This temporary triumph over the poor players was one of the last of Hancock's long series of successes; unless indeed we ought to assign that station to the agency which he had in procuring the erasure from the federal constitution of a very equitable and necessary provision, authorizing suits in the federal courts against the States by individuals having claims upon them. At such a suit, brought against the State of Massachusetts, Hancock exhibited a vast deal of indignation, calling the legislature together at a very inconvenient season of the year, and refusing to pay the least attention to the process served upon him. Yet the Supreme Court of the United States, not long after, decided that such suits would lie, as indeed was sufficiently plain from the letter of the constitution. But the sovereign States, with all the insolence customary to sovereigns, whether one-headed or many-headed, scorned to be compelled to do justice; and the general clamor raised against this reasonable and even necessary provision, caused it to be ultimately struck from the constitution. Before this was accomplished, Hancock's career of life was over. Worn down by the gout and other aristocratic diseases, which the progress of democracy seems, since his time, to have almost banished from America, he expired at the early age of fifty-six, in the same house in which he had presided over so many social and political festivities, lamented by almost the entire population of the State in whose service he had spent the best part of his life, and whose faithful attachment to him, spite of some obvious weaknesses on his part, had yet never flagged. Had we space and inclination, many lessons might be drawn from the history of his life. We shall confine ourselves to this one, which every body's daily experience may confirm: that success in active life, whether political or private, even the attainment of the very highest positions, depends far less on any extraordinary endowments, either of nature or fortune, than upon an active, vigorous, and indefatigable putting to use of such gifts as a man happens to have. What a difference, so far as name and fame are concerned, and we may add, too, enjoyment and a good conscience, between the man who puts his talent to use and him who hoards it up, so that even its very existence remains unknown to every body but himself and his intimate friends. =John Adams.= [Illustration: John Adams fac-simile of letter] [Illustration: Residence of the Adams Family, Quincy, Mass.] JOHN ADAMS "Oh that I could have a home! But this felicity has never been permitted me. Rolling, rolling, rolling, till I am very near rolling into the bosom of mother earth."