the first congress, which met at Philadelphia in 1774, and re-elected in the following year. In that august assembly of sages, philosophers, and statesmen, whose deliberations will never cease to reflect their effulgence on the nations of the world, he uniformly stood in the first rank, and bore a distinguished and conspicuous part in all the discussions of that eventful period, which finally ended in a separation of the colonies from Great Britain.

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He was one of the first to perceive that a cordial reconciliation with Great Britain was impossible and was therefore one of the most conspicuous members who were appointed to draft the ever memorable Declaration of Independence, which, after considerable discussion, was passed, July 4th, 1776, declaring these United States free, sovereign, and independent.

In the next year, Mr. Adams was appointed joint commissioner with Franklin and Lee, to proceed to the court of Versailles, to negotiate a treaty of alliance and commerce.

In 1779,he returned home, and was elected a member of the convention which met to frame a constitution for his native state. In this assemblage of talents and wisdom, his

labours as a statesman were pre-eminent; and the constitution indebted for many of her most excellent provisions.

In 1780, he was commissioned by congress to proceed to Europe, to conciliate the favour and obtain assistance from the powers on the continent, in our arduous struggle for independence. By his superior address he procured from the Dutch the necessary sums for carrying on the war, as well as concluded a treaty of commerce with the republic of the United Netherlands. He afterwards went to Paris, and assisted in concluding the general peace.

Mr. Adams was next appointed the first minister to the court of Great Britain. During his stay in Europe, he published his celebrated Defence of the Constitutions of the United States, in which he advocates, as the principles of a free government, equal representation, of which number, or property, or both, should be a rule; a total separation of the executive from the legislative power, and of the judicial from both; and a balance in the legislature by three independent, equal branches. If there is one certain truth,' says he, 'to be collected from the

history of all ages, it is this: that the people's rights and liberties, and the democratical mixture in a constitution, can never be preserved without a strong executive; or without separating the executive power from the legislative.'

Mr. Adams, after having twice filled the office of Vice President of the United States, was, in 1796, called by the almost unanimous suffrage of his fellow citizens, to fill the presidential chair, which had been vacated by the resignation of Washington.

This office he filled with his usual ability until the expiration of the term for which he was elected, when, like his great predecessor, he retired from office, after having faithfully served his country, and contributed to her happiness and prosperity, to spend the remainder of his days as a private citizen.

In 1820, he acted as elector of President, and Vice President, and in the same year, then at the age of eighty five, he was elected a member of the Convention, called to revise the Constitution of Massachusetts. He took his seat and participated in the debates of that body. He died on the 4th of July, 1826, it being the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,

SIXTH president of the United States, was born at Braintree, Massachusetts, July 11, 1767. At the age of eleven years, he accompanied his father to Europe, and before he had attained the age of thirteen, acquired most of her principal languages, and resided in most of her celebrated capitals.

In 1785, at his own request, he was permitted by his father to return home, and finish his education in his own country. In two years afterwards, he graduated at Harvard college, and commenced the study of the law in the office of the late chief justice Parsons.

In 1790, he was admitted to practice in the courts of Massachusetts, and fixed his residence in Boston.

In 1791, he published a series of papers in the Boston Centinel, under the signature of Publicola, containing remarks upon the first part of Paine's Rights of Man, which excited much public notice in this country as well as in Europe.

In 1793-4, he published various political essays which did honour to his talents, and drew upon him the notice of president Washington, who afterwards selected him for the important post of minister resident to the Netherlands.

From this period, until 1801, he was successively employed as a public minister in Holland, England and Prussia. And during his residence in the latter country, he concluded a treaty of commerce with that power, to the entire satisfaction of our cabinet.

In 1801, he returned to the United States, and next year was elected a member of the senate of Massachusetts, and in 1803, of the United States. He passed, altogether, six years in these two bodies, and engaged indefatigably and prominently, in the important questions which occupied their attention.

It was during this perplexing period of public affairs, that he nobly sacrificed the interest of party to that of his country, by which he has more firmly interwoven his name in the annals of his country.

In consequence of his appointment of first Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory in the university of Cambridge, he resigned