Indeed, I do not know of any fault he had that he would not have acknowledged and lamented in a talk with his near friend, or that he would have sought to hide from the people.
The motives which controlled his life from the time when he snatched such moments as he could from this day's work on a shoemaker's bench and studied far into the night to fit himself for citizenship, down to the time when he died in the Vice-President's chamber--the second officer in the Government--and if his life and health had been spared, he very likely would have been called to the highest place in the Government--were public and patriotic, not personal.
He was not without ambitions for himself.

But they were always subordinate in him to the love of liberty and the love of country.

He espoused the unpopular side when he started in life, and he stuck to it through all its unpopularity.
He was a skilful, adroit, practised and constant political manager.

He knew the value of party organization, and did not disdain the arts and diplomacies of a partisan.

He carried them sometimes farther, in my judgment, than a scrupulous sense of honor would warrant, or than was consistent with the noble, frank, lofty behavior which Massachusetts and the American people expect of their statesmen.