or 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!"

The audience expressed their sympathy with this address by long and
enthusiastic cheering. When order was restored, Mr. Adams rose, evidently
under great and unaffected embarrassment.

He replied to the speech in an address of about half an hour, during which
the attention of his audience was riveted upon the speaker, with intense
interest and affection. He declared the embarrassment he felt in speaking.
He was sensible that his fellow-citizens had laid aside all partizan
feelings in coming up to greet him. He desired to speak what would not
wound the feelings of anyone. He was grateful, deeply grateful, to them
all. But on what subject of public interest could a public man speak, that
would find harmony among an intelligent, thinking people? There were such
subjects, but he could not speak of them.

The people of Western New York had always been eminently just and generous
to him, and had recently proved their kindness on various occasions, by
inviting him to address the State Agricultural Society on agriculture. But
his life had been spent in the closet, in diplomacy, or in the cabinet;