A leading Whig during nearly all his political career was John Quincy Adams, one of the ablest, most patriotic, and most successful presidents this country has ever had. He possessed a thorough education, mainly acquired abroad, where, sojourning with his distinguished father, he had enjoyed while still a youth better opportunities for diplomatic training than many of our diplomatists have known in a lifetime. He went to the United States Senate in 1803 as a Federalist. Disgusted with that party, he turned Republican, losing his place. From 1806 to 1809 he was professor in Harvard College. In the latter year Madison sent him Minister to St. Petersburg. He was commissioner at Ghent, then Minister to England, then Monroe's Secretary of State, then President. [Illustration: Small house.] The House in which Henry Clay was Born. But Mr. Adams's best work was done in the House of Representatives after he was elected to that body in 1830. He sat in the House until his death, in 1848--its acknowledged leader in ability, in activity, and in debate. Friend and foe hailed him as the "Old Man Eloquent," nor were any there anxious to be pitted against him. He spoke upon almost every great national question, each time displaying general knowledge; legal lore, and keenness of analysis surpassed by no American of his or any age. Webster was, however, the great orator of the party. Reared upon a farm and educated at Dartmouth College, he went to Congress from New Hampshire as a Federalist in 1813. Removing to Boston, he soon entered Congress from Massachusetts, first as representative, then as senator, and from 1827 was in the Senate almost continuously till 1850. He was Secretary of State under Harrison and Tyler, and again in the Taylor-Fillmore cabinet from 1850. [Illustration: One room log building.] The School-house of the Slashes. As an orator Webster had no peer in his time, nor have the years since evoked his peer. He was an influential party leader, and repeatedly thought of for President, though too prominent ever to be nominated. On two momentous questions, the tariff and slavery, he vacillated, his dubious action concerning the latter costing him his popularity in New England. [Illustration: Portrait.] Henry Clay. From a photograph by Rockwood of an old daguerreotype.