If we turn our
thoughts to the condition of their country, in the contrast of the first
and last day of that half century, how resplendent and sublime is the
transition from gloom to glory! Then, glancing through the same lapse of
time, in the condition of the individuals we see the first day marked
with the fullness and vigor of youth, in the pledge of their lives,
their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of freedom and of
mankind; and on the last, extended on the bed of death, with but sense
and sensibility left to breathe a last aspiration to Heaven of blessing
upon their country, may we not humbly hope that to them too it was a
pledge of transition from gloom to glory, and that while their mortal
vestments were sinking into the clod of the valley their emancipated
spirits were ascending to the bosom of their God!
John Quincy Adams.
* * * * *
SPECIAL MESSAGES.
Washington,
_December 7, 1826_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
I now transmit a report from the Secretary of War, with that of the
Board of Engineers of Internal Improvement, concerning the proposed
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
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