Although your administration of the government is yet too recent for impartial history, or unbounded eulogy, our grateful remembrance of it is evinced by the congratulations you now receive from your fellow-citizens.
"But your claims to the veneration of your countrymen do not end here.
Your predecessors descended from the Chief Magistracy to enjoy, in repose and tranquillity, honors even greater than those which belonged to that eminent station.

It was reserved for you to illustrate the important truths, that offices and trusts are not the end of public service, but are merely incidents in the life of the true American citizen; that duties remain when the highest trust is resigned; and that there is scope for a pure and benevolent ambition beyond even the Presidency of the United States of America.
"You have devoted the energies of a mind unperverted, the learning and experience acquired through more than sixty years, and even the influence and fame derived from your high career of public service, to the great cause of universal liberty.

The praises we bestow are already echoed back to us by voices which come rich and full across the Atlantic, hailing you as the indefatigable champion of humanity--not the humanity which embraces a single race or clime, but that humanity which regards the whole family of MAN.

Such salutations as these cannot be mistaken.

They come not from your contemporaries, for they are gone--you are not of this generation, but of the PAST, spared to hear the voice of POSTERITY.