Life and Times of Washington Part 65

"Respecting, as the first magistrate in a free government must ever do, the real and deliberate sentiments of the people, their gusts of pa.s.sion pa.s.sed over, without ruffling the smooth surface of his mind. Trusting to the reflecting good sense of the nation for approbation and support, he had the magnanimity to pursue its real interests, in opposition to its temporary prejudices; and, though far from being regardless of popular favor, he could never stoop to retain, by deserving to lose it.

In more instances than one we find him committing his whole popularity to hazard, and pursuing steadily, in opposition to a torrent which would have overwhelmed a man of ordinary firmness, that course which had been dictated by a sense of duty.

"In speculation he was a real republican, devoted to the const.i.tution of his country and to that system of equal political rights on which it is founded. But between a balanced republic and a democracy the difference is like that between order and chaos. Real liberty, he thought, was to be preserved only by preserving the authority of the laws and maintaining the energy of government. Scarcely did society present two characters which, in his opinion, less resembled each other than a patriot and a demagogue.

"No man has ever appeared upon the theater of public action whose integrity was more incorruptible, or whose principles were more perfectly free from the contamination of those selfish and unworthy pa.s.sions which find their nourishment in the conflicts of party. Having no views which required concealment, his real and avowed motives were the same; and his whole correspondence does not furnish a single case from which even an enemy would infer that he was capable, under any circ.u.mstances, of stooping to the employment of duplicity. No truth can be uttered with more confidence than that his ends were always upright and his means always pure. He exhibits the rare example of a politician to whom wiles were absolutely unknown, and whose professions to foreign governments and to his own countrymen were always sincere. In him was fully exemplified the real distinction which forever exists between wisdom and cunning, and the importance as well as truth of the maxim, that 'honesty is the best policy.'

"If Washington possessed ambition that pa.s.sion was, in his bosom, so regulated by principles or controlled by circ.u.mstances that it was neither vicious nor turbulent. Intrigue was never employed as the means of its gratification, nor was personal aggrandizement its object. The various high and important stations to which he was called by the public voice were unsought by himself; and, in consenting to fill them, he seems rather to have yielded to a general conviction that the interests of his country would be thereby promoted, than to an avidity for power.

"Neither the extraordinary partiality of the American people, the extravagant praises which were bestowed upon him, nor the inveterate opposition and malignant calumnies which he encountered, had any visible influence upon his conduct. The cause is to be looked for in the texture of his mind.

"In him, that innate and una.s.suming modesty which adulation would have offended, which the voluntary plaudits of millions could not betray into indiscretion, and which never obtruded upon others his claims to superior consideration, was happily blended with a high and correct sense of personal dignity, and with a just consciousness of that respect which is due to station. Without exertion he could maintain the happy medium between that arrogance which wounds and that facility which allows the office to be degraded in the person who fills it.

"It is impossible to contemplate the great events which have occurred in the United States under the auspices of Washington without ascribing them, in some measure, to him. If we ask the causes of the prosperous issue of a war, against the successful termination of which there were so many probabilities; of the good which was produced, and the ill which was avoided, during an administration fated to contend with the strongest prejudices that a combination of circ.u.mstances and of pa.s.sions could produce; of the constant favor of the great ma.s.s of his fellow-citizens, and of the confidence which, to the last moment of his life, they reposed in him, the answer, so far as these causes may be found in his character, will furnish a lesson well meriting the attention of those who are candidates for political fame.

"Endowed by nature with a sound judgment, and an accurate discriminating mind, he feared not that laborious attention which made him perfectly master of those subjects, in all their relations, on which he was to decide; and this essential quality was guided by an unvarying sense of moral right, which would tolerate the employment only of those means that would bear the most rigid examination, by a fairness of intention which neither sought nor required disguise, and by a purity of virtue which was not only untainted but unsuspected." The eulogies of Washington, at the time of his death, were almost as numerous as the towns and cities of the republic; for everywhere funeral honors were paid to his memory. The following, by the celebrated orator, Fisher Ames, p.r.o.nounced before the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts, is as remarkable for its conciseness as for its just and comprehensive estimate of Washington's character.

"It is not impossible," he said, "that some will affect to consider the honors paid to this great patriot by the nation as excessive, idolatrous, and degrading to freemen who are all equal. I answer, that refusing to virtue its legitimate honors would not prevent their being lavished in future on any worthless and ambitious favorite. If this day's example should have its natural effect, it will be salutary.

Let such honors be so conferred only when, in future, they shall be so merited; then the public sentiment will not be misled nor the principles of a just equality corrupted. The best evidence of reputation is a man's whole life. We have now, alas, all of Washington's before us. There has scarcely appeared a really great man whose character has been more admired in his lifetime or less correctly understood by his admirers.

When it is comprehended it is no easy task to delineate its excellencies in such a manner as to give the portrait both interest and resemblance, for it requires thought and study to understand the true ground of the superiority of his character over many others, whom he resembled in the principles of action and even in the manner of acting. But, perhaps, he excels all the great men that ever lived, in the steadiness of his adherence to his maxims of life and in the uniformity of all his conduct to those maxims. Those maxims, though wise, were yet not so remarkable for their wisdom as for their authority over his life, for if there were any errors in his judgment--and he displayed as few as any man--we know of no blemishes in his virtue. He was the patriot without reproach; he loved his country well enough to hold success in serving it an ample recompense. Thus far, self-love and love of country coincided, but when his country needed sacrifices that no other man could, or perhaps would be willing to make, he did not even hesitate. This was virtue in its most exalted character. More than once he put his fame at hazard, when he had reason to think it would be sacrificed, at least in this age. Two instances cannot be denied: when the army was disbanded, and again when he stood, like Leonidas at the pa.s.s of Thermopylae, to defend our independence against France.

"It is indeed almost as difficult to draw his character as to draw the portrait of virtue. The reasons are similar; our ideas of moral excellence are obscure, because they are complex, and we are obliged to resort to ill.u.s.trations. Washington's example is the happiest to show what virtue is, and to delineate his character, we naturally expatiate on the beauty of virtue; much must be felt and much imagined. His pre-eminence is not so much to be seen in the display of any one virtue, as in the possession of them all and in the practice of the most difficult. Hereafter, therefore, his character must be studied before it will be striking, and then it will be admitted as a model--a precious one to a free republic.

"It is no less difficult to speak of his talents. They were adapted to lead, without dazzling mankind, and to draw forth and employ the talents of others without being misled by them. In this he was certainly superior, that he neither mistook nor misapplied his own. His great modesty and reserve would have concealed them if great occasions had not called them forth, and then, as he never spoke from the affectation to shine nor acted from any sinister motives, it is from their effects only that we are to judge of their greatness and extent. In public trusts, where men, acting conspicuously, are cautious, and in those private concerns where few conceal or resist their weakness, Washington was uniformly great, pursuing right conduct from right maxims. His talents were such as to a.s.sist a sound judgment and ripen with it. His prudence was consummate and seemed to take the direction of his powers and pa.s.sions; for, as a soldier, he was more solicitous to avoid mistakes that might be fatal than to perform exploits that are brilliant; and, as a statesman, to adhere to just principles, however old, than to pursue novelties; and, therefore, in both characters, his qualities were singularly adapted to the interest and were tried in the greatest perils of the country. His habits of inquiry were so far remarkable that he was never satisfied with investigating, nor desisted from it, so long as he had less than all the light that he could obtain upon a subject, and then he made his decision without bias.

"This command over the partialities that so generally stop men short or turn them aside in their pursuit of truth, is one of the chief causes of his unvaried course of right conduct in so many difficult scenes, where every human action must be presumed to err. If he had strong pa.s.sions he had learned to subdue them, and to be moderate and mild. If he had weaknesses, he concealed them, which is rare, and excluded them from the government of his temper and conduct, which is still more rare. If he loved fame, he never made improper compliances for what is called popularity. The fame he enjoyed is of the kind that will last forever, yet it was rather the effect than the motive of his conduct. Some future Plutarch will search for a parallel to his character. Epaminondas is, perhaps, the brightest name of all antiquity. Our Washington resembled him in the purity and ardor of his patriotism, and, like him, he first exalted the glory of his country. There, it is to be hoped, the parallel ends, for Thebes fell with Epamanondas. But such comparisons cannot be pursued far without departing from the similitude. For we shall find it as difficult to compare great men as great rivers; some we admire for the length and rapidity of their currents and the grandeur of their cataracts; others for the majestic silence and fullness of their streams; we cannot bring them together, to measure the difference of their waters. The unambitious life of Washington, declining fame yet courted by it, seemed, like the Ohio, to choose its long way through solitudes, diffusing fertility, or like his own Potomac, widening and deepening its channel as it approaches the sea, and displaying most the usefulness and serenity of its greatness toward the end of its course.

Such a citizen would do honor to any country. The constant veneration and affection of his country will show that it was worthy of such a citizen.

"However his military fame may excite the wonder of mankind, it is chiefly by his civil magistracy that his example will instruct them.

Great generals have arisen in all ages of the world, and perhaps most of them in despotism and darkness. In times of violence and convulsion they rise, by the force of the whirlwind, high enough to ride in it and direct the storm. Like meteors, they glare on the black clouds with a splendor that, while it dazzles and terrifies, makes nothing visible but the darkness. The fame of heroes is indeed growing vulgar; they multiply in every long war; they stand in history and thicken in their ranks almost as undistinguished as their own soldiers.

"But such a chief magistrate as Washington appears like the pole-star in a clear sky to direct the skilful statesman. His presidency will form an epoch and be distinguished as the age of Washington. Already it a.s.sumes its high place in the political region. Like the milky-way, it whitens along its allotted portion of the hemisphere. The latest generations of men will survey, through the telescope of history, the s.p.a.ce where so many virtues blend their rays, and delight to separate them into groups and distinct virtues. As the best ill.u.s.tration of them, the living monument, to which the first of patriots would have chosen to consign his fame, it is my earnest prayer to Heaven that our country may subsist even to that late day in the plenitude of its liberty and happiness, and mingle its mild glory with Washington's."

1. Footnote: Our authority for the details of Washington's last illness and death is a statement carefully prepared by Mr. Lear at the time, and published from the original in Sparks' "Life of Washington." It is the most exact and reliable authority extant.

2. Footnote: Sparks, "Life of Washington."

3. Footnote: Sparks, "Life of Washington."