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Show ABOUT THE PRESIDENTS. Washington survived his retirement a little less than three years, which were spent at Mount Vernon. He attended to his plantation, carried on a large correspondence, and received many visitors, and yet this was the only leisure his busy life afforded. John Adams survived his office twenty-six years, which were spent at Quincy, his native place, in close retirement. He improved the leisure to publish his political letters, and in his eighty-sixth year sat at the Massachusetts constitutional convention. Thomas Jefferson, on the close of his Presidential career, retired to his residence at Monticello, where he lived eighteen years. Here he was visited by many distinguished men, the chief of whom was La Fayette. His residence is still an object of great interest to the tourist, and is remarkable for the grand prospect. As is well known, he and John Adams died on the same day, the 4th of July, 1826. Madison was poor when he left the Presidential office, and on returning to Montpelier, he became president of an agricultural society. To aid him at this time of privation, Congress purchased his library. Monroe also retired poor, and resumed his residence at Oak Hill, Virginia, where he became justice of the peace, and afterward moved to New York to live with his son-in-law, at whose house he died in 1831. John Quincy Adams was the most active of all the retired Presidents. He was returned to Congress in 1831, two years after leaving the Presidency, and this service he continued until his death, seventeen years afterward. His services to the cause of liberty at this time were of the most valuable and sublime character, and he died at his post, in the Capitol, being then in his eighty-first year. Jackson survived his retirement from the Presidency nine years, which were peacefully passed at the Hermitage. His favorite pursuit was farming and raising of fine horses, of which animal he was very fond. Van Buren, after the close of his office, appeared as a free soil candidate. On the close of that canvas he became a close resident at Kinderbook, where he died in his eightieth year. Pierce sank into obscurity after the close of his office, and died in 1869. The youngest of our Presidents at the time of inauguration was Grant, who was forty-six. The oldest was Harrison, who was sixty seven. Our military heroes were chiefly advanced in years, Jackson being sixty-two, and Taylor sixty-five. The average of those to whom reference has been made is fifty-seven, which is the best period for ripe judgment-a time when experience unfolds its lessons unimpared [unimpaired] by the weakness of age. |