He attained the honors of the Republic at the age of fifty-seven, in the forty-ninth year of independence.

He was sixth in the succession, and with him closed the line of Chief Magistrates who had rendered to their country some tribute of their talents in civil or military service in the war of independence.
John Quincy Adams, on entering civil life, had found the Republic unstable.

He retired in 1829, leaving it firmly established.

It was thus his happy fortune to preside at the completion of that work of consolidation, the beginning of which was the end of the labors of Washington.
John Quincy Adams engaged in this great work while yet in private life, in 1793.

He showed to his fellow-citizens, in a series of essays, the inability of the French people to maintain free institutions at that time, and the consequent necessity of American neutrality in the European war.
These publications aided Washington so much the more because they anticipated his own decision.