Ex-President John Quincy Adams in Pittsburgh in 1843

To what are we indebted for all these blessings? Since the war of the Revolution, to that wise TARIFF policy by which you were regulated when at the head of the government, and as chairman of the Committee on Manufactures in the Congress of the United States. No base subserviency to Foreign Powers dictated your course, but a manly and determined support of the true interests of the country, by the protection of its industry, and by a proper reciprocity of countervailing restrictions.

We thank you, Sir – we thank you with the truest friendship and the deepest sincerity.

We honor you for the lustre you have shed on all the high places it has been your good fortune to occupy – we praise you for that sublimest virtue which shines in all your actions – we see in your brow that undaunted valor which renders you inexorably firm in the discharge of all your public duties, and in your eye "that inextinguishable spark, that fires the souls of patriots."

Great and good Citizen! Venerable and Venerated Man! Panegyric or Eulogy, now, or hereafter, cannot add one cubit to your stature. Live on – live on, in honor and in glory – and when "this corruptible does put on incorruption, and this mortal, immortality," I pray God that it may be in the calm serenity of that summer's evening, when bonfires and illuminations light up the land, in commemoration of that glorious INDEPENDENCE, to the achievement of which your illustrious FATHER so largely, so eminently contributed.

MR. ADAMS' REPLY

Fellow-Citizens:

Before I attempt to address you, and to respond to the eloquent discourse pronounced under circumstances so unauspicious to eloquence, I must apologize for my appearance before you.

I had expected to have had the honor of meeting you on this day and at this time; and arrangements were made to render it convenient to yourselves, but it so happened that the bark on which we had taken our passage, as if anxious to arrive at the end of her voyage, and partaking of my feelings, arrived before the time, when your preparations to receive me were not completed. My appearance was, therefore, accidental and unexpected, and as my apology, I would remind you of the saying of the great Poet of Nature, Shakespeare, who says:

"Lovers break not hours,

Except it be to come before their time."

If the lover is privileged to "break hours" and "come before his time," I trust you will accept it as my excuse, and impute it to the ardor of a lover desiring to see the beloved of his soul.

Fellow citizens! I had motives of the most cogent nature to inspire me with that feeling, in times past – I trust forever – when my position was anything but what I find it now – at a time when I was in a position of difficulty and danger, I had the gratification to receive testimonials of regard, respect and sympathy from the citizens of Pittsburgh, beyond what I received from any other portion of the United States, my own constituents and the city of Rochester alone excepted. I shall always entertain a feeling of gratitude, belonging to the nature of man, towards the citizens of Pittsburgh, for their attention and sympathy on that trying occasion. I had never flattered myself with the expectation or hope that it should be in my power to personally return them those thanks which were due; but they were indelibly impressed upon my heart – and it is owing rather to accidental circumstances that I now enjoy that satisfaction.