We turn continually to his life, his course of action and his words, for all manner of inspiration, confirmations and guidance. We search the lives and the words of many public men in vain for pronouncements which have universal and ultimate application; but when we study the career of this many-sided lawyer from your plains, we find his utterances to be pervaded with great principles which resound as if spoken for our own times. the fresh inspirations which spring from his example, the continuing guidance which is gleaned from his precepts, the changes in emphasis which may be noted in these memorials from year to year as national conditions change, are in themselves the new tributes to his genius and to his continuing contribution to american life.