The Wonderful Story of Washington Part 10

"It is much to be lamented," he said, "that each state, long ere this, has not hunted them down as pests to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America. I would to G.o.d that some one of the most atrocious in each state was hung in gibbets upon a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman. No punishment, in my opinion, is too great for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin."

This shows how Washington loathed meanness and treachery and how he minced no words in saying so. Only such men are leaders of men. No man who believes anything and is afraid to say it has a place in the political meaning of America.

Benjamin Harrison, full of the same righteous resentment, writes at the time, "If I were to be called upon to draw a picture of the times and of men, from what I have seen, heard, and in part know, I should in one word say that idleness, dissipation, and extravagance seem to have laid fast hold of most of them; that speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for riches seem to have got the better of every other consideration, and almost every order of men; that party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day."

And so, to one patriot and then to another, Washington appealed for help to save the wasting fortunes of his country.

To George Mason he wrote that we are "fast verging to destruction."

The widespread demoralization of both army and people, the scramble for profit, and the unpatriotic plunder of vital interests at last became so evident under Washington's ringing denunciations that the real patriots of the country awoke to the peril. Lafayette and the two Morrises took the lead in their respective fields of work. Writers and speakers took up the task of arousing the people and their officers in Congress, and at last the tide turned. The strong minds at last prevailed in uniting the people into a reliable force for the great need, and the American republic became an acknowledged part of the humanity of the earth.

CHAPTER XIV

TURNING REVOLUTION THROUGH FREEDOM INTO GOVERNMENT

I. SEEKING RETIREMENT FOR LIFE IN THE PEACE OF A COUNTRY HOME

The Revolutionary war had extended over a period of eight years, through almost unparalleled discouragements and intolerable trials of faith and purpose, when the British troops were finally withdrawn from American soil. The differences in the appearances of the British and American troops are described by an American lady living in New York, while the British held possession there. She wrote, "We had been accustomed for a long time to the military display in all the finish and finery of garrison life; the troops just leaving us were as if equipped for show, and with their scarlet uniforms and burnished arms made a brilliant display. The troops that marched in, on the contrary, were ill-clad and weatherbeaten, and made a forlorn appearance; but then they were our troops, and, as I looked at them and thought of all they had done and suffered for us, my heart and my eyes were full, and I admired and gloried in them the more, because they were weatherbeaten and forlorn."

In a letter to Baron Steuben, written on the 23rd of December, 1783, Washington concludes as follows, "This is the last letter I shall write while I continue in the service of my country. The hour of my resignation is fixed at twelve today, after which I shall become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac."

At noon on that memorable day the Hall of Congress was filled with a notable a.s.semblage of prominent people. The members of Congress remained seated with their hats on, as was the custom of the times, but the spectators were standing with uncovered heads when Washington, conducted by the secretary of Congress, entered and was given a seat appointed for him.

The President of Congress arose, and, after stating the purpose of the meeting at that hour, said to Washington, "The United States in Congress a.s.sembled are now prepared to receive your communication."

Washington arose and delivered a short address, at the close of which he said, "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 G.o.d; and those who have the superintendence of them to His holy keeping. Having now finished the work a.s.signed to me, I retire from the great theatre of action; and, bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body, under whose orders I have long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life."

A writer who was present, speaking of this scene, says, "Few tragedies ever drew so many tears from so many beautiful eyes as the moving manner in which his Excellency took his final leave of Congress."

The President of Congress replied to his address, and, after reciting the wisdom and valor with which Washington had accomplished the great task a.s.signed him, said, "You retire from the theatre of action with the blessings of your fellow citizens; but the glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command; it will continue to animate remote ages."

Washington arrived at Mount Vernon on Christmas eve, where the home-coming was duly celebrated as could be done only in the colonial plantation days.

"The scene is at last closed," he wrote to his friend, Governor Clinton of New York. "I feel myself eased of a load of public care. I hope to spend the remainder of my days in cultivating the affections of good men, and in the practice of domestic virtues."

How little Washington or his friends knew of the future! A task and a responsibility of no less importance than the conduct of the Revolutionary war was yet to devolve upon him. The repose of a soldier had to give way to the mind-work of a great statesman.

In a letter to that great friend of America, without whose aid there could hardly have been a free America, General Lafayette, Washington wrote, "Free from the bustle of a camp and the busy scenes of public life I am solacing myself with those tranquil enjoyments which the soldier, who is ever in pursuit of fame; the statesman, whose watchful days and sleepless nights are spent in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his own, perhaps the ruin of other countries,--as if this globe were insufficient for us all; and the courtier, who is always watching the countenance of his prince in hopes of catching a gracious smile, can have very little conception."

Later, in writing to the Marchioness de Lafayette, inviting her to visit America, where her husband had earned such glory and where everybody loved and admired him, he gave a charming picture of the simplicity of his life.

"I am now enjoying domestic ease under the shadow of my own vine and fig tree, in a small villa, with the implements of husbandry and lambkins about me. Come, then, let me entreat you, and call my cottage your own; for your own doors do not open to you with more readiness than mine would. You will see the plain manner in which we live, and meet the rustic civility; and you shall taste the simplicity of rural life. It will diversify the scene, and may give you a higher relish for the gayeties of the court when you return to Versailles."

II. FREEDOM AND THE WRANGLE FOR PERSONAL GAIN

Knowing that Washington would be at continual expense to entertain distinguished guests who would come to see him, Congress tried to grant him a reward for his distinguished services, but he had served his country without pay and he refused. In the meanwhile, the hospitality of Washington was taxed to the utmost, and his time was much taken up in important conferences over political affairs. The country was being governed by Congress under the Articles of Confederation which then bound the states, but probably with less efficiency than thirteen horses in a single rein and rope harness to draw a rattling, curtain-flapping carriage. The old state patriotisms were revived and with them the rivalries and jealousies of political sections. Whatever one state wanted seemed to be the signal for its neighbor to want something else. The United States were indeed plural with a vengeance! "E Pluribus Unum" that had so laboriously and valiantly come true, as meaning one out of many, in war, had changed about to its first condition and was again many out of one.

In 1786, in a letter to General Knox, Washington wrote, "I feel, my dear General Knox, infinitely more than I can express to you for the disorders which have arisen in these states. Good G.o.d! who, besides a Tory, could have foreseen, or a Briton predicted them? I do a.s.sure you that, even at this moment, when I reflect upon the present prospect of affairs, it seems to me to be like the vision of a dream. After what I have seen, or rather what I have heard, I shall be surprised at nothing; for, if three years since, any person had told me that there would have been such a formidable rebellion as exists at this day against the laws and const.i.tution of our own making, I should have thought him a bedlamite, a fit subject for a mad-house."

He wrote to James Madison, saying, "How melancholy is the reflection that in so short a time we should have made such large strides toward fulfilling the predictions of our transatlantic foes, who said, 'Leave them to themselves and their government will soon dissolve'? Will not the wise and good strive hard to avert this evil?"

The only remedy which "the wise and good" could use to avert the calamity of having thirteen feeble little nations at war with one another was to supplant the "Articles of Confederation" with a Federal Const.i.tution, and, at last, this was accomplished, with so many compromises and concessions to so-called "state rights" that it required a frightful four years' civil war to establish the meaning of the Federal Const.i.tution, so that the United States grammarians and politicians could agree to say the United States "is" instead of saying that the United States "are."

With the adoption of the Federal Const.i.tution, it was provided that electors should be chosen whose duty it was to select a president for the United States.

There could be but one man seriously considered. The landed gentleman who had become a soldier and won liberty for the Western world was soon seen to be destined, by the nation he had made, to be its first president, and henceforth by nature, if not by the providence of G.o.d, to be statesman, and the "First Citizen of America." Accordingly, George Washington was chosen first president of the Western republic, to begin a term of four years from the fourth of March, 1789.

III. LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS OF LIBERTY AND LAW

Through the desperate eight years of war, in which the devastations of the British could hardly be called worse than the wrangling differences of opinion and sordid interests among the colonies, Washington had conserved and guided the struggle for American liberty, so that, at the close of the war, with the disembarkation for Halifax of troops, royalists and tories, there was a unanimous voice of harmony for a new America.

Then came the divisions under the rivalry of the colonies as a loose confederation of separate republics. After that Washington was again at the head of American interests and for another eight years. It was a period of reconstruction. The opportunity to have a new nation, that human beings might have a place of freedom in the sun, was supplied by the eight years of revolutionary struggle, but the foundations for that nation were not laid firmly until there were eight years' labor upon the Const.i.tutional form of government under Washington.

Probably no man, with the exception of Lincoln, has been so loved and so hated, or ever will be in America, as Washington. It is the most pathetic thing in all the weakness of intelligence, or rather the strength of prejudice, that the world always hates, and sometimes kills, its benefactors, its friends and saviors.

But somehow, with all the storm and stress of things, notwithstanding the hate and revenge of disappointed greed, the rights of life are carried on, and the values of humanity prevail.

The time for the third election of a president was drawing near. All the malignant virulence possible to destroy the name and services of Washington were coming into use. He was accused of every public evil and private unfitness under the sun. And yet there is hardly any doubt worth consideration that he could have been elected for the third term if he had desired it. But he had done his share of the work of the world. He saw that his example would be used as a precedent for the ambitions of future politicians. There must be a reasonable time limit even to the restricted governing powers of a president. He declined to serve more than two terms. Only once since then has there been an organized attempt to break that precedent. The politicians tried their utmost means to give General Grant a third term, but the hostility of the nation against the danger of such prolonged power at last prevailed and the attempt was defeated, probably never to be successful.

Washington's farewell address on retiring from the presidency has ever remained a beacon-light for the guidance of American views of American government, especially in its relation with foreign nations.

The reply of the House of Representatives gave strong praise for the wisdom, firmness, moderation and magnanimity with which he had guided the affairs of his country. But the kicker was there and his voice was heard. A prominent representative from Virginia was disgusted with any praise of Washington's wisdom and firmness. He raised his voice in the halls of Congress and put himself on historical record as especially opposed to giving Washington any praise for the administration of foreign affairs. He declared that "the weakness and feeble judgment of Washington in our foreign relations" has brought us under "the contempt of foreign nations," and had conducted our country to "the verge of a greater calamity than had ever been threatened before in our history." That patriotic scare sounds strangely like the calamity prophecies of politicians against every president in every national crisis. In such cases it is well to remember that political partisans are not thus qualified to be American patriots. They are special pleaders for their own particular party greed.

Twelve other members believed as this one from Virginia. They would much rather have censured Washington for weakness than to have praised him for strength. Among these thirteen partisans was a young man from Tennessee named Andrew Jackson, who afterward became one of the famous Presidents.

These violent differences of opinion and the vicious personal attacks on motives, attributed each to each, has been one of the pitiable signs of injustice and incompetency in American politics. Time after time, as the presidential campaigns arrive, the fist-like will of each side is thrust into the other's faces, as those "belonging" to a party fight to get votes for the party candidate, not for a patriotic cause.

In times of great national peril, whether in times of war at home or abroad, the president who preserves, as Washington did, the rights of his country in conformity to the rights of man, which is the only possible rights of either, is hated by the extremists on both sides.

They both call him weak, and, therefore, though hating each other, unite to defeat the man who would not lead his country into taking up with their special interests. But, fortunately, we sometimes have presidents with mind, patriotism and character greater than any party.

Most hopefully, there are increasingly greater numbers who belong to their country instead of to a party, and who elect human principles to rule and to reign over us rather than the ring-managers of prejudice and partisanship known as "parties." Presently there will be enough independent thinking for any one to consider it as unpatriotic to belong to a "party" as to belong to any other political fragment, clique, or social group, presuming to dictate what is weakness and what is strength for the individual mind as its only choice in patriotism and Americanism. America, composed of every element of humanity from every part of the earth, is the strongest nation of all time, and capable of being the clearest and most just for the freedom of the world. Here we strive for the peace of freedom in law. We war only against war. American intelligence and mercy are rapidly devising ways to eliminate the various forms of enslavement, dissentions and divisions that weaken American civilization, so that democracy may be safe in itself. In the great European war, President Wilson announced the purpose of the United States to be for the right that is greater than peace, in which the world must be made safe for democracy. And so, humanity gains "a place in the sun" and the kingdom of heaven is among us. For the sake of peace on earth, America must be strong in the might of right, and be willing and ready to save to the uttermost. America is president of the peace-nations of the earth because it alone is federated upon the principles of human justice, eternal and universal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ill.u.s.trated 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.