type and symbol. "I know of no safe depository of the ultimate
powers of society but the people themselves," wrote Jefferson,
and with the people themselves is the depository of his fame.

CHAPTER V. THE KNICKERBOCKER GROUP

The Fourth of July orator for 1826 in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
was Edward Everett. Although only thirty-two he was already a
distinguished speaker. In the course of his oration he
apostrophized John Adams and Thomas Jefferson as venerable
survivors of that momentous day, fifty years earlier, which had
witnessed our Declaration of Independence. But even as Everett
was speaking, the aged author of the Declaration breathed his
last at Monticello, and in the afternoon of that same day Adams
died also, murmuring, it is said, with his latest breath, and as
if with the whimsical obstinacy of an old man who hated to be
beaten by his ancient rival, "Thomas Jefferson still lives." But
Jefferson was already gone.

On the first of August, Everett commemorated the career of the
two Revolutionary leaders, and on the following day a greater
than Everett, Daniel Webster, pronounced the famous eulogy in
Faneuil Hall. Never were the thoughts and emotions of a whole
country more adequately voiced than in this commemorative
oratory. Its pulse was high with national pride over the
accomplishments of half a century. "I ask," Everett declared,
"whether more has not been done to extend the domain of
civilization, in fifty years, since the Declaration of
Independence, than would have been done in five centuries of
continued colonial subjection?" Webster asserted in his