"When the principle of hereditary dominion shall be extinguished in all the institutions of France; when government shall no longer be considered as property transmissible from sire to son, but as a trust committed for a limited time, and then to return to the people whence it came; as a burdensome duty to be discharged, and not as a reward to be abused; when a claim, any claim, to political power by inheritance shall, in the estimation of the whole French people, be held as it now is by the whole people of the North American Union — then will be the time for contemplating the character of Lafayette, not merely in the events of his life, but in the full development of his intellectual conceptions, of his fervent aspirations, of the labors and perils and sacrifices of his long and eventful career upon earth; and thenceforward, till the hour when the trump of the Archangel shall sound to announce that Time shall be no more, the name of Lafayette shall stand enrolled upon the annals of our race, high on the list of the pure and disinterested benefactors of mankind."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
John Quincy Adams‎ in an address to the US Congress (31 December 1834)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gilbert_du_Motier%2C_Marquis_de_Lafayette
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), often referred to simply as Lafayette, was a French and American military officer and aristocrat who participated in the American Revolution as a general and served in the Estates General and the subsequent National Constituent Assembly in the early phases of the French Revolution.
18 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette →
Related Quotes
"I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I reflect, and out of all of this I try to form an idea into which I put as muc…"
"Humanity has gained its suit; Liberty will nevermore be without an asylum."
"Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights …"
"True republicanism is the sovereignty of the people. There are natural and imprescriptible rights which an entire nat…"
"An irresistible passion that would induce me to believe in innate ideas, and the truth of prophecy, has decided my ca…"
"I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a la…"
"If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, they will fall by the hands of the Romish clergy."
"Pronounce him one of the first men of his age, and you have yet not done him justice. Try him by that test to which h…"
"Born and educated in the highest order of feudal Nobility, under the most absolute Monarchy of Europe, in possession …"
"Lafayette avoided the factions jealous of Washington because he recognized that Washington was the Revolution and tha…"