[Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams by William H. Seward]@TWC D-Link book
Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams

CHAPTER XV
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The lips from which flowed those living and glorious truths that our fathers uttered, are closed in death! Yes, my friends, Death has been among us! He has not entered the humble cottage of some unknown, ignoble peasant; he has knocked audibly at the palace of a nation! His footstep has been heard in the Hall of State! He has cloven down his victim in the midst of the councils of a people! He has borne in triumph from among you the gravest, wisest, most reverend head! Ah! he has taken him as a trophy who was once chief over many States, adorned with virtue, and learning, and truth; he has borne at his chariot-wheels a renowned one of the earth.
"There was no incident in the birth, the life, the death of Mr.Adams, not intimately woven with the history of the land.

Born in the night of his country's tribulation, he heard the first murmurs of discontent; he saw the first efforts for deliverance.

Whilst yet a little child, he listened with eagerness to the whispers of freedom as they breathed from the lips of her almost inspired apostles: he caught the fire that was then kindled; his eye beamed with the first ray; he watched the day spring from on high, and long before he departed from earth, it was graciously vouchsafed unto him to behold the effulgence of her noontide glory.

* * * * * * * "He disrobed himself with dignity of the vestures of office, not to retire to the shades of Quincy, but, in the maturity of his intellect, in the vigor of his thought, to leap into this arena, and to continue, as he had begun, a disciple, an ardent devotee at the temple of his country's freedom.

How, in this department, he ministered to his country's wants, we all know, and have witnessed.


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