wisdom and cunning, and the importance as well as truth of the maxim,
that 'honesty is the best policy.'

"If Washington possessed ambition that passion was, in his bosom, so
regulated by principles or controlled by circumstances that it was
neither vicious nor turbulent. Intrigue was never employed as the means
of its gratification, nor was personal aggrandizement its object. The
various high and important stations to which he was called by the public
voice were unsought by himself; and, in consenting to fill them, he
seems rather to have yielded to a general conviction that the interests
of his country would be thereby promoted, than to an avidity for power.

"Neither the extraordinary partiality of the American people, the
extravagant praises which were bestowed upon him, nor the inveterate
opposition and malignant calumnies which he encountered, had any visible
influence upon his conduct. The cause is to be looked for in the texture
of his mind.

"In him, that innate and unassuming modesty which adulation would have
offended, which the voluntary plaudits of millions could not betray
into indiscretion, and which never obtruded upon others his claims to
superior consideration, was happily blended with a high and correct
sense of personal dignity, and with a just consciousness of that respect
which is due to station. Without exertion he could maintain the happy
medium between that arrogance which wounds and that facility which
allows the office to be degraded in the person who fills it.

"It is impossible to contemplate the great events which have occurred
in the United States under the auspices of Washington without ascribing
them, in some measure, to him. If we ask the causes of the prosperous
issue of a war, against the successful termination of which there were
so many probabilities; of the good which was produced, and the ill
which was avoided, during an administration fated to contend with the
strongest prejudices that a combination of circumstances and of
passions could produce; of the constant favor of the great mass of his
fellow-citizens, and of the confidence which, to the last moment of his
life, they reposed in him, the answer, so far as these causes may
be found in his character, will furnish a lesson well meriting the
attention of those who are candidates for political fame.

"Endowed by nature with a sound judgment, and an accurate discriminating
mind, he feared not that laborious attention which made him perfectly
master of those subjects, in all their relations, on which he was to
decide; and this essential quality was guided by an unvarying sense of
moral right, which would tolerate the employment only of those means
that would bear the most rigid examination, by a fairness of intention
which neither sought nor required disguise, and by a purity of
virtue which was not only untainted but unsuspected." The eulogies of
Washington, at the time of his death, were almost as numerous as the
towns and cities of the republic; for everywhere funeral honors were
paid to his memory. The following, by the celebrated orator, Fisher
Ames, pronounced before the Legislature of Massachusetts, is as
remarkable for its conciseness as for its just and comprehensive
estimate of Washington's character.

"It is not impossible," he said, "that some will affect to consider
the honors paid to this great patriot by the nation as excessive,
idolatrous, and degrading to freemen who are all equal. I answer, that
refusing to virtue its legitimate honors would not prevent their being
lavished in future on any worthless and ambitious favorite. If this
day's example should have its natural effect, it will be salutary.
Let such honors be so conferred only when, in future, they shall be so
merited; then the public sentiment will not be misled nor the principles
of a just equality corrupted. The best evidence of reputation is a man's
whole life. We have now, alas, all of Washington's before us. There
has scarcely appeared a really great man whose character has been more
admired in his lifetime or less correctly understood by his admirers.
When it is comprehended it is no easy task to delineate its excellencies
in such a manner as to give the portrait both interest and resemblance,
for it requires thought and study to understand the true ground of the
superiority of his character over many others, whom he resembled in the
principles of action and even in the manner of acting. But, perhaps,
he excels all the great men that ever lived, in the steadiness of his
adherence to his maxims of life and in the uniformity of all his conduct
to those maxims. Those maxims, though wise, were yet not so remarkable
for their wisdom as for their authority over his life, for if there were
any errors in his judgment--and he displayed as few as any man--we know
of no blemishes in his virtue. He was the patriot without reproach; he
loved his country well enough to hold success in serving it an ample
recompense. Thus far, self-love and love of country coincided, but when
his country needed sacrifices that no other man could, or perhaps would
be willing to make, he did not even hesitate. This was virtue in its
most exalted character. More than once he put his fame at hazard, when
he had reason to think it would be sacrificed, at least in this age. Two
instances cannot be denied: when the army was disbanded, and again
when he stood, like Leonidas at the pass of Thermopylae, to defend our
independence against France.

"It is indeed almost as difficult to draw his character as to draw
the portrait of virtue. The reasons are similar; our ideas of moral
excellence are obscure, because they are complex, and we are obliged to
resort to illustrations. Washington's example is the happiest to show
what virtue is, and to delineate his character, we naturally expatiate
on the beauty of virtue; much must be felt and much imagined. His
pre-eminence is not so much to be seen in the display of any one
virtue, as in the possession of them all and in the practice of the most
difficult. Hereafter, therefore, his character must be studied before
it will be striking, and then it will be admitted as a model--a precious
one to a free republic.

"It is no less difficult to speak of his talents. They were adapted to
lead, without dazzling mankind, and to draw forth and employ the
talents of others without being misled by them. In this he was certainly
superior, that he neither mistook nor misapplied his own. His great
modesty and reserve would have concealed them if great occasions had not
called them forth, and then, as he never spoke from the affectation to
shine nor acted from any sinister motives, it is from their effects only
that we are to judge of their greatness and extent. In public trusts,
where men, acting conspicuously, are cautious, and in those private
concerns where few conceal or resist their weakness, Washington was
uniformly great, pursuing right conduct from right maxims. His talents
were such as to assist a sound judgment and ripen with it. His prudence
was consummate and seemed to take the direction of his powers and
passions; for, as a soldier, he was more solicitous to avoid mistakes
that might be fatal than to perform exploits that are brilliant; and, as
a statesman, to adhere to just principles, however old, than to pursue
novelties; and, therefore, in both characters, his qualities were
singularly adapted to the interest and were tried in the greatest perils
of the country. His habits of inquiry were so far remarkable that he was
never satisfied with investigating, nor desisted from it, so long as
he had less than all the light that he could obtain upon a subject, and
then he made his decision without bias.

"This command over the partialities that so generally stop men short or
turn them aside in their pursuit of truth, is one of the chief causes of
his unvaried course of right conduct in so many difficult scenes, where
every human action must be presumed to err. If he had strong passions
he had learned to subdue them, and to be moderate and mild. If he had
weaknesses, he concealed them, which is rare, and excluded them from the
government of his temper and conduct, which is still more rare. If
he loved fame, he never made improper compliances for what is called
popularity. The fame he enjoyed is of the kind that will last forever,
yet it was rather the effect than the motive of his conduct. Some future
Plutarch will search for a parallel to his character. Epaminondas is,
perhaps, the brightest name of all antiquity. Our Washington resembled
him in the purity and ardor of his patriotism, and, like him, he first
exalted the glory of his country. There, it is to be hoped, the parallel
ends, for Thebes fell with Epamanondas. But such comparisons cannot be
pursued far without departing from the similitude. For we shall find it
as difficult to compare great men as great rivers; some we admire for
the length and rapidity of their currents and the grandeur of their
cataracts; others for the majestic silence and fullness of their
streams; we cannot bring them together, to measure the difference of
their waters. The unambitious life of Washington, declining fame yet
courted by it, seemed, like the Ohio, to choose its long way through
solitudes, diffusing fertility, or like his own Potomac, widening and
deepening its channel as it approaches the sea, and displaying most the
usefulness and serenity of its greatness toward the end of its course.
Such a citizen would do honor to any country. The constant veneration
and affection of his country will show that it was worthy of such a
citizen.

"However his military fame may excite the wonder of mankind, it is
chiefly by his civil magistracy that his example will instruct them.
Great generals have arisen in all ages of the world, and perhaps most of
them in despotism and darkness. In times of violence and convulsion
they rise, by the force of the whirlwind, high enough to ride in it and
direct the storm. Like meteors, they glare on the black clouds with a
splendor that, while it dazzles and terrifies, makes nothing visible but
the darkness. The fame of heroes is indeed growing vulgar; they multiply
in every long war; they stand in history and thicken in their ranks
almost as undistinguished as their own soldiers.

"But such a chief magistrate as Washington appears like the pole-star in
a clear sky to direct the skilful statesman. His presidency will form an
epoch and be distinguished as the age of Washington. Already it assumes
its high place in the political region. Like the milky-way, it whitens
along its allotted portion of the hemisphere. The latest generations of
men will survey, through the telescope of history, the space where so
many virtues blend their rays, and delight to separate them into groups
and distinct virtues. As the best illustration of them, the living
monument, to which the first of patriots would have chosen to consign
his fame, it is my earnest prayer to Heaven that our country may subsist
even to that late day in the plenitude of its liberty and happiness, and
mingle its mild glory with Washington's."

1. Footnote: Our authority for the details of Washington's last illness
and death is a statement carefully prepared by Mr. Lear at the time, and
published from the original in Sparks' "Life of Washington." It is the
most exact and reliable authority extant.

2. Footnote: Sparks, "Life of Washington."

3. Footnote: Sparks, "Life of Washington."