speaking in the name of
the whole people of the United States, and at a loss only for language to
give utterance to that feeling of attachment with which the heart of the
nation beats, as beats the heart of one man--I bid you a reluctant and
affectionate FAREWELL!!

At the conclusion of this address, Gen. La Fayette replied as follows:--

"Amidst all my obligations to the General Government, and particularly to
you, sir, its respected Chief Magistrate, I have most thankfully to
acknowledge the opportunity given me, at this solemn and painful moment,
to present the people of the United States with a parting tribute of
profound, inexpressible gratitude.

"To have been in the infant and critical days of these States adopted by
them as a favorite son; to have participated in the trials and perils of
our unspotted struggle for independence, freedom, and equal rights, and in
the foundation of the American era of a new social order, which has
already pervaded this, and must, for the dignity and happiness of mankind,
successively pervade every part of the other hemisphere; to have received,
at every stage of the revolution, and during forty years after that
period, from the people of the United State's and their Representatives at
home and abroad, continual marks of their confidence and kindness,--has
been the pride, the encouragement, the support of a long and eventful
life.

"But how could I find words to acknowledge that series of welcomes, those
unbounded and universal displays of public affection, which have marked
each step, each hour, of a twelvemonth's progress through the twenty-four
States, and which, while they overwhelm my heart with grateful delight,
have most satisfactorily evinced the concurrence of the people in the kind
testimonies, in the immense favors bestowed on me by the several branches
of their Representatives, in every part and at the central seat of the
confederacy?

"Yet gratifications still higher awaited me. In the wonders of creation
and improvement that have met my enchanted eye, in the unparalleled and
self-felt happiness of the people, in their rapid prosperity and insured
security, public and private, in a practice of good order, the appendage
of true freedom, and a national good sense, the final arbiter of all
difficulties, I have had proudly to recognize a result of the republican
principles for which we have fought, and a glorious demonstration to the
most timid and prejudiced minds, o