duties. The oldest
member of the House, he was at the same time the most punctual--the first
at his post; the last to retire from the labors of the day. His practice
in these respects could well put younger members to the blush. While many
others might be negligent in their attendance, sauntering in idleness,
engaged in frivolous amusements, or even in dissipation, he was always at
his post. No call of the House was necessary--no Sergeant-at-arms need be
despatched--to bring him within the Hall of Representatives. He was the
last to move an adjournment, or to adopt any device to consume time or
neglect the public business for personal convenience or gratification. In
every respect he was a model legislator. His example can be most
profitably imitated by those who would arise to eminence in the councils
of the nation.

"My seat was, for two years, by his side, and it would have scarcely more
surprised me to miss one of the marble columns of the Hall from its
pedestal than to see his chair empty. * * * I shall, perhaps, be pardoned
for introducing here a slight personal recollection, which serves, in some
degree, to illustrate his habits. The sessions of the last two days of (I
think) the twenty-third Congress, were prolonged, the one for nineteen,
and the other for seventeen hours. At the close of the last day's session,
he remained in the hall of the House the last seated member of the body.
One after another, the members had gone home; many of them for hours. The
hall--brilliantly lighted up, and gaily attended, as was, and perhaps is
still, the custom at the beginning the last evening of a session--had
become cold, dark, and cheerless. Of the members who remained, to prevent
the public business from dying for want of a quorum, most but himself were
sinking from exhaustion, although they had probably taken their meals at
the usual hours, in the course of the day. After the adjournment, I went
up to Mr. Adams' seat, to join company with him, homeward; and as I knew
he came to the House at eight o'clock in the morning, and it was then past
midnight, I expressed a hope that he had taken some refreshment in the
course of the day, He said he had not left his seat; but holding up a bit
of hard bread in his fingers, gave me to understand in what way he had
sustained nature." [Footnote: Edward Everett.]

The following reminiscence will further illustrate Mr. Adams' habits of
industry and endurance at a later day, as well as s