f
our present existence, at the precise interval of half a century from
each other. Since your last meeting at this place the fiftieth
anniversary of the day when our independence was declared has been
celebrated throughout our land, and on that day, while every heart was
bounding with joy and every voice was tuned to gratulation, amid the
blessings of freedom and independence which the sires of a former age
had handed down to their children, two of the principal actors in that
solemn scene--the hand that penned the ever-memorable Declaration and
the voice that sustained it in debate--were by one summons, at the
distance of 700 miles from each other, called before the Judge of All to
account for their deeds done upon earth. They departed cheered by the
benedictions of their country, to whom they left the inheritance of
their fame and the memory of their bright example. If we turn our
thoughts to the condition of their country, in the contrast of the first
and last day of that half century, how resplendent and sublime is the
transition from gloom to glory! Then, glancing through the same lapse of
time, in the condition of the individuals we see the first day marked
with the fullness and vigor of youth, in the pledge of their lives,
their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of freedom and of
mankind; and on the last, extended on the bed of death, with but sense
and sensibility left to breathe a last aspiration to Heaven of blessing
upon their country, may we not humbly hope that to them too it was a
pledge of transition from gloom to glory, and that while their mortal
vestments were sinking into the clod of the valley their emancipated
spirits were ascending to the bosom of their God!

John Quincy Adams.

* * * * *

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

Washington,
_December 7, 1826_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I now transmit a report from the Secretary of War, with that of the
Board of Engineers of Internal Improvement, concerning the proposed
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
_December 8, 1826_.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary
of War, with sundry documents, containing the information requested by a
resolution of the House of the 8th of May last, relating to the lead
mines belonging to the United St