As the friend and promoter of internal improvements, Mr. Adams was invited to be present at the interesting ceremony of “breaking ground,” on the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, then about to be commenced, which took place on the 4th of July, 1828.  On the morning of that day, the President, the Heads of Departments, the Foreign Ministers, the Corporations of Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria, the President and Directors of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, with a large concourse of citizens, embarked on board of steamboats and ascended the Potomac, to the place selected for the ceremony.  On reaching the ground, a procession was formed, which moved around it so as to leave a hollow space, in the midst of a mass of people, in the centre of which was the spot marked out by Judge Wright, the Engineer of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, for the commencement of the work.  A moment’s pause here occurred, while the spade, destined to commence the work, was selected by the committee of arrangements, and the spot for breaking ground was precisely denoted.

At that moment the sun shone out from behind a cloud, giving an appearance of the highest animation to the scene.  Amidst an intense silence, the Mayor of Georgetown handed to Gen. Mercer, the President of the Canal Company, the consecrated instrument; which, having received, he stepped forward from the resting column, and addressed as follows the listening multitude:—­

“Fellow-citizens:  There are moments in the progress of time which are the counters of whole ages.  There are events, the monuments of which, surviving every other memorial of human existence, eternize the nation to whose history they belong, after all other vestiges of its glory have disappeared from the globe.  At such a moment have we now arrived.  Such a monument we are now to found.”

Turning towards the President of the United States, who stood near him, Mr. M. proceeded:—­

“Mr. President:  On a day hallowed by the fondest recollections, beneath this cheering (may we not humbly trust auspicious) sky, surrounded by the many thousand spectators who look on us with joyous anticipation; in the presence of the representatives of the most polished nations of the old and new worlds; on a spot where little more than a century ago the painted savage held his nightly orgies; at the request of the three cities of the District of Columbia, I present to the Chief Magistrate of the most powerful Republic on earth, for the most noble purpose that was ever conceived by man, this humble instrument of rural labor, a symbol of the favorite occupation of our countrymen.  May the use to which it is about to be devoted prove the precursor, to our beloved country, of improved agriculture, of multiplied and diversified arts, of extended commerce and navigation.  Combining its social and moral influence with the principles of that happy constitution under which you have been called to preside over the American people, may it become a safeguard of their liberty and independence, and a bond of perpetual union!