reason only from material interests. Washington closed a very emphatic
and radical letter to him with the warning and prophecy, “and give me
leave to add, as my opinion, that more blood will be spilled on this
occasion, if the ministry are determined to push matters to extremity,
than history has ever yet furnished instances of in the annals of
North America.”

England had been what might be termed good to the Southern colonies.
As for harsh measures, the worst from a political point of view was in
dissolving the Virginia legislatures. The Southern Colonies were under
the business management of descendants from the royalist cavaliers who
had been driven from England by the forefathers of the descendants
making up the colonies of New England. There was thus an inherited
tradition of antagonism, which many well-meaning patriots assume as
their basis of justice and judgment. Political welfare must be
estimated from present conditions. Avengers of the ancient wrong want
to punish history rather than make history. They assume that it is
better to begin with what was than with what is. But in the common
need, all such differences were forgotten. The differences were
remembered only by the great grand-children of the revolutionary
heroes.

The Northern Colonies and the Southern Colonies were, true enough,
antagonistic in their origin, entirely opposite in the social
differences between the severe Puritan and the aristocratic Cavalier,
and worse than all, they were antagonistic in their religion, the
North being many kinds of dissenters, and the South, in its governing
classes, being Episcopalian. Their social, religious and material
interests never had been the same, and they had little in common even
in the French and Indian wars. This outline contrast is given to show
how the question, especially for the South, was not material profit or
of opposition to oppression from force, but was the expression of an
American Ideal uniting all minds, as a meaning for the equal rights of
all in our humanity. It shows that there is an ideal of human rights
that has the allegiance of human hearts above all considerations of
flattery, or coertion, or for any of the thousands of considerations
that may cause an individual judgment or fix the will. There may be
amazing differences in personal and party interests, but there can be
none, even in the varieties of intelligence or conditions, when it
comes to the rights to freedom in the views of genuine Americans. Only
partisans attack the motives of persons who are trying to advance
human liberty and peace according to the duties and rights of
civilization. By such signs shall ye know them and beware. They are
not Americans and their moral deformity is the peril of America. The
real idealist lives the vision of moral order, not only for his group,
but for all the world. The moral law for each and all is our idealism
of the universe.

III. MANY MEN OF MANY MINDS

England could not manage its American colonial interests because the
government had no ideal of the colonies beyond that of a commercial
business, and the colonies could not handle the interests of England
in America because each colony was a separate organization having
political interests together in common only in the British Parliament.
On that account they never felt together, except as their mutual
interest in Parliament was injured. Notice this fundamental origin of
social union, and see how it had to be wrangled over from the close of
the Revolutionary War in 1781, to the adoption of the Constitution,
and the election of a president under it in 1789. And even then, a
fundamental origin for social interests, and, therefore, of
patriotism, was not achieved until a frightful civil war closed the
struggle for separate units of interest, as independent
sovereignities, in 1865.

Mr. Curtis, an English philosopher-historian, writing about one
hundred and fifty years after the beginning of these world-making
origins of the American ideal, quotes Doyle’s history referring to the
revolt of the colonies, in which it is said, “If the Southern Colonies
were to take their full share of interest in the struggle, it was
clear that it must not be left to a New England army under a New
England general. But we may be sure that the choice, desirable in
itself, of a Southern general, was made much easier by the presence of
a Southern candidate so specially fitted for the post as Washington.
Not indeed that his fitness was or could be as yet fully revealed.
Intelligence and public spirit, untiring energy and industry, a fair
share of technical skill, and courage almost dangerous in its
recklessness,--all these were no doubt perceived by those who
appointed Washington. What they could not have foreseen was the
patience with which a man of clear vision, heroic bravery, and intense
directness, bore with fools and laggards, and intrigues; and the
disinterested self-devotion which called out all that was noblest in
the national character, which shamed selfish men into a semblance of
union. Still less could it have been foreseen that, in choosing a
military chief, Congress was training up for the country that civil
leader, without whose aid an effective constitution would scarcely
have been attained.”

CHAPTER XII

THE HOUSE LONG DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF

I. UNPATRIOTIC CONFUSION OF OPINIONS AND INTERESTS

In order to appreciate the difficulties which Washington had to
overcome, and therefore to make any just estimate of his character,
his patriotism and his services in the cause of political liberty, the
conditions in which he worked must be understood. It must not be
assumed that he had a united country, a solid backing, and that there
was unanimous patriotism sustaining him. To do so would not only be
untrue, but it would belittle the almost superhuman task which gave
birth to American government, and made possible the final organization
through Abraham Lincoln of a land of the free, able to sustain its
freedom against all the struggling masteries of the world. To suppose
that Washington did his revolutionary work in the midst of reliable
patriotism is as erroneous as to suppose that Lincoln did his
nation-saving task in the midst of a unanimous North.

There was no such thing as patriotism at the time of Washington,
according to the usual definition of patriotism, because there was no
geographical territory holding a united people, for whom or for which
to feel a national patriotism.

American patriotism, therefore, began in the patriotism for human
rights, not thus making “a man without a country,” as patriotism for
humanity has been sometimes defined alike by extreme pacifists and
extreme militarists, but in the fact that American democracy and
humanity are synonymous terms, in all they can mean for the rights of
man.

There was then no political country to be patriotic for. There were
only colonies. Patrick Henry’s cry, so pathetic in its divine need,
and so little true for his fellows as shown in 1861, “I am not a
Virginian, I am an American,” rang through the congress at
Philadelphia with the thrill of a new vision of human faith, but it
was almost a century, through an age of desperate reconstruction,
before it could be even approximately called true; before American
democracy and humanity could face the warring world, the King-made
world, with one meaning, one service and one moral law.

John Adams, of indisputable authority, tells us that more than a third
of the property owners and men of affairs, were opposed to the
revolution throughout the war.

Lecky, in his history of England, declares that an examination of the
correspondence of the revolution at any period shows that, “in the
middle colonies at least, those who really desired to throw off the
English rule were a small and not very respectable minority. The great
mass were indifferent, half-hearted, engrossed with their private
interests or occupations, prepared to risk nothing till they could
clearly foresee the issue of the contest. In almost every part of the
States--even in New England itself--there were large bodies of devoted
royalists.”

After the war more than a hundred thousand, it is estimated, of
irreconciliable royalists were expelled from the colonies.

When General Gage evacuated Boston, more than a thousand royalists
from that immediate territory went with him to Halifax, Nova Scotia,
so that our American grandmothers, even a hundred years later, when
exasperated, would exclaim against their tormentor, with much of the
ancient vehemence, “You go to Halifax!”

If we want to appreciate Washington and to understand his wonderful
service for mankind, we must understand the difficulties and
obstacles he had to overcome. The “Spirit of ’76” belonged at first to
only a few inspired souls, who had a wonderful vision of human rights
for a new world. Right was might with them and their might-right won
the great cause as the immortal “Spirit of ’76.”

General Washington’s description of the conditions are vividly
portrayed in a letter to Joseph Reed, from Cambridge, dated November
28, 1775:

“Such a dearth of public spirit, and such a want of virtue, such stock
jobbing and such fertility in all the low arts to obtain advantages of
one kind or another in this great change of military arrangement I
never saw before, and pray God’s mercy that I may never be witness to
again. What will be the end of these manoeuvers is beyond my scan. I
tremble at the prospect. We have been till this time enlisting about
three thousand five hundred men. To engage these I have been obliged
to allow furloughs as far as fifty men to a regiment, and the
officers, I am persuaded, indulge as many more. The Connecticut troops
will not be prevailed upon to stay longer than their term, saving
those who have enlisted for the next campaign and are mostly on a
furlough; and such a mercenary spirit pervades the whole that I should
not be at all surprised at any disaster that may happen. In short
after the last of this month our lines will be so weakened that the
Minute Men and Militia must be called in for their defense; and these
being under no kind of government themselves, will destroy the little
subordination I have been laboring to establish, and run me into one
evil whilst I am endeavoring to avoid another; but the less must be
chosen. Could I have foreseen what I have experienced, and am likely
to experience, no consideration upon earth would have induced me to
accept the command.”

At the meeting of the colonies in congress at Philadelphia in 1774,
George the Third saw that it was a conquest of wills and he exclaimed,
“The die is cast, the colonies must either submit or triumph.” But
even when the British government was sending Hessian mercenaries over
against the colonies, a thing regarded as a supreme outrage by those
opposed to England, it was almost impossible to get together enough
American patriotism to adopt a declaration of independence.

John Adams says that a large section of Congress regarded such a
declaration with both terror and disgust. To those who have believed
that a unanimous patriotism made only a little severe fighting
necessary, backed by some clever generalship, there can be no proper
appreciation of the great American achievement.

Then, as now, the prosperous did not want their prosperity disturbed
by any change. They didn’t want to lose their business, not to speak
of their lives, by going into an army. But there had been a generation
of people pouring into the colonies from the poverty-devastations of
English misgovernment in Scotland and Ireland. They had never had any
chance to protest against their wrongs in the old country, but
fortune, or fate, or Providence, had banished them across the ocean
directly into an opportunity to express their sentiments with guns,
and they took the opportunity. They flocked to the recruiting stations
of Washington’s army.

But so unsafe were business transactions with the party fighting Great
Britain that the revolution was coming to the gates of despair because
of the impossibility of getting military supplies and army equipments.
There was fast growing a vision of collapse unless there was received
the encouraging help of a foreign power. France in almost unceasing
war with England was the only hope, and France could have no interest
unless the colonies were fighting for separation from England, instead
of against a tax on tea, as it bore the appearance, at the beginning,
from a foreign point of view. France wanted to know what the colonies
were fighting for. France wanted a bill of particulars. This brought
American interests to a crisis. France had no interest in a mere
family fuss. The French government could have no interest unless it
was for something that lessened the power of England.

Under the early troubles, a peace party among the business interests
was fast coming into power. Against this the commoners were aflame
with the patriotic pamphlets of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, the
eloquence of Patrick Henry, the statesmanship of John Adams, and the
work of the powerful-minded few who saw the sublime vision of American
freedom. At last they were enabled to pass the Declaration of
Independence, and France began, at first secretly and then openly, to
give encouragement through money-loans, supplies, and volunteers.
Burgoyne’s surrender in October, 1777, showed that America could be
successful with France’s help, and early in the next year France
recognized the independence of the colonies. They soon made the cause
of America their own, and sent over not only necessary supplies but
soldiers and ships. Known budgets of expenses, used in aid of the
Colonies, exceed $500,000,000, not a cent of which was ever returned
or asked for. Though there was the political interest to humble
England, yet France was at heart a profound lover of human freedom and
political liberty. Despite the implacable enemies of republican
government in Europe, France has successfully kept the dead-lines
across which “they shall not pass.” The moral debt which human liberty
owes to France can never be paid except as it is paid to humanity,
and, to that social justice, is dedicated the meaning of America.

II. SOMETIMES TOO LATE TO MEND

The English parliament, becoming suddenly aware of the growing power
in the American subjects, now conceded every right asked for by the
colonists, and enacted those rights into law. But it was too late. The
middle-class mass of property owners and business men began to see the
vision of an American republic and the tide swelled toward success. As
the cutting off of supplies from the colonies had been the chief cause
of American weakness, England tried to prevent supplies being sent to
America, with the result that Denmark, Sweden, Russia and Holland
declared an armed neutrality to enforce their right to sell military
supplies to America. The dispute led to a war with Holland in 1780, so
that by the close of that year Great Britain had not a friend on earth
and was confronted by the united armies and navies of France, Spain,
Holland and America. At the same time there was rebellion in India
against the English rule, insurrections in Ireland, and so deep the
discontent in England itself that a London mob was able for several
days to make itself master of the city. The English lost control of
the sea before the close of 1780, and on October 19, 1781, Cornwallis
surrendered his army to Washington, from which historic hour a
world-champion of the rights of man over the divine rights of kings
was born in the Western world.

The difficulties which Washington had encountered and overcome in
Virginia previous to the French and Indian war were in full exercise
throughout New England at the opening of the Revolutionary War. They
could act together in small, free groups for a particular object of
their will, but to obey superior officers and to sacrifice their own
private judgment to higher authority, which was so necessary in war
and such a war as this, was utterly repugnant to their dispositions.
That subserviency to authority was the very reason they were opposing
the idea of taxation without representation, and why should they be
required to do the very thing they were fighting against! That
quandary and query has been the puzzle of every mind unable to see the
vision of means necessary to future results. It is the blindness
always of the fanatical pacifist who would sacrifice nothing for
peace, and of the non-resistant doctrine that right and moral law have
no need for material might in a material world.

The colonists had never known of anything but local patriotism. They
seemed to be unable to distinguish between English king-made authority
and American people-made authority, notwithstanding how much had been
discussed the relations of representation and taxation. That
difficulty has always existed concerning American militarism. It
almost defeated Lincoln during the Civil War. It almost delivered the
Union to Secession. If democratic militarism cannot be different from
dynastic militarism, then American freedom and human liberty will be
lost in the next American or world war.

The colonist would fight with the heroism he displayed in Indian
warfare, but when the enemy was driven away from his neighborhood, it
was the duty of the next neighborhood to take care of itself. Besides,
the New Englander with a home had the same idea as the Virginian
soldier twenty years before, and this was that, when he wanted to go
home, why shouldn’t he! He was not a deserter, and in no sense a
coward, but the discipline of army service was mere enslavement and
any compulsion was despotism. To understand the making up of an
efficient army under such circumstances is the only measure to
estimate the greatness of Washington and the debt to him of the
liberty-loving world.

Curtis, in his history of American Commonwealth, says, “Washington
overcame these difficulties by dint of a patience and a selflessness
almost without parallel in history, which gradually communicated
itself to his fellow countrymen. In seven years he created a
continental army which ended the war at Yorktown.”

III. SELECTING THE LEADER OF LIBERTY FOR AMERICA

Washington had to write many letters, endeavoring to spur up the
really patriotic leaders to consistent work for the cause. In his
letter to Joseph Reed he was almost in despair over the indifference
of people from whom he expected the most patriotic service.

“It grieves me,” he wrote, “to see so little of that patriotic spirit
which I was taught to believe characteristic of this people.” But this
did not mean that the so-called “spirit of ’76” was not strong among
them. Washington needed so much of the patriotic spirit that a little
would not be any, and, to half-heal the wounds of a friend, was not
very friendly to the cause, nor a sufficient friendship toward the
needs of Washington’s work for America.

Ten years later, when Washington had matured, through the mind-making
experiences of revolutionary times, he wrote to John Jay, saying,
“Experience has taught us that men will not adopt and carry into
execution measures the best calculated for their own good without the
intervention of coercive power.” This meant that human society
requires law, and the right of law is devoid of appreciation or
application unless it is clothed with the might to keep its forms and
values true.

Lecky says, “The common saying that you cannot make people virtuous by
law is a dangerous half-truth. The virtue innate in a people may be
utterly destroyed by bad institutions, for ‘the virtue,’ as Jay wrote
to Washington, ‘like the other resources of a country, can only be
drawn to a point by strong circumstances ably managed, or strong
governments ably administered.’”

When it came to a question of who should be commander-in-chief of all
the armies, the disruptions and jealousies of the sections seemed
dangerously near wrecking any united action, which obviously must be
fatal to any independence more than they then had from Great Britain.
The Southern leaders were unanimous for Washington, and, with the
efficiency of shrewd politicians, supported measures largely
according to the pressure they brought to bear in the cause of having
Washington for the commander-in-chief. But this support did not bring
together any antagonism, because it was not made by any faction of
admirers or supporters. Washington himself, though present, refused to
lend any aid to the presentation of his own name.

[Illustration: Mount Vernon--Washington’s Residence, Virginia.]

It was John Adams, the whole-souled patriot from Massachusetts who was
the leader in advocating the selection of Washington. In his diary,
during these consequential times, Adams wrote, “I had no hesitation to
declare that I had but one gentleman in my mind for that important
command, and that was a gentleman from Virginia, who was among us, and
very well known to us; a gentleman whose skilled experience as an
officer, whose independent fortune, great talents, and excellent
universal character would command the approbation of all America, and
unite the cordial exertions of all the colonies better than any other
person in the Union.”

There were many men who were able leaders, and who had already made
great sacrifices in the cause of liberty, who believed with their
friends that they were entitled to be selected for the head of the
Army. Nevertheless, when the nomination was made, the election by
ballot was unanimous for Washington.

The salary of Commander-in-Chief had been set at five hundred dollars
a month, but Washington in his address of acceptance, while declaring
that no salary could have been made large enough to tempt him from the
comforts and business interests of his home, said he would accept no
salary, but would keep an exact account of his expenses, which they
would no doubt refund to him.

“There is something charming to me,” said John Adams, who became the
second president of the United States, when writing at the time to a
friend, “in the conduct of Washington, a gentleman of one of the first
fortunes upon the continent, leaving his delicious retirement, his
family and friends, sacrificing his ease, and hazarding all in the
cause of his country. His views are noble and disinterested.”

Washington now wrote to his half-brother, Augustine Washington, a
characteristic letter.

“I am now to bid adieu to you, and to every kind of domestic ease for
a while. I am embarked on a wide ocean, boundless in its prospect, and
in which, perhaps, no safe harbor is to be found. I have been called
upon by the unanimous voice of the Colonies to take command of the
Continental army; an honor I neither sought after nor desired, as I am
thoroughly convinced it requires great abilities, and much more
experience than I am master of.”

But he added his belief that the Divine Providence, which had called
him into such a dangerous duty, was wisely ordering the affairs of
men, and would enable him in due course of time to perform all his
tasks justly and with success.

What that task was through the revolutionary war can be appreciated
only in the details of events that require volumes of description in
telling. One cannot read it through with its ignoble intrigues,
unpatriotic dissentions, and dangerous rivalries without feeling that
Washington combined great manhood, great leadership, great
statesmanship and great generalship, and that no other man of less
character and genius than that could ever have welded together such
discordant and diversified elements into a means sufficient to achieve
the independence and liberty of America.

CHAPTER XIII

LARGE BODIES MOVE SLOWLY

I. THE FIRST COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

There are events enough during the progress of the revolutionary war
to give a complete analysis of Washington’s mind and character,
enough, indeed, to make a large volume in itself. But these incidents
are easily available to any student of the revolutionary war. Of all
his wonderful career, as a child born to the wealth and luxury of his
times, as a landed proprietor of one of the greatest fortunes in
America, as soldier, statesman and first President of the United
States, there is nowhere on record a single ignoble, immoral or
dishonorable word or deed in any way relating to the principles or
interests fundamental for his character, mind and life. It is
supremely gratifying to American ideals that Washington was in
everything morally worthy of being known as “first in peace, first in
war and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” standing forth a
great figure of American nobility, crowned with high title in being
known as the “Father of his Country.”

The army was anxious to see their chief and the people were eager for
a look at the man who inspired them all with so much confidence.
Washington’s appearance could not disappoint them. No more
born-commander of men, at least in appearance, ever sat in military
uniform upon a horse. The emotions of the people in those troubulous
times all went out to him, as they cheered him wherever he went. To
know Washington is to know that his feelings responded heartily to
their interests, and no doubt were strengthened by their trust for the
wonder-working task before him.

One of the most intellectual and charming of the cultured women of New
England was the wife of John Adams. After meeting Washington she wrote
to her husband, “Dignity, ease and complacency, the gentleman and the
soldier, look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every feature of
his face. Those lines of Dryden instantly occurred to me:

    ‘Mark his majestic fabric! He’s a temple
    Sacred by birth and built by hands divine;
    His soul’s the deity that lodges there;
    Nor is the pile unworthy of the God.’”

As an incident of the multitudinous varieties of problems that
Washington had to solve may be mentioned the treatment of the American
prisoners taken by the British. The Americans were regarded as rebels,
having no more standing in law than traitors. If the student looks
carefully at the dates of progress in the freedom of the colonies and
their formation into a nation, he will see that many years of wrangle
and debate took place. Nothing went by leaps. Opinions grew and they
grew very slowly and uncertainly. Therefore, when a crisis came,
Washington had to make momentous decisions that were not only of
far reaching consequences, but that he could execute and that his
people would sanction. He was not a silent man. He wrote and spoke
much, thus clearing the way for action, and unifying the mind of the
people on the needs and rights of the times.

An extract from a letter to the British General Gage, in the beginning
of the war, shows on what grounds Washington demanded the right
treatment of American prisoners, who had so far been grossly
mistreated.

“They suppose,” he wrote, concerning American prisoners, “that they
act from the noblest of all principles, a love of freedom and their
country. But political principles, I conceive, are foreign to this
point. The obligations arising from the rights of humanity, and claims
of rank, are universally binding and extensive, except in cases of
retaliation.

“My duty now makes it necessary to apprise you that, for the future, I
shall regulate all my conduct towards those gentlemen who are or may
be in our possession exactly by the rule you shall observe toward
those of ours now in your custody.”

Though General Gage’s reply was full of the words “criminals,”
“rebels,” and “hanging,” the harsh treatment became generally modified
as he realized that Washington meant what he said.

II. BIG BUSINESS, MONEY-MAKERS AND PATRIOTISM

Public sentiment when not aroused by immediate danger gets into action
very slowly, and especially if it is divided into numerous rival
sections as was the case in the colonies. The army at first consisted
of two extremes, the real patriots and the many army adventurers. It
was an age of travelling soldiers. Especially was there an
overwhelming offer from foreign officers to go into service. To refuse
them looked like ingratitude. It brought up the old saying of “looking
a gift horse in the mouth.” But the wisdom and firmness of Washington
was never put to better use than here. He believed that Americans
should win the war. In the darkest period he said, “Put none but
Americans on guard tonight.”

In one of his letters he speaks of the “hungry adventurers,” whose
endless applications for commands were one of his worst annoyances.
And, still more, many of these soldiers of fortune came from Europe
with great recommendations and they secured powerful influences in
Congress to force themselves upon Washington.

The mind of the times stood in great awe of British power, therefore
it is additional credit to the mind of Washington that he had no such
fear or awe toward British might. Besides, the country was always
asking impossible things. Congress urged Washington to surround the
enemy and cut off their supplies. They had no vision of Washington’s
inadequate means. Therefore enemies arose asserting they could do what
Washington was not doing, and the American army had not only the
confusion of interests in its own ranks to contend with, but was
between a contentious congress and a hardly more contentious British
army. Washington’s methods now look so reasonable and practical that
we wonder how the people could be so ignorant, blind and obstructive,
but a century later than our time may show us to be stoning our
prophets and killing our saviors, just as they have done through all
the periods of history. It is the disastrous tribute that democracy
pays to partisanship, and that humanity has always paid partisan
leadership.

The malignant intrigues that tried to take advantage of the slow
progress of the war, and have hungry rivals put into Washington’s
place, are matters of special history. But Washington met those
ill-begotten schemes with the cold indifference and calm dignity which
were the unfailing measures of his life and character. Though he was
sensitive, and high-spirited, he would not let that trait in his
nature work to the advantage of his enemies. They worked up slights
and insults all around him, but he never replied unless he dealt a
stinging blow, or showed up the treacherous character of their work.
Much of the rivalry developed against Washington was of sectional
prejudices, but the real intelligence and patriotism of the colonies
would have nothing to do with it. In all those schemes to injure
Washington we see the same method in politics used on up to the
present time. Newspapers and speakers distort the achievements of
political opponents into the most fanatical accusations, and bewilder
the voter with charges and countercharges till he feels as if he were
between the firing lines of two fighting armies, for one or the other
of which he must cast his votes. But “belonging to a party” is happily
not the honor it once was. The good of the country is found to be, not
so much in the political platform of parties but in the character of
men, harmonizing with the rights of man. It is thus that the
congressional resolutions and the party wrangling of Washington’s
time, as in that of Lincoln, are wholly discredited in estimating the
lives of those great leaders of the American mind. In its full view,
the American ideal is seen to be that the man or woman who presides
decently and righteously over the humanity of self or family or group
is president of the human world.

The ignorant criticism of the time is well illustrated from the dark
winter days of Valley Forge. There, so little had Congress done for
the army, the soldiers were literally starving. Most of them were
barefoot, and so poorly provided that they had to sit up all night
close to their camp-fire in order to keep from freezing. And yet the
legislature of Pennsylvania issued a stern remonstrance against their
going into winter quarters. Washington must keep to the open field and
be in continual operation against the well-fed, thoroughly trained and
highly equipped British troops.

Washington closed a letter to Congress, saying, in referring to those
who thus condemned him, “They seem to have little feeling for the
naked and distressed soldiers. I feel superabundantly for them, and
from my soul I pity those miseries which it is neither in my power to
relieve nor prevent.”

As in our own times, big business found opportunity to fatten itself
on the needs of the people. The greatness of Washington is in
startling evidence when it is seen how he not only had to conduct a
war and guide an unprovided army split up into rival sections, but he
had to be statesman and diplomat enough to manage a menagerie of ideas
ranging through the congressional sessions like animals broken loose
in a circus. Each one was trying to perform something that was in
effect worse than nothing. The representatives of the people gathered
in the American capital have often since that time repeated the
original show.

III. THE STRONG MIND FOR GREAT NEEDS

The union that is strength is always slow in the making. Minds get
together slowly wherever there is freedom in thinking for thought-out
individual responsibility.

In writing to Benjamin Harrison, Washington pointed out how
detrimental it was for each colony to be centering itself on its own
prosperity. To Colonel Joseph Reed, December, 1778, he wrote more
freely of the “monopolizers, forestallers, and engrossers” who were
“murderers of our cause.”

“It is much to be lamented,” he said, “that each state, long ere this,
has not hunted them down as pests to society and the greatest enemies
we have to the happiness of America. I would to God that some one of
the most atrocious in each state was hung in gibbets upon a gallows
five times as high as the one prepared by Haman. No punishment, in my
opinion, is too great for the man who can build his greatness upon his
country’s ruin.”

This shows how Washington loathed meanness and treachery and how he
minced no words in saying so. Only such men are leaders of men. No man
who believes anything and is afraid to say it has a place in the
political meaning of America.

Benjamin Harrison, full of the same righteous resentment, writes at
the time, “If I were to be called upon to draw a picture of the times
and of men, from what I have seen, heard, and in part know, I should
in one word say that idleness, dissipation, and extravagance seem to
have laid fast hold of most of them; that speculation, peculation, and
an insatiable thirst for riches seem to have got the better of every
other consideration, and almost every order of men; that party
disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day.”

And so, to one patriot and then to another, Washington appealed for
help to save the wasting fortunes of his country.

To George Mason he wrote that we are “fast verging to destruction.”
The widespread demoralization of both army and people, the scramble
for profit, and the unpatriotic plunder of vital interests at last
became so evident under Washington’s ringing denunciations that the
real patriots of the country awoke to the peril. Lafayette and the two
Morrises took the lead in their respective fields of work. Writers and
speakers took up the task of arousing the people and their officers in
Congress, and at last the tide turned. The strong minds at last
prevailed in uniting the people into a reliable force for the great
need, and the American republic became an acknowledged part of the
humanity of the earth.

CHAPTER XIV

TURNING REVOLUTION THROUGH FREEDOM INTO GOVERNMENT

I. SEEKING RETIREMENT FOR LIFE IN THE PEACE OF A COUNTRY HOME

The Revolutionary war had extended over a period of eight years,
through almost unparalleled discouragements and intolerable trials of
faith and purpose, when the British troops were finally withdrawn from
American soil. The differences in the appearances of the British and
American troops are described by an American lady living in New York,
while the British held possession there. She wrote, “We had been
accustomed for a long time to the military display in all the finish
and finery of garrison life; the troops just leaving us were as if
equipped for show, and with their scarlet uniforms and burnished arms
made a brilliant display. The troops that marched in, on the
contrary, were ill-clad and weatherbeaten, and made a forlorn
appearance; but then they were our troops, and, as I looked at them
and thought of all they had done and suffered for us, my heart and my
eyes were full, and I admired and gloried in them the more, because
they were weatherbeaten and forlorn.”

In a letter to Baron Steuben, written on the 23rd of December, 1783,
Washington concludes as follows, “This is the last letter I shall
write while I continue in the service of my country. The hour of my
resignation is fixed at twelve today, after which I shall become a
private citizen on the banks of the Potomac.”

At noon on that memorable day the Hall of Congress was filled with a
notable assemblage of prominent people. The members of Congress
remained seated with their hats on, as was the custom of the times,
but the spectators were standing with uncovered heads when Washington,
conducted by the secretary of Congress, entered and was given a seat
appointed for him.

The President of Congress arose, and, after stating the purpose of the
meeting at that hour, said to Washington, “The United States in
Congress assembled are now prepared to receive your communication.”

Washington arose and delivered a short address, at the close of which
he said, “I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last
solemn act of my official life by commending the interests of our
dearest country to the protection of Almighty God; and those who have
the superintendence of them to His holy keeping. Having now finished
the work assigned to me, I retire from the great theatre of action;
and, bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body, under whose
orders I have long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my
leave of all the employments of public life.”

A writer who was present, speaking of this scene, says, “Few tragedies
ever drew so many tears from so many beautiful eyes as the moving
manner in which his Excellency took his final leave of Congress.”

The President of Congress replied to his address, and, after reciting
the wisdom and valor with which Washington had accomplished the great
task assigned him, said, “You retire from the theatre of action with
the blessings of your fellow citizens; but the glory of your virtues
will not terminate with your military command; it will continue to
animate remote ages.”

Washington arrived at Mount Vernon on Christmas eve, where the
home-coming was duly celebrated as could be done only in the colonial
plantation days.

“The scene is at last closed,” he wrote to his friend, Governor
Clinton of New York. “I feel myself eased of a load of public care. I
hope to spend the remainder of my days in cultivating the affections
of good men, and in the practice of domestic virtues.”

How little Washington or his friends knew of the future! A task and a
responsibility of no less importance than the conduct of the
Revolutionary war was yet to devolve upon him. The repose of a soldier
had to give way to the mind-work of a great statesman.

In a letter to that great friend of America, without whose aid there
could hardly have been a free America, General Lafayette, Washington
wrote, “Free from the bustle of a camp and the busy scenes of public
life I am solacing myself with those tranquil enjoyments which the
soldier, who is ever in pursuit of fame; the statesman, whose watchful
days and sleepless nights are spent in devising schemes to promote the
welfare of his own, perhaps the ruin of other countries,--as if this
globe were insufficient for us all; and the courtier, who is always
watching the countenance of his prince in hopes of catching a gracious
smile, can have very little conception.”

Later, in writing to the Marchioness de Lafayette, inviting her to
visit America, where her husband had earned such glory and where
everybody loved and admired him, he gave a charming picture of the
simplicity of his life.

“I am now enjoying domestic ease under the shadow of my own vine and
fig tree, in a small villa, with the implements of husbandry and
lambkins about me. Come, then, let me entreat you, and call my cottage
your own; for your own doors do not open to you with more readiness
than mine would. You will see the plain manner in which we live, and
meet the rustic civility; and you shall taste the simplicity of rural
life. It will diversify the scene, and may give you a higher relish
for the gayeties of the court when you return to Versailles.”

II. FREEDOM AND THE WRANGLE FOR PERSONAL GAIN

Knowing that Washington would be at continual expense to entertain
distinguished guests who would come to see him, Congress tried to
grant him a reward for his distinguished services, but he had served
his country without pay and he refused. In the meanwhile, the
hospitality of Washington was taxed to the utmost, and his time was
much taken up in important conferences over political affairs. The
country was being governed by Congress under the Articles of
Confederation which then bound the states, but probably with less
efficiency than thirteen horses in a single rein and rope harness to
draw a rattling, curtain-flapping carriage. The old state patriotisms
were revived and with them the rivalries and jealousies of political
sections. Whatever one state wanted seemed to be the signal for its
neighbor to want something else. The United States were indeed plural
with a vengeance! “E Pluribus Unum” that had so laboriously and
valiantly come true, as meaning one out of many, in war, had changed
about to its first condition and was again many out of one.

In 1786, in a letter to General Knox, Washington wrote, “I feel, my
dear General Knox, infinitely more than I can express to you for the
disorders which have arisen in these states. Good God! who, besides a
Tory, could have foreseen, or a Briton predicted them? I do assure you
that, even at this moment, when I reflect upon the present prospect of
affairs, it seems to me to be like the vision of a dream. After what I
have seen, or rather what I have heard, I shall be surprised at
nothing; for, if three years since, any person had told me that there
would have been such a formidable rebellion as exists at this day
against the laws and constitution of our own making, I should have
thought him a bedlamite, a fit subject for a mad-house.”

He wrote to James Madison, saying, “How melancholy is the reflection
that in so short a time we should have made such large strides toward
fulfilling the predictions of our transatlantic foes, who said, ‘Leave
them to themselves and their government will soon dissolve’? Will not
the wise and good strive hard to avert this evil?”

The only remedy which “the wise and good” could use to avert the
calamity of having thirteen feeble little nations at war with one
another was to supplant the “Articles of Confederation” with a Federal
Constitution, and, at last, this was accomplished, with so many
compromises and concessions to so-called “state rights” that it
required a frightful four years’ civil war to establish the meaning of
the Federal Constitution, so that the United States grammarians and
politicians could agree to say the United States “is” instead of
saying that the United States “are.”

With the adoption of the Federal Constitution, it was provided that
electors should be chosen whose duty it was to select a president for
the United States.

There could be but one man seriously considered. The landed gentleman
who had become a soldier and won liberty for the Western world was
soon seen to be destined, by the nation he had made, to be its first
president, and henceforth by nature, if not by the providence of God,
to be statesman, and the “First Citizen of America.” Accordingly,
George Washington was chosen first president of the Western republic,
to begin a term of four years from the fourth of March, 1789.

III. LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS OF LIBERTY AND LAW

Through the desperate eight years of war, in which the devastations of
the British could hardly be called worse than the wrangling
differences of opinion and sordid interests among the colonies,
Washington had conserved and guided the struggle for American liberty,
so that, at the close of the war, with the disembarkation for Halifax
of troops, royalists and tories, there was a unanimous voice of
harmony for a new America.

Then came the divisions under the rivalry of the colonies as a loose
confederation of separate republics. After that Washington was again
at the head of American interests and for another eight years. It was
a period of reconstruction. The opportunity to have a new nation, that
human beings might have a place of freedom in the sun, was supplied by
the eight years of revolutionary struggle, but the foundations for
that nation were not laid firmly until there were eight years’ labor
upon the Constitutional form of government under Washington.

Probably no man, with the exception of Lincoln, has been so loved and
so hated, or ever will be in America, as Washington. It is the most
pathetic thing in all the weakness of intelligence, or rather the
strength of prejudice, that the world always hates, and sometimes
kills, its benefactors, its friends and saviors.

But somehow, with all the storm and stress of things, notwithstanding
the hate and revenge of disappointed greed, the rights of life are
carried on, and the values of humanity prevail.

The time for the third election of a president was drawing near. All
the malignant virulence possible to destroy the name and services of
Washington were coming into use. He was accused of every public evil
and private unfitness under the sun. And yet there is hardly any doubt
worth consideration that he could have been elected for the third term
if he had desired it. But he had done his share of the work of the
world. He saw that his example would be used as a precedent for the
ambitions of future politicians. There must be a reasonable time limit
even to the restricted governing powers of a president. He declined to
serve more than two terms. Only once since then has there been an
organized attempt to break that precedent. The politicians tried their
utmost means to give General Grant a third term, but the hostility of
the nation against the danger of such prolonged power at last
prevailed and the attempt was defeated, probably never to be
successful.

Washington’s farewell address on retiring from the presidency has ever
remained a beacon-light for the guidance of American views of American
government, especially in its relation with foreign nations.

The reply of the House of Representatives gave strong praise for the
wisdom, firmness, moderation and magnanimity with which he had guided
the affairs of his country. But the kicker was there and his voice was
heard. A prominent representative from Virginia was disgusted with any
praise of Washington’s wisdom and firmness. He raised his voice in the
halls of Congress and put himself on historical record as especially
opposed to giving Washington any praise for the administration of
foreign affairs. He declared that “the weakness and feeble judgment of
Washington in our foreign relations” has brought us under “the
contempt of foreign nations,” and had conducted our country to “the
verge of a greater calamity than had ever been threatened before in
our history.” That patriotic scare sounds strangely like the calamity
prophecies of politicians against every president in every national
crisis. In such cases it is well to remember that political partisans
are not thus qualified to be American patriots. They are special
pleaders for their own particular party greed.

Twelve other members believed as this one from Virginia. They would
much rather have censured Washington for weakness than to have praised
him for strength. Among these thirteen partisans was a young man from
Tennessee named Andrew Jackson, who afterward became one of the famous
Presidents.

These violent differences of opinion and the vicious personal attacks
on motives, attributed each to each, has been one of the pitiable
signs of injustice and incompetency in American politics. Time after
time, as the presidential campaigns arrive, the fist-like will of each
side is thrust into the other’s faces, as those “belonging” to a party
fight to get votes for the party candidate, not for a patriotic cause.
In times of great national peril, whether in times of war at home
or abroad, the president who preserves, as Washington did, the rights
of his country in conformity to the rights of man, which is the only
possible rights of either, is hated by the extremists on both sides.
They both call him weak, and, therefore, though hating each other,
unite to defeat the man who would not lead his country into taking up
with their special interests. But, fortunately, we sometimes have
presidents with mind, patriotism and character greater than any party.
Most hopefully, there are increasingly greater numbers who belong to
their country instead of to a party, and who elect human principles to
rule and to reign over us rather than the ring-managers of prejudice
and partisanship known as “parties.” Presently there will be enough
independent thinking for any one to consider it as unpatriotic to
belong to a “party” as to belong to any other political fragment,
clique, or social group, presuming to dictate what is weakness and
what is strength for the individual mind as its only choice in
patriotism and Americanism. America, composed of every element of
humanity from every part of the earth, is the strongest nation of all
time, and capable of being the clearest and most just for the freedom
of the world. Here we strive for the peace of freedom in law. We war
only against war. American intelligence and mercy are rapidly
devising ways to eliminate the various forms of enslavement,
dissentions and divisions that weaken American civilization, so that
democracy may be safe in itself. In the great European war, President
Wilson announced the purpose of the United States to be for the right
that is greater than peace, in which the world must be made safe for
democracy. And so, humanity gains “a place in the sun” and the kingdom
of heaven is among us. For the sake of peace on earth, America must be
strong in the might of right, and be willing and ready to save to the
uttermost. America is president of the peace-nations of the earth
because it alone is federated upon the principles of human justice,
eternal and universal.

[Illustration: Washington Statue in United States Capitol, Washington,
D. C.]

France and America, in the name of liberty, will be forever crowned
together in the praise of human history. The mutual friendship that
existed during Washington’s presidency is illustrated by a toast drunk
at a banquet of French and Americans in New York, February 22, 1795:

“To the President of the United States: May the day that gave him
birth mark an epoch in the annals of liberty!

“To the French Republic: May she triumph over her enemies and obtain
the tranquillity of peace founded upon justice and reason!

“To the memory of the heroes of all nations who have gloriously fallen
for the defense of the rights of man!”

Friends and allies of France have changed during the tumultuous years,
but, republic to republic, France and the United States still pledge
fealty to liberty, justice and reason and do honor to the heroic
defenders of the rights of man among all nations.

CHAPTER XV

THE PEACE OF HOME AT LAST

I. SORROW FOR THE DEPARTED SCENES AROUND MOUNT VERNON

At the close of his term of office, March 4, 1797, Washington retired
to his home at Mount Vernon loved by all the understanding world.

In a letter to Mrs. S. Fairfax, then in England, he wrote, “It is a
matter of sore regret when I cast my eyes toward Belvoir, which I
often do, to reflect that the former inhabitants of it, with whom we
lived in such harmony and friendship, no longer reside there, and the
ruins only can be viewed as the mementoes of former pleasures.”

The home interest of Washington can be seen in a letter he wrote to
Miss Nelly Custis, a granddaughter of his wife. Her father had died
when she was a child, and Washington, having no children, had adopted
Nelly and brought her up in his family. She was of a beautiful nature
and was much beloved by Washington.

She appears to have had some very decided social notions, and one of
these was, as she expressed it, “a perfect apathy toward the youth of
the present day,” and a determination never to give herself “a
moment’s uneasiness on account of any of them.”

That was perhaps the rather high-sounding notion that romantic young
folks sometimes acquire of independence from usual life and of
superiority to their associates. Evidently Washington did not regard
her resolution with any grave alarm. He perhaps knew the ancient
privilege allowing women to change their minds. Nevertheless, it was
worthy of his experienced consideration, at least against letting too
many know her “irrevocable determination” because, when she did
change, as was doubtless inevitable, it should not bear any likelihood
of being embarrassing.

“Men and women,” he wrote her, “feel the same inclination toward each
other now that they always have done, and which they will continue to
do until there is a new order of things; and you, as others have done,
may find that the passions of your sex are easier raised than allayed.
Do not, therefore, boast too soon nor too strong of your
insensibility.

“Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is therefore
contended that it cannot be resisted. This is true in part only, for,
like all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with
aliment, it is rapid in its progress; but let these be withdrawn, and
it may be stifled in its birth or much stinted in its growth.

“Although we cannot avoid first impressions, we may assuredly place
them under guard.

“When the fire is beginning to kindle, and your heart growing warm,
propound these questions to it: Who is this invader? Have I a
competent knowledge of him? Is he a man of good character? A man of
sense? For, be assured, a sensible woman can never be happy with a
fool. What has been his walk in life? Is he one to whom my friends can
have no reasonable objection?

“If all these interrogations can be satisfactorily answered, there
will remain but one more to be asked. That, however, is an important
one. Have I sufficient ground to conclude that his affections are
engaged by me? Without this the heart of sensibility will struggle
against a passion that is not reciprocated.”

Sure enough, it was but a short time until romance came to Mount
Vernon, and Miss Nelly changed her mind very promptly. Lawrence Lewis
arrived, the clouds of doubt vanished, and the love-bells were set to
ringing until the wedding-bells took up the melody that passed on into
the music of the spheres.

II. CROWNED IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME 1799

The beginning of the year 1799 was full of the romantic happiness of
immortal youth for the household of Washington, but the close of the
year brought to an end the career of the first great American. On the
twelfth of December he rode as usual around the estate at Mount
Vernon, and was caught in a sleety rain. From this he developed acute
laryngitis and died on the night of the fourteenth. He said, “I die
hard but I am not afraid to go,” and his last words were, “’Tis well.”

His loved ones were around him and his last look was lovingly upon
them. The doctor saw his countenance change in death. He put his hands
over the eyes out of which the light had forever gone, and one of the
noblest souls of the earth passed away. There was not a struggle or a
sigh.

Mrs. Washington was sitting at the foot of the bed, and she asked
bravely, “Is he gone?”

The doctor could not speak, but he held up his hand as a sign that the
spirit of their beloved was no longer there.

“’Tis well,” she said, repeating his last words. “All is now over; I
shall soon follow him; I have no more trials to pass through.”

The tributes of America and the world to his honor and his name may be
noted in the words of Lord Brougham, an eminent British statesman, who
reflected the feeling of the nation against which he had waged a
successful war: “It will be the duty of the historian, and the sage of
all nations,” he said, “to let no occasion pass of commemorating this
illustrious man, and, until time shall be no more, will a test of the
progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue be derived from
the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington.”

The great nations having any sort of democratic ideal fully recognized
the fact that in his death had passed away one of the great men of the
earth. The English Channel fleet lowered their ships’ flags at
half-mast in token of respect, and in the land of Napoleon, who was
then master of France, there was crepe draped about all their
standards. Talleyrand, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and one of the
greatest orators and statesmen, prepared a report to the French
government in which he said: “A nation which some day will be a great
nation, and which today is the wisest and happiest on the face of the
earth, weeps at the bier of a man whose courage and genius contributed
most to free it from bondage and elevated it to the rank of an
independent and sovereign power. The regrets caused by the death of
this great man, the memories aroused by these regrets, and a proper
veneration for all that is held dear and sacred by mankind, impel us
to give expression to our sentiments by taking part in an event which
deprives the world of one of its brightest ornaments, and removes to
the realm of history one of the noblest lives that ever honored the
human race.

“His own country now honors his memory with funeral ceremonies, having
lost a citizen whose public actions and unassuming grandeur in private
life were a living example of courage, wisdom and unselfishness; and
France, which from the dawn of American Revolution hailed with hope a
nation, hitherto unknown, that was discarding the vices of Europe,
which foresaw all the glory that this nation would bestow on humanity,
and the enlightenment of governments that would ensue from the novel
character of the social institutions, and the new type of heroism, of
which Washington and America were models for the world at
large,--France, I repeat, should depart from established usages, and
do honor to one whose fame is beyond comparison with that of others.
The man who, among the decadence of modern ages, first dared believe
that he could inspire degenerate nations with courage to rise to the
level of republican virtues, lived for all nations and for all
centuries.”

These tributes from the two greatest nations were sincere despite the
fact that one of them had just been humiliated, beaten and dismembered
by his leadership, and the other was only recently in the midst of
open hostilities toward the United States, against which Washington
was again made the national commander-in-chief, thus on the very verge
of war with France. Only in his own country had Washington been the
object of the bitterest personal slander and political calumny. But,
at his death, all ignorant prejudice and foul-mouthed envy became
silent and sought to be hidden from the public presence. In him there
was greatness that could not be questioned and character that could be
known only to be praised. The vision of him never fails from the sky
of American ideals, and the young people of this nation have only to
know his life to know for what kind of political interest each one
should labor in the name of American liberty and the progress of an
American humanity.

Washington regarded parties as one of the most inexcusable and
disturbing elements in the political life of a nation. He believed in
men and principles, not in parties and platforms. It was more than a
hundred years after his death before the people of the United States
began to discard allegiance to parties and platforms in favor of men
and the principles of humanity.

When misrepresentation began its assault upon him in the presidency as
it had done in the army, Washington wrote, “The man who means to
commit no wrong will never be guilty of enormities; consequently he
can never be unwilling to learn what are ascribed to him as foibles.
If they are really such, the knowledge of them in a well disposed mind
will go halfway towards a reform. If they are errors, he can explain
and justify the motive of his actions.”

It is thus that a well-balanced disposition willingly receives
criticism, whatever its motive, for any value he can get out of it,
with little concern for the intentions of the criticism, if his own
purpose is fair and just.

He greatly deplored the misrepresentation of the partisan newspapers,
believing that the people of a nation would never go wrong if they had
the truth before them upon which to make up their minds. It is very
generally true that parties have governed for the spoils of power and
office. Political parties have very often fostered false argument and
worse distortion of their opponents’ meaning, so that large numbers of
honorable and honest-minded persons have been misled into truly
fearful fanaticism, and more fearful support of purposes, which, if
they had known, they would have abhorred.

III. A LIFE-LIKE SCENE FROM WASHINGTON’S HOME LIFE

John Bernard, a noted English actor, who came to play an engagement in
America soon after Washington had retired from the presidency, tells
an experience which gives us quite a picture of our own, in which we
can see Washington free from all the glamor of fame that usually half
hides the real man from our view.

Bernard says that he was playing at Annapolis in 1798 when, one day,
he went out riding down below Alexandria. Just as he was coming in
sight of a man and young woman riding toward him in a chaise, the
carriage was overturned and the two were thrown violently out. The man
was not hurt but the woman was struck unconscious. The actor rode
hurriedly up, and, dismounting, began at once to see what could be
done for the woman. Soon she returned to consciousness with a volley
of fierce scolding at her husband that was extremely ludicrous, if not
ridiculous.

Bernard now noticed that another man had ridden up and was helping the
unfortunate husband to extricate the horse and get the animal upon its
feet. The three men then set to work to get the heavy carriage, still
heavier loaded with baggage, back into service. It was a hot July day
and the half hour’s work was a rather exhausting task for two who
seemed to be out riding for mere recreation.

When the man and his wife were once more in the carriage, ready to
drive on, they invited the two strangers to go on with them to
Alexandria and have something to drink in appreciation of their timely
service, but both declined, and the chaise started afresh upon its
journey.

Bernard says, “My companion, after an exclamation at the heat, offered
very courteously to dust my coat, a favor the return of which enabled
me to take a deliberate survey of his person. He was a tall, erect,
well-made man, evidently advanced in years, but who appeared to have
retained all the vigor and elasticity resulting from a life of
temperance and exercise. His dress was a blue coat buttoned to his
chin and buckskin breeches. Though the instant he took off his hat I
could not avoid the recognition of familiar lineaments, which, indeed,
I was in the habit of seeing on every sign-post and over every
fireplace, still I failed to identify him, and to my surprise I found
that I was an object of equal speculation in his eyes.

“‘Mr. Bernard, I believe’ he said after a moment’s pause, and then
spoke of having seen me play in Philadelphia, following at once with
an invitation to spend a couple of hours in rest and refreshment at
his house, which he pointed out in the distance.”

It then came clear to the actor who was his distinguished-looking
companion.

Mr. Bernard thus continues his description of this experience, “‘Mount
Vernon,’ I exclaimed; and then, drawing back with a stare of wonder,
‘Have I the honor of addressing General Washington?’

“With a smile whose expression of benevolence I have rarely seen
equalled, he offered his hand and replied: ‘An odd sort of
introduction, Mr. Bernard; but I am pleased to find you can play so
active a part in private without a prompter.’”

In the conversation that ensued over the refreshments at Mount Vernon,
Mr. Bernard studied his distinguished host with deep earnestness, and
has left us a vivid picture in description as the actor saw him.

He says that in the conversation Washington’s face did not present
much variety of expression. It wore always a look of profound
thoughtfulness. Neither was there much change in the tones of his
voice, but its intonations were rich with the depths of expression.

The keynote of his talk seemed to be summed up, as the actor believed,
in one of the sentences of this conversation: “I am a man, and
interested in all that concerns humanity.” This is in truth the
keynote of any mind that ever achieves anything worth while. One does
for self or party or nation only as it is for humanity. Any other deed
or thought is not patriotism but partisanship. America is that manhood
interested with all its available means in the humanity of the world.

Mr. Bernard, with what seems to be the deep insight that a great actor
must have into character and human nature, says, “He spoke like a man
who had felt as much as he had reflected, and reflected more than he
had spoken; like one who had looked upon society rather in the mass
than in detail, and who regarded the happiness of America but as the
first link in a series of universal victories.” This vision, opened up
to America in the devastations of the Great European War for “a place
in the sun,” was enlarged by American patriots, not for any closed-in
nation, but for the rights of humanity.

It chanced, during the conversation, that, while Washington was
comparing English liberty as surrounded by walls, with American
liberty as in the open, a black man came in with a jug of spring
water.

Washington saw the actor look at the slave and smile with an inward
thought. He quickly guessed at the thought and responded, “When we
profess, as our fundamental principle, that liberty is the inalienable
right of every man, we do not include madmen or idiots; liberty in
their hands would become a scourge. Till the mind of the slave has
been educated to perceive what are the obligations of a state of
freedom, and not confound a man’s freedom with a brute’s, the gift
would insure its abuse.”

He expressed his belief that slavery must some time be banished for
the unity of American principles, and, in this connection, it should
be remembered that, by will, he freed all his own slaves, to take
place at the death of his wife.

CHAPTER XVI

STANDARDS OF AMERICAN PATRIOTISM

I. FOUNDATIONS

The fundamental statement of American democracy and freedom is to be
found in the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence
and in the preamble of the Constitution. That keynote of humanity
there expressed is as follows:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness; that to secure these rights Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed; that, whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such
principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

The unity of purpose, hereditary in responsibility to all native
Americans, and sworn to as the accepted duty of all naturalized
citizens, is expressed in the last sentence of the Declaration:

“And, for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our
lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

The preamble of the Constitution reaffirms and reinforces the American
ideal of a progressive and perfective striving toward a government “of
the people, by the people and for the people.”

It is as follows:

“We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for
the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the
Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and
establish this Constitution of the United States of America.”

The oath of allegiance into which we are born, and which becomes the
measure of every possible American, contains the following inescapable
responsibility:

“I, ----, do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and
domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that
I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or
purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the
duties of the office which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

II. FREEDOM OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

The Farewell Address of Washington to Congress contains advice on our
foreign relations which is part of any study of his life. The most
important of this is as follows: “The great rule of conduct for us in
regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations,
to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far
as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with
perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

“Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none, or a
very remote, relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent
controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our
concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate
ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her
politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her
friendships or enmities.

“Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a
different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient
government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury
from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will
cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be
scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the
impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard
the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our
interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

“Why forego the advantages of as 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?

“It is our duty to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion
of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do
it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity
to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public
than to private affairs that honesty is always the best policy.

“Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on
a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary
alliances for extraordinary emergencies.”

Washington in his will, disposing of his swords, says, “These swords
are accompanied with an injunction not to unsheath them for the
purpose of shedding blood except it be for self-defense, or in defense
of their country and its rights, and in the latter case to keep them
unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands to the
relinquishment thereof.”

Related to the Farewell Address and as a corollary to it is what is
known as “The Monroe Doctrine.”

The “Monroe Doctrine” as a policy of the United States is founded upon
two passages in President Monroe’s message to Congress on Dec. 2,
1823. These passages follow:

      “In the discussion to which this interest has given rise, and
      in the arrangements by which they may terminate, the occasion
      has been deemed proper for asserting, as a principle in which
      rights and interests of the United States are involved, that
      the American continents, by the free and independent condition
      which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be
      considered as subjects for future colonization by any European
      power....

      “We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations
      existing between the United States and those powers to declare
      that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend
      their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to
      our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or
      dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and
      shall not interfere. But with the governments who have
      declared their independence and maintain it, and whose
      independence we have, on great consideration and on just
      principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition
      for the purpose of oppressing them or controlling in any other
      manner their destiny by any European power in any other light
      than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward
      the United States.”

Two notable explanations have been given, as follows:

Secretary of State Olney in his dispatch of July 20, 1895, on the
Venezuelan boundary dispute, said:

     “It (the Monroe Doctrine) does not establish any general
     protectorate by the United States over other American States.
     It does not relieve any American State from its obligations as
     fixed by international law, nor prevent any European power
     directly interested from enforcing such obligations or from
     inflicting merited punishment for the breach of them.”

President Roosevelt, in a speech in 1902 upon the results of the
Spanish-American war, said:

     “The Monroe Doctrine is simply a statement of our very firm
     belief that the nations now existing on this continent must be
     left to work out their own destinies among themselves, and that
     this continent is no longer to be regarded as the colonizing
     ground of any European power. The one power on the continent
     that can make the power effective is, of course, ourselves; for
     in the world as it is, a nation which advances a given
     doctrine, likely to interfere in any way with other nations,
     must possess the power to back it up, if it wishes the doctrine
     to be respected.”

President Wilson in an address to the Senate of the United States,
Jan. 22, 1917, advised an American interest in an extension of the
Monroe Doctrine. The main points were as follows:

      “No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize
      and accept the principle that governments derive all their
      just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right
      anywhere exists to hand people about from sovereignty to
      sovereignty as if they were property.

      “I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one
      accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine
      of the world: That no nation should seek to extend its policy
      over any other nation or people, but that every people should
      be left free to determine its own policy, its own way of
      development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little
      along with the great.”

III. THE LOYALTY OF YOUTH

Rome and Greece in their age of world dominion were great because of
the loyalty and nobility of their youth. Patriotism is by no means a
modern virtue, and it is often wondered if the youth of the new world
is alive to their country’s honor equal to the youth of the ancient
world.

[Illustration: Washington Tomb--Mount Vernon, Virginia.]

An example of that ancient patriotism may be shown in the oath of the
young men of Athens. It is as follows:

     “We will never bring disgrace to this our city by any act of
     dishonesty or cowardice, nor ever desert our suffering comrades
     in the ranks. We will fight for the ideals and sacred things of
     the city, both alone and with many; we will revere and obey the
     city’s laws and do our best to incite a like respect and
     reverence in those about us who are prone to annul or set them
     at naught; we will strive unceasingly to quicken the public’s
     sense of civic duty. Thus in all these ways we will transmit
     this city not only not less but greater, better and more
     beautiful than it was transmitted to us.”

The young men of revolutionary times were full of “the Spirit of ’76.”
During the troublous days of near-war with France, in the
administration of John Adams, the young men were eager to sustain
their country’s honor. As a good example, we may read with profit the
address of the Harvard College students, which was published in _The
Boston Centinel_, May 19, 1798:

     “ADDRESS TO HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN ADAMS, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
     STATES

      “Sir: We flatter ourselves you will not be displeased at
      hearing that the walls of your native seminary are now
      inhabited by youth possessing sentiments congenial with your
      own. We do not pretend to great political sagacity; we wish
      only to convince mankind that we inherit the intrepid spirit
      of our ancestors and disdain submission to the will of a
      rapacious, lawless and imperious nation. Though removed from
      active life, we have watched with anxiety the interests of our
      country. We have seen a nation in Europe grasping at universal
      conquest, trampling on the laws of God and nations,
      systematizing rapine and plunder, destroying foreign
      governments by the strength of her arms or the pestilence of
      her embraces and scattering principles which subvert social
      order, raise the storms of domestic faction and perpetuate the
      horrors of revolution. We have seen this same nation violating
      our neutral rights, spurning our pacific proposals, her
      piratical citizens sweeping our ships from the seas and venal
      presses under her control pouring out torrents of abuse on men
      who have grown gray in our service. We have seen her ministers
      in this country insulting our government by a daring,
      unprecedented and contemptuous appeal to the people, and her
      agents at home offering conditions which slaves whose necks
      have grown to the yoke would reject with indignation. We have
      seen this, sir, and our youthful blood has boiled within us.
      When, in opposition to such conduct, we contemplate the
      measures of our own government, we cannot but admire and
      venerate the unsullied integrity, the decisive prudence and
      dignified firmness which have uniformly characterized your
      administration. Impressed with these sentiments, we now
      solemnly offer the unwasted ardor and unimpaired energies of
      our youth to the service of our country. Our lives are our
      only property; and we were not the sons of those who sealed
      our liberties with their blood if we would not defend with
      these lives that soil which now affords a peaceful grave to
      the mouldering bones of our forefathers.”

That address lets us into the feeling of patriotism that animated the
people in the days of Washington and the making of America. We can
easily imagine the makers of that address as being fired with fervor
from the eloquence of Patrick Henry, the bold assertions of Thomas
Paine, and the unanswerable logic of Thomas Jefferson.

Only a few years before, in the dark hours of his country, Thomas
Paine had put new life into the sorely pressed people by his patriotic
pamphlets, from one of which we quote these words:

      “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier
      and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the
      service of his country; but he that stands it _now_ deserves
      the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like Hell, is
      not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us,
      that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
      What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: ’tis dearness
      only that gives everything its value.

      “Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it
      would be strange indeed if so celestial article as _freedom_
      should not be highly rated.”

      Washington’s labor was likewise lightened by the inspiring
      patriotism of many other noble makers of the new America.
      Thomas Jefferson, who became the third president, was of
      priceless service. His call to American patriotism may be well
      illustrated in a few of his most quoted statements:

      “The man who loves his country on its own account, and not
      merely for its trappings of interest or power, can never be
      divorced from it, can never refuse to come forward when he
      finds that it is engaged in dangers which he has the means of
      warding off.”

      “The first foundations of the social compact would be broken
      up were we definitely to refuse to its members the protection
      of their persons and property while in their lawful pursuits.”

      “The persons and property of our citizens are entitled to the
      protection of our government in all places where they may
      lawfully go.”

      “We must make the interest of every nation stand surety for
      their justice, and their own loss to follow injury to us as
      effect follows its cause.”

      “The times do certainly render it incumbent on all good
      citizens, attached to the rights and honor of their country,
      to bury in oblivion all internal differences and rally round
      the standard of their country in opposition to the outrages of
      foreign nations.”

      “We are alarmed with the apprehensions of war, and sincerely
      anxious that it may be avoided; but not at the expense either
      of our faith or our honor.”

      “It is an eternal truth that acquiescence under insult is not
      the way to escape war.”

      “When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be
      borne, resistance becomes morality.”

CHAPTER XVII

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS ON THE CHARACTER AND CAREER OF WASHINGTON

I. THE WASHINGTON IDEAL AS THE FIRST GREAT AMERICAN IDEAL

Washington’s religious belief has been the object of considerable
controversy, because there is no standard or measure for a man’s
religious belief until the one investigating it gives his precise
definition of what he means by religion, and that probably can not be
done, for any basis of general agreement. It is not so easy to map out
the interest and meaning of human feeling. Somehow no great man has
ever felt that what he accomplished was done by his unaided self.
Everyone has in some form believed in a superior Guide. So a statement
of Washington in 1778 may be taken as the keynote of his religious
belief. He said, “The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in
all this that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and
more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his
obligations.”

His faith in the benevolence of order and law as divinely designed is
shown in his statement in 1791 that, “The great Ruler of events will
not permit the happiness of so many millions to be destroyed.” In
1792, he said, “As the All-Wise Disposer of events has hitherto
watched over my steps, I trust that, in the important one I may be
soon called upon to take, he will mark the course so plainly as that I
cannot mistake the way.”

That this faith was necessary to his purpose and mind, to help him
through the long series of trials, in both the war and presidency, no
one can doubt, who reads the detailed history of those periods,--they
were so often desperately discouraging, so often both helpless and
hopeless to any human foresight or judgment.

A few phrases taken from the “Mount Vernon Tribute” express the
Americanism of Washington. The author of that inscription is unknown,
but whoever it was he knew. The tribute was transcribed from a
manuscript copy on the back of a picture frame containing a portrait
of Washington, found hanging in one of the rooms at Mount Vernon
after Washington’s death. There he is called “The Defender of His
Country,” “The Founder of Liberty,” “The Friend of Man,” and
“Benefactor of Mankind.” “He triumphantly vindicated the Rights of
Humanity,” “Magnanimous in Youth, Glorious through Life, Great in
Death”; “His Highest Ambition the Happiness of Mankind.” According to
this definition of patriotism, the meaning is not limited to a
political area of square miles or boundary lines.

The noble tributes to Washington’s character and work would fill many
volumes, but a few will show how his life is regarded as a model for
the youths of America.

Senator Vance of North Carolina said, “The youth of America who aspire
to promote their own and their country’s welfare should never cease to
gaze upon his great example, or to remember that the brightest gems in
the crown of his immortality, the qualities which uphold his fame on
earth and plead for him in heaven, were those which characterized him
as the patient, brave Christian gentleman.”

James Bryce, the English statesman, publicist, and historian, said,
“Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like a snow-peak rising
above its fellows into the clear air of morning, with a dignity,
constancy, and purity which have made him the ideal type of civic
virtue to succeeding generations.”

Henry Lee, who was beloved by Washington like a son, has given us the
great picture of him, “First in war, first in peace, first in the
hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in the humble and
endearing scenes of private life; pious, just, humane, temperate, and
sincere, uniform, dignified, and commanding, his example was as
edifying to all around him as were the effects of that example
lasting.”

Lord Byron wrote,

    “Where may the wearied eyes repose,
    When gazing on the great,
    Where neither guilty glory glows,
    Nor despicable state?
    Yes,--one, the first, the last, the best,
    The Cincinnatus of the West,
    Whom envy dared not hate,
    Bequeathed the name of Washington,
    To make men blush, there was but one.”

Louis Kossuth, the great Hungarian patriot, said, “Let him who looks
for a monument to Washington look around the United States. Your
freedom, your independence, your national power, your prosperity, and
your prodigious growth are a monument to him.”

Lord Macaulay says that he had in his character, “The sobriety, the
self-command, the perfect soundness of judgment, the perfect rectitude
of intention, to which the history of revolutions furnishes no
parallel, or furnishes a parallel in Washington alone.”

The tribute of the greatest American to the greatest American, for, so
alike are these two in divinity of mind for the divinity of America
and humanity that they can thus be thought of only as one, should be
known to all. Abraham Lincoln says, “Washington’s is the mightiest
name on earth--long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty;
still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name no eulogy is
expected. It cannot be. To add brightness to the sun, or glory to the
name of Washington, is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In
solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked deathless splendor
leave it shining on.”

II. NOT BIRTH BUT CHARACTER MAKES AMERICANS

Washington and Lincoln are two names inseparately connected in the
making and preservation of America. Each became the leader in his
country’s interests at a period of almost unspeakable dissention and
of indescribable peril to freedom as the condition of social
civilization. In the midst of that terrible turmoil, through every
form of abuse, intrigue and obstruction, they kept clear the way that
America should go, and upheld the America that all freeborn men
believed to be the ideal and opportunity of humanity and mankind.

Washington is often declared to have been so much of his life an
Englishman that he cannot be regarded as a real born American. With
this declaration it is also asserted that Lincoln was the first
complete representative of real Americanism. This is as much as to say
that one born into the richest family in the early days of a town is
not as much of a citizen as one born in the poorest house in the town
when it has become a city. Search can nowhere reveal any Americanism
in either of those great souls that was not also in the other.
Physical surroundings had much to do with the details of their minds,
characters and careers, but nothing to do with their principles of
humanity which were indistinguishably the same. The glorious largeness
of their hearts and their manhood made the same supreme American.
Though less in leadership and in effect upon the life of their
country, there were thousands, if not millions, as perfectly
synonymous with Americanism as either Washington or Lincoln. It is
thus character and not birth that makes Americans, and therefore it is
not place but humanity that makes America.

The hereditary mansion and the log hut were but the outer form of
those two great men. The faith, hope and love within for the freedom
of humanity, in the truth that makes men free, were the same in both
hut and mansion.

Those numerous malcontents who vilified Washington, and whose
subsequents poisoned the atmosphere around Lincoln, could not see an
hour beyond their own dog’s day, and were unable to measure any value
greater than their own personal interests. The very names which they
strove to make great in the historical vision of posterity have
vanished, or their perversions have been forgiven as repented fully.
In contrast to them are such noble heroes illustrated, for instance by
John Dickinson, who did not believe it was their duty to leave wealth
to their children, but it was necessary to leave them a heritage of
liberty; by Samuel Adams, who was impoverished by his stand for
American freedom, and yet scornfully refused an honored office that
was meant to bribe him away from the American cause; by Robert Morris,
who gave his fortune to feed the starving troops in the darkest period
of the war; and by Benjamin Franklin, rich, famous and old, past
seventy years of age, accepting the dangerous, laborious and
sacrificing mission to France, in the name of human union, for a
liberty-loving world. It required the profoundest devotion and heroism
for one so old as Franklin to break with friends of a lifetime, as
shown when he wrote,

     “You and I were long friends; you are now my enemy and I am
     yours,
                                            “B. FRANKLIN.”

Likewise, when he signed the Declaration of Independence, saying, “We
must now all hang together or hang separately.”

The foundations of Americanism rest on Americans and when they are
needed they always come forth to keep the faith.

III. THE AMERICAN LESSON LEARNED FROM THE GREATEST LEADERS IN THE
MAKING OF AMERICA

Washington was no prodigy, and it belittles both him and Lincoln to be
rated as miracles. The study of their lives teaches us above all
things that there was no accident about them. They built themselves
up out of the material of their experiences and circumstances into
manhood and character, ready for the tasks of their human world.

No man of colonial times lived more under English aristocratic
influence than Washington, and yet it only served as a contrast in
which to define his principles of liberty, his meaning of manhood and
his vision of humanity. So, also, no man of his times was more under
the belittling trivialities of frontier destitution and ignorance than
Abraham Lincoln, but it only served as inspiration and revelation for
his moral duty in the supreme crisis of the American nation.

The lives of these two great men, from such widely different origins,
and yet coming to oneness in such a mutual cause and character, are
vital inspiration to every aspiring youth, showing that the value of
character is in every one’s own hands if he will but look around and
get the true measure of what are life, and mind, and humanity. Those
careers show that the rights of man are never found in fragments, nor
exclusive in parties or single nations.

Larned says, in his “Study of Greatness in Men,” that “A man more
perfectly educated than Abraham Lincoln, in the true meaning of
education, did not exist in the world. When the time came for his
doing a great work, he had perfected his powers, and the simple story
of the simple methods of self-culture and self-training, by which he
was nature-led to that perfect result, holds the whole philosophy of
education.”

Washington’s life was a fine human model through all the periods of
his career, but the heartening lesson of Lincoln was in his
unconquerable struggle to master a way of life, in the course of which
could appear his worthy human task.

Lincoln’s man-making process especially proves, even as Washington’s
life had already shown, that there must be a fundamental honesty of
purpose in building up the mind or no one can ever arrive at manhood,
character or more abundant life.

Washington and Lincoln were continuously expressing themselves in word
or deed, but always striving for the reasonable in a clear-minded way.
Their mind-making was always the process of achieving a humanity-mind
capable of clear world-wisdom. In that kingdom alone is the
Americanism that is human liberty, the rights of man and the moral
redemption of the world.

The cruel martyrdom of Lincoln’s death no doubt threw a glamor of
hero-worship over Lincoln, which does him more injustice than honor,
for the simple reason that the merit of his life belongs to his own
heroic soul, and its desperate struggle up to the light. Washington’s
real life and character have been much obscured by the romance of his
times and the hero-worship which so much prevailed in the literature
of his period. It is doubtless of more real value to American
patriotism, personal character and moral humanity, for both the heroic
and the trivial to fade from our interest in the lives of Washington
and Lincoln, and from the meaning of their lives for the rights of
man. We need to appreciate the human struggle within themselves that
made them admirable men, and we need to know it in relation to the
human work around them that made them admirable Americans. More and
more we can see in their earnest endeavor for the right-minded way,
not only the making of men and the making of Americans, but also the
making of America and the making of the World.

                                 END