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viewed as his successful competitor for the palm of political distinction. That proud performance is now known to be the work of Jefferson. Adams was the bold and eloquent debater, who urged and defended the measure, big with the fate of empires; Jefferson's was the unequalled skill, which embodied the principles of liberty in the language of inspiration, as an eternal monument and landmark for the guidance of posterity. Fortunate pair! Could the imagination of man desire an occasion more auspicious than this, to confer on them a rare immortality? Who, that burned with a sacred ambition to transmit his name down to remotest ages, associated with some signally meritorious intellectual effort, would choose a more glorious task than to be the head to conceive, or the hand to execute, the Declaration of American Independence?

It is impossible to peruse, without admiration, the copious writings of the sages, nay of the warriors, of the revolution. How rich with brilliant and elevated thought, how skilful and irresistible in argument, how overflowing with the fervid illustrations of a mind impelled by overruling circumstances to the strongest efforts, nay, how beautiful in the pure and finished simplicity of a style, springing racy, fresh, and unsophisticated from a full-fraught soul and native taste, are not the sacred charters of our liberty, the exquisite compositions of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Quincy, Otis, Hamilton, and all the mighty growth of the virgin soil of freedom, the giant-progeny of our Independence,

Magna parens
Frugum-magna virûm !

The vivid fire of genius lightens from every line they left. And among these exalted names, there are none superior, none equal, to Adams and Jefferson, in scholastic attain ments, and in their supreme dominion over

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

Adams and Jefferson were both educated to the bar. The talents of the latter were diverted at an earlier age into the

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channel of politics; for the former, being more advanced in life at the opening of the revolution, had previously continued for many years assiduously engaged in the duties of his laborious profession. It was the well known observation of Burke, that law is one of the first and noblest of human sciences, a science which does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding than all other kinds of learning put together; and had he known or appreciated the distinction between the practice of it here and in England, he would not have denied its aptitude to open and liberalize the mind exactly in the same proportion.' There it is a narrow study, limited to the barbarous technicalities of the common law; and first-rate excellence in the profession has rarely been associated with general talents or conspicuous accomplishments as a politician. But far otherwise it is here, where the study of law is more a study of principles, and the profession is more closely blended with popular and political pursuits, and has proved, to a large proportion of the most exalted statesmen of our country, the chosen avenue to public usefulness and distinction. It was peculiarly so to Adams. Possessed of the happiest qualities for success at the bar, idefatigable industry, a sound discriminating judgment, a mind prompt to arrange and analyze, a retentive memory, acute and logical powers of reasoning, and a ready, ardent, impressive elocution, he rapidly ascended to the highest professional eminence.

One trait of his conduct at the bar is too characteristic of the man, to be left unnoticed. When the armed troops, quarterd in Boston to quell and overawe the insubordinate inhabitants, had wontonly wounded and massacred a number of defenceless individuals, and they and their commander were brought to trial for this outrage, Adams and Quincy, the popular leaders of the patriotic party, undertook their defence and procured their acquittal. The unfaultering grandeur of character which they manifested on this occasion, in attempting the protection of men, against whom the

whole country was justly exasperated to the highest degree, can never be sufficiently applauded. And the complete suc cess, which, by their masterly ability and their magnanimous resistance to the passions of the people, they obtained, was not a more lofty triumph to themselves than it was to their countrymen. It demonstrated that no frantic anarchists were busy in a work of discord and destruction; but that highminded men were determined to win their freedom, in mode to ensure the world's approbation.

Had such a career satisfied his ambition, he might have discharged the first judicial functions of his native state. But his country had more imperious need of his commanding talents in a wider field of fame. When the earthquake of the revolution shook the land,-when the waves of civil commotion were lashed into fury by the wild edicts of the oppressor, when the rights of an outraged people were trampled under foot by mercenary foreign bands, and our lives, nay our liberties, were at stake, then it was that all men found their natural level, and the master minds of the nation, like Adams and Jefferson, were elevated, by the mere force of circumstances, into posts of difficulty and danger.

The turbulent but magnificent scene of the revolution was now opening upon the view. The distant flash, and the far off rumbling of the thunder had long boded its approach, and it was preparing to burst, from the overhanging clouds, upon the devoted heads of our fathers. Virginia and Massachusetts were the oldest of the colonies, and in disposable resources at least, and in moral influence, they were the most potent. In these free and foremost commonwealths, the note of preparation for resistance to arbitrary power had early been sounded. The trying and tremendous strug gle was plainly at hand. Amid the raging elements of discord, there sprang up, in each of those colonies, and at the same moment, two men, whose genius fitted them to

Ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm.

Patrick Henry, of Virginia, and James Otis of Massachu

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setts, men whose fearless independence and whose vehement, overwhelming eloquence would have singled them out in ancient Rome to be more undaunted tribunes than any that ever opposed the tyranny of her corrupt aristocracy, gave a simultaneous impulse to the ball of the revolution,' the second in the northern, and the first in the southern, quarter of the confederacy. When Massachusetts was prematurely deprived of her Brutus, the public voice called Adams into the service of the nation to supply his place, and he obeyed the call; and after a series of manly acts in the municipal meetings and legislature of his state, he was elected to the immortal congress of seventy-four. By a corresponding course of signal public exertions in Virginia, Jefferson had won the confidence and regard of his fellow citizens, and was appointed a delegate in the same congress. Patrick Henry remaining at home as governor of his state, Jefferson, although the youngest member of that august body, soon rose by his superior talents to be the leading representative of Virginia, as Adams was of Massachusetts. And thus these two great men were thrown directly in contact and contrast, as the champions of the holy cause of Independence...

How imposing was the spectacle of that assembly of the eonscript fathers of America! 'The noble stand they took at the threshold of the temple of liberty; the glorious oath, which, like another Hannibal, each of them individually swore upon its altar; and their influence over the subsequent destinies of our country, will authorize us, on this solemn occasion, to pause and contemplate the men, the time, and the circumstances. Nothing could be more entirely appropriate to the present purpose, of illustrating the genius and character of Jefferson and Adams; because they were the organs of that body and the best examples of its spirit; and in its doings were their genius and character, as statesmen, full, developed.

The forms, under which the highest intellectual powers of man exhibit themselves, are as numerous and diversified as the subjects, to which his restless enterprise and insatiable curiosity impel his attention. The scope of mind is boundless as all space, and the duration of its efforts endless as time; for there is no clime, nor country, nor age, nor circumstance, where the human soul cannot display the brightness of the celestial fire, with which it is warmed and animated. The frozen regions of the polar circles, where the soul would seem to be bound in fetters of ice, and the burning plains of the tropical zone, where all the organs and faculties of action are relaxed by the exuberant heat of an equatorial sun, even these extremities of climate afford a theatre for the exhibition of genius, ample enough to show that its operations are not wholly limited to those happy climes, where it shines forth in all the splendor of unimpaired grace and majesty. Nor is there any age in the records of history, nor any combination of incidents so unpropitious in the whole of time, that in it genius could not find space for developement. The arts of war and peace,-science, literature and invention,-our ambition, our avarice, our luxury,-all furnish motives to elicit the lights of intellect. For it is not in the sumblime flights of poetry alone, that this diversity of the subjects and manifestations of genius is to be found. The most inspired of the children of song has told us,

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Glances from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And, as imagination bodies forth,

The form of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

But it is not in poetry alone, that genius acquires 'a local habitation and a name.' Range through the universe, and you find in the beautiful things of earth and air subjects for it to embody forth. You find all the unnumbered objects

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