"If there be any admirer of other forms of government who think unfavorably of our republican fashion of selecting our rulers, I would invite him to examine the list of men whom Massachusetts for a hundred years has chosen as her Senators of the first class. I do not claim for her any superiority over other Commonwealths in this respect--but certainly she has given you of her best. She has sent men who were worthy to be peers of the men who have represented her sister States, and if that be true, they surely have been worthy to be peers in any Senate that was ever gathered upon earth. The line begins with Tristram Dalton, save Washington the stateliest gentleman of his time, rich in every mental accomplishment, whose presence graced and ennobled every assembly that he entered. Next to him comes George Cabot, the wise statesman and accomplished merchant, beloved friend of Hamilton, trusted counsellor of Washington, whose name and lineage are represented at this table to-night, who shared with this successor, Benjamin Goodhue, the honor of being the first authority in finance in their generation, save Hamilton alone. "Then comes John Quincy Adams, who left the Senate, after years of illustrious public service, in 1808, but to begin another public service of forty years, still more illustrious. He served his country in every department of public occupation. He was Minister in five great Powers in succession. He was present as Secretary when the treaty of peace was signed in 1783. He negotiated and signed the Treaty of Ghent, the Commercial Treaty of 1815, the French Treaty of 1822, the Prussian Treaty, and the treaty which acquired Florida from Spain. He was Senator, Representative, Foreign Minister, Secretary of State, and President. He breasted the stormy waves of the House of Representatives at the age of eighty, and when he died in the Capitol, he left no purer or loftier fame behind him. "Next came James Lloyd, the modest gentleman, the eloquent orator and the accomplished man of business. Then came Gore and Ashmun and Mellen and Mills, each great among the great lawyers of a great generation. Next in the procession comes the majestic presence of Daniel Webster, whose matchless logic and splendid eloquence gave to the Constitution of the country an authority in the reason and in the hearts of his countrymen equal to anything in judicial decision and equal to that of any victory of arms. With his reply to Hayne, it has been said that every Union cannon in the late war was shotted. His power in debate was only equalled by his wisdom in council. It was said of him by one whose fame as a great public teacher equals his own: 'His weight was like the falling of a planet, his discretion the return of its due and perfect curve.'