gratification at the public expense, always has had, and ever will have, meted to him the same measure. The beaten course is first to slander in order to intimidate; and if that fail, to slander in order to sacrifice. He who loves his office better than his duty will yield, and be flattered as long as he is a tool. He who loves his duty better than his office will stand erect, and take his fate." Mr. Quincy had been absorbed in a laborious fulfilment of every known duty, a prudent exercise of every invested power, a disposition shrinking from no official responsibility, and an absolute self-devotion to the interest of the city. This is an eloquent defence, comprising thirty-two pages of argument, exhibiting the fact that he retired from the mayoralty when the real estate owned by the city exceeded more than seven hundred thousand dollars, and the debt of the city was six hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars; the income and interest of their real estate, including bonds and mortgages, amounting to fifty-two thousand dollars, while the annual interest of the debt was only forty-seven thousand dollars. Mayor Quincy further exhibits what he had effected for the public health, the popular education, and advance in the public morals. The last political communication of Josiah Quincy to the people of his native city, with the exception of his successful remonstrance to proposed alterations of the city charter, was presented at a meeting in Faneuil Hall, October 14, 1850, on the expediency of the fugitiveslave law, occasioned by the invitation of citizens without distinction of party, at the head of which was his own name. Mr. Quincy expressed a hope, in his letter to the meeting, that this assembly would not partake of a party or political character, as he had been assured that it was the intention of those interested in this invitation that it should not be a party movement. The meeting was, however, conducted by advocates of the free-soil or abolition project. The Hon. Charles Francis Adams was appointed the moderator; and it was at this meeting that the proposed resolve of Rev. Nathaniel Colver was adopted, declaring, emphatically, "Constitution or no constitution, law or no law, we will not allow a fugitive slave to be taken from Massachusetts." It was in allusion to the policy of this party, that Daniel Webster advanced the bold comparison herewith, in his famous speech at Albany. "It was in Cromwell's time," remarks he, "there sprung up a race of saints, who called themselves Fifth Monarchy Men. A happy, felicitous, glorious people they were; for they had practised so many virtues, they were so enlightened, so perfect, that they got to be, in the language of that day, above ordinances. That is the higher law of this day, exactly. It is the old doctrine of the Fifth Monarchy Men of Cromwell's time revived. They were above ordinances, walked about like the man in the play, prim and spruce, self-satisfied, thankful to God that they were not as other men, but had attained so far to salvation as to be above ordinances." We are of opinion that this figure is not too broad to cover the shoulders of many enthusiasts of the free-soil party; at the same time, it is our decided belief, that Josiah Quincy, Charles Sumner, and the almost entire majority of advocates for emancipation, would repudiate such a doctrine. Indeed, we know that our country never had a more devoted advocate of the constitution and the laws than Josiah Quincy. Mr. Quincy's letter, dated Quincy, Oct. 14, 1850, contains an interesting political reminiscence in his own career, which we will quote: "I can speak of this subject with a somewhat personal certainty, so far as respects the existence of the feeling prevalent on this subject fifty-six years ago. Sometime about the year 1794, soon after the first law on this subject was passed, I was sent for, as a counsellor-atlaw, to appear before one of our acting justices of the peace,-Greenleaf,— to defend a person then on trial, under the charge of being a slave, on the claim of his master for delivery to him. On appearing before the justice, I found the room filled with a crowd of persons, not one of whom I knew, but who were attending the court apparently from interest or curiosity. Among them were the constables, and the agent of the master; but who the other persons were, or what was the object of their assembling, I was ignorant. I entered, of course, on my duties as an advocate; called for the evidence of the agent's authority, and denied the authority of the law of Congress, and of the magistrate under it, to deliver an inhabitant of Massachusetts into the custody of another, unless after trial by jury, according to the constitution of the State. While occupied with my argument, I was suddenly interrupted by a loud noise behind me; and, on turning round, I found, to my astonishment, both the constable and the agent on the floor, and the alleged slave passing out of the room between the files of bystanders, which were opened to the right and left for his escape. "About a fortnight elapsed, when I was called upon by Rufus Greene Amory, a lawyer of eminence at the Boston bar in that day, who showed me a letter from a southern slave-holder, directing him to prosecute Josiah Quincy for the penalty under the law of 1793, for obstructing the agent of the claimant in obtaining his slave under the process established by that law. "Mr. Amory felt, not less than myself, the folly of such a pretence; and I never heard from him, or from any one, anything more upon the subject of prosecution. This fact, and the universal gratification which the result appeared to give to the public, satisfied my mind, that, unless by accident, or stealth, or in some very thin-settled parts of the country, the law of 1793 would forever be inoperative, as the event has proved, in Massachusetts. And the same will, in my opinion, be the case, as I have already said, with the law of 1850." President Quincy, having represented Suffolk eight years in the national Congress, his native city in the State Legislature eight years, the mayoralty for a period of six years, and the presidency of Harvard University during sixteen years, has retired to his residence on the location of Beacon Hill, now levelled and overspread by elegant dwellings and the granite Cochituate reservoir; the spot from the summit of which was a striking view of Bunker Hill, thus famed by Mrs. Morton : "Witness yon tract, where first the Briton bled! JOHN LOWELL. JULY 4, 1799. FOR THE TOWN AUTHORITIES. "A FREE government," says our orator, "is the very hot-bed of ambition. Ambition is an indigenous plant in democracies, which produces and scatters its seeds like the balsamine, and propagates with indescribable rapidity. In such governments, therefore, there is always a plentiful crop of candidates for promotion,— of proud and haughty claimants, as well as servile beggars, of popular favor. These gormandizers of popularity are no epicures,— they have not very nice discriminating palates. They are ready to taste the sweets of every office, from the high dignity of the presidency, down to the lowest municipal employment in the State. Still, however, with this humble spirit of accommodation, they cannot all be gratified. The disappointed will pursue their revenge with an acrimony proportioned to the ravenous hunger after fame which impelled them. The mortified ambitious are never in want of tools to carry on the trade of faction. The ignorant, the jealous, and the envious,— the bankrupt in morals and character, and the insolvent in purse, are the small weapons with which the great leviathans in opposition continually operate. Review the past history of the United States, and what page is there in which the proofs of these principles are not inscribed? Coeval with our government has been an inveterate opposition,— an opposition growing with our growth, and strengthening with our strength. At first, small and feeble, it uttered its discontents only in the gentle whispers of disapprobation; now, bold, hardy and shameless, it thunders its anathemas in the language of rebellion. We have remarked, that faction is the spontaneous production of a free soil; but, like all native plants, it is not destined wholly to destroy the vegetation which surrounds it. It is by the introduction of exotics, alone, that the work of extermination can be effected. In vain would our domestic enemies assail the goodly fabric of our constitution,— vain would be the calumny against our ablest patriots,-feeble and nerveless would be the assaults of our internal enemies,—if they were not supported by foreign gold, and encouraged by external assistance. Without this aid, our infant Hercules would have strangled the rebellious reptile in his cradle. Still our young and vigorous Samson would have burst asunder the cords with which an insidious faction had bound him, if this internal foe had not entered into a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, with a foreign adversary." In the oration of Mr. Lowell, an object of which is to vindicate our Revolution from the misrepresentation and calumnies of those who have endeavored, by its example, to justify that of France, our orator has, with much warmth of coloring and fervor of imagination, exhibited a comparison between the spirit and character of both. The two pictures present a perfect contrast. In that of America, we behold a people distinguished for unsullied virtue, uncorrupted simplicity, and a pure and undefiled religion, impelled by an ardent love of liberty, an unconquerable spirit of independence, a hatred of foreign dominion, and detestation of domestic oppression, calmly and dispassionately resolve to resist the earliest encroachments of arbitrary power, and pursuing, with moderation and firmness, that one legitimate object, preserving inviolate moral and religious institutions, the principles of justice, the order of civil society, and the rights of persons,— and, when their lofty purpose was accomplished, return to the enjoyment of innocence and repose. In another passage, Mr. Lowell points out the more imminent and striking hazards to which the United States were then exposed, from the open attacks and secret machinations of the rulers of France, boundless in their ambition, and insatiable in their avarice, whose support was plunder, whose nutriment was carnage, and whose pastime was human wretchedness. He depicted the conduct of the French republic towards surrounding nations, and demands if from so ferocious a monster we have reason to expect forbearance, to hope for its friendship, to trust to its moderation, or to confide in its justice. Those who still cherished the love of peace, and persevered in their faith of the professions of France, he reproaches for their supineness and credulity, reminding them of the opinion of John Adams, then the president, that "there can be no peace without degradation and submission, and no security in negotiation and convention." The law dissolving the treaties and consular convention with France was approved by President Adams, July 7, 1798. John Lowell was the son of Hon. John Lowell, whom Harrison Gray Otis very graphically describes as being about five feet ten inches in height, and inclined to corpulence. "His gait was rapid and hurried; his conversation, animated and ardent. He appeared to strangers, at first, to speak too much er cathedra; but he was free of all propensity to browbeat or show ill humor. On the contrary, he was the very mirror of benevolence, which beamed in and made attractive a countenance not remarkable for symmetry of feature or beauty; and his companionable talents, though never displayed at the expense of dignity, made him the delight of the society in which he moved, and which he always put at ease. His private character was irreproachable; his honesty and moderation, proverbial. In a satirical and very personal farce, got up by a witty desperado, and which had a great run, he was dubbed by the author no friend of his Lawyer Candor; a most appropriate sobriquet, which the world unanimously applied to him. He was most ardent in his attachment to his particular friends, who, in their turn, looked to him as their oracle. His |