“Advance, then, ye future generations!  We would hail you, as you rise in your long succession to fill the places which we now fill....  We bid you welcome to the healthy skies and the verdant fields of New England.  We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed.  We welcome you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty.  We welcome you to the treasures of science, and the delights of learning.  We welcome you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, and children.  We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth!”

John Adams, whose worth and services Daniel Webster, six years after uttering those words, pointed out in Fanueil Hall when the old statesman died, was probably the most influential member of the Continental Congress, after Washington, since he was its greatest orator and its most impassioned character.  He led the Assembly, as Henry Clay afterwards led the Senate, and Canning led the House of Commons, by that inspired logic which few could resist.  Jefferson spoke of him as “the colossus of debate.”  It is the fashion in these prosaic times to undervalue congressional and parliamentary eloquence, as a vain oratorical display; but it is this which has given power to the greatest leaders of mankind in all free governments,—­as illustrated by the career of such men as Demosthenes, Pericles, Cicero, Chatham, Fox, Mirabeau, Webster, and Clay; and it is rarely called out except in great national crises, amid the storms of passion and agitating ideas.  Jefferson affected to sneer at it, as exhibited by Patrick Henry; but take away eloquence from his own writings and they would be commonplace.  All productions of the human intellect are soon forgotten unless infused with sentiments which reach the heart, or excite attention by vividness of description, or the brilliancy which comes from art or imagination or passion.  Who reads a prosaic novel, or a history of dry details, if ever so accurate?  How few can listen with interest to a speech of statistical information, if ever so useful,—­unless illuminated by the oratorical genius of a Gladstone!  True eloquence is a gift, as rare as poetry; an inspiration allied with genius; an electrical power without which few people can be roused, either to reflection or action.  This electrical power both the Adamses had, as remarkably as Whitefield or Beecher.  No one can tell exactly what it is, whether it is physical, or spiritual, or intellectual; but certain it is that a speaker will not be listened to without it, either in a legislative hall, or in the pulpit, or on the platform.  And hence eloquence, wherever displayed, is really a great power, and will remain so to the end of time.