ust in humanity he was generations ahead of it. "I am not
one of those who fear the people," he declared proudly. It is because of
this touching faith, this invincible and matchless ardor, that Jefferson
is today remembered. He foreshadowed Lincoln. His belief in the
inarticulate common people is rewarded by their obstinate fidelity to
his name as a type and symbol. "I know of no safe depository of the
ultimate powers of society but the people themselves," wrote Jefferson,
and with the people themselves is the depository of his fame.

CHAPTER V. THE KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

The Fourth of July orator for 1826 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was
Edward Everett. Although only thirty-two he was already a distinguished
speaker. In the course of his oration he apostrophized John Adams and
Thomas Jefferson as venerable survivors of that momentous day, fifty
years earlier, which had witnessed our Declaration of Independence.
But even as Everett was speaking, the aged author of the Declaration
breathed his last at Monticello, and in the afternoon of that same day
Adams died also, murmuring, it is said, with his latest breath, and as
if with the whimsical obstinacy of an old man who hated to be beaten
by his ancient rival, "Thomas Jefferson still lives." But Jefferson was
already gone.

On the first of August, Everett commemorated the career of the two
Revolutionary leaders, and on the following day a greater than Everett,
Daniel Webster, pronounced the famous eulogy in Faneuil Hall. Never were
the thoughts and emotions of a whole country more adequately voiced than
in this commemorative oratory. Its pulse was high with national pride
over the accomplishments of half a century. "I ask," Everett declared,
"whether more has not been done to extend the domain of civilization, in
fifty years, since the Declaration of Independence, than would have
been done in five centuries of continued colonial subjection?" Webster
asserted in his peroration: "It cannot be denied, but by those who would
dispute against the sun, that with America, and in America, a new
era commences in human affairs. This era is distinguished by free
representative governments, by entire religious liberty, by
improved systems of national intercourse, by a newly awakened and an
unconquerable spirit of free enquiry, and by a diffusion of knowledge
through the community such as has been before altogether unknown and
unheard of."

Was this merely the "tall talk" then so