The blending of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries comes at a moment of such marked transition in all that directs human activity and relationship, that the promise of Washington’s benediction, with which he proclaimed peace, seems about to be verified with a fuller, grander, and more universal scope of responsibility and example than even his sublime faith encompassed.
“A stupendous fabric of freedom and empire on the broad basis of independency,” has already been established. The present generation and its actors in every department of public duty—including Washington’s successor in the Presidential Chair; the American Congress in both Houses; Governors of all the States; and responsible agencies in all sections—have seemed to unify their efforts to maintain the empire thus established. Those now living are the heirs to be made “happy, happy, thrice happy,” through the legacy of his life; if they do their part in “protecting the rights of human nature, and in establishing an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions.”
Nothing in the career of Washington the Soldier was more sovereign in its sway over citizens under arms, than his constant appeal to a Divine Providence as the truest ally of the soul, in hours of grave responsibility and peril. This narrative would lose much of its value to America and to mankind, if the passages reflecting Washington’s religious faith were to be lightly passed over; and if he were to be measured only as a distinguished representative of the military profession.
He has, indeed, been tested by the sternest maxims of the military art. He has been found responsive to their most exacting demands. But all such tests are largely those of mere intellectual power—not disclosing excellence in moral and social relations, except as these illustrate “Statesmanship in War,” and complement other qualifications of the Ideal Soldier. But Washington was more than a soldier. It is no ill-conceived paradox to assert that the ideal soldier, the greatest soldier, is not the man who most literally represents knowledge of the military art. It is asserted in the Word of Life, that “he that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city.” It is not to be forgotten that the only proper function of War is, to eliminate disturbants of the public peace. To give life for country is to partake of the Divine prerogative of giving life for humanity.
And the soldiers who fought under Washington were not mere men, of certain ages, to be handled well in battle, as parts of a machine. They were not hirelings, discounting the chances of life and death for money. Peace and its domesticities represented the goal of their pursuit; and self-sacrifice, even of life, to secure that peace, was their conscious service to family, to country, and to God. The people, as a people, had no unholy frenzy for war as a source of purely military glory. Only barbarous nations, or the devotees of some great conqueror or fanatical religionist, can thus pervert the patriotic sentiment to the instincts of the beast.
Washington’s army was strong, because strong at home. Country, was the aggregate of homes many. Never did the term patriotism have a more radiant reflection of its intrinsic glory; and Washington, as “Pater Patriæ,” was so paternal in his trust, that his army was filial as well as loyal, in the highest quality of duty to their great Captain. His faith in his country’s future was based upon the intelligence of the people; and his army was both intelligent and religious, because respect for law and religion was the basis of the first settlement of the American Colonies as well as the foundation upon which they established all domestic and political concerns.
In 1780, Thomas Pownall, once royal Governor of Massachusetts, pronounced “American Independence as fixed as fate”; adding: “North America has become a new Primary planet, which, while it takes its own course, in its own orbit, must shift the common centre of gravity.” He added this significant inquiry: “Will that most enterprising spirit be stopped at Cape Horn; or, not pass beyond the Cape of Good Hope? Before long, they will be found trading in the South Sea, in the Spice Islands, and in China. Commerce will open the door to emigration. By constant intercommunication, America will every day approach nearer and nearer to Europe.”
But this “independency of freedom and empire,” predicted by Washington, is not independency of moral obligation, or relation. It carries with its exercise an independent control of both moral and physical activities with which to insist that its inalienable rights shall be universally respected.
The associated prediction of Washington has also been realized—in “the establishment of an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions.” America must therefore bear the responsibility of protecting her wards everywhere, and penetrate the earth with the conviction that wrong done to one, is wrong done to all. Oceans are but lakes. Distances are but steps. Neither light nor sound outspeed the cry of suffering humanity; and neither light nor sound must be allowed to outrun the speed of wise relief. Beneficiaries of this Empire-Asylum, between the great seas, have become elements of our wealth and power. They have ceased to be foreign elements in crystalized society; and blend, as integral forces in the body politic, just as the elements of air and water invisibly combine. Countless messages—of happiness, prosperity, and peace—cross the great seas by every steamship, to cheer their former countrymen with the hope of like liberties, in times not far distant, which they also shall enjoy. The prayers of a Christian people for all mankind, which Heaven doth “gather in vials, as sweet odors,” are not lost between earth and sky; but other peoples, inhaling wafted fragrance, dream of the Land of Washington.
Whatever may be the jealousies or dislikes of personal or dynastic rule abroad, no truly enlightened nation can long remain insensible to that exhibition of moral and industrial power under which America is fully equipped for the support of her honor and her flag. Her indwelling peace matures and conserves financial independence; and infinitely multiplies capacity and resources with which to meet every just obligation to all mankind. Her peace, while enriching herself, blesses all nations. Her products of the shop and farm have become indispensable to the good of all. This new “centre of gravity,” has become, as Egypt once chanced to be, the famine magazine, the granary of relief, to the famishing millions of every land. The ability of America to spring from the repose of peaceful industry and protect her rights and the rights of humanity wherever assailed, has compelled the world’s consideration and respect.
The terra incognita of olden times has become the busy field of competitive industry. The vast empires of China and Japan have caught from the American Republic their own best stimulus, and a timely suggestion to resist aggressive strangers. From America, they fear no unjust demands, no plunder of territory, no violation of sound principles of international law. China, indeed, only feebly responds to the quickening impulse; while Japan recognizes and accepts her opportunity to become an independent, self-respecting power—a truly modern State!
At the famous Berlin Conference, Count Schouvaloff of Russia, recently retired from public life, proposed a formal Resolution, that no modern arms or ships be sold to the empires of the East; declaring that “if those nations, India, China and Japan, were thus armed, and once began to contrast their millions of subjects and associated poverty, with the smaller populations, but vast treasure-houses of Europe, the cities of Vienna, Berlin, and Paris, would be in more danger, through some tidal-wave of desolation and plunder from the East, than from all the standing armies of Europe.” And now that the earth is but a sensitive “whisper-gallery,” and every hammer’s stroke and every anvil’s ring reverberate in every machine-shop where despoilers of the East fabricate implements for its dismemberment and ruin, those same Eastern nations in part accept, and Japan quotes, the wise maxim of Washington: “In peace, prepare for war.”
Washington’s career as a soldier is replete with counsel which finds its crowning opportunity in the present attitude of America before the world. So long as we deal honorably with all mankind, the buzzing electric energies of peace are our best assurance of success in a righteous war. Only wanton neglect of prudent and adequate preparations for the protection of our commerce, and of our citizens wherever they chance to sojourn for legitimate business or pleasure, can engender mistrust of our courage, and invite the very aggressions otherwise beyond the possibility of occurrence.
But Washington, skilled in the European complications of his times, never imagined that the same European nations, or any of them, would select the extreme East as the arena from which to replenish wasted home resources by force; and then convert the continent of Europe into one vast magazine of dynamite, until all chief agencies which belong to domestic prosperity and happiness should be drawn into the wild whirl of Colonial adventure, for plunder. And as the reader recalls Washington’s earnest appeals for unity of spirit in all national affairs, and is reminded of his Farewell Address to the American People, wherein he deprecated all political combinations abroad which might qualify or compromise our absolute independence as a Free Republic, he will be more profoundly impressed with the great fact, that in the present attitude of these United States before the world, the sublime anticipations of the “Father of his Country” are maturing to a resplendent and complete fulfilment. The only natural alliance, in the event of monarchical combinations to stay the advancing triumph of true liberty, would be a concerted action of the United States and the mother country, through the inheritance of like bequests under Magna Charta. The pregnant future may yet give birth to that fruition.
There is an awful grandeur, more densely charged with ills than the fiercest spasms of Nature’s fury, in the visible armaments which are costing peoples, not thrones, annually, more than enough to feed and clothe every suffering member of the human race. The alleged object is, “to preserve the peace,” as if every nation naturally antagonized all others. The peace of the silent grave, which would turn one’s neighbor’s soil into a vast cemetery, seems to supplant that peace “which passeth understanding,” when every heart and mind shall enter a condition of happy repose and prosperous industry. The inquiry propounded nearly nineteen hundred years ago—“From whence come wars and fightings among you?” can be in like manner answered, with solemn emphasis, to-day. No uninspired pen can match the imagery of prophetic vision which predicted the outcome of such conditions as now threaten mankind—“Woe to him that calleth Peace, Peace, when there is no peace!” But greater woe shall befall those that “call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” As with the man who wrongeth his neighbor, and taketh that which is not his, to his own profit; so shall it be with nations. Only those nations which love righteousness and do justice shall rise above the wreck of all oppressors, and take part in the enjoyment of that destined era of righteousness and peace, when nations shall not “learn war any more.” That nation alone will be truly great, whose supreme purpose through every armament and armed expression shall be in behalf of humanity, and to punish or repress the destroyers of peace.
But present conditions had their marvellous premonition in 1892—when “a Congress of Nations,” and “a Parliament of Religions,” convened during the World’s Columbian Exposition, at Chicago, in the State of Illinois. For the purpose of that Exposition, a miniature city, of more than Roman or Grecian classical beauty and adornment, sprang up as by the power of magic, wherein all the nations of earth blended their contributions, in lines of utility and art. Their representatives, their contributors, and their wise men, beheld “the triumphs of peace,” uncontrolled by the prestige of artificial rank, or by the persuasion of bayonet, cimeter, or dagger. They journeyed to and fro in safety; were treated as brethren; as children of one supreme creative Father; and took thence some valuable lessons for thoughtful improvement. No social banquet at their far-distant homes, nor regal display at their national capitals, could have surpassed the cordial welcome or the deep significance of that purely Republican entertainment. The temporary shelter for their pleasure and comfort, costing millions, besides their own generous outlay, had its day and its uses; and then was set aside, as one gives away the morning daily paper, after its quick perusal. Then mighty warehouses, business blocks, and all the permanent features of a vast inland city, one thousand miles distant from the nearest ocean-port, rose instead of the temporary palaces of entertainment; while the markets of the world had received a new impulse, never to be lost.
And such is the Land of Washington! His retirement from command of the “Continental Army of America,” in the spirit of Joshua, the Hebrew Captain, when the people thought no honor too rich for his reward, magnified his office and immortalized his example. Since his career as a soldier demands no elucidation of his office as legislator, statesman, or as the first President of these United States, there remains little to be added; except to commend to American youth, and to all patriotic youth, wherever these pages may invite perusal, the exemplar career of one whose unselfish patriotism, moral rectitude, and exalted qualities as an Ideal Soldier can never lose charm nor value.
Washington based his hopes of success upon the intelligence of the American people. For their proper training in arms, and the contingency of a summons to defend their dearly bought liberties, he designed the Military Academy at West Point on the Hudson. For a uniform system of education in all that develops social culture and good citizenship, he proposed, with gift of a proper site, a National University at the National Capital. Since his immediate mission on earth closed, the American Republic, which, under God, he established, has donated through religious, educational, and benevolent channels, more than three hundred millions of treasure; and found full compensation, in the civilization and enlightenment thereby imparted to less favored peoples throughout the world. The American Census of 1890, disclosed the fact, that American eleemosynary gifts annually exceeded the cost of the largest standing army of the world.
To-day, America is able, single-handed, to defend her honor and her flag, whoever may deride her peaceful habits and her homely virtues. The words of Washington, used upon his return to White Plains in 1778, as emphatically appeal to the American people to-day, as when they were first uttered.
A Nation of nearly eighty millions stands ready to vindicate the loftiest aspirations and redeem the confidence of Washington. So surely as the Almighty Father is a covenant-keeping God, whatever may be the scenes of conflict forwarding His purpose, He will emancipate man from error’s chain and the oppressor’s lash; and this Republic must be ever prepared to maintain, from generation to generation, one sentiment of the great Soldier—
“The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous, that he must be worse than an infidel, that lacks faith; and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligation.”