Chapter VIII: The Whole Man (1)

GEORGE WASHINGTON

BY JOHN HALL INGHAM

This was the man God gave us when the hour
Proclaimed the dawn of Liberty begun;
Who dared a deed, and died when it was done,
Patient in triumph, temperate in power,--
Not striving like the Corsican to tower
To heaven, nor like great Philip's greater son
To win the world and weep for worlds unwon,
Or lose the star to revel in the flower.
The lives that serve the eternal verities
Alone do mold mankind. Pleasure and pride
Sparkle awhile and perish, as the spray
Smoking across the crests of cavernous seas
Is impotent to hasten or delay
The everlasting surges of the tide.

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HISTORICAL MEMORABILIA OF WASHINGTON

COMPILED BY H.B. CARRINGTON

1732. February 22 (February 11, O.S.), born. 1748. Surveyor of lands at sixteen years of age. 1751. Military inspector and major at nineteen years of age. 1752. Adjutant-general of Virginia. 1753. Commissioner to the French. 1754. Colonel, and commanding the Virginia militia. 1755. Aide-de-camp to Braddock in his campaign. 1755. Again commands the Virginia troops. 1758. Resigns his commission. 1759. January 6. Married. 1759. Elected member of Virginia House of Burgesses. 1765. Commissioner to settle military accounts. 1774. In First Continental Congress. 1775. In Second Continental Congress. 1775. June 15. Elected commander-in-chief. 1775. July 2. In command at Cambridge. 1776. March 17. Expels the British from Boston. 1776. August 27. Battle of Long Island. 1776. August 29. Masterly retreat to New York. 1776. September 15. Gallant, at Kipp's Bay. 1776. October 27. Battle of Harlem Heights. 1776. October 29. Battle near White Plains. 1776. November 15. Enters New Jersey. 1776. December 5. Occupies right bank of the Delaware. 1776. December 12. Clothed with "full power." 1776. December 14. Plans an offensive campaign. 1776. December 26. Battle of Trenton. 1777. January 3. Battle of Princeton. 1777. July. British driven from New Jersey, during. 1777. July 13. Marches for Philadelphia. 1777. September 11. Battle of Brandywine. 1777. September 15. Offers battle at West Chester. 1777. October 4. Battle of Germantown. 1778. Winters at Valley Forge. 1778. June 28. Battle of Monmouth. 1778. British again retire from New Jersey. 1778. Again at White Plains. 1779. At Middlebrook, New Jersey, and New Windsor. 1780. Winters at Morristown, New Jersey. 1781. Confers with Rochambeau as to plans. 1781. Threatens New York in June and July. 1781. Joins Lafayette before Yorktown. 1781. October 19. Surrender of Cornwallis. 1783. November 2. Farewell to the army. 1733. November 25. Occupies New York. 1783. December 4. Parts with his officers. 1783. December 23. Resigns his commission. 1787. Presides at Constitutional Convention. 1789. March 4. Elected President of the United States. 1789. April 30. Inaugurated at New York. 1793. March 4. Re-elected for four years. 1796. September 17. Farewell to the people. 1797. March 4. Retires to private life. 1798. July 3. Appointed commander-in-chief. 1799. December 14. Died at Mount Vernon.

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A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF WASHINGTON[20]

BY HENRY MITCHELL MACCRACKEN

George Washington was a son of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball, and a descendant of John Washington, who emigrated from England about 1657, during the protectorate of Cromwell. He was born in the English colony of Virginia, in Westmoreland County, on February 22, 1732. His education was simple and practical. To the common English instruction of his time and home, young Washington added bookkeeping and surveying. The three summers preceding his twentieth year he spent in surveying the estate of Lord Fairfax on the northwest boundary of the colony, an occupation which strengthened his splendid physical constitution to a high point of efficiency, and gave him practice in topography,--valuable aids in the military campaigning which speedily followed.

In 1751, at nineteen, he was made Adjutant in the militia, with the rank of Major. In the following year he inherited the estate of Mount Vernon. In the winter of 1753-54, at twenty-one, he was sent by the Governor of Virginia on a mission to the French posts beyond the Alleghanies. Soon after his return he led a regiment to the headwaters of the Ohio, but was compelled to retreat to the colony on account of the overwhelming numbers of the French at Fort Duquesne. In Braddock's defeat, July 9, 1755, Washington was one of the latter's aides, and narrowly escaped death, having had two horses shot under him. During the remaining part of the French and Indian War, he was in command of the Virginia frontier, with the rank of Colonel, and occupied Fort Duquesne in 1758. On January 17, 1759, he married a wealthy widow, Mrs. Martha Custis, and removed to Mount Vernon. The administration of his plantations involved a large measure of commerce with England, and he himself with his own hand kept his books with mercantile exactness.

Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, Washington was appointed by the Continental Congress, at forty-three years of age, Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the Revolution, and assumed their control at Cambridge on July 3, 1775. In 1776 he occupied Boston, lost New York, then brilliantly restored the drooping spirit of the land at Trenton and Princeton. In the year following he lost Philadelphia, and retreated to Valley Forge. Threatened by the jealousy of his own subordinates, he put to shame the cabal formed in the interests of Gates, who had this year captured Burgoyne. For three years, 1778-80, he maintained himself against heavy odds in the Jerseys, fighting at Monmouth the first year, reaching out to capture Stony Point the next year, and the third year combating the treason of Arnold. In 1781, he planned the cooping up of Cornwallis on the peninsula of Yorktown, with the aid of the French allies, and received his surrender on October 19th.

Resigning his commission at Annapolis, December 23, 1783, he returned to his estate at Mount Vernon, but vastly aided the incipient work of framing the Constitution by correspondence. In May, 1787, he took his seat as President of the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia. He was inaugurated the first President of the United States in April, 1789, after a unanimous election. He was similarly reflected in 1793, but refused a third term in 1796. In the face of unmeasured vituperation he firmly kept the nascent nation from embroiling herself in the wars of France and England. Retiring again to Mount Vernon in the spring of 1797, he nevertheless accepted, at sixty-six years of age, the post of Commander-in-Chief of the provisional army raised in 1798 to meet the insolence of the French Directorate. In December, 1799, while riding about his estates during a snowstorm, he contracted a disease of the throat, from which he died on December 14, 1799. He provided by his will for the manumission of his slaves, to take effect on the decease of his widow. No lineal descendants can claim as an ancestor this extraordinary man. He belongs to his country. His tomb is at Mount Vernon, and is in keeping of the women of America.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] From "The Hall of Fame." Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1901.

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THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

_A Speech Delivered at a Public Dinner, Washington, February 22, 1832_

_The Power of the Name of Washington_

We are met to testify our regard for him whose name is intimately blended with whatever belongs most essentially to the prosperity, the liberty, the free institutions, and the renown of our country;. That name was of power to rally a nation, in the hour of thick-thronging public disasters and calamities; that name shone, amid the storm of war, a beacon light, to cheer and guide the country's friends; it flamed, too, like a meteor, to repel her foes. That name, in the days of peace, was a lodestone, attracting to itself a whole people's confidence, a whole people's love, and the whole world's respect. That name, descending with all time, spreading over the whole earth, and uttered in all the languages belonging to the tribes and races of men, will forever be pronounced with affectionate gratitude by everyone in whose breast there shall arise an aspiration for human rights and human liberty.

We perform this grateful duty, Gentlemen, at the expiration of a hundred years from his birth, near the place so cherished and beloved by him, where his dust now reposes, and in the capital which bears his own immortal name.

All experience evinces that human sentiments are strongly influenced by association. The recurrence of anniversaries, or of longer periods of time, naturally freshens the recollection, and deepens the impression, of events with which they are historically connected. Renowned places, also, have a power to awaken feeling, which all acknowledge. No American can pass by the fields of Bunker Hill, Monmouth, and Camden, as if they were ordinary spots on the earth's surface. Whoever visits them feels the sentiment of love of country kindling anew, as if the spirit that belonged to the transactions which have rendered these places distinguished still hovered round, with power to move and excite all who in future time may approach them.

_Washington's Great Moral Example to the Youth of America_

But neither of these sources of emotion equals the power with which great moral examples affect the mind. When sublime virtues cease to be abstractions, when they become embodied in human character, and exemplified in human conduct, we should be false to our own nature if we did not indulge in the spontaneous effusions of our gratitude and our admiration. A true lover of the virtue of patriotism delights to contemplate its purest models; and that love of country may be well suspected which affects to soar so high into the regions of sentiment as to be lost and absorbed in the abstract feeling, and becomes too elevated or too refined to glow with fervor in the commendation or the love of individual benefactors. All this is unnatural. It is as if one should be so enthusiastic a lover of poetry as to care nothing for Homer or Milton; so passionately attached to eloquence as to be indifferent to Tully[21] and Chatham; or such a devotee to the art, in such an ecstasy with the elements of beauty, proportion, and expression, as to regard the masterpieces of Raphael and Michel Angelo with coldness or contempt. We may be assured, Gentlemen, that he who really loves the thing itself, loves its finest exhibitions. A true friend of his country loves her friends and benefactors, and thinks it no degradation to commend and commemorate them. The voluntary outpouring of the public feeling, made to-day, from the north to the south, and from the east to the west, proves this sentiment to be both just and natural. In the cities and in the villages, in the public temples and in the family circles, among all ages and sexes, gladdened voices to-day bespeak grateful hearts and a freshened recollection of the virtues of the Father of his Country. And it will be so, in all time to come, so long as public virtue is itself an object of regard. The ingenuous youth of America will hold up to themselves the bright model of Washington's example, and study to be what they behold; they will contemplate his character till all its virtues spread out and display themselves to their delighted vision; as the earliest astronomers, the shepherds on the plains of Babylon, gazed at the stars till they saw them form into clusters and constellations, overpowering at length the eyes of the beholders with the united blaze of a thousand lights.

_A Wonderful Age and Country_

Gentlemen, we are at a point of a century from the birth of Washington; and what a century it has been! During its course, the human mind has seemed to proceed with a sort of geometric velocity, accomplishing for human intelligence and human freedom more than had been done in fives or tens of centuries preceding. Washington stands at the commencement of a new era, as well as at the head of the New World. A century from the birth of Washington has changed the world. The country of Washington has been the theater on which a great part of that change has been wrought, and Washington himself a principal agent by which it has been accomplished. His age and his country are equally full of wonders; and of both he is the chief.

If the poetical prediction, uttered a few years before his birth, be true; if indeed it be designed by Providence that the grandest exhibition of human character and human affairs shall be made in this theater of the Western world; if it be true that,

"The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last";

how could this imposing, swelling, final scene be appropriately opened, how could its intense interest be adequately sustained but by the introduction of just such a character as our Washington?

_The Spark of Human Freedom_

Washington had attained his manhood when that spark of liberty was struck out in his own country which has since kindled into a flame and shot its beams over the earth. In the flow of a century from his birth, the world has changed in science, in arts, in the extent of commerce, in the improvement of navigation, and in all that relates to the civilization of man. But it is the spirit of human freedom, the new elevation of individual man, in his moral, social, and political character, leading the whole long train of other improvements, which has most remarkably distinguished the era. Society, in this century, has not made its progress, like Chinese skill, by a greater acuteness of ingenuity in trifles; it has not merely lashed itself to an increased speed round the old circles of thought and action; but it has assumed a new character; it has raised itself from _beneath_ governments to a participation in governments; it has mixed moral and political objects with the daily pursuits of individual men; and, with a freedom and strength before altogether unknown, it has applied to these objects the whole power of the human understanding. It has been the era, in short, when the social principle has triumphed over the feudal principle; when society has maintained its rights against military power, and established, on foundations never hereafter to be shaken, its competency to govern itself.

_A New Governmental Experiment_

It was the extraordinary fortune of Washington that, having been intrusted in revolutionary times, with the supreme military command, and having fulfilled that trust with equal renown for wisdom and for valor, he should be placed at the head of the first government in which an attempt was to be made on a large scale to rear the fabric of social order on the basis of a written constitution, and of a pure representative principle. A government was to be established without a throne, without an aristocracy, without castes, orders, or privileges; and this government, instead of being a democracy existing and acting within the walls of a single city, was to be extended over a vast country of different climates, interests, and habits, and of various communions of our common Christian faith. The experiment certainly was entirely new. A popular government of this extent, it was evident, could be framed only by carrying into full effect the principle of representation or of delegated power; and the world was to see whether society could, by the strength of this principle, maintain its own peace and good government, carry forward its own great interests, and conduct itself to political renown and glory. By the benignity of Providence, this experiment, so full of interest to us and to our posterity forever, so full of interest, indeed, to the world in its present generation and in all its generations to come, was suffered to commence under the guidance of Washington. Destined for this high career, he was fitted for it by wisdom, by virtue, by patriotism, by discretion, by whatever can inspire confidence in man toward man. In entering on the untried scenes, early disappointment and the premature extinction of all hope of success would have been certain, had it not been that there did exist throughout the country, in a most extraordinary degree, an unwavering trust in him who stood at the helm.

_The World Interested in the Experiment_

I remarked, Gentlemen, that the whole world was and is interested in the result of this experiment. And is it not so? Do we deceive ourselves, or is it true that at this moment the career which this government is running is among the most attractive objects to the civilized world? Do we deceive ourselves, or is it true that at this moment that love of liberty and that understanding of its true principles which are flying over the whole earth, as on the wings of all the winds, are really and truly of American origin?

_Importance of the English Revolution of 1688_

At the period of the birth of Washington there existed in Europe no political liberty in large communities, except in the provinces of Holland, and except that England herself had set a great example, so far as it went, by her glorious Revolution of 1688. Everywhere else, despotic power was predominant, and the feudal or military principle held the mass of mankind in hopeless bondage. One-half of Europe was crushed beneath the Bourbon scepter, and no conception of political liberty, no hope even of religious toleration, existed among that nation which was America's first ally. The king was the state, the king was the country, the king was all. There was one king, with power not derived from his people, and too high to be questioned; and the rest were all subjects, with no political right but obedience. All above was intangible power, all below quiet subjection. A recent occurrence in the French chamber shows us how public opinion on these subjects is changed. A minister had spoken of the "king's subjects." "There are no subjects," exclaimed hundreds of voices at once, "in a country where the people make the king!"

Gentlemen, the spirit of human liberty and of free government, nurtured and grown into strength and beauty in America, has stretched its course into the midst of the nations. Like an emanation from Heaven, it has gone forth, and it will not return void. It must change, it is fast changing, the face of the earth. Our great, our high duty is to show, in our own example, that this spirit is a spirit of health as well as a spirit of power; that its benignity is as great as its strength; that its efficiency to secure individual rights, social relations, and moral order, is equal to the irresistible force with which it prostrates principalities and powers. The world, at this moment, is regarding us with a willing, but something of a fearful, admiration. Its deep and awful anxiety is to learn whether free States may be stable, as well as free; whether popular power may be trusted, as well as feared; in short, whether wise, regular, and virtuous self-government is a vision for the contemplation of theorists, or a truth established, illustrated, and brought into practice in the country of Washington.

_The United States a Western Sun_

Gentlemen, for the earth which we inhabit, and the whole circle of the sun, for all the unborn races of mankind, we seem to hold in our hands, for their weal or woe, the fate of this experiment. If we fail, who shall venture the repetition? If our example shall prove to be one not of encouragement, but of terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? If this great _Western Sun_ be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness of the world?

There is no danger of our overrating or overstating the important part which we are now acting in human affairs. It should not flatter our personal self-respect, but it should reanimate our patriotic virtues and inspire us with a deeper and more solemn sense both of our privileges and of our duties. We cannot wish better for our country, nor for the world, than that the same spirit which influenced Washington may influence all who succeed him; and that the same blessing from above, which attended his efforts, may also attend theirs.

_Washington's Farewell Address_

The principles of Washington's administration are not left doubtful. They are to be found in the Constitution itself, in the great measures recommended and approved by him, in his speeches to Congress, and in that most interesting paper, his Farewell Address to the people of the United States. The success of the government under his administration is the highest proof of the soundness of these principles. And, after an experience of thirty-five years, what is there which an enemy could condemn? What is there which either his friends, or the friends of the country, could wish to have been otherwise? I speak, of course, of great measures and leading principles.

In the first place, all his measures were right in their intent. He stated the whole basis of his own great character, when he told the country, in the homely phrase of the proverb, that honesty is the best policy. One of the most striking things ever said of him is, that "_he changed mankind's ideas of political greatness_."[22] To commanding talents, and to success, the common elements of such greatness, he added a disregard of self, a spotlessness of motive, a steady submission to every public and private duty, which threw far into the shade the whole crowd of vulgar great. The object of his regard was the whole country. No part of it was enough to fill his enlarged patriotism. His love of glory, so far as that may be supposed to have influenced him at all, spurned everything short of general approbation. It would have been nothing to him that his partisans or his favorites outnumbered, or outvoted, or outmanaged, or outclamored, those of other leaders. He had no favorites; he rejected all partisanship; and, acting honestly for the universal good, he deserved, what he so richly enjoyed, the universal love.

His principle it was to act right, and to trust the people for support; his principle it was not to follow the lead of sinister and selfish ends, nor to rely on the little arts of party delusion to obtain public sanction for such a course. Born for his country and for the world, he did not give up to party what was meant for mankind. The consequence is, that his fame is as durable as his principles, as lasting as truth and virtue themselves. While the hundreds whom party excitement, and temporary circumstances, and casual combinations, have raised into transient notoriety, sink again, like thin bubbles, bursting and dissolving into the great ocean, Washington's fame is like the rock which bounds that ocean, and at whose feet its billows are destined to break harmlessly forever.

_His Conduct of America's Foreign Relations_

The maxims upon which Washington conducted our foreign relations were few and simple. The first was an entire and indisputable impartiality towards foreign States.[23] He adhered to this rule of public conduct, against very strong inducements to depart from it, and when the popularity of the moment seemed to favor such a departure. In the next place, he maintained true dignity and unsullied honor in all communications with foreign States. It was among the high duties devolved upon him to introduce our new government into the circle of civilized States and powerful nations. Not arrogant or assuming, with no unbecoming or supercilious bearing, he yet exacted for it from all others entire and punctilious respect. He demanded, and he obtained at once, a standing of perfect equality for his country in the society of nations; nor was there a prince or potentate of his day, whose personal character carried with it, into the intercourse of other States, a greater degree of respect and veneration.

He regarded other nations only as they stood in political relations to us. With their internal affairs, their political parties and dissensions, he scrupulously abstained from all interference; and, on the other hand, he repelled with spirit all such interference by others with us or our concerns. His sternest rebuke, the most indignant measure of his whole administration, was aimed against such an attempted interference. He felt it as an attempt to wound the national honor, and resented it accordingly.

_Foreign Influence a Foe of Republican Government_

The reiterated admonitions in his Farewell Address show his deep fears that foreign influence would insinuate itself into our counsels through the channels of domestic dissension, and obtain a sympathy with our own temporary parties. Against all such dangers he most earnestly entreats the country to guard itself. He appeals to its patriotism, to its self-respect, to its own honor, to every consideration connected with its welfare and happiness, to resist, at the very beginning, all tendencies toward such connection of foreign interests with our own affairs. With a tone of earnestness nowhere else found, even in his last affectionate farewell advice to his countrymen, he says, "Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be _constantly_ awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government."

_The Advantages of American Isolation_

Lastly, on the subject of foreign relations, Washington never forgot that we had interests peculiar to ourselves. The primary political concerns of Europe, he saw, did not affect us. We had nothing to do with her balance of power, her family compacts, or her successions to thrones. We were placed in a condition favorable to neutrality during European wars, and to the enjoyment of all the great advantages of that relation. "Why, then," he asks us, "why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?"

Indeed, Gentlemen, Washington's Farewell Address is full of truths important at all times, and particularly deserving consideration at the present. With a sagacity which brought the future before him, and made it like the present, he saw and pointed out the dangers that even at this moment most imminently threaten us. I hardly know how a greater service of that kind could now be done to the community, than by a renewed and wide diffusion of that admirable paper, and an earnest invitation to every man in the country to reperuse and consider it. Its political maxims are invaluable; its exhortations to love of country and to brotherly affection among citizens, touching; and the solemnity with which it urges the observance of moral duties, and impresses the power of religious obligation, gives to it the highest character of truly disinterested, sincere, parental advice.

_Washington's Domestic Policy_

The domestic policy of Washington found its pole-star in the avowed objects of the Constitution itself. He sought so to administer that Constitution as to form more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. These were objects interesting in the highest degree, to the whole country, and his policy embraced the whole country.

Among his earliest and most important duties was the organization of the government itself, the choice of his confidential advisers, and the various appointments to office. This duty, so important and delicate, when a whole government was to be organized, and all its offices for the first time filled, was yet not difficult to him, for he had no sinister ends to accomplish, no clamorous partisans to gratify, no pledges to redeem, no object to be regarded but simply the public good. It was a plain, straightforward matter, a mere honest choice of good men for the public service.

_His First Cabinet_

His own singleness of purpose, his disinterested patriotism, were evinced by the selection of his first cabinet, and by the manner in which he felled the seats of justice, and other places of high trust. He sought for men fit for offices; not for offices which might suit them. Above personal considerations, above local considerations, above party considerations, he felt that he could only discharge the sacred trust which the country had placed in his hands, by a diligent inquiry after real merit, and a conscientious preference of virtue and talent. The whole country was the field of his selection. He explored that whole field, looking only for whatever it contained most worthy and distinguished. He was, indeed, most successful, and he deserved success for the purity of his motives, the liberality of his sentiments, and his enlarged and manly policy.

_Important Measures of His Administrations_

Washington's administration established the national credit, made provision for the public debt, and for that patriotic army whose interests and welfare were always so dear to him; and, by laws wisely framed, and of admirable effect, raised the commerce and navigation of the country, almost at once, from depression and ruin to a state of prosperity. Nor were his eyes open to these interests alone. He viewed with equal concern its agriculture and manufactures, and, so far as they came within the regular exercise of the powers of this government, they experienced regard and favor.

It should not be omitted, even in this slight reference to the general measures and general principles of the First President, that he saw and felt the full value and importance of the judicial department of the government. An upright and able administration of the laws he held to be alike indispensable to private happiness and public liberty. The temple of justice, in his opinion, was a sacred place, and he would profane and pollute it who should call any to minister in it, not spotless in character, not incorruptible in integrity, not competent by talent and learning, not a fit object of unhesitating trust.

_His Opinion of the Dangers of Party Spirit_

Among other admonitions Washington has left us, in his last communication to his country, an exhortation against the excesses of party spirit. A fire not to be quenched, he yet conjures us not to fan and feed the flame. Undoubtedly, Gentlemen, it is the greatest danger of our system and of our time. Undoubtedly, if that system should be overthrown, it will be the work of excessive party spirit, acting on the government, which is dangerous enough, or acting in the government, which is a thousand times more dangerous; for government then becomes nothing but organized party, and, in the strange vicissitudes of human affairs, it may come at last, perhaps, to exhibit the singular paradox of government itself being in opposition to its own powers, at war with the very elements of its own existence. Such cases are hopeless. As men may be protected against murder, but cannot be guarded against suicide, so government may be shielded from the assaults of external foes, but nothing can save it when it chooses to lay violent hands on itself.

_His Love of the Union_

Finally, Gentlemen, there was in the breast of Washington one sentiment so deeply felt, so constantly uppermost, that no proper occasion escaped without its utterance. From the letter which he signed in behalf of the Convention when the Constitution was sent out to the people, to the moment when he put his hand to that last paper in which he addressed his countrymen, the Union,--the Union was the great object of his thoughts. In that first letter he tells them that to him and his brethren of the Convention, union appears to be the greatest interest of every true American; and in that last paper he conjures them to regard that unity of government which constitutes them one people as the very palladium of their prosperity and safety, and the security of liberty itself. He regarded the union of these States less as one of our blessings, than as the great treasure-house which contained them all. Here, in his judgment, was the great magazine of all our means of prosperity; here as he thought, and as every true American still thinks, are deposited all our animating prospects, all our solid hopes for future greatness. He has taught us to maintain this union, not by seeking to enlarge the powers of the government, on the one hand, nor by surrendering them, on the other; but by an administration of them at once firm and moderate, pursuing objects truly national, and carried on in a spirit of justice and equity.

_The American Nation Unique_

The extreme solicitude for the preservation of the Union, at all times manifested by him, shows not only the opinion he entertained of its importance, but his clear perception of those causes which were likely to spring up to endanger it, and which, if once they should overthrow the present system, would leave little hope of any future beneficial reunion. Of all the presumptions indulged by presumptuous men, that is one of the rashest which looks for repeated and favorable opportunities for the deliberate establishment of a united government over distinct and widely extended communities. Such a thing has happened once in human affairs, and but once; the event stands out as a prominent exception to all ordinary history; and unless we suppose ourselves running into an age of miracles, we may not expect its repetition.

Washington, therefore, could regard, and did regard nothing as a paramount political interest but the integrity of the Union itself. With a united government, well administered, he saw that we had nothing to fear; and without it, nothing to hope. The sentiment is just, and its momentous truth should solemnly impress the whole country. If we might regard our country as personated in the spirit of Washington, if we might consider him as representing her, in her past renown, her present prosperity, and her future career, and as in that character demanding of us all to account for our conduct, as political men or as private citizens, how should he answer him who has ventured to talk of disunion and dismemberment? Oh how should he answer him who dwells perpetually on local interests, and fans every kindling flame of local prejudice? How should he answer him who would array State against State, interest against interest, and party against party, careless of the continuance of that unity of government which constitutes us one people?

The political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it now enjoys, has been acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the present government. While this agent continues, the capacity of attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We have, while this lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every public interest. But dismemberment strikes at the very being which preserves these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess, but all power of regaining lost, or acquiring new possessions. It would leave the country not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but without limbs, or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness.

_Dismemberment of the United States the Greatest of Evils_

Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skillful architecture which unites national sovereignty with State rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw, the edifice of constitutional American liberty.

But let us hope for better things. Let us trust in that gracious Being who has hitherto held our country as in the hollow of his hand. Let us trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the people, and to the efficacy of religious obligation. Let us trust to the influence of Washington's example. Let us hope that that fear of Heaven which expels all other fear, and that regard to duty which transcends all other regard, may influence public men and private citizens, and lead our country still onward in her happy career. Full of these gratifying anticipations and hopes, let us look forward to the end of that century which is now commenced. A hundred years hence, other disciples of Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of sincere admiration than we now commemorate it. When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do themselves and him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue summits of his native mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as they shall behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks he rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so surely may they see, as we now see, the flag of the Union floating on the top of the Capitol; and then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country!

FOOTNOTES:

[21] At the beginning of the nineteenth century Marcus Tullius Cicero was often called Tully.

[22] A remark by Fisher Ames (1758-1808), of Massachusetts,--perhaps the extremest Federalist of his time.

[23] The famous phrase, "honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none," was not Washington's but Jefferson's.

* * * * *

MOUNT VERNON, THE HOME OF WASHINGTON

BY WILLIAM DAY

_The following lines were written on the back of a picture at Mount Vernon_:

There dwelt the Man, the flower of human kind,
Whose visage mild bespoke his nobler mind.

There dwelt the Soldier, who his sword ne'er drew
But in a righteous cause, to Freedom true.

There dwelt the Hero, who ne'er killed for fame,
Yet gained more glory than a Caesar's name.

There dwelt the Statesman, who, devoid of art,
Gave soundest counsels from an upright heart;

And, O Columbia, by thy sons caressed,
There dwelt the Father of the realms he blessed;
Who no wish felt to make his mighty praise,
Like other chiefs, the means himself to raise;
But there retiring, breathed in pure renown,
And felt a grandeur that disdained a crown.

* * * * *

THE UNSELFISHNESS OF WASHINGTON

BY ROBERT TREAT PAINE

To the pen of the historian must be resigned the more arduous and elaborate tribute of justice to those efforts of heroic and political virtue which conducted the American people to peace and liberty. The vanquished foe retired from our shores, and left to the controlling genius who repelled them the gratitude of his own country, and the admiration of the world. The time had now arrived which was to apply the touchstone to his integrity, which was to assay the affinity of his principles to the standard of immutable right.

On the one hand, a realm to which he was endeared by his services almost invited him to empire; on the other, the liberty to whose protection his life had been devoted, was the ornament and boon of human nature.

Washington could not depart from his own great self. His country was free. He was no longer a general. Sublime spectacle! more elevating to the pride of virtue than the sovereignty of the globe united to the scepter of the ages! Enthroned in the hearts of his countrymen, the gorgeous pageantry of prerogative was unworthy the majesty of his dominion. That effulgence of military character which in ancient states has blasted the rights of the people whose renown it had brightened, was not here permitted, by the hero from whom it emanated, to shine with so destructive a luster. Its beams, though intensely resplendent, did not wither the young blossoms of our Independence; and Liberty, like the burning bush, flourished, unconsumed by the glory which surrounded it.

To the illustrious founder of our Republic it was reserved to exhibit the example of a magnanimity that commanded victory, of a moderation that retired from triumph. Unlike the erratic meteors of ambition, whose flaming path sheds a disastrous light on the pages of history, his bright orb, eclipsing the luminaries among which it rolled, never portended "fearful change" to religion, nor from its "golded tresses" shook pestilence on empire.

What to other heroes has been glory, would to Washington have been disgrace. To his intrepidity it would have added no honorary trophy, to have waded, like the conqueror of Peru, through the blood of credulous millions, to plant the standard of triumph at the burning mouth of a volcano. To his fame, it would have erected no auxiliary monument to have invaded, like the ravager of Egypt, an innocent though barbarous nation, to inscribe his name on the pillar of Pompey.

* * * * *

THE GENIUS OF WASHINGTON[24]

BY EDWIN P. WHIPPLE

The history, so sad and so glorious, which chronicles the stern struggle in which our rights and liberties passed through the awful baptism of fire and blood, is eloquent with the deeds of many patriots, warriors, and statesmen; but these all fall into relations to one prominent and commanding figure, towering up above the whole group in unapproachable majesty, whose exalted character, warm and bright with every public and private virtue, and vital with the essential spirit of wisdom, has burst all sectional and national bounds, and made the name of Washington the property of all mankind.

This illustrious man, at once the world's admiration and enigma, we are taught by a fine instinct to venerate, and by a wrong opinion to misjudge. The might of his character has taken strong hold upon the feelings of great masses of men; but, in translating this universal sentiment into an intelligent form, the intellectual element of his wonderful nature is as much depressed as the moral element is exalted, and consequently we are apt to misunderstand both. Mediocrity has a bad trick of idealizing itself in eulogizing him, and drags him down to its own level while assuming to lift him to the skies. How many times have we been told that he was not a man of genius, but a person of "excellent common sense," of "admirable judgment," of "rare virtues"! and, by a constant repetition of this odious cant, we have nearly succeeded in divorcing comprehension from his sense, insight from his judgment, force from his virtues, and life from the man. Accordingly, in the panegyric of cold spirits, Washington disappears in a cloud of commonplaces; in the rhodomontade of boiling patriots, he expires in the agonies of rant. Now, the sooner this bundle of mediocre talents and moral qualities, which its contrivers have the audacity to call George Washington, is hissed out of existence, the better it will be for the cause of talent and the cause of morals; contempt of that is the condition of insight. He had no genius, it seems. O no! genius, we must suppose, is the peculiar and shining attribute of some orator, whose tongue can spout patriotic speeches, or some versifier, whose muse can "Hail Columbia," but not of the man who supported states on his arm, and carried America in his brain. The madcap Charles Townshend, the motion of whose pyrotechnic mind was like the whiz of a hundred rockets, is a man of genius; but George Washington raised up above the level of even eminent statesmen, and with a nature moving with the still and orderly celerity of a planet round the sun,--he dwindles, in comparison, into a kind of angelic dunce! What is genius? Is it worth anything. Is splendid folly the measure of its inspiration? Is wisdom that which it recedes from, or tends towards? And by what definition do you award the name to the creator of an epic, and deny it to the creator of a country? On what principle is it to be lavished on him who sculptures in perishing marble the image of possible excellence, and withheld from him who built up in himself a transcendent character indestructible as the obligations of Duty, and beautiful as her rewards?

Indeed, if by the genius of action you mean will enlightened by intelligence, and intelligence energized by will,--if force and insight be its characteristics, and influence its test,--and, especially, if great effects suppose a cause proportionately great, that is, a vital causative mind,--then is Washington most assuredly a man of genius, and one whom no other American has equaled in the power of working morally and mentally on other minds. His genius, it is true, was of a peculiar kind, the genius of character, of thought, and the objects of thought solidified and concentrated into active faculty. He belongs to that rare class of men,--rare as Homers and Miltons, rare as Platos and Newtons, who have impressed their characters upon nations without pampering national vices. Such men have natures broad enough to include all the facts of a people's practical life, and deep enough to discern the spiritual laws which underlie, animate, and govern those facts. Washington, in short, had that greatness of character which is the highest expression and last result of greatness of mind; for there is no method of building up character except through mind. Indeed, character like his is not _built_ up, stone upon stone, precept upon precept, but _grows_ up, through an actual contact of thought with things,--the assimilative mind transmuting the impalpable but potent spirit of public sentiment, and the life of visible facts, and the power of spiritual laws, into individual life and power, so that their mighty energies put on personality, as it were, and act through one centralizing human will. This process may not, if you please, make the great philosopher or the great poet; but it does make the great _man_,--the man in whom thought and judgment seem identical with volition,--the man whose vital expression is not in words, but deeds,--the man whose sublime ideas issue necessarily in sublime acts, not in sublime art. It was because Washington's character was thus composed of the inmost substance and power of facts and principles, that men instinctively felt the perfect reality of his comprehensive manhood. This reality enforced universal respect, married strength to repose, and threw into his face that commanding majesty which made men of the speculative audacity of Jefferson, and the lucid genius of Hamilton, recognize, with unwonted meekness, his awful superiority.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] From "Character and Characteristic Men." Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

* * * * *

WASHINGTON'S SERVICE TO EDUCATION

BY CHARLES W.E. CHAPIN

Washington's ideas concerning education have the approval of educators of our day. He was in advance of his age; it is a question if we have quite caught up with him. Of the two plans of his mature years and ripened experience, one has been realized, the West Point idea, which brings together, from every State and Territory of the Union, young men to be trained for military service; that other plan of a National University, with schools of administration and statesmanship, is yet being considered.

Washington shared neither the least nor the most of the educational advantages of his colony. The elder brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, had realized their father's hopes, and had been sent to England for their schooling as he had been for his, but the early death of the father defeated that plan for George, so he obtained the early preparation for his life work from the "home university," over which Mary Washington presided, a loving and wise head. At times George was with his brother Augustine at Bridges Creek, to be near the best parish school, and then he was at home; but all the time he was advancing rapidly in that school of men and affairs. "He was above all things else, a capable, executive boy," says Woodrow Wilson in his biography. "He loved mastery and he relished acquiring the most effective means of mastery in all practical affairs. His very exercise books, used at school, gave proof of it." As he did these things with care and industry, so he followed with zest the spirited diversions of the hunt and the life in fields and forests. Very early he put his knowledge of the surveyor's art to practical test, and applied the chain and logarithm to the reaches of the family lands. His skill came to the notice of Lord Fairfax, who wished to know the extent of the lands he had inherited in the New World. Washington, though but sixteen, was equal to the task; in a month's time, after fording swollen streams and penetrating the forests, he presented to Lord Fairfax maps and figures which showed him the extent and boundaries of his estate. For three years Washington followed this fascinating yet perilous work, and then, being strongly recommended by Lord Fairfax, and himself being able to show in clear, round style his mastery of the art and science of surveying, he received in 1748 from the President of William and Mary College the appointment as official surveyor for Culpeper County; such a certificate was equivalent to a degree of civil engineer in those days.

Thus from an institution of higher learning, George Washington received the first public recognition of service, and of merit. It was the turning point in his life; it opened up fully the path to those experiences which equipped him for that efficient service in the French and Indian War, and the Revolution.

The honorable position of Chancellor had been held by the Bishops of London from the foundation of the College in 1693 to the Revolution. The old statute defining the duties of the office is interesting: "The Chancellor is to be the Maecenas, or patron of the College; such a one as by his favor with the King and by his interest with all other persons in England may be enabled to help in all the College affairs. His advice is to be taken, especially in such arduous and momentous affairs as the College shall have to do in England. If the College has any petitions at any time to the King, let them be presented by the Chancellor." We can imagine a grim smile on Washington's countenance as he read the provisions made concerning the functions of his office, especially that of conferring with the King.

In his letter to Samuel Griffin, Esq., Rector of the College, accepting his appointment, he says: "Influenced by a heartfelt desire to promote the cause of science in general and the prosperity of the College of William and Mary in particular, I accept the office of Chancellor in the same, and request you will be pleased to give official notice thereof to the learned body who have thought proper to honor me with the appointment. I confide fully in their strenuous endeavors for placing the system of education on such a basis as will render it most beneficial to the State, and the Republic of letters, as well as to the more extensive interests of humanity and religion." This call to the leadership of education in his own State antedated his election to the Presidency of the new Republic by a year, and he continued in that service to the College of William and Mary until the close of his life.