WASHINGTON

The brilliant historian of the English people* has written of
Washington, that "no nobler figure ever stood in the fore-front
of a nation's life." In any book which undertakes to tell, no
matter how slightly, the story of some of the heroic deeds of
American history, that noble figure must always stand in the
fore-front. But to sketch the life of Washington even in the
barest outline is to write the history of the events which made
the United States independent and gave birth to the American
nation. Even to give a list of what he did, to name his battles
and recount his acts as president, would be beyond the limit and
the scope of this book. Yet it is always possible to recall the
man and to consider what he was and what he meant for us and for
mankind He is worthy the study and the remembrance of all men,
and to Americans he is at once a great glory of their past and an
inspiration and an assurance of their future.

*John Richard Green.


To understand Washington at all we must first strip off all the
myths which have gathered about him. We must cast aside into the
dust-heaps all the wretched inventions of the cherry-tree
variety, which were fastened upon him nearly seventy years after
his birth. We must look at him as he looked at life and the facts
about him, without any illusion or deception, and no man in
history can better stand such a scrutiny.

Born of a distinguished family in the days when the American
colonies were still ruled by an aristocracy, Washington started
with all that good birth and tradition could give. Beyond this,
however, he had little. His family was poor, his mother was left
early a widow, and he was forced after a very limited education
to go out into the world to fight for himself. He had strong
within him the adventurous spirit of his race. He became a
surveyor, and in the pursuit of this profession plunged into the
wilderness, where he soon grew to be an expert hunter and
backwoodsman. Even as a boy the gravity of his character and his
mental and physical vigor commended him to those about him, and
responsibility and military command were put in his hands at an
age when most young men are just leaving college. As the times
grew threatening on the frontier, he was sent on a perilous
mission to the Indians, in which, after passing through many
hardships and dangers, he achieved success. When the troubles
came with France it was by the soldiers under his command that
the first shots were fired in the war which was to determine
whether the North American continent should be French or English.
In his earliest expedition he was defeated by the enemy. Later he
was with Braddock, and it was he who tried, to rally the broken
English army on the stricken field near Fort Duquesne. On that
day of surprise and slaughter he displayed not only cool courage
but the reckless daring which was one of his chief
characteristics. He so exposed himself that bullets passed
through his coat and hat, and the Indians and the French who
tried to bring him down thought he bore a charmed life. He
afterwards served with distinction all through the French war,
and when peace came he went back to the estate which he had
inherited from his brother, the most admired man in Virginia.

At that time he married, and during the ensuing years he lived
the life of a Virginia planter, successful in his private affairs
and serving the public effectively but quietly as a member of the
House of Burgesses. When the troubles with the mother country
began to thicken he was slow to take extreme ground, but he never
wavered in his belief that all attempts to oppress the colonies
should be resisted, and when he once took up his position there
was no shadow of turning. He was one of Virginia's delegates to
the first Continental Congress, and, although he said but little,
he was regarded by all the representatives from the other
colonies as the strongest man among them. There was something
about him even then which commanded the respect and the
confidence of every one who came in contact with him.

It was from New England, far removed from his own State, that the
demand came for his appointment as commander-in-chief of the
American army. Silently he accepted the duty, and, leaving
Philadelphia, took command of the army at Cambridge. There is no
need to trace him through the events that followed. From the time
when he drew his sword under the famous elm tree, he was the
embodiment of the American Revolution, and without him that
revolution would have failed almost at the start. How he carried
it to victory through defeat and trial and every possible
obstacle is known to all men.

When it was all over he found himself facing a new situation. He
was the idol of the country and of his soldiers. The army was
unpaid, and the veteran troops, with arms in their hands, were
eager to have him take control of the disordered country as
Cromwell had done in England a little more than a century before.
With the army at his back, and supported by the great forces
which, in every community, desire order before everything else,
and are ready to assent to any arrangement which will bring peace
and quiet, nothing would have been easier than for Washington to
have made himself the ruler of the new nation. But that was not
his conception of duty, and he not only refused to have anything
to do with such a movement himself, but he repressed, by his
dominant personal influence, all such intentions on the part of
the army. On the 23d of December, 1783, he met the Congress at
Annapolis, and there resigned his commission. What he then said
is one of the two most memorable speeches ever made in the United
States, and is also memorable for its meaning and spirit among
all speeches ever made by men. He spoke as follows:

Mr. President:--The great events on which my resignation depended
having at length taken place, I have now the honor of offering my
sincere congratulations to Congress, and of presenting myself
before them, to surrender into their hands the trust committed to
me and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my
country.

Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignity
and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of
becoming a respectable nation, I resign with satisfaction the
appointment I accepted with diffidence; a diffidence in my
abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which, however, was
superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the
support of the supreme power of the Union, and the patronage of
Heaven.

The successful termination of the war has verified the most
sanguine expectations, and my gratitude for the interposition of
Providence and the assistance I have received from my countrymen
increases with every review of the momentous contest.

While I repeat my obligations to the Army in general, I should do
injustice to my own feelings not to acknowledge, in this place,
the peculiar services and distinguished merits of the Gentlemen
who have been attached to my person during the war. It was
impossible that the choice of confidential officers to compose my
family should have been more fortunate. Permit me, sir, to
recommend in particular those who have continued in service to
the present moment as worthy of the favorable notice and
patronage of Congress.

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 me, I retire from the great
theatre of action, and, bidding an affectionate farewell to this
august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here
offer my commission and take my leave of all the employments of
public life."

The great master of English fiction, writing of this scene at
Annapolis, says: 'Which was the most splendid spectacle ever
witnessed--the opening feast of Prince George in London, or the
resignation of Washington? Which is the noble character for after
ages to admire--yon fribble dancing in lace and spangles, or
yonder hero who sheathes his sword after a life of spotless
honor, a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable and a
consummate victory?"

Washington did not refuse the dictatorship, or, rather, the
opportunity to take control of the country, because he feared
heavy responsibility, but solely because, as a high-minded and
patriotic man, he did not believe in meeting the situation in
that way. He was, moreover, entirely devoid of personal ambition,
and had no vulgar longing for personal power. After resigning his
commission he returned quietly to Mount Vernon, but he did not
hold himself aloof from public affairs. On the contrary, he
watched their course with the utmost anxiety. He saw the feeble
Confederation breaking to pieces, and he soon realized that that
form of government was an utter failure. In a time when no
American statesman except Hamilton had yet freed himself from the
local feelings of the colonial days, Washington was thoroughly
national in all his views. Out of the thirteen jarring colonies
he meant that a nation should come, and he saw--what no one else
saw--the destiny of the country to the westward. He wished a
nation founded which should cross the Alleghanies, and, holding
the mouths of the Mississippi, take possession of all that vast
and then unknown region. For these reasons he stood at the head
of the national movement, and to him all men turned who desired a
better union and sought to bring order out of chaos. With him
Hamilton and Madison consulted in the preliminary stages which
were to lead to the formation of a new system. It was his vast
personal influence which made that movement a success, and when
the convention to form a constitution met at Philadelphia, he
presided over its deliberations, and it was his commanding will
which, more than anything else, brought a constitution through
difficulties and conflicting interests which more than once made
any result seem well-nigh hopeless. When the Constitution formed
at Philadelphia had been ratified by the States, all men turned
to Washington to stand at the head of the new government. As he
had borne the burden of the Revolution, so he now took up the
task of bringing the government of the Constitution into
existence. For eight years he served as president. He came into
office with a paper constitution, the heir of a bankrupt,
broken-down confederation. He left the United States, when he
went out of office, an effective and vigorous government. When he
was inaugurated, we had nothing but the clauses of the
Constitution as agreed to by the Convention. When he laid down
the presidency, we had an organized government, an established
revenue, a funded debt, a high credit, an efficient system of
banking, a strong judiciary, and an army. We had a vigorous and
well-defined foreign policy; we had recovered the western posts,
which, in the hands of the British, had fettered our march to the
west; and we had proved our power to maintain order at home, to
repress insurrection, to collect the national taxes, and to
enforce the laws made by Congress. Thus Washington had shown that
rare combination of the leader who could first destroy by
revolution, and who, having led his country through a great civil
war, was then able to build up a new and lasting fabric upon the
ruins of a system which had been overthrown. At the close of his
official service he returned again to Mount Vernon, and, after a
few years of quiet retirement, died just as the century in which
he had played so great a part was closing.

Washington stands among the greatest men of human history, and
those in the same rank with him are very few. Whether measured by
what he did, or what he was, or by the effect of his work upon
the history of mankind, in every aspect he is entitled to the
place he holds among the greatest of his race. Few men in all
time have such a record of achievement. Still fewer can show at
the end of a career so crowded with high deeds and memorable
victories a life so free from spot, a character so unselfish and
so pure, a fame so void of doubtful points demanding either
defense or explanation. Eulogy of such a life is needless, but it
is always important to recall and to freshly remember just what
manner of man he was. In the first place he was physically a
striking figure. He was very tall, powerfully made, with a
strong, handsome face. He was remarkably muscular and powerful.
As a boy he was a leader in all outdoor sports. No one could
fling the bar further than he, and no one could ride more
difficult horses. As a young man he became a woodsman and hunter.
Day after day he could tramp through the wilderness with his gun
and his surveyor's chain, and then sleep at night beneath the
stars. He feared no exposure or fatigue, and outdid the hardiest
backwoodsman in following a winter trail and swimming icy
streams. This habit of vigorous bodily exercise he carried
through life. Whenever he was at Mount Vernon he gave a large
part of his time to fox-hunting, riding after his hounds through
the most difficult country. His physical power and endurance
counted for much in his success when he commanded his army, and
when the heavy anxieties of general and president weighed upon
his mind and heart.

He was an educated, but not a learned man. He read well and
remembered what he read, but his life was, from the beginning, a
life of action, and the world of men was his school. He was not a
military genius like Hannibal, or Caesar, or Napoleon, of which
the world has had only three or four examples. But he was a great
soldier of the type which the English race has produced, like
Marlborough and Cromwell, Wellington, Grant, and Lee. He was
patient under defeat, capable of large combinations, a stubborn
and often reckless fighter, a winner of battles, but much more, a
conclusive winner in a long war of varying fortunes. He was, in
addition, what very few great soldiers or commanders have ever
been, a great constitutional statesman, able to lead a people
along the paths of free government without undertaking himself to
play the part of the strong man, the usurper, or the savior of society.

He was a very silent man. Of no man of equal importance in the
world's history have we so few sayings of a personal kind. He was
ready enough to talk or to write about the public duties which he
had in hand, but he hardly ever talked of himself. Yet there can
be no greater error than to suppose Washington cold and
unfeeling, because of his silence and reserve. He was by nature a
man of strong desires and stormy passions. Now and again he would
break out, even as late as the presidency, into a gust of anger
that would sweep everything before it. He was always reckless of
personal danger, and had a fierce fighting spirit which nothing
could check when it was once unchained.

But as a rule these fiery impulses and strong passions were under
the absolute control of an iron will, and they never clouded his
judgment or warped his keen sense of justice.

But if he was not of a cold nature, still less was he hard or
unfeeling. His pity always went out to the poor, the oppressed,
or the unhappy, and he was all that was kind and gentle to those
immediately about him.

We have to look carefully into his life to learn all these
things, for the world saw only a silent, reserved man, of
courteous and serious manner, who seemed to stand alone and
apart, and who impressed every one who came near him with a sense
of awe and reverence.

One quality he had which was, perhaps, more characteristic of the
man and his greatness than any other. This was his perfect
veracity of mind. He was, of course, the soul of truth and honor,
but he was even more than that. He never deceived himself He
always looked facts squarely in the face and dealt with them as
such, dreaming no dreams, cherishing no delusions, asking no
impossibilities,--just to others as to himself, and thus winning
alike in war and in peace.

He gave dignity as well as victory to his country and his cause.
He was, in truth, a "character for after ages to admire."

****

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