Here Clay presided, here Webster spoke, and here Adams stood for the right of petition and for the abolition of human slavery. What pictures these scenes would make! A plate in the floor southwest of the center marks the spot in the House where John Quincy Adams fell stricken with paralysis. In a room opening from the Hall is a memorial bust, whose inscription reads: "John Quincy Adams, who, after fifty years of public service, the last sixteen in yonder Hall, was summoned to die in this room February 23 1848."
The room has special acoustic qualities which in early days occasioned much trouble. A whisper scarcely audible to the ear into which it is breathed is distinctly heard in another part of the hall. It is one of the most remarkable whispering galleries in the world, and its peculiar properties, accidentally discovered, produced no end of disturbances before they were fully understood. Their effect has been much modified by a recent change in the ceiling.
Each State is now permitted to place in Statuary Hall two statues of its most renowned sons.
Virginia has Washington and Jefferson. Think of that! New Hampshire has Daniel Webster, who made these walls echo with his thrilling, patriotic sentences, and John Stark, of Bunker Hill fame, who cried: "See those men? They are the redcoats! Before night they are ours, or Molly Stark will be a widow!"
Pennsylvania has Robert Fulton, the inventor, and John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, the preacher, Major-General in the Revolution. He was also Senator and Member of Congress. New York has Robert R. Livingston, of the Continental Congress, and Alexander Hamilton. The latter was Washington's Secretary of the Treasury during both of his Presidential terms. He had much to do with securing a good financial system for the new government. His pathetic death enhanced his fame and ruined Burr; but under the search-light of history one can not help wondering had Burr been killed and Hamilton survived that duel, would the halo of the latter have faded? The statue of Hamilton is one of the best in the Hall. It was made in Rome by Horatio Stone.
The Illinois memorial is the famous Vinnie Ream statue of Lincoln. I wish, because it was done by a woman, that I could like it, but it is weak and unworthy. In every line of his strong, patriotic face lived the gospel of everlasting hope. This figure might well stand for one vanquished in the race. (Was Jesus vanquished? Was Paul? Was Luther? Was Lincoln?)