Montpellier, June 28th, 1836 · The Long Thaw
John Quincy Adams (player)
A Euology
This Constitution, my countrymen, is the great result of the North American Revolution. This is the giant stride in the improvement of the condition of the human race, consummated in a period of less than one hundred years. Of the signers of the address to George the Third in the Congress of 1774—of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776—of the signers of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, and of the signers of the federal and national Constitution of Government under which we live, with enjoyments never before allotted to man, not one remains in the land of the living.
The last survivor of them all was he to honor whose memory we are here assembled at once with mourning and with joy. We reverse the order of sentiment and reflection of the ancient Persian king—we look back on the century gone by—we look around with anxious and eager eye for one of that illustrious host of Patriots and heroes under whose guidance the revolution of American Independence was begun and continued and completed. We look around in vain. To them this crowded theatre, full of human life, in all its stages of existence, full of the glowing exultation of youth, of the steady maturity of manhood, the sparkling eyes of beauty and the grey hairs of reverend age—all this to them is as the solitude of the sepulchre. We think of this and say, how short is human life!
