and John Adams and
his illustrious son, and Cabot and Dexter, Webster and Everett
and Sumner and Andrew. Nothing better can be said in praise
of either than that they have been worthy of her, and she
has been worthy of them. They have given her always brave
and honest service, brave and honest counsel. She has never
asked of them obsequiousness, or flattery, or even obedience
to her will, unless it had the approval of their own judgment
and conscience. That relation has been alike most honorable
and most advantageous to both sides. They have never been
afraid to trust the people and they have never been afraid
to withstand the people. They knew well the great secret
of all statesmanship, that he that withstands the people on
fit occasions is commonly the man who trusts them most and
always in the end the man they trust most.

CHAPTER II
ROGER SHERMAN AND HIS FAMILY

My mother, who died in 1866, at the age of eighty-three,
was the daughter of Roger Sherman of Connecticut. Her father
died when she was ten years old. She lived in her mother's
house, opposite the College in New Haven, until her marriage
in 1812. New Haven was one of the capital cities of New England.
Its society had the special attraction which belonged to the
seat of a famous college. Her mother's house was visited
by the survivors of the great period of the Revolution and
the framing of the Constitution, whom her father had known
during an eminent public service of nearly forty years.

My mother was the most perfect democrat, in the best sense
of the word, that I ever knew. It was a democracy which was
the logical result of the doctrines of the Old Testament and
of the New. It recognized the dignity of the individual soul,
without regard to the accident of birth or wealth or power
or color of the skin. If she were in the company of a Queen,
it would never have occurred to her that they did not meet
as equals. And if the Queen were a woman of sense, and knew
her, it would never occur to the Queen. The poorest people
in the town, the paupers in the poorhouse, thought of her
as a personal friend to whom they could turn for sympathy
and help. No long before her death, an old black woman died
in the poorhouse. She died in the night. An old man who
had been a town pauper a good part of his life sat up with
her and ministered to her wants as well as he could. Just
before she died, the old woman thanked him for his kindness.
She tol