"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 he sought in vain to stimulate the vulgar and selfish spirit of Napoleon; class him among the men who, to compare and seat themselves, must take in the compass of all ages; turn back your eyes upon the records of time; summon from the creation of the world to this day the mighty dead of every age and every clime — and where, among the race of merely mortal men, shall one be found, who, as the benefactor of his kind, shall claim to take precedence of Lafayette?"
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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
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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.
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