anch of Congress.

Almost inevitably the series begins with Benjamin Franklin, the first
great American, the first man born on this side of the water who was
"meant for the universe." His mere existence was a sort of omen. It was
absurd to suppose that a people which could produce a man of that scope,
in character and intellect, could long remain in a condition of
political dependence. It would have been preposterous to have had
Franklin die a colonist, and go down to posterity, not as an American,
but as a colonial Englishman. He was a microcosm of the coming nation of
the United States; all the better moral and intellectual qualities of
our people existed in him, save only the dreamy philosophy of the famous
New England school of thinkers. It is very interesting to see how slowly
and reluctantly, yet how surely and decisively, he came to the point of
resistance and independence. He was not like so many, who were unstable
and shifting. There was no backward step, though there were many painful
and unwilling forward ones in his progress. One feels almost as if an
apology were needed for writing another life of a man so be-written. Yet
there is some reason for doing so; the chapter concerning his services
in France during the Revolution presents the true facts and the
magnitude of his usefulness more carefully than, so far as I am aware,
it has previously been done.

As a promoter of the Revolution, Samuel Adams has easily the most
conspicuous place. He was an agitator to the very centre of his marrow.
He was the incarnation of New England; to know thoroughly his career is
to know the Massachusetts of that day as an anatomist knows the human
frame. The man of the town meeting did more to kindle the Revolution
than any other one person. Many stood with him, but his life tells the
story and presents the picture. The like service is done for Virginia by
Patrick Henry; and the contrast between the two men is most striking
and picturesque, yet not more so than the difference between the two
sections of the country to which they respectively belonged.

If John Adams had died before he was made President, he also would have
been one of this group. But the lustre of his official position prevents
our placing him in the earlier constellation. Yet, though not more
prominent than many others, in fact hardly to be called prominent at all
in the events which led up to the Revolution, he became a leader in the
first Congress, and it