“This is an unaccustomed spectacle. For the first time, fellow citizens, badges of mourning shroud the columns and overhang the arches of this hall. These walls, which were consecrated so long ago to the cause of American liberty, which witnessed her infant struggles, and rang with the shouts of her earliest victories, proclaim now that distinguished friends and champions of that great cause have fallen. It is right that it should be thus. The tears which flow and the honors which are paid when the founders of the republic die give hope that the republic itself may be immortal. It is fit that by public assembly and solemn observance, by anthem and by eulogy, we commemorate the services of national benefactors, extol their virtues, and render thanks to God for eminent blessings, early given and long continued, to our favored country. “Adams and Jefferson are no more, and we are assembled, fellow citizens, the aged, the middle-aged, and the young, by the spontaneous impulse of all, under the authority of the municipal government, with the presence of the chief magistrate of the commonwealth and others, its official representatives, the university, and the learned societies, to bear our part in the manifestations of respect and gratitude which universally pervade the land. Adams and Jefferson are no more. On our fiftieth anniversary, the great day of national jubilee, in the very hour of public rejoicing, in the midst of echoing and re-echoing voices of thanksgiving, while their own names were on all tongues, they took their flight together to the world of spirits. “If it be true that no one can safely be pronounced happy while he lives, if that event which terminates life can alone crown its honor and its glory, what felicity is here! The great epic of their lives how happily concluded! Poetry itself has hardly closed illustrious lives and finished the career of earthly renown by such a consummation. If we had the power, we could not wish to reverse this dispensation of Divine Providence. The great objects of life were accomplished, the drama was ready to be closed. It has closed; our patriots have fallen; but so fallen, at such age, with such coincidence, on such a day, that we cannot rationally lament that that end has come, which we know could not long be deferred.