(March 23, 1823–January 13, 1885), was an American editor and politician. He served as Vice-President of the United States under Ulysses S. Grant, 1869–73; a U.S. Representative for seven terms, 1855–69, and Speaker of the House Representatives, 1863–69. He founded the Daughters of Rebekah, the women’s branch of American Odd Fellows, which is an organization to supply aid and assistance to those in need. Schuyler Colfax said:
Man derives his greatest happiness not by that which he does for himself, but by what he accomplishes for others. This is a sad world at best—a world of sorrow, of suffering, of injustice, and falsification; men stab those whom they hate with the stiletto of slander, but it is for the followers of our Lord to improve it, and to make it more as Christ would have it. The most precious crown of fame that a human being can ask is to kneel at the bar of God and hear the beautiful words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”2616
Just fifty years ago this fall, in a large city by the seashore, nearly a thousand miles from here, a lady, whose husband was dead, took her little boy by the hand, and led him to the Sabbath-school.
For thirty years afterwards he was a scholar or a teacher of the Sabbath-school, and he has never forgotten those instructions of youth. The lady who took her little boy to that Sunday-school is now in a happier land, but the boy is still living.
That lady was my beloved mother, who is with her Father and Saviour in heaven, and that little boy was myself. Today I come to this school with my little boy, and his mother with us, that we may place his imperfect steps in the path in which my mother placed my little feet half a century ago.2617
In a Memorial Address for President Lincoln, April 24, 1865, Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representatives stated:
Nor should I forget to mention here that the last act of Congress ever signed by him was one requiring that the motto, in which he sincerely believed, “In God We Trust,” should hereafter be inscribed upon all our national coin.2618