George Washington

“ After dwelling upon Washington’s magnificent character, and recalling little incidents from his life, Nathalie said that, like the great mountain that towered so far above its fellows, so George Washington, the first President of this great nation, was known to civilization as one of the greatest men in the world, because he had given of his best to help his fellow-men, and proved that he was a true Son of Liberty. ”

“ No man ever stood for so much to his country and to mankind as George Washington. Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Jay each represented some of the elements which formed the Union. Washington embodied them all.
The superiority of Washington's character and genius were more conspicuous in the formation of our government and in putting it on indestructible foundations than leading armies to victory and conquering the independence of his country. ”

“ Has any man in our history fulfilled these conditions more perfectly and completely than George Washington? Has any man ever lived who served the American people more faithfully, or with a higher and truer conception of the destiny and possibilities of the country? ”

“ I have no valet!”
“I mean your body servant, your butler”—explained Miss Jemima. “I have been much impressed by him.”
“George!—George Washington?—you mean George Washington! No, madam, he has not a particle of intelligence.—He is grossly and densely stupid. I have never in fifty years been able to get an idea into his head.”
“Oh, dear! and I thought him so clever! I was wondering how so intelligent a person, so well informed, could be a slave.”
The Major faced about.
“George! George Washington a slave! Madam, you misapprehend the situation. He is no slave. ”

“ The faith, the hope, the thought, of Washington were all in the United States. His one purpose was to make America independent in thought and action, and he strove day and night to build up a nation. He labored unceasingly to lay the foundations of the great empire which, with almost prophetic vision, he saw beyond the mountains, by opening the way for the western movement. His foreign policy was a declaration to the world of a new national existence, and he strained every nerve to lift our politics from the colonial condition of foreign issues. ”

“ To stand forward at the head of raw armies and of a colonial people as a national leader, calm, dignified, and far-seeing, requires not only character, but intellect of the highest and strongest kind. Now that we have come as a people, after more than a century's struggle, to the national feeling which Washington compassed in a moment, it is well to consider that single achievement and to meditate on its meaning, whether in estimating him, or in gauging what he was to the American people when they came into existence. ”

“ While General Washington thus devoted a great part of his time to rural pursuits, to the duties of friendship, and to institutions of public utility, the political state of his country, becoming daily more embarrassed, attracted more and more deeply the anxious solicitude of every enlightened and virtuous patriot. From peace, from independence, and from governments of their own choice, the United States had confidently anticipated every blessing. ”

“ How much this little interlude, pushed into a corner as it has been by the dignity of history,—how much it tells of the real man! How the statuesque myth and the priggish myth and the dull and solemn myth melt away before it! Wise and strong, a bearer of heavy responsibility beyond his years, daring in fight and sober in judgment, we have here the other and the more human side of Washington. One loves to picture that gallant, generous, youthful figure, brilliant in color and manly in form, riding gayly on from one little colonial town to another, feasting, dancing, courting, and making merry. ”

“ But despite all the bitter trials of these distressing times, Washington never lost faith in the final success of the American cause.
A beautiful story is told of this masterful man at Valley Forge. When "Friend Potts" was near the camp one day, he heard an earnest voice. On approaching he saw Washington on his knees, his cheeks wet with tears, praying to God for help and guidance. When the farmer returned to his home he said to his wife: "George Washington will succeed! George Washington will succeed! The Americans will secure their independence!" ”

“ There is no individual whose life is more closely identified with the history of his country than George Washington. You all know the story of his life by heart. To-day, on the anniversary of his birth, it is proper and fitting for Americans to dwell upon the virtues of this great man. Washington's character was magnanimous. He was kind to the aged, and sympathetic toward his fellow men. Thomas Jefferson may have had Washington in mind when he wrote, in the Declaration of Independence, the words "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." ”

“ This was the first part of a general plan which he had conceived of visiting while in office all portions of the Union. The personal appearance of the President, representing the whole people, would serve to bring home to the public mind the existence and reality of a central government, which to many if not to most persons in the outlying States seemed shadowy and distant. But General Washington was neither shadowy nor distant to any one. Every man, woman, and child had heard of and loved the leader of the Revolution. ”

“ The confederation had excited the just contempt of the world, and Washington as President, by the force of his own character and reputation, gave the United States at once the respect not only of the American people, but of those of Europe as well. Men felt instinctively that no government over which he presided could ever fall into feebleness or disrepute. ”

“ York.
"Long live George Washington, President of the United States!" shouted the people. Then the cannon roared, the bells rang, and the new government of the United States—the government which we have to-day—began its existence.
Washington was fifty-seven years old at the time of his inauguration.
Perhaps no man was ever called to the doing of more difficult things. The entire government must be built up from the beginning, and all its machinery put into order. ”

“ It is not therefore wonderful that General Washington should have expressed himself more freely than had been his custom, respecting American parties, and that he should have exerted an influence which he had not been in the habit of employing, to induce men whose talents he respected, but who had declined political life, to enter into the national and state legislatures. ”

“ It was also necessary to lift up our own politics, to detach our minds from those of other nations, and to make us truly Americans. All this Washington's policy did so far as it was possible to do it in the time given to him. A new generation had to come upon the stage before our politics were finally taken out of colonialism and made national and American, but the idea was that of the first President. It was the foresight and the courage of Washington which at the outset placed the United States in their relations with foreign nations on the ground of a firm, independent, and American policy. ”

“ Washington was intensely human. In that hour of silent thought his heart must have swelled with a consciousness that he had led his people through a successful Revolution, and now again from the darkness of political confusion and dissolution to the threshold of a new existence. But at the same time he never deceived himself. ”

“ George Washington has his place in American history, not only as being the great commander-in-chief of the American revolutionary army, but as being no less influential and powerful as a political leader and constructive American statesman. ”

“ Not the safe and invincible general merely, not the wise first President, but George Washington, the sublime personality, greatest seen when all props and scaffoldings of rank and station are torn away.
From Green's "History of the English People":
No nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life. Washington was grave and courteous in address; his manners were simple and unpretending; his silence and the serene calmness of his temper spoke of a perfect self-mastery ”

“ It does seem as though Providence called our Washington into being, and educated him in the western world just at the time when a great leader was wanted to direct a revolution, and to found on this continent a new and a free, English-speaking nation. Every factor, whether of lineage or culture, in the admirably balanced character of Washington, as well as every aspiration of his heart, from his cradle to his grave, is of high interest to the world. ”

“ How he was to keep his army in existence was one, and how he was to hold the government together was the other. He had thirteen tired States, a general government almost impotent, a bankrupt treasury, and a broken credit. The American Revolution had come down to the question of whether the brain, will, and nerve of one man could keep the machine going long enough to find fit opportunity for a final and decisive stroke. Washington had confidence in the people of the country and in himself, but the difficulties in the way were huge, and the means of surmounting them slight. ”

“ To the world Washington represented the young republic, and he was determined to extort from England the first acknowledgment of independence by compelling her to recognize the Americans as belligerents and not rebels. Washington cared as little for vain shows as any man who ever lived, but he had the highest sense of personal dignity, and of the dignity of his cause and country. Neither should be allowed to suffer in his hands. ”

“ They saw the soldier who had given them victory, the great statesman who had led them out of confusion and faction to order and good government. Party newspapers might rave, but the instinct of the people was never at fault. They loved, trusted and well-nigh worshiped Washington living, and they have honored and reverenced him with an unchanging fidelity since his death, nearly a century ago.
But little more remains to be said. Washington had his faults, for he was human; but they are not easy to point out, so perfect was his mastery of himself. ”

“ George Washington positively started. He took in several of the family in his glance of warning.
“Well, I declare, marm, I don’t know,” he began; then it occurring to him that the honor of the family was somehow at stake and must be upheld, he added, “A leetle mo’ ‘n a hundred thousan’, marm.” His exactness was convincing. Miss Jemima threw up her hands:
“Prodigious! How many nee—— how many persons of the African blood are there on this vast domain?” she inquired, getting nearer to her point. ”

“ WASHINGTON PLAYING THE FLUTE.
Whiskey will not make a poet, nor poker a great pleader. And yet I have seen poets who relied on the potency of their breath, and lawyers who knew more of the habits of a bobtail flush than they ever did of the statutes in such case made and provided.
George Washington was always ready. If you wanted a man to be first in war, you could call on George. If you desired an adult who would be first baseman in time of peace, Mr. Washington could be telephoned at any hour of the day or night. ”

“ Henry E. Waters have established the pedigree of the Virginian Washingtons, and we are now able to know something of the men from whom George Washington drew his descent.
In that interesting land where everything, according to our narrow ideas, is upside down, it is customary, when an individual arrives at distinction, to confer nobility upon his ancestors instead of upon his children. ”

“ George Washington evidently knew the way to soothe him—“Who ever heah de beat of dat!” he said in a tone of mild complaint, partly to the young men and partly to his old master in the ruffles and velvet over the piano, “Marse Nat, you reckon I ain’ got no better manners ‘n to teck you bes’’ coat and weskit! Dis heah coat and weskit nuver did you no favor anyways—I hear Miss Marg’ret talkin’ ‘bout it de fust time you ever put ‘em on. ”

“ Washington respecting the chief magistracy of the new government.
In reply to this letter General Washington said, "Your observations on the solemnity of the crisis, and its application to myself, bring before me subjects of the most momentous and interesting nature. In our endeavours to establish a new general government, the contest, nationally considered, seems not to have been so much for glory, as existence. It was for a long time doubtful whether we were to survive as an independent republic, or decline from our federal dignity into insignificant and wretched fragments of empire. ”

“ But the fruitless incident exhibits in the strongest light the attitude of Washington as a purely American statesman, and the comprehensiveness of his mind in dealing with large affairs.
The French alliance and the coming of the French fleet were of incalculable advantage to the colonies, but they had one evil effect, as has already been suggested. To a people weary with unequal conflict, it was a debilitating influence, and America needed at that moment more than ever energy and vigor, both in the council and the field. Yet the general outlook was distinctly better and more encouraging. ”

“ But we learn from all this many things. It appears that Washington was not merely a brave man, but one who loved fighting for its own sake. The whole expedition shows an arbitrary temper and the most reckless courage, valuable qualities, but here unrestrained, and mixed with very little prudence. Some important lessons were learned by Washington from the rough teachings of inexorable and unconquerable facts. He received in this campaign the first taste of that severe experience which by its training developed the self-control and mastery of temper for which he became so remarkable. ”