ture of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence to give his benediction.*

Besides these more conspicuous leaders, there was to be found, in almost every town and village in Massachusetts, some man eminent among his neighbors for purity of life, for philanthropy, and for large intelligence who was ready to join the new party. The glowing hopes and dreams and aspirations of youth were inspirited by the muse of Whittier and Longfellow and Lowell and Bryant. The cause of free labor appealed to the strongest sympathies of the mechanics of Essex and the skilled laborers of Worcester.

Four years afterward Daniel Webster, as he lay dying at Marshfield, said to the friend who was by his side: "The Whig candidate will obtain but one or two States, and it is well; as a national party, the Whigs are ended."

* I like very much the epitaph which his sons placed over him in the burial place at Quincy. Every word of it is true.

THIS STONE

MARKS THE GRAVE OF

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS

SON OF JOHN QUINCY

AND LOUISA CATHERINE (JOHNSON)

ADAMS

BORN 18 AUGUST 1807

Trained from his youth in politics and letters
His manhood strengthened by the convictions
Which had inspired his fathers

He was among the first to serve
And among the most steadfast to support
That new revolution

Which restored the principles of liberty
To public law

And secured to his country

The freedom of its soil

During seven troubled and anxious years
Minister of the United States in England
afterward arbitrator at the tribunal of Geneva
He failed in no task which his Government imposed
Yet won the respect and confidence
of two great nations

Dying 21 November 1886

He left the example
of high powers nobly used
and the remembrance

of a spotless name.

The Whig Party retained its organization in Massachusetts until 1856; but its intellect and its moral power were gone. Mr. Winthrop, as appears from the excellent "Life" published by his son, had no sympathy with Mr. Webster's position. Mr. Webster died, a disappointed man, in the autumn of 1852. He took no part in political affairs in Massachusetts after 1850. Mr. Choate, who was to follow his great leader to the grave within a few years, transferred his allegiance to the Democrats. Mr. Everett, after a brief service in the Senate, a service most uncongenial to his own taste, resigned his seat in the midst of the angry conflict on the Nebraska bill, and devoted himself to literary pursuits until, when the war broke out, he threw himself with all his zeal, power, and eloquence into the cause of his country.

CHAPTER IX

LIFE IN WORCESTER

AFTER leaving college I studied for a year in my brother's office in Concord, then for two years at the Harvard Law School, and afterward for four months in the office of Judge Benjamin F. Thomas in Worcester. I was led to choose Worcester as a place to live in chiefly for the reason that that city and county were the stronghold of the new AntiSlavery Party, to which cause I was devoted with all my heart and soul. I have never regretted the choice, and have spent my life there, except when in Washington, for considerably more than half a century. In that time Worcester has grown from a city of fifteen thousand to a city of one hundred and thirty thousand people. I can conceive of no life more delightful for a man of public spirit than to belong to a community like that which combines the youth and vigor and ambition of a western city with the refinement and conveniences, and the pride in a noble history, of an old American community. It is a delight to see it grow and a greater delight to help it grow,-to help improve its schools, and found its Public Library, and help lay the foundations of great institutions of learning. Worcester had an admirable Bar, admirable clergymen, and physicians of great skill and eminence. Among her clergymen was Edward Everett Hale, then in early youth, but already famous as a preacher throughout the country. There was no Unitarian pulpit where he was not gladly welcomed. So his congregation here, by way of exchange, heard the most famous pulpit orators of the country.

Among the physicians was Dr. Joseph Sargent, a man then without a superior in his profession in Massachusetts. The friendship I formed with him in 1849 lasted till his death, more than forty years afterward.

The mechanics of Worcester were unsurpassed for their ingenuity anywhere on the face of the earth. Worcester was the centre and home of invention. Within a circle of twelve miles radius was the home of Blanchard, the inventor of the machine for turning irregular forms; of Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine; of Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, which doubled the value of every acre of cotton-producing land in the country; of Erastus B. Bigelow, the inventor of the carpet machine; of Hawes, the inventor of the envelope machine; of Crompton and Knowles, the creators and perfectors of the modern loom; of Ruggles, Nourse and Mason, in whose establishment the modern plow was brought to perfection, and a great variety of other agricultural implements invented and improved. There were many other men whose inventive genius and public usefulness were entitled to rank with these. The first house-warming furnace was introduced here, and the second cupola furnace was set up near by.

These inventors and mechanics were all men of great public spirit, proud of Worcester, of its great achievements, and its great hope. They got rich rapidly. They and their households made social life most delightful. There was little pride of family or wealth. Men and women were welcomed everywhere on their merits.

The City of Worcester was the heart of one of the foremost agricultural counties in the country. The county stood fourth among American counties in the value of its agricultural products, and the proportion of the value of the product to the value of the lands. It was the spot on the face of the earth where labor got the largest proportion of the joint product of labor and capital. The farmers made an excellent living. They made excellent legislators, excellent town officers, excellent jurors, and excellent clients. I have been at some time or other in my life counsel for every one of the fifty-two towns in Worcester County. I had a large clientage among the farmers. In the intimacy of that relation I got a knowledge of the inmost soul and heart of a class of men who I think constituted what was best in American citizenship, a knowledge which has been

a great educational advantage to me and valuable in a thousand ways in my public and professional life.

From the first of December, 1849, until the fourth of March, 1869, I was diligently employed in my profession, save for a single year's service in each house of the Massachusetts Legislature. But during all that time I kept a very zealous interest in political affairs. I was Chairman of the County Committee for several years, made political speeches occasionally, presided at political meetings, always attended the caucus and was in full sympathy and constant communication with the Free Soil and Republican leaders.

The Worcester Bar in my time afforded a delightful companionship. It was like a college class in the old days. My best and most cordial friends were the men whom I was constantly encountering in the courts. The leaders of the Bar when I was admitted to it,-Charles Allen, Emory Washburn, Pliny Merrick, Benjamin F. Thomas, Peter C. Bacon,-would have been great leaders at any Bar in the United States, or on any circuit in England. Study at a law school is invaluable to the youth if he is to rise in his profession; but there is no law school like a court-house when such men are conducting trials. The difficult art of cross-examination, the more difficult art of refraining from cross-examination, can only be learned by watching men who are skilled in the active conduct of trials.

The Supreme Court of Massachusetts at that day with Chief Justice Shaw at its head was without an equal in the country and not surpassed by the Supreme Court of the United States itself. I can conceive of no life more delightful than that of a lawyer in good health, and with good capacity, and with a sufficient clientage, spent in that manly emulation and honorable companionship.

The habit of giving dissenting opinions which has become so common both in the Supreme Court of the United States and of late in the Massachusetts Supreme Court did not then exist. If there were a division on an important question of law the statement of the result was usually "a majority of the Court is of opinion." That was all. I do not