“The hand we now so eagerly grasp, was pressed in confidence and friendship by the Father of our Country.  The wreath we place on your honored brow, received its earliest leaves from the hand of Washington.  We cannot expect, with the agency of free and universal suffrage, to be always governed by the wise and the good.  But surely your predecessors in the Chief Magistracy, were men such as never before successively wielded power in any State.  They differed in policy as they must, and yet, throughout their several dynasties, without any sacrifice of personal independence, and while passing from immature youth to ripened age, you were counsellor and minister to them all.  We seem therefore, in this interview with you, to come into the presence of our departed chiefs; the majestic shade of Washington looks down upon us; we hear the bold and manly eloquence of the elder Adams; and we listen to the voices of the philosophic and sagacious Jefferson, the refined and modest Madison, and the generous and faithful Monroe.

“A life of such eminent patriotism and fidelity found its proper reward in your elevation to the eminence from which you had justly derived so many honors.  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.  The greetings you receive come up from the dark and uncertain future.  They are the whisperings of posthumous fame—­fame which impatiently awaits your departure, and which, spreading wider and growing more and more distinct, will award to John Quincy Adams a name to live with that of Washington!”