imes, with apparent inconsistency, to lend his charities to the
distant and the future rather than to his own kindred and times, I reply,
it was because he held that the tenure of human power is on condition of
its being beneficently exercised for the common welfare of the human race.
Such men are of no country. They belong to mankind. If we cannot rise to
this height of virtue, we cannot hope to comprehend the character of John
Quincy Adams, or understand the homage paid by the American people to his
memory.

Need it be said that John Quincy Adams studied justice, honor and
gratitude, not by the false standards of the age, but by their own true
nature? He generalized truth, and traced it always to its source, the
bosom of God. Thus in his defence of the Amistad captives he began with
defining justice in the language of Justinian, "Constans et perpetua
voluntas jus SUUM cuique tribuendi." He quoted on the same occasion from
the Declaration of Independence, not by way of rhetorical embellishment,
and not even as a valid human ordinance, but as a truth of nature, of
universal application, the memorable words, "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these rights
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In his vindication of
the right of debate, he declared that the principle that religious
opinions were altogether beyond the sphere of legislative control, was but
one modification of a more extensive axiom, which included the unbounded
freedom of the press, and of speech, and of the communication of thought
in all its forms. He rested the inviolability of the right of petition,
not on constitutions, or charters, which might be glossed, abrogated or
expunged, but in the inherent right of every animate creature to pray to
its superior.

The model by which he formed his character was Cicero. Not the living
Cicero, sometimes inconsistent; often irresolute; too often seeming to act
a studied part; and always covetous of applause. But Cicero, as he aimed
to be, and as he appears revealed in those immortal emanations of his
genius which have been the delight and guide of intellect and virtue in
every succeeding age. Like the Roman, Adams was an orator, but he did not
fall into the error of the Roman, in practically valuing eloquence more
than the beneficence to which it should be devoted. Like him