Speech of General Fitzhugh Lee at a dinner given by the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and the Hibernian Society of Philadelphia, at the city of Philadelphia, September 17, 1887. The occasion of the dinner was the one hundredth anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. General Lee, then governor of Virginia, was the guest of Governor Beaver at the dinner. The Chairman, Hon. Andrew G. Curtin [Pennsylvania's war governor], in introducing General Lee said: "We have here to-day a gentleman whom I am glad to call my friend, though during the war he was in dangerous and unpleasant proximity to me. He once threatened the capital of this great state. I did not wish him to come in, and was very glad when he went away. He was then my enemy and I was his. But, thank God, that is past; and in the enjoyment of the rights and interests common to all as American citizens, I am his friend and he is my friend. I introduce to you, Governor Fitzhugh Lee."
Speech of General Fitzhugh Lee at a dinner given by the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and the Hibernian Society of Philadelphia, at the city of Philadelphia, September 17, 1887. The occasion of the dinner was the one hundredth anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. General Lee, then governor of Virginia, was the guest of Governor Beaver at the dinner. The Chairman, Hon. Andrew G. Curtin [Pennsylvania's war governor], in introducing General Lee said: "We have here to-day a gentleman whom I am glad to call my friend, though during the war he was in dangerous and unpleasant proximity to me. He once threatened the capital of this great state. I did not wish him to come in, and was very glad when he went away. He was then my enemy and I was his. But, thank God, that is past; and in the enjoyment of the rights and interests common to all as American citizens, I am his friend and he is my friend. I introduce to you, Governor Fitzhugh Lee."
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Hibernian Society:—I am very glad, indeed, to have the honor of being present in this society once more; as it was my good fortune to enjoy a most pleasant visit here and an acquaintance with the members of your society last year. My engagements were such to-day that I could not get here earlier; and just as I was coming in Governor Beaver was making his excuses because, as he said, he had to go to pick up a visitor whom he was to escort to the entertainment to be given this evening at the Academy of Music. I am the visitor whom Governor Beaver is looking for. He could not capture me during the war, but he has captured me now. I am a Virginian and used to ride a pretty fast horse, and he could not get close enough to me.
By the way, you have all heard of "George Washingtonand his little hatchet." The other day I heard a story that was a little variation upon the original, and I am going to take up your time for a minute by repeating it to you.
It was to this effect: Old Mr. Washington and Mrs. Washington, the parents of George, found on one occasion that their supply of soap for the use of the family at Westmoreland had been exhausted, and so they decided to make some family soap. They made the necessary arrangements and gave the requisite instructions to the family servant. After an hour or so the servant returned and reported to them that he could not make that soap. "Why not," he was asked, "haven't you all the materials?" "Yes," he replied, "but there is something wrong." The old folks proceeded to investigate, and they found they had actually got the ashes of the little cherry tree that George had cut down with his hatchet, and there was no lye in it.
Now, I assure you, there is no "lie" in what I say to you this afternoon, and that is, that I thank God for the sun of the Union which, once obscured, is now again in the full stage of its glory; and that its light is shining over Virginia as well as over the rest of this country. We have had our differences. I do not see, upon reading history, how they could well have been avoided, because they resulted from different constructions of the Constitution, which was the helm of the ship of the republic. Virginia construed it one way. Pennsylvania construed it in another, and they could not settle their differences; so they went to war, andPennsylvania, I think, probably got a little the best of it.
The sword, at any rate, settled the controversy. But that is behind us. We have now a great and glorious future in front of us, and it is Virginia's duty to do all that she can to promote the honor and glory of this country. We fought to the best of our ability for four years; and it would be a great mistake to assume that you could bring men from their cabins, from their plows, from their houses, and from their families to make them fight as they fought in that contest unless they were fighting for a belief. Those men believed that they had the right construction of the Constitution, and that a state that voluntarily entered the Union could voluntarily withdraw from it. They did not fight for Confederate money. It was not worth ten cents a yard. They did not fight for Confederate rations—you would have had to curtail the demands of your appetite to make it correspond with the size and quality of those rations. They fought for what they thought was a proper construction of the Constitution.
They were defeated. They acknowledged their defeat. They came back to their father's house, and there they are going to stay. But if we are to continue prosperous, if this country, stretching from the gulf to the lakes and from ocean to ocean, is to be mindful of its own best interests, in the future, we will have to make concessions and compliances, we will have to bear with each other and to respect each other's opinions. Then we will find that that harmony will besecured which is as necessary for the welfare of states, as it is for the welfare of individuals.
I have become acquainted with Governor Beaver—I met him in Richmond. You could not make me fight him now. If I had known him before the war, perhaps we would not have got at it. If all the Governors had known each other, and if all the people of different sections had been known to each other, or had been thrown together in business or social communication, the fact would have been recognized at the outset, as it is to-day, that there are just as good men in Maine as there are in Texas, and just as good men in Texas as there are in Maine. Human nature is everywhere the same; and when intestine strifes occur, we will doubtless always be able by a conservative, pacific course to pass smoothly over the rugged, rocky edges, and the old Ship of State will be brought into a safe, commodious, Constitutional harbor with the flag of the Union flying over her, and there it will remain.
The appeal for a perpetual union and obedience to established law, the warning against the evils of partisan politics and against the dangers of entangling foreign alliances made by Washington in this immortal address were never more important than at the present time. They will become more important for each succeeding generation. Let those who would know America's mission make a careful study of this the greatest of state papers.
The appeal for a perpetual union and obedience to established law, the warning against the evils of partisan politics and against the dangers of entangling foreign alliances made by Washington in this immortal address were never more important than at the present time. They will become more important for each succeeding generation. Let those who would know America's mission make a careful study of this the greatest of state papers.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth, as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned,and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together. The independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint councils and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.
TheNorth, in an unrestrained intercourse with theSouth, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. TheSouth, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the same agency of theNorth, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly intoits own channels the seamen of theNorth, it finds its particular navigation invigorated; and while it contributes in different ways to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength to which itself is unequally adapted. TheEast, in a like intercourse with theWest, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water will more and more find, a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad or manufactures at home. TheWestderives from theEastsupplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe thesecureenjoyment of indispensableoutletsfor its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest asone nation. Any other tenure by which theWestcan hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations, and what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves which so frequentlyafflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.
These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.
To the efficacy and permanency of your union agovernment for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute. They must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the constitution which at any time exists till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and actionof the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community, and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct. And can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages whichmight be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.
Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation prompted by ill will and resentment sometimes impels to war the government contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject. At other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility, instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim.
So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the formerto be the satellite of the latter. Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to beconstantlyawake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as littlepoliticalconnection 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 enablesus 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 so 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?
Address by John W. Daniel, lawyer, statesman, United States senator from Virginia, delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives, Washington, D. C., at the dedication of the Washington National Monument, February 21, 1885, Mr. Daniel being then a member of the House from Virginia. He was introduced by Senator George F. Edmunds, of Vermont, president pro tempore of the Senate, who occupied the speaker's chair, and presided at the dedicatory exercises.
Address by John W. Daniel, lawyer, statesman, United States senator from Virginia, delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives, Washington, D. C., at the dedication of the Washington National Monument, February 21, 1885, Mr. Daniel being then a member of the House from Virginia. He was introduced by Senator George F. Edmunds, of Vermont, president pro tempore of the Senate, who occupied the speaker's chair, and presided at the dedicatory exercises.
Mr. President of the United States, Senators, Representatives, Judges, Mr. Chairman, and My Countrymen:—Alone in its grandeur stands forth the character of Washington in history; alone like some peak that has no fellow in the mountain range of greatness.
"Washington," says Guizot, "Washington did the two greatest things which in politics it is permitted to man to attempt. He maintained by peace the independence of his country, which he had conquered by war. He founded a free government in the name of principles of order and by re-establishing their sway."
Washington did indeed do these things. But he did more. Out of disconnected fragments he molded a whole and made it a country. He achieved his country's independence by the sword. He maintained that independence by peace as by war. He finally established both his country and its freedom in an enduring frame of constitutional government, fashioned to make Liberty and Union one and inseparable. These four things together constitute the unexampled achievement of Washington.
The world has ratified the profound remark of Fisher Ames, that "he changed mankind's ideas of political greatness." It has approved the opinion of Edward Everett, that he was "the greatest of good men and the best of great men." It has felt for him, with Erskine, "an awful reverence." It has attested the declaration of Brougham, that "he was the greatest man of his own or of any age." It is matter of fact to-day, as when General Hamilton, announcing his death to the army, said, "The voice of praise would in vain endeavor to exalt a name unrivaled in the lists of true glory." America still proclaims him, as did Colonel Henry Lee, on the floor of the House of Representatives, the man "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." And from beyond the sea the voice of Alfieri, breathing the soul of all lands and peoples, still pronounces the blessing, "Happy are you who have for the sublime and permanent basis of your glory the love of country demonstrated by deeds."
Ye who have unrolled the scrolls that tell the tale of the rise and fall of nations, before whose eyes has moved the panorama of man's struggles, achievements, and progression, find you anywhere the story of one whose life work is more than a fragment of that which in his life is set before you? Conquerors, who have stretched your scepters over boundless territories; founders of empire, who have held your dominions in reign of law; reformers, who have cried aloud in the wilderness of oppression; teachers, who have striven with reason to cast down false doctrine, heresy andschism; statesmen, whose brains have throbbed with mighty plans for the amelioration of human society; scar-crowned Vikings of the sea, illustrious heroes of the land, who have borne the standards of siege and battle—come forth in bright array from your glorious fanes—and would ye be measured by the measure of his stature? Behold you not in him a more illustrious and more venerable presence?
Statesman, Soldier, Patriot, Sage, Reformer of Creeds, Teacher of Truth and Justice, Achiever and Preserver of Liberty—the First of Men—Founder and Savior of his Country, Father of his People—this is he, solitary and unapproachable in his grandeur. Oh! felicitous Providence that gave to AmericaOur Washington!
High soars into the sky to-day—higher than the Pyramids or the dome of St. Paul's or St. Peter's—the loftiest and most imposing structure that man has ever reared—high soars into the sky to where
"Earth highest yearns to meet a star,"
the monument which "We the people of the United States" have erected to his memory. It is a fitting monument, more fitting than any statue. For his image could only display him in some one phase of his varied character—as the Commander, the Statesman, the Planter of Mount Vernon, or the Chief Magistrate of his Country. So art has fitly typified his exalted life in yon plain lofty shaft. Such is his greatness, that only by a symbol could it be represented. As Justice must be blind in order to be whole in contemplation, so History must be silent, that by this mightysign she may unfold the amplitude of her story.
In 1657, while yet "a Cromwell filled the Stuarts' throne," there came to Virginia with a party of Carlists who had rebelled against him John Washington, of Yorkshire, England, who became a magistrate and member of the House of Burgesses, and distinguished himself in Indian warfare as the first colonel of his family on this side of the water. He was the nephew of that Sir Henry Washington who had led the forlorn hope of Prince Rupert at Bristol in 1643, and who, with a starving and mutinous garrison, had defended Worcester in 1649, answering all calls for surrender that he "awaited His Majesty's commands."
And his progenitors had for centuries, running back to the conquest, been men of mark and fair renown. Pride and modesty of individuality alike forbid the seeking from any source of a borrowed lustre, and the Washingtons were never studious or pretentious of ancestral dignities. But "we are quotations from our ancestors," says the philosopher of Concord—and who will say that in the loyalty to conscience and to principle, and to the right of self-determination of what is principle, that the Washingtons have ever shown, whether as loyalist or rebel, was not the germ of that deathless devotion to liberty and country which soon discarded all ancient forms in the mighty stroke for independence?
One hundred and fifty-three years ago, on the banks of the Potomac, in the county of Westmoreland, on a spot marked now only by a memorial stone, of the blood of the people whom I have faintly described, fourth indescent from the Colonel John Washington whom I have named, there was born a son to Augustine and Mary Washington. And not many miles above his birthplace is the dwelling where he lived, and near which he now lies buried.
Borne upon the bosom of that river which here mirrors Capitol dome and monumental shaft in its seaward flow, the river itself seems to reverse its current and bear us silently into the past. Scarce has the vista of the city faded from our gaze when we behold on the woodland height that swells above the waters—amidst walks and groves and gardens—the white porch of that old colonial plantation home which has become the shrine of many a pilgrimage. Contrasting it as there it stands to-day with the marble halls which we have left behind us, we realize the truth of Emerson: "The atmosphere of moral sentiment is a region of grandeur which reduces all material magnificence to toys, yet opens to every wretch that has reason the doors of the Universe."
The quaint old wooden mansion, with the stately but simple old-fashioned mahogany furniture, real and ungarnished; the swords and relics of campaigns and scenes familiar to every schoolboy now; the key of the Bastile hanging in the hall incased in glass, calling to mind Tom Paine's happy expression, "That the principles of the American Revolution opened the Bastile is not to be doubted, therefore the key comes to the right place;" the black velvet coat worn when the farewell address to the Army was made; the rooms all in nicety of preparation as if expectant of the cominghost—we move among these memorials of days and men long vanished—we stand under the great trees and watch the solemn river, in its never-ceasing flow, we gaze upon the simple tomb whose silence is unbroken save by the low murmur of the waters or the wild bird's note, and we are enveloped in an atmosphere of moral grandeur which no pageantry of moving men nor splendid pile can generate. Nightly on the plain of Marathon—the Greeks have the tradition—there may yet be heard the neighing of chargers and the rushing shadows of spectral war. In the spell that broods over the sacred groves of Vernon, Patriotism, Honor, Courage, Justice, Virtue, Truth seem bodied forth, the only imperishable realities of man's being.
There emerges from the shades the figure of a youth over whose cradle had hovered no star of destiny, nor dandled a royal crown—an ingenious youth, and one who in his early days gave auguries of great powers. The boy whose strong arm could fling a stone across the Rappahannock; whose strong will could tame the most fiery horse; whose just spirit made him the umpire of his fellows; whose obedient heart bowed to a mother's yearning for her son and laid down the midshipman's warrant in the British Navy which answered his first ambitious dream; the student transcribing mathematical problems, accounts, and business forms, or listening to the soldiers and seamen of vessels in the river as they tell of "hair-breadth 'scapes by flood and field;" the early moralist in his thirteenth year compiling matured "Rules for behavior and conversation;" the surveyor of sixteen, exploring the wildernessfor Lord Fairfax, sleeping on the ground, climbing mountains, swimming rivers, killing and cooking his own game, noting in his diary soils, minerals, and locations, and making maps which are models of nice and accurate draughtsmanship; the incipient soldier, studying tactics under Adjutant Muse, and taking lessons in broadsword fence from the old soldier of fortune, Jacob Van Braam; the major and adjutant-general of the Virginia frontier forces at nineteen:—we seem to see him yet as here he stood, a model of manly beauty in his youthful prime, a man in all that makes a man ere manhood's years have been fulfilled, standing on the threshold of a grand career, "hearing his days before him and the trumpet of his life."
The scene changes. Out into the world of stern adventure he passes, taking as naturally to the field and the frontier as the eagle to the air. At the age of twenty-one he is riding from Williamsburg to the French post at Venango, in Western Pennsylvania, on a mission for Governor Dinwiddie, which requires "courage to cope with savages and sagacity to negotiate with white men"—on that mission which Edward Everett recognizes as "the first movement of a military nature which resulted in the establishment of American Independence." At twenty-two he has fleshed his maiden sword, has heard the bullets whistle, and found "something charming in the sound;" and soon he is colonel of the Virginia regiment in the unfortunate affair at Fort Necessity, and is compelled to retreat after losing a sixth of his command. He quits the service on a point of military etiquette and honor,but at twenty-three he reappears as volunteer aide by the side of Braddock in the ill-starred expedition against Fort Duquesne, and is the only mounted officer unscathed in the disaster, escaping with four bullets through his garments, and after having two horses shot under him.
The prophetic eye of Samuel Davies has now pointed him out as "that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I can but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country;" and soon the prophecy is fulfilled. The same year he is in command of the Virginia frontier forces. Arduous conflicts of varied fortunes are ere long ended, and on the 25th of November, 1759, he marches into the reduced fortress of Fort Duquesne—where Pittsburgh now stands, and the Titans of Industry wage the eternal war of Toil—marches in with the advanced guard of his troops, and plants the British flag over its smoking ruins.
That self-same year Wolfe, another young and brilliant soldier of Britain, has scaled and triumphed on the Heights of Abraham—his flame of valor quenched as it lit the blaze of victory; Canada surrenders; the Seven Years' War is done; the French power in America is broken, and the vast region west of the Alleghenies, from the lakes to the Ohio, embracing its valley and tributary streams, is under the scepter of King George. America has been made whole to the English-speaking race, to become in time the greater Britain.
Thus, building wiser than he knew, Washington had taken no small part in cherishing the seed of a nascent nation.
WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNONWASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON
Mount Vernon welcomes back the soldier of twenty-seven, who has become a name. Domestic felicity spreads its charms around him with the "agreeable partner" whom he has taken to his bosom, and he dreams of "more happiness than he has experienced in the wide and bustling world."
Already, ere his sword had found its scabbard, the people of Frederick county had made him their member of the House of Burgesses. And the quiet years roll by as the planter, merchant, and representative superintends his plantation, ships his crops, posts his books, keeps his diary, chases the fox for amusement, or rides over to Annapolis and leads the dance at the Maryland capital—alternating between these private pursuits and serving his people as member of the Legislature and justice of the county court.
But ere long this happy life is broken. The air is electric with the currents of revolution. England has launched forth on the fatal policy of taxing her colonies without their consent. The spirit of liberty and resistance is aroused. He is loth to part with the Mother Land, which he still calls "home." But she turns a deaf ear to reason. The first Colonial Congress is called. He is a delegate, and rides to Philadelphia with Henry and Pendleton. The blow at Lexington is struck. The people rush to arms. The sons of the Cavaliers spring to the side of the sons of the Pilgrims. "Unhappy it is," he says, "that a brother's sword has been sheathed in a brother's breast, and that the oncehappy plains of America are to be either drenched in blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative! But how can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?" He becomes Commander-in-Chief of the American forces. After seven years' war he is the deliverer of his country. The old Confederation passes away. The Constitution is established. He is twice chosen President, and will not consent longer to serve.
Once again Mount Vernon's grateful shades receive him, and there—the world-crowned Hero now—he becomes again the simple citizen, wishing for his fellow men "to see the whole world in peace and its inhabitants one band of brothers, striving who could contribute most to the happiness of mankind"—without a wish for himself, but "to live and die an honest man on his farm." A speck of war spots the sky. John Adams, now president, calls him forth as lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief to lead America once more. But the cloud vanishes. Peace reigns. The lark sings at Heaven's gate in the fair morn of the new nation. Serene, contented, yet in the strength of manhood, though on the verge of threescore years and ten, he looks forth—the quiet farmer from his pleasant fields, the loving patriarch from the bowers of home—looks forth and sees the work of his hands established in a free and happy people. Suddenly comes the mortal stroke with severe cold. The agony is soon over. He feels his own dying pulse—the hand relaxes—he murmurs, "It is well;" and Washington is no more.
Washington, the friend of Liberty, is no more!
The solemn cry filled the universe. Amidst the tearsof his people, the bowed heads of kings, and the lamentations of the nations, they laid him there to rest upon the banks of the river whose murmurs were his boyhood's music—that river which, rising in mountain fastnesses amongst the grandest works of nature and reflecting in its course the proudest works of man, is a symbol of his history, which in its ceaseless and ever-widening flow is a symbol of his eternal fame.
No sum could now be made of Washington's character that did not exhaust language of its tributes and repeat virtues by all her names. No sum could be made of his achievements that did not unfold the history of his country and its institutions—the history of his age and its progress—the history of man and his destiny to be free. But whether character or achievement be regarded, the riches before us only expose the poverty of praise. So clear was he in his great office that no ideal of the Leader or the Ruler can be formed that does not shrink by the side of the reality. And so has he impressed himself upon the minds of men, that no man can justly aspire to be the chief of a great free people who does not adopt his principles and emulate his example. We look with amazement on such eccentric characters as Alexander, Cæsar, Cromwell, Frederick, and Napoleon; but when the serene face of Washington rises before us mankind instinctively exclaims, "This is the Man for the nations to trust and reverence and for heroes and rulers to copy."
Disinterested patriot, he would receive no pay for his military services. Refusing gifts, he was glad to guide the benefaction of a grateful state to educate thechildren of his fallen braves in the institution at Lexington which yet bears his name. Without any of the blemishes that mark the tyrant, he appealed so loftily to the virtuous elements in man that he almost created the qualities of which his country needed the exercise; and yet he was so magnanimous and forbearing to the weaknesses of others, that he often obliterated the vices of which he feared the consequence. But his virtue was more than this. It was of that daring, intrepid kind that, seizing principle with a giant's grasp, assumes responsibility at any hazard, suffers sacrifice without pretense of martyrdom, bears calumny without reply, imposes superior will and understanding on all around it, capitulates to no unworthy triumph, but must carry all things at the point of clear and blameless conscience. Scorning all manner of meanness and cowardice, his bursts of wrath at their exhibition heighten our admiration for those noble passions which were kindled by the inspirations and exigencies of virtue.
Great in action as by the council board, the finest horseman and knightliest figure of his time, he seemed designed by nature to lead in those bold strokes which needs must come when the battle lies with a single man—those critical moments of the campaign or the strife when, if the mind hesitates or a nerve flinches, all is lost. We can never forget the passage of the Delaware that black December night, amidst shrieking winds and great upheaving blocks of ice which would have petrified a leader of less hardy mold, and then the fell swoop at Trenton. We behold him as when at Monmouthhe turns back the retreating lines, and galloping his white charger along the ranks until he falls, leaps on his Arabian bay, and shouts to his men: "Stand fast, my boys, the Southern troops are coming to support you!" And we hear Lafayette exclaim, "Never did I behold so superb a man!" We see him again at Princeton dashing through a storm of shot to rally the wavering troops; he reins his horse between the contending lines, and cries: "Will you leave your general to the foe?" then bolts into the thickest fray. Colonel Fitzgerald, his aid, drops his reins and pulls his hat down over his eyes that he may not see his chieftain fall, when, through the smoke he reappears waving his hat, cheering on his men, and shouting: "Away, dear Colonel, and bring up the troops; the day is ours." "Cœur de Lion" might have doffed his plume to such a chief, for a great knight was he, who met his foes full tilt in the shock of battle and hurled them down with an arm whose sword flamed with righteous indignation.
As children pore over the pictures in their books where they can read the words annexed to them, so we linger with tingling blood by such inspiring scenes, while little do we reck of those dark hours when the aching head pondered the problems of a country's fate. And yet there is a greater theater in which Washington appears, although not so often has its curtain been uplifted.
For it was as a statesman that Washington was greatest. Not in the sense that Hamilton and Jefferson, Adams and Madison were statesmen; but in alarger sense. Men may marshal armies who cannot drill divisions. Men may marshal nations in storm and travail who have not the accomplishments of their cabinet ministers. Not so versed as they was he in the details of political science. And yet as he studied tactics when he anticipated war, so he studied politics when he saw his civil role approaching, reading the history and examining the principles of ancient and modern confederacies, and making notes of their virtues, defects, and methods of operation.
His pen did not possess the facile play and classic grace of their pens, but his vigorous eloquence had the clear ring of our mother tongue. I will not say that he was so astute, so quick, so inventive as the one or another of them—that his mind was characterized by the vivacity of wit, the rich colorings of fancy, or daring flights of imagination. But with him thought and action like well-trained coursers kept abreast in the chariot race, guided by an eye that never quailed, reined by a hand that never trembled. He had a more infallible discrimination of circumstances and men than any of his contemporaries. He weighed facts in a juster scale, with larger equity, and firmer equanimity. He best applied to them the lessons of experience. With greater ascendancy of character he held men to their appointed tasks; with more inspiring virtue he commanded more implicit confidence. He bore a truer divining-rod, and through a wilderness of contention he alone was the unerring Pathfinder of the People. There can, indeed, be no right conception of Washington that does not accord him a great and extraordinarygenius. I will not say he could have produced a play of Shakespeare, or a poem of Milton, handled with Kant the tangled skein of metaphysics, probed the secrecies of mind and matter with Bacon, constructed a railroad or an engine like Stephenson, wooed the electric spark from heaven to earth with Franklin, or walked with Newton the pathways of the spheres. But if his genius were of a different order, it was of as rare and high an order. It dealt with man in the concrete, with his vast concerns of business stretching over a continent and projected into the ages, with his seething passions; with his marvelous exertions of mind, body, and spirit to be free. He knew the materials he dealt with by intuitive perception of the heart of man, by experience and observation of his aspirations and his powers, by reflection upon his complex relations, rights, and duties as a social being. He knew just where, between men and states, to erect the monumental mark to divide just reverence for authority from just resistance to its abuse. A poet of social facts, he interpreted by his deeds the harmonies of justice.
First to perceive, and swift to point out, the defects in the Articles of Confederation, they became manifest to all long before victory crowned the warfare conducted under them. Charged by them with the public defense, Congress could not put a soldier in the field; and charged with defraying expenses, it could not levy a dollar of imposts or taxes. It could, indeed, borrow money with the assent of nine states of the thirteen, but what mockery of finance was that, when the borrower could not command any resource of payment.
The states had indeed put but a scepter of straw in the legislative hand of the Confederation—what wonder that it soon wore a crown of thorns! The paper currency ere long dissolved to nothingness; for four days the army was without food, and whole regiments drifted from the ranks of our hard-pressed defenders. "I see," said Washington, "one head gradually changing into thirteen; I see one army gradually branching into thirteen, which, instead of looking up to Congress as the supreme controlling power, are considering themselves as dependent upon their respective states." While yet his sword could not slumber, his busy pen was warning the statesmen of the country that unless Congress were invested with adequate powers, or should assume them as matter of right, we should become but thirteen states, pursuing local interests, until annihilated in a general crash—the cause would be lost—and the fable of the bundle of sticks applied to us.
In rapid succession his notes of alarm and invocations for aid to Union followed each other to the leading men of the states, North and South. Turning to his own state, and appealing to George Mason, "Where," he exclaimed, "where are our men of abilities? Why do they not come forth and save the country?" He compared the affairs of this great continent to the mechanism of a clock, of which each state was putting its own small part in order, but neglecting the great wheel, or spring, which was to put the whole in motion. He summoned Jefferson, Wythe, and Pendleton to his assistance, telling them that the presenttemper of the states was friendly to lasting union, that the moment should be improved and might never return, and that "after gloriously and successfully contending against the usurpation of Britain we may fall a prey to our own folly and disputes."
How keen the prophet's ken, that through the smoke of war discerned the coming evil; how diligent the patriot's hand, that amidst awful responsibilities reached futureward to avert it! By almost a miracle the weak Confederation, "a barrel without a hoop," was held together perforce of outside pressure; and soon America was free.
But not yet had beaten Britain concluded peace—not yet had dried the blood of Victory's field, ere "follies and disputes" confounded all things with their Babel tongues and intoxicated liberty gave loose to license. An unpaid army with unsheathed swords clamored around a poverty-stricken and helpless Congress. And grown at last impatient even with their chief, officers high in rank plotted insurrection and circulated an anonymous address, urging it "to appeal from the justice to the fears of government, and suspect the man who would advise to longer forbearance." Anarchy was about to erect the Arch of Triumph—poor, exhausted, bleeding, weeping America lay in agony upon her bed of laurels.
Not a moment did Washington hesitate. He convened his officers, and going before them he read them an address, which, for homethrust argument, magnanimous temper, and the eloquence of persuasion which leaves nothing to be added, is not exceeded by thenoblest utterances of Greek or Roman. A nobler than Coriolanus was before them, who needed no mother's or wife's reproachful tears to turn the threatening steel from the gates of Rome. Pausing, as he read his speech, he put on his spectacles and said: "I have grown gray in your service, and now find myself growing blind." This unaffected touch of nature completed the master's spell. The late fomenters of insurrection gathered to their chief with words of veneration—the storm went by—and, says Curtis in his History of the Constitution, "Had the Commander-in-Chief been other than Washington, the land would have been deluged with the blood of civil war."
But not yet was Washington's work accomplished. Peace dawned upon the weary land, and parting with his soldiers, he pleaded with them for union. "Happy, thrice happy, shall they be pronounced," he said, "who have contributed anything in erecting this stupendous fabric of freedom and empire; who have assisted in protecting the rights of human nature, and establishing an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions." But still the foundations of the stupendous fabric trembled, and no cement held its stones together. It was then, with that thickening peril, Washington rose to his highest stature. Without civil station to call forth his utterance, impelled by the intrepid impulse of a soul that could not see the hope of a nation perish without leaping into the stream to save it, he addressed the whole People of America in a circular to the governors of the states: "Convinced of the importance of the crisis, silence in me," he said,"would be a crime. I will, therefore, speak the language of freedom and sincerity." He set forth the need of union in a strain that touched the quick of sensibility; he held up the citizens of America as sole lords of a vast tract of continent; he portrayed the fair opportunity for political happiness with which Heaven had crowned them; he pointed out the blessings that would attend their collective wisdom; that mutual concessions and sacrifices must be made; and that supreme power must be lodged somewhere to regulate and govern the general concerns of the Confederate Republic, without which the Union would not be of long duration. And he urged that happiness would be ours if we seized the occasion and made it our own. In this, one of the very greatest acts of Washington, was revealed the heart of the man, the spirit of the hero, the wisdom of the sage—I might almost say the sacred inspiration of the prophet.
But still the wing of the eagle drooped; the gathering storms baffled his sunward flight. Even with Washington in the van, the column wavered and halted—states straggling to the rear that had hitherto been foremost for permanent union, under an efficacious constitution. And while three years rolled by amidst the jargon of sectional and local contentions, "the half-starved government," as Washington depicted it, "limped along on crutches, tottering at every step." And while monarchical Europe with saturnine face declared that the American hope of union was the wild and visionary notion of romance, and predicted that we would be to the end of time a disunitedpeople, suspicious and distrustful of each other, divided and subdivided into petty commonwealths and principalities, lo! the very earth yawned under the feet of America, and in that very region whence had come forth a glorious band of orators, statesmen and soldiers to plead the cause and fight the battles of Independence—lo! the volcanic fires of rebellion burst forth upon the heads of the faithful, and the militia were leveling the guns of the Revolution, against the breasts of their brethren. "What, gracious God! is man?" Washington exclaimed: "It was but the other day that we were shedding our blood to obtain the constitutions under which we live, and now we are unsheathing our swords to overturn them."
But see! there is a ray of hope. Maryland and Virginia had already entered into a commercial treaty for regulating the navigation of the rivers and great bay in which they had common interests, and Washington had been one of the commissioners in its negotiation. And now, at the suggestion of Maryland, Virginia had called on all the states to meet in convention at Annapolis, to adopt commercial regulations for the whole country. Could this foundation be laid, the eyes of the nation-builders foresaw that the permanent structure would ere long rise upon it. But when the day of meeting came no state north of New York or south of Virginia was represented; and in their helplessness those assembled could only recommend a constitutional convention, to meet in Philadelphia in May, 1787, to provide for the exigencies of the situation.
And still thick clouds and darkness rested on theland, and there lowered upon its hopes a night as black as that upon the freezing Delaware; but through the gloom the dauntless leader was still marching on to the consummation of his colossal work, with a hope that never died; with a courage that never faltered; with a wisdom that never yielded that "all is vanity."
It was not permitted the Roman to despair of the republic, nor did he—our chieftain. "It will all come right at last," he said. It did. And now let the historian, Bancroft, speak: "From this state of despair the country was lifted by Madison and Virginia." Again he says: "We come now to a week more glorious for Virginia beyond any in her annals, or in the history of any republic that had ever before existed."
It was that week in which Madison, "giving effect to his own long-cherished wishes, and still earlier wishes of Washington," addressing, as it were, the whole country, and marshaling all the states, warned them "that the crisis had arrived at which the people of America are to decide the solemn question, whether they would, by wise and magnanimous efforts reap the fruits of independence and of union, or whether by giving way to unmanly jealousies and prejudices, or to impartial and transitory interests, they would renounce the blessings prepared for them by the Revolution," and conjuring them "to concur in such further concessions and provisions as may be necessary to secure the objects for which that government was instituted, and make the United States as happy in peace as they had been glorious in war."
In such manner, my countrymen, Virginia, adoptingthe words of Madison, and moved by the constant spirit of Washington, joined in convoking that Constitutional Convention, in which he headed her delegation, and over which he presided, and whose deliberations resulted in the formation and adoption of that instrument which the premier of Great Britain pronounces "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man."
In such manner the state which gave birth to the Father of his Country, following his guiding genius to the Union, as it had followed his sword through the battles of Independence, placed herself at the head of the wavering column. In such manner America heard and hearkened to the voice of her chief; and now closing ranks, and moving with reanimated step, the thirteen commonwealths wheeled and faced to the front, on the line of the Union, under the sacred ensign of the Constitution.
Thus at last was the crowning work of Washington accomplished. Out of the tempests of war, and the tumults of civil commotion, the ages bore their fruit, and the long yearning of humanity was answered. "Rome to America" is the eloquent inscription on one stone contributed to yon colossal shaft—taken from the ancient Temple of Peace that once stood hard by the palace of the Cæsars. Uprisen from the sea of revolution, fabricated from the ruins of the battered Bastiles, and dismantled palaces of unhallowed power, stood forth now the Republic of republics, the Nation of nations, the Constitution of constitutions, to which all lands and times and tongues had contributed oftheir wisdom. And the priestess of Liberty was in her holy temple.
When Salamis had been fought and Greece again kept free, each of the victorious generals voted himself to be first in honor; but all agreed that Themistocles was second. When the most memorable struggle for the rights of human nature, of which time holds record, was thus happily concluded in the muniment of their preservation, whoever else was second, unanimous acclaim declared that Washington was first. Nor in that struggle alone does he stand foremost. In the name of the people of the United States, their president, their senators, their representatives, and their judges, do crown to-day with the grandest crown that veneration has ever lifted to the brow of glory, him, whom Virginia gave to America, whom America has given to the world and to the ages, and whom mankind with universal suffrage has proclaimed the foremost of the founders of empire in the first degree of greatness; whom Liberty herself has anointed as the first citizen in the great Republic of Humanity.
Encompassed by the inviolate seas stands to-day the American Republic which he founded—a freer Greater Britain—uplifted above the powers and principalities of the earth, even as his monument is uplifted over roof and dome and spire of the multitudinous city.
Long live the Republic of Washington! Respected by mankind, beloved of all its sons, long may it be the asylum of the poor and oppressed of all lands and religions—long may it be the citadel of that liberty which writes beneath the eagle's folded wings, "Wewill sell to no man, we will deny to no man, Right and Justice."
Long live the United States of America! Filled with the free, magnanimous spirit, crowned by the wisdom, blessed by the moderation, hovered over by the guardian angel of Washington's example; may they be ever worthy in all things to be defended by the blood of the brave who know the rights of man and shrink not from their assertion—may they be each a column, and altogether, under the Constitution, a perpetual Temple of Peace, unshadowed by a Cæsar's palace, at whose altar may freely commune all who seek the union of Liberty and Brotherhood.
Long live our Country! Oh, long through the undying ages may it stand, far removed in fact as in space from the Old World's feuds and follies, alone in its grandeur and its glory, itself the immortal monument of him whom Providence commissioned to teach man the power of Truth, and to prove to the nations that their Redeemer liveth.