Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1818-07-06
ALEXANDRIA,:
.srO.SDAT, JULT 6, 1878.

garded with studious attention by every
pan in America /; and its contents to De |
treasured up in every heart to be ready
on sAy future occasioa that may occur,
A, memorandum, or quick intimation
to the public memory, where confidence
may most safely be placed, and where
national gratitude becomes as i"per'Ous
moral duty as any one article OF the
decalogue.
"No man." says Mr.. Jefferson ad-
dressing himself in that letter to MIR.
Gardner, on the subject OF the deelara-
ton Of independence, then proposed to
be published by him and MIR. Murray
the engraver, "no man better merIted
than Mr.. John adams, to hold a conspi-
cuous, place in the design. He WAS
rHE.Y1LLAn OF ITS SUPPORT" ON The
FLOOR OF CONGRESS, Its ABLEST
ADVOCATE AND DEFENDER" A.
eA1xsr THE MuLTHARIors ASSAULTS
IT EScouNTERED."
Let it be remembered, that that very
Mr.. John Adams was once denounced as
"hoary raitsr"-and by whom -
Name it not in Gath And over
whelmed by our free Eress with public
odium for the purpose Of pushing him
from the high station to which his servi-
ces to the republic were considered by all
honest men before that time as giving him
a Just title-and that those Vaccinations
against him SO far succeeded as to send
him in bis latter days into retirement
Now We fad HIM, and that on authority
which cannot be suspected, to have been
the pillar Of the support Of our inde-
pendencs, and its ablsst advocate and de-
fender" A more direct eaarge Of nation.
al ingrat,tude, or one more irresistIbiy
established by evidence never was pre-.
ferred. Can atonement be made, sup.
posing the nation were willings No., that
| is impossible-elevated above this earth
ly scene, though still living on it, the We
nerabie president Adams now rather be-
longs to another world and state of thing.
than to this. He can now have little pc.
li'ical enjoyment but IN retrospect-and
all his mere worldly possessions belong
not so much to himself as to bis offspring
there the nation may turn its eyes with
con6dence-and there the gratitude to
the father ought to be visited. Among
those vine form our present excellent ca
binet, is one born under that pillar
swaddled by that ablest advocate and de.
fender-tw,nned and rocked in the cradle
With our infant independence, and in-
bued with the very strongest dye Of
our revolutionary principles. Fortunate
country. to find yourself not only pro-
tected and guided through your infant
struggles, and the casualties and mis-
chances which cling to puberty. but in
your insipient manhood, when the sristle
of your state is rapidly indurating into
bone-s,ill sheltered and directed.-stil
guided into the paths Of right, and won
from the ways Of wrong and error, BY
| the same master principles, and by the
same mighty minds which originally ush-
cred you into freedom aud independence
still marching on to prosperity and
grandeur under arms which held the
shield over ysur Infancy, and sustained
you in your FIRST helplessness and decr-
pitude. Who could have been sanguine
enough to hope, and how unlikely indeed
Was the chance, on the day Of the decla.
ration of OUT independence, that the pre-
siding chief magistrate OF the government
they were laborius to establish, and the
next officer to him in rank and efficiency
| in the councils Of the repulic, would at
the end Of forty years be, the former one
Of the chief champions of that great event.
and the other the so. and heir Of him
whom the nstian owned as the pillar Of
its independence, imbued with the prlnc'-
piles, animated by the bold republican
spirit, and directed BY the wisdom and
experience Of his fathers