3 the LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR resumed the Chair, and announced the order to be memorial service in honor of General George Chapman, late a member of this body.
Mr. SPANN moved that the courtesies of the floor be extended to Mayor Grubbs, who was a fellow Senator with General Chapman, and that he be allowed to make such remarks as he may see fit.
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. VAN VORHIS offered the following:
Resolved, That in the death of Senator George H. Chapman, this Senate has lost an able officer and valuable member, the people of the State a conscientious Representative, the State a most useful citizen, and the Nation a patriot and one of its bravest defenders.
Mr. VAN VORHIS read a sketch of the life of his late colleague [General George H. Chapman] and though not feeling qualified to be his eulogist-not being intimately acquainted previous to the election of 1880-his paper was more largely a memorial tribute than biographical.
Messrs. Willard, Spann, Fletcher, [General Chapman's successor] ex-Senator Grubbs, [by courtesy of the Senate], Henry, Ristine, Bundy, Graham, [who sat at the same desk with General Chapman last session] and Brown, following in remarks suited to the occasion.
In support of this resolution, Mr. Van Vorhis said:
Mr. President-Senator George H. Chapman was born in Holland, Mass., November 1832. His father was Jacob P. Chapman, who was for several years prominently identified with the press of Indiana.
The late Senator received most of his early education in Indianapolis, in the Marion County Seminary. At the age of fifteen he entered the United States Navy as a midshipman, where he remained three years. In 1853, he was connected with his father in the publication of a paper known as "The Chanticleer." afterward as the Indiana Republican. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1857. In the same year he was Assistant Clerk of the House of Representatives. In 1859 and 1860 he was Assistant Clerk of the Lower House of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses. On October 21, 1861, after the beginning of the War of Rebellion, he was appointed Major of the Third Indiana Cavalry. One year after he was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel, and in less than five months more Colonel. On July 21, 1864, he was promoted to be Brigadier General of volunteers. On Mary 13, 1865, for meritorious conduct at the battle of Winchester, he was breveted Major General of volunteers. After the close of the War he was first appointed and afterward elected Judge of the Marion Criminal Court. After the close of his term of office as Judge he engaged in the practice of his profession in this city. In the fall of 1880 he was elected as a member of the State Senate for the term ending in 1884.
He died at his residence in this city on the evening of the 16th day of June, 1882. Such, in brief, is the history of the public life of a man of whom it may be truthfully said he won every distinction almost alone. He was without influence, except what he gathered about him by a recognition of merits, and this recognition his own conduct compelled. I do not feel that I am in any sense qualified to be his eulogist. Though representing the same County in the last Senate, I had from the election in 1880 not a very intimate personal acquaintance with General Chapman. I knew him as you and many others knew him, by the reputation that he had made for himself. I knew him by the way in which he impressed himself upon those who were more intimately acquainted with him than I. General Chapman can not be said to have been prepossessing in appearance. Socially, he was retiring in manner. To a stranger he did not always represent himself well. But the warmth and strength of the friendship entertained for him by those who were his most intimate acquaintances and had opportunity to know him best, was an index to the intensity of his intellect and the force of his character. He not only compelled recognition, but he attaached to him with warmth that was unusual even hearts as well as intellects. It is only by the words of such to whom in social life he had more fully revealed himself that I was able to judge with any degree of fullness of those traits of character so admirable in a friend. Never in his sociely much until the meeting of the last Senate. I was just beginning, through the associations there begun, to feel and appreciate his generous and kindly nature when he died.
General Chapman was so constituted that it was impossible to know him quickly. Association with him, however, never caused any man to esteem him less; acquaintance with him always increased respect for him.
His public life gave evidence of his superior ability. His knowledge of questions of public interest was comprehensive and thorough. Wherever he served he served well, and whether as a citizen, a soldier, a lawyer, a Judge, or a Senator on this floor, his right to a place in the front rank was recognized. He was dignified, but was without ostentation. In his opinions he was independent, but was never intolerant of the opinions of others. Distinguished for his bravery in military life, he was no less distinguished for his moral courage in civil life. That which he believed to be right he advocated with the full strength of his clear intellect, never page: 45[View Page 45] hesitating for one moment to number his supports or to estimate the number or weight of his opponents. He was a man of convictions, and his convictions were formed by careful investigations. and were the dictates of an enlightened judgment. No man in his delibrations appeared to be less influenced by personal considerations than he, and the course dictated by his judgment and conscience he followed with religious fidelity and with singular unselfishness. He was firm and steadfast in his opinions and convictions, and persistent in his advocacy of them. but be was not narrow; he kept his mind open to receiver the full force ot any argument against them, and no man yielded a position more willingly or quickly than he when convinced of error.
He never prevaricated with his own under standing. He was frank, and at times outspoken almost to offensiveness, but it was in the spirit of candor, and without a touch of malice. He was just in bis judgments, and was not much influenced by prejudices, and his estimates of others were colored by a spirit of true charity, but insincerity he could not and would not overlook, He was especially severe in his condemnation of anyone who occupied a position of insincerity before the public. His attitude was never uncertain, and his position on any question never remained long in doubt. He was true to his own highest conceptions of right in all his public life. With him policy was but another I name for the right, and expediency but another name for duty The slightest sacrifice of principle was a price he never paid for preferment.
If he had follies-and who in all the earth has not-the remembrance of them is made bright by the memory of his victory over them. If he had faults they were never wilful, and his splendid virtues cover them as with a mantle. He has left us the legacy of a true life, and has gone on before us; passed out of sight beyond the vail that marks the limit of human knowledge, into the illimitable future. And the portals through which he disappeared are radiant with the hope of the Father's house, of the resplendent glories of which it has not "entered into the heart of man to conceive."
