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.
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,
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,
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.
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