“Aurora” at this time that Washington had debauched and deceived the nation, and that his administration had shown that the mask of patriotism may be worn to conceal the foulest dangers to the liberties of the people. Over and over again it was said by these writers that he had betrayed France and was the slave of England.
This charge of being a British sympathizer was the only one of all the abuse heaped upon him by the opposition that Washington seems really to have resented. In August, 1794, when this slander first started from the prolific source of all attacks against the government, he wrote to Henry Lee: “With respect to the words said to have been uttered by Mr. Jefferson, they would be enigmatical to those who are acquainted with the characters about me, unless supposed to be spoken ironically; and in that case they are too injurious to me, and have too little foundation in truth, to be ascribed to him. There could not be the trace of doubt in his mind of predilection in mine toward Great Britain or her politics, unless, which I do not believe, he has set me down as one of the most deceitful and uncandid men living; because, not only in private conversations between ourselves on this subject, but in my meetings with the confidential servants of the public, he has heard me often, when occasions presented themselves, express very different sentiments, with an energy that could not be mistaken by any one present.
“Having determined, as far as lay within the power of the executive, to keep this country in a state of neutrality, I have made my public conduct accord with the system; and whilst so acting as a public character, consistency and propriety as a private man forbid those intemperate expressions in favor of one nation, or to the prejudice of another, which may have wedged themselves in, and, I will venture to add, to the embarrassment of government, without producing any good to the country.”
He had shown by his acts as well as by his words his real friendship for France, such as a proper sense of gratitude required. As has been already pointed out, rather than run the risk of seeming to reflect in the slightest degree upon the government of the French republic, he had refused even to receive distinguished _emigres_ like Noailles, Liancourt, and Talleyrand.[1] He was so scrupulous in this respect that he actually did violence to his own strong desires in not taking into his house at once the son of Lafayette; and when it became necessary to choose a successor to Morris, his anxiety was so great to select some one agreeable to France that he took such an avowed opponent of his administration as Monroe.
[Footnote 1: See the Letter to the Due de Liancourt explaining the reasons for his not being received by the President. (Sparks, xi. 161.)]
On the other hand, he had never lost the strong feeling of hostility toward England which he, above all men, had felt during the Revolution. The conduct of England, when he was seeking an honorable peace with her, tried his patience severely. He wrote to Morris in 1795: “I give you these details (and if you should again converse with Lord Grenville on the subject, you are at liberty, unofficially, to mention them, or any of them, according to circumstances), as evidences of the unpolitic conduct (for so it strikes me) of the British government towards these United States; that it may be seen how difficult it has been for the executive, under such an accumulation of irritating circumstances, to maintain the ground of neutrality which had been taken; and at a time when the remembrance of the aid we had received from France in the Revolution was fresh in every mind, and while the partisans of that country were continually contrasting the affections of _that_ people with the unfriendly disposition of the _British government_. And that, too, as I have observed before, while _their own_ sufferings during the war with the latter had not been forgotten.” The one man in the country who above all others had the highest conception of American nationality, who was the first to seek to lift up our politics from the low level of colonialism, who was the author of the neutrality policy, had reason to resent the bitter irony of an attack which represented him as a British sympathizer. The truth is, that the only foreign party at that time was that which identified itself with France, and which was the party of Jefferson and the opposition. The Federalists and the administration under the lead of Washington and Hamilton were determined that the government should be American and not French, and this in the eyes of their opponents was equivalent to being in the control of England. In after years, when the Federalists fell from power and declined into the position of a factious minority, they became British sympathizers, and as thoroughly colonial in their politics as the party of Jefferson had been. If they had had the wisdom of their better days they would then have made themselves the champions of the American idea, and would have led the country in the determined effort to free itself once for all from colonial politics, even if they were obliged to fight somebody to accomplish it. They proved unequal to the task, and it fell to a younger generation led by Henry Clay and his contemporaries to sweep Federalist and Jeffersonian republican alike, with their French and British politics, out of existence. In so doing the younger generation did but complete the work of Washington, for he it was who first trod the path and marked the way for a true American policy in the midst of men who could not understand his purposes.
Bitter and violent as had been the attacks upon Washington while he held office, they were as nothing compared to the shout of fierce exultation which went up from the opposition journals when he finally retired from the presidency. One extract will serve as an example of the general tone of the opposition journals throughout the country. It is to be found in the “Aurora” of March 6, 1797:–
“‘Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,’ was the pious ejaculation of a pious man who beheld a flood of happiness rushing in upon mankind. If ever there was a time that would license the reiteration of the ejaculation, that time has now arrived, for the man who is the source of all the misfortunes of our country is this day reduced to a level with his fellow-citizens, and is no longer possessed of power to multiply evils upon the United States. If ever there was a period for rejoicing, this is the moment. Every heart in unison with the freedom and happiness of the people ought to beat high with exultation that the name of Washington ceases from this day to give currency to political insults, and to legalize corruption. A new era is now opening upon us, an era which promises much to the people, for public measures must now stand upon their own merits, and nefarious projects can no longer be supported by a name. When a retrospect has been taken of the Washingtonian administration for eight years, it is a subject of the greatest astonishment that a single individual should have cankered the principles of republicanism in an enlightened people just emerged from the gulf of despotism, and should have carried his designs against the public liberty so far as to have put in jeopardy its very existence. Such, however, are the facts, and with these staring us in the face, the day ought to be a JUBILEE in the United States.”
This was not the outburst of a single malevolent spirit. The article was copied and imitated in New York and Boston, and wherever the party that called Jefferson leader had a representative among the newspapers. It is not probable that stuff of this sort gave Washington himself a moment’s anxiety, for he knew too well what he had done, and he was too sure of his own hold upon the hearts of the people, to be in the least disturbed by the attacks of hostile editors. But the extracts are of interest as showing that the opposition party of that time, the party organized and led by Jefferson, regarded Washington as their worst enemy, and assailed him and slandered him to the utmost. They even went so far as to borrow materials from the enemies of the country with whom we had lately been at war, by publishing the forged letters attributed to Washington, and circulated by the British in 1777, in order to discredit the American general. One of Washington’s last acts, on March 3, 1797, was to file in the State Department a solemn declaration that these letters, then republished by an American political party, were base forgeries, of English origin in a time of war. His own view of this performance is given in a letter to Benjamin Walker, in which he said: “Amongst other attempts, … spurious letters, known at the time of their first publication (I believe in the year 1777) to be forgeries, are (or extracts from them) brought forward with the highest emblazoning of which they are susceptible, with a view to attach principles to me which every action of my life has given the lie to. But that is no stumbling-block with the editors of these papers and their supporters.”
Two or three extracts from private letters will show how Washington regarded the course of the opposition, and the interpretation he put upon their attacks. After sketching in a letter to David Stuart the general course of the hostilities toward his administration, he said: “This not working so well as was expected, from a supposition that there was too much confidence in, and perhaps personal regard for, the present chief magistrate and his politics, the batteries have lately been leveled against him particularly and personally. Although he is soon to become a private citizen, his opinions are knocked down, and his character reduced as low as they are capable of sinking it, even by resorting to absolute falsehoods.” Again he said, just before leaving office: “To misrepresent my motives, to reprobate my politics, and to weaken the confidence which has been reposed in my administration, are objects which cannot be relinquished by those who will be satisfied with nothing short of a change in our political system.” He at least labored under no misapprehension after eight years of trial as to the position or purposes of the party which had fought him and his administration, and which had savagely denounced his measures at every step, and with ever-increasing violence.
Having defined the attitude of the opposition, we can now consider that of Washington himself after he had retired from office, and no longer felt restrained by the circumstances of his election to the presidency from openly declaring his views, or publicly identifying himself with a political party. He rightly regarded the administration of Mr. Adams as a continuation of his own, and he gave to it a cordial support. He was equally clear and determined in his distrust and dislike of the opposition. Not long before leaving office he had written a letter to Jefferson, which, while it exonerated that gentleman from being the author of certain peculiarly malicious attacks, showed very plainly that the writer completely understood the position occupied by his former secretary. It was a letter which must have been most unpleasant reading for the person to whom it was addressed. A year later he wrote to John Nicholas in regard to Jefferson: “Nothing short of the evidence you have adduced, corroborative of intimations which I had received long before through another channel, could have shaken my belief in the sincerity of a friendship which I had conceived was possessed for me by the person to whom you allude.” There was no doubt in his mind now as to Jefferson’s conduct, and he knew at last that he had been his foe even when a member of his political household.
When the time came to fill the offices in the provisional army made necessary by the menace of war with France, Washington wrote to the President that he ought to have generals who were men of activity, energy, health, and “sound politics,” carrying apparently his suspicion of the opposition even to disbelieving in them as soldiers. He repeated the same idea in a letter to McHenry, in which he said: “I do not conceive that a desirable set could be formed from the old generals, some having never displayed any talent for enterprise, and others having shown a general opposition to the government, or predilection to French measures, be their present conduct what it may.”
When the question arose in regard to the relative rank of the major-generals, Washington said to Knox: “No doubt remained in my mind that Colonel Hamilton was designated second in command (and first, if I should decline an acceptance) by the Federal characters of Congress; whence alone anything like a public sentiment relative thereto could be deduced.” He was quite clear that there was no use in looking beyond the confines of the Federal party for any public sentiment worth considering. He had serious doubts also as to the advisability of having the opponents of the government in the army, and wrote to McHenry on September 30, 1798, that brawlers against the government in certain parts of Virginia had suddenly become silent and were seeking commissions in the army. “The motives ascribed to them are that in such a situation they would endeavor to divide and contaminate the army by artful and seditious discourses, and perhaps at a critical moment bring on confusion. What weight to give to these conjectures you can judge as well as I. But as there will be characters enough of an opposite description who are ready to receive appointments, circumspection is necessary. Finding the resentment of the people at the conduct of France too strong to be resisted, they have in appearance adopted their sentiments, and pretend that, notwithstanding the misconduct of the government has brought it upon us, yet if an invasion should take place, it will be found that _they_ will be among the first to defend it. This is their story at all elections and election meetings, and told in many instances with effect.” He wrote again in the same strain to McHenry, on October 21: “Possibly no injustice would be done, if I were to proceed a step further, and give it as an opinion that most of the candidates [for the army] brought forward by the opposition members possess sentiments similar to their own, and might poison the army by disseminating them, if they were appointed.” In this period of danger, when the country was on the verge of war, the attitude of the opposition gave Washington much food for thought because it appeared to him so false and unpatriotic. In a letter to Lafayette, written on Christmas day, 1798, he gave the following brief sketch of the opposition: “A party exists in the United States, formed by a combination of causes, which opposed the government in all its measures, and are determined, as all their conduct evinces, by clogging its wheels indirectly to change the nature of it, and to subvert the Constitution. The friends of government, who are anxious to maintain its neutrality and to preserve the country in peace, and adopt measures to secure these objects, are charged by them as being monarchists, aristocrats, and infractors of the Constitution, which according to their interpretation of it would be a mere cipher. They arrogated to themselves … the sole merit of being the friends of France, when in fact they had no more regard for that nation than for the Grand Turk, further than their own views were promoted by it; denouncing those who differed in opinion (those principles are purely American and whose sole view was to observe a strict neutrality) as acting under British influence, and being directed by her counsels, or as being her pensioners.”
Shortly before this sharp definition was written, an incident had occurred which had given Washington an opportunity of impressing his views directly and personally upon a distinguished leader of the opposite party. Dr. Logan of Philadelphia, under the promptings of Jefferson, as was commonly supposed, had gone on a volunteer mission to Paris for the purpose of bringing about peace between the two republics. He had apparently a fixed idea that there was something very monstrous in our having any differences with France, and being somewhat of a busybody, although a most worthy man, he felt called upon to settle the international complications which were then puzzling the brains and trying the patience of the ablest men in America. It is needless to say that his mission was not a success, and he was eventually so unmercifully ridiculed by the Federalist editors that he published a long pamphlet in his own defense. Upon his return, however, he seems to have been not a little pleased with himself, and he took occasion to call upon Washington, who was then in Philadelphia on business. It would be difficult to conceive anything more distasteful to Washington than such a mission as Logan’s, or that he could have a more hearty contempt for any one than for a meddler of this description, who by his interference might help to bring his country into contempt. He was sufficiently impressed, however, by Dr. Logan’s call to draw up a memorandum, which gave a very realistic and amusing account of it. It may be surmised that when Washington wished to be cold in his manner, he was capable of being very freezing, and he was not very apt at concealing his emotions when he found himself in the presence of any one whom he disliked and disapproved. The memorandum is as follows:–
“_Tuesday, November_ 13, 1798.–Mr. Lear, my secretary, being from our lodgings on business, one of my servants came into the room where I was writing and informed me that a gentleman in the parlor below desired to see me; no name was sent up. In a few minutes I went down, and found the Rev. Dr. Blackwell and Dr. Logan there. I advanced towards and gave my hand to the former; the latter did the same towards me. I was backward in giving mine. He, possibly supposing from hence that I did not recollect him, said his name was Logan. Finally, in a very cold manner, and with an air of marked indifference, I gave him my hand and asked _Dr. Blackwell to be seated_; the other _took_ a seat at the same time. I addressed _all_ my conversation to Dr. Blackwell; the other all his to me, to which I only gave negative or affirmative answers as laconically as I could, except asking him how Mrs. Logan did. He seemed disposed to be very polite, and while Dr. Blackwell and myself were conversing on the late calamitous fever, offered me an asylum at his house, if it should return or I thought myself in any danger in the city, and two or three rooms, by way of accommodation. I thanked him slightly, observing there would be no call for it.”
“About this time Dr. Blackwell took his leave. We all rose from our seats, and I moved a few paces toward the door of the room, expecting the other would follow and take his leave also.”
The worthy Quaker, however, was not to be got rid of so easily. He literally stood his ground, and went on talking of a number of things, chiefly about Lafayette and his family, and an interview with Mr. Murray, our minister in Holland. Washington, meanwhile, stood facing him, and to use his own words, “showed the utmost inattention,” while his visitor described his journey to Paris. Finally Logan said that his purpose in going to France was to ameliorate the condition of our relations with that country. “This,” said Washington, “drew my attention more pointedly to what he was saying and induced me to remark that there was something very singular in this; that _he_, who could only be viewed as a private character, unarmed with proper powers, and presumptively unknown in France, should suppose he could effect what three gentlemen of the first respectability in our country, especially charged under the authority of the government, were unable to do.” One is not surprised to be then told that Dr. Logan seemed a little confounded at this observation; but he recovered himself, and went on to say that only five persons knew of his going, and that his letters from Mr. Jefferson and Mr. McKean obtained for him an interview with M. Merlin, president of the Directory, who had been most friendly in his expressions. To this Washington replied with some very severe strictures on the conduct of France; and the conversation, which must by this time have become a little strained, soon after came to an end. One cannot help feeling a good deal of sympathy for the excellent doctor, although he was certainly a busybody and, one would naturally infer, a bore as well. It would have been, however, a pity to have lost this memorandum, and there is every reason to regret that Washington did not oftener exercise his evident powers for realistic reporting. Nothing, moreover, could bring out better his thorough contempt for the opposition and their attitude toward France than this interview with the volunteer commissioner.
There were, however, much more serious movements made by the Democratic party than well-meant and meddling attempts to make peace with France. This was the year of the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, the first note of that disunion sentiment which was destined one day to involve the country in civil war and be fought out on a hundred battlefields. Washington, with his love for the Union and for nationality ever uppermost in his heart, was quick to take alarm, and it cut him especially to think that a movement which he esteemed at once desperate and wicked should emanate from his own State, and as we now know, and as he perhaps suspected, from a great Virginian whom he had once trusted. He straightway set himself to oppose this movement with all his might, and he summoned to his aid that other great Virginian who in his early days had been the first to rouse the people against oppression, and who now in his old age, in response to Washington’s appeal, came again into the forefront in behalf of the Constitution and the union of the States. The letter which Washington wrote to Patrick Henry on this occasion is one of the most important that he ever penned, but there is room to quote only a single passage here.
“At such a crisis as this,” he said, “when everything dear and valuable to us is assailed, when this party hangs upon the wheels of government as a dead weight, opposing every measure that is calculated for defense and self-preservation, abetting the nefarious views of another nation upon our rights, preferring, as long as they dare contend openly against the spirit and resentment of the people, the interest of France to the welfare of their own country, justifying the former at the expense of the latter; when every act of their own government is tortured, by constructions they will not bear, into attempts to infringe and trample upon the Constitution with a view to introduce monarchy; when the most unceasing and the purest exertions which were making to maintain a neutrality … are charged with being measures calculated to favor Great Britain at the expense of France, and all those who had any agency in it are accused of being under the influence of the former and her pensioners; when measures are systematically and pertinaciously pursued, which must eventually dissolve the Union or produce coercion; I say, when these things have become so obvious, ought characters who are best able to rescue their country from the pending evil to remain at home?…
“Vain will it be to look for peace and happiness, or for the security of liberty or property, if civil discord should ensue. And what else can result from the policy of those among us, who, by all the measures in their power, are driving matters to extremity, if they cannot be counteracted effectually? The views of men can only be known, or guessed at, by their words or actions. Can those of the _leaders_ of opposition be mistaken, then, if judged by this rule? That they are followed by numbers, who are unacquainted with their designs and suspect as little the tendency of their principles, I am fully persuaded. But if their conduct is viewed with indifference, if there are activity and misrepresentations on one side and supineness on the other, their numbers accumulated by intriguing and discontented foreigners under proscription, who were at war with their own government, and the greater part of them with _all_ governments, they will increase, and nothing short of omniscience can foretell the consequences.”
It would have been difficult to draw a severer indictment of the opposition party than that given in this letter, but there is one other letter even more striking in its contents, without which no account of the relation of Washington to the two great parties which sprang up under his administration would be complete. It was addressed to Governor Trumbull of Connecticut, was written on July 21, 1799, less than six months before his death, and although printed, has been hidden away in the appendix to the “Life of Benjamin Silliman.” Governor Trumbull, who bore the name and filled the office of Washington’s old revolutionary friend, had written to the general, as many other Federalists were writing at that time, urging him to come forward and stand once more for the presidency, that he might heal the dissensions in his own party and save the country from the impending disaster of Jefferson’s election. That Washington refused all these requests is of course well known, but his reasons as stated to Trumbull are of great interest. “I come now,” he said, “my dear sir, to pay particular attention to that part of your letter which respects myself.
“I remember well the conversation which you allude to. I have not forgot the answer I gave you. In my judgment it applies with as much force _now_ as _then_; nay, more, because at that time the line between the parties was not so clearly drawn, and the views of the opposition so clearly developed as they are at present. Of course allowing your observation (as it respects myself) to be well founded, personal influence would be of no avail.
“Let that party set up a broomstick, and call it a true son of liberty,–a democrat,–or give it any other epithet that will suit their purpose, and it will command their votes _in toto_![1] Will not the Federalists meet, or rather defend, their cause on the opposite ground? Surely they must, or they will discover a want of policy, indicative of weakness and pregnant of mischief, which cannot be admitted. Wherein, then, would lie the difference between the present gentleman in office and myself?
[Footnote 1: “As an analysis of this position, look to the pending election of governor in Pennsylvania.”]
“It would be matter of grave regret to me if I could believe that a serious thought was turned toward me as his successor, not only as it respects my ardent wishes to pass through the vale of life in retirement, undisturbed in the remnant of the days I have to sojourn here, unless called upon to defend my country (which every citizen is bound to do); but on public grounds also; for although I have abundant cause to be thankful for the good health with which I am blessed, yet I am not insensible to my declination in other respects. It would be criminal, therefore, in me, although it should be the wish of my countrymen and I could be elected, to accept an office under this conviction which another would discharge with more ability; and this, too, at a time when I am thoroughly convinced I should not draw a _single_ vote from the anti-Federal side, and of course should stand upon no other ground _than any other Federal character_[1] well supported; and when I should become a mark for the shafts of envenomed malice and the basest calumny to fire at,–when I should be charged not only with irresolution but with concealed ambition, which waits only an occasion to blaze out, and, in short, with dotage and imbecility.
[Footnote 1: These italics are mine.]
“All this, I grant, ought to be like dust in the balance, when put in competition with a _great_ public good, when the accomplishment of it is apparent. But, as no problem is better defined in my mind than that principle, not men, is now, and will be, the object of contention; and that I could not obtain a _solitary_ vote from that party; _that any other respectable Federal character could receive the same suffrages that I should_;[1] that at my time of life (verging towards threescore and ten) I should expose myself without rendering any essential service to my country, or answering the end contemplated; prudence on my part must avert any attempt of the well-meant but mistaken views of my friends to introduce me again into the chair of government.”
[Footnote 1: These italics are mine.]
It does not fall within the scope of this biography to attempt to portray the history or weigh the merits of the two parties which came into existence at the close of the last century, and which, under varying names, have divided the people of the United States ever since. But it is essential here to define the relation of Washington toward them because one hears it constantly said and sees it as constantly written down, that Washington belonged to no party, which is perhaps a natural, but is certainly a complete misconception. Washington came to the presidency by a unanimous vote. He had in his mind very strongly the idea of the framers of the Constitution that the President, by the method of his election and by his independence of the other departments of government, was to be above and beyond party, and the representative of the whole people. In addition to this he was so absorbed by the great conception which he had of the future of the country, and was so confident of the purity and rectitude of his own purposes, that he was loath to think that party divisions could arise while he held the chief magistracy. It was not long before he was undeceived on this point, and he soon found that party divisions sprang up from the measures of his own administration. Nevertheless, he clung to his determination to govern without the assistance of a party as such. When this, too, became impossible, he still felt that the unanimity of his election required that he should not declare himself to be the head of a party; but he had become thoroughly convinced that under the representative system of the Constitution party government could not be avoided. In his farewell address he warned the people against the excesses of that party spirit which he deplored; but he did not suggest that it could be extinguished. Being a wise and far-seeing man, he saw that if party government was an evil, it also was under a free representative system, and in the present condition of human nature a necessary evil, furnishing the only machinery by which public affairs could be carried on.
In a time of deep political excitement and strong party feeling, Washington was the last man in the world not to be decidedly on one side or the other. He was possessed of too much sense, force, and virility to be content to hold himself aloof and croak over the wickedness of people, who were trying to do something, even if they did not always try in the most perfect way. He was himself preeminently a doer of deeds, and not a critic or a phrase-maker, and we can read very distinctly in the extracts which have been brought together in this chapter what he thought on party and public questions. He was opposed to the party which had resisted all the great measures of his administration from the foundation of the government of the United States. They had assailed and maligned him and his ministers, and he regarded them as political enemies. He believed in the principles of that party which had supported the financial policy of Hamilton and his own policy of neutrality toward foreign nations. He was opposed to the party which introduced the interests of France as the leading issue of American politics, and which embodied the doctrines of nullification and separatism in the resolutions of Kentucky and Virginia. In one word, Washington, in policies and politics, was an American and a Nationalist; and the National and American party, from 1789 to 1801, was the Federalist party. It may be added that it was the only party which, at that precise time, could claim those qualities. While he remained in the presidency he would not declare himself to be of any party; but as soon as this fetter was removed, he declared himself freely after his fashion, expressing in words what he had formerly only expressed in action. His feelings warmed and strengthened as the controversy with France deepened, and as the attitude of the opposition became more un-American and leaned more and more to separatism. They culminated at last in the eloquent letter to Patrick Henry, and in the carefully weighed words with which he tells Trumbull that he can hope for no more votes than “any other Federal character.”
CHAPTER VI
THE LAST YEARS
Washington had entered upon the presidency with the utmost reluctance, and at the sacrifice of all he considered pleasantest and best in life. He took it and held it for eight years from a sense of duty, and with no desire to retain it beyond that which every man feels who wishes to finish a great work that he has undertaken. He looked forward to the approaching end of his second term with a feeling of intense relief, and compared himself to the wearied traveler who sees the resting-place where he is at length to have repose. On March 3 he gave a farewell dinner to the President and Vice-President elect, the foreign ministers and their wives, and other distinguished persons, from one of whom we learn that it was a very pleasant and lively gathering. When the cloth was removed Washington filled his glass and said: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last time I shall drink your health as a public man. I do it with sincerity, wishing you all possible happiness.” The company did not take the same cheerful view as their host of this leave-taking. There was a pause in the gayety, some of the ladies shed tears, and the little incident only served to show the warm affection felt for Washington by every one who came in close contact with him.
The next day the last official ceremonies were performed. After Jefferson had taken the oath as Vice-President and had proceeded with the Senate to the House of Representatives, which was densely crowded, Washington entered and was received with cheers and shouts, the waving of handkerchiefs, and an enthusiasm which seemed to know no bounds. Mr. Adams followed him almost immediately and delivered his inaugural address, in which he paid a stately compliment to the great virtues of his predecessor. It was the setting and not the rising sun, however, that drew the attention of the multitude, and as Washington left the hall there was a wild rush from the galleries to the corridors and then into the streets to see him pass. He took off his hat and bowed to the people, but they followed him even to his own door, where he turned once more and, unable to speak, waved to them a silent farewell.
In the evening of the same day a great banquet was given to him by the merchants of Philadelphia, and when he entered the band played “Washington’s March,” and a series of emblematic paintings were disclosed, the chief of which represented the ex-President at Mount Vernon surrounded by the allegorical figures then so fashionable. After the festivities Washington lingered for a few days in Philadelphia to settle various private matters and then started for home. Whether he was going or coming, whether he was about to take the great office of President or retire to the privacy of Mount Vernon, the same popular enthusiasm greeted him. When he was really brought in contact with the people, the clamors of the opposition press and the attacks of the Jeffersonian editors all faded away and were forgotten. On March 12 he reached Baltimore, and the local newspaper of the next day said:–
“Last evening arrived in this city, on his way to Mount Vernon, the illustrious object of veneration and gratitude, GEORGE WASHINGTON. His excellency was accompanied by his lady and Miss Custis, and by the son of the unfortunate Lafayette and his preceptor. At a distance from the city, he was met by a crowd of citizens, on horse and foot, who thronged the road to greet him, and by a detachment from Captain Hollingsworth’s troop, who escorted him in through as great a concourse of people as Baltimore ever witnessed. On alighting at the Fountain Inn, the general was saluted with reiterated and thundering huzzas from the spectators. His excellency, with the companions of his journey, leaves town, we understand, this morning.”
Thus with the cheers and the acclamations still ringing in his ears he came home again to Mount Vernon, where he found at once plenty of occupation, which in some form was always a necessity to him. An absence of eight years had not improved the property. On April 3 he wrote to McHenry: “I find myself in the situation nearly of a new beginner; for, although I have not houses to build (except one, which I must erect for the accommodation and security of my military, civil, and private papers, which are voluminous and may be interesting), yet I have scarcely anything else about me that does not require considerable repairs. In a word, I am already surrounded by joiners, masons, and painters; and such is my anxiety to get out of their hands, that I have scarcely a room to put a friend into or to sit in myself without the music of hammers or the odoriferous scent of paint.” He easily dropped back into the round of country duties and pleasures, and the care of farms and plantations, which had always had for him so much attraction. “To make and sell a little flour annually,” he wrote to Wolcott, “to repair houses going fast to ruin, to build one for the security of my papers of a public nature, will constitute employment for the few years I have to remain on this terrestrial globe.” Again he said to McHenry: “You are at the source of information, and can find many things to relate, while I have nothing to say that would either inform or amuse a secretary of war at Philadelphia. I might tell him that I begin my diurnal course with the sun; that if my hirelings are not in their places by that time I send them messages of sorrow for their indisposition; that having put these wheels in motion I examine the state of things further; that the more they are probed the deeper I find the wounds which my buildings have sustained by an absence and neglect of eight years; that by the time I have accomplished these matters breakfast (a little after seven o’clock, about the time I presume that you are taking leave of Mrs. McHenry) is ready; that this being over I mount my horse and ride round my farms, which employs me until it is time to dress for dinner, at which I rarely miss seeing strange faces, come, as they say, out of respect for me. Pray, would not the word curiosity answer as well? And how different this from having a few social friends at a cheerful board. The usual time of sitting at table, a walk, and tea bring me within the dawn of candle-light; previous to which, if not prevented by company, I resolve that as soon as the glimmering taper supplies the place of the great luminary I will retire to my writing-table and acknowledge the letters I have received; that when the lights are brought I feel tired and disinclined to engage in this work, conceiving that the next night will do as well. The next night comes and with it the same causes for postponement, and so on. Having given you the history of a day, it will serve for a year, and I am persuaded you will not require a second edition of it. But it may strike you that in this detail no mention is made of any portion of time allotted for reading. The remark would be just, for I have not looked into a book since I came home; nor shall I be able to do it until I have discharged my workmen; probably not before the nights grow longer, when possibly I may be looking in Doomsday book.”
There is not much that can be added to his own concise description of the simple life he led at home. The rest and quiet were very pleasant, but still there was a touch of sadness in his words. The long interval of absence made the changes which time had wrought stand out more vividly than if they had come one by one in the course of daily life at home. Washington looked on the ruins of Belvoir, and sighed to think of the many happy hours he had passed with the Fairfaxes, now gone from the land forever. Other old friends had been taken away by death, and the gaps were not filled by the new faces of which he speaks to McHenry. Indeed, the crowd of visitors coming to Mount Vernon from all parts of his own country and of the world, whether they came from respect or curiosity, brought a good deal of weariness to a man tired with the cares of state and longing for absolute repose. Yet he would not close his doors to any one, for the Virginian sense of hospitality, always peculiarly strong in him, forbade such action. To relieve himself, therefore, in this respect, he sent for his nephew Lawrence Lewis, who took the social burden from his shoulders. But although the visitors tired him when he felt responsible for their pleasure, he did not shut himself up now any more than at any other time in self-contemplation. He was constantly thinking of others; and the education of his nephews, the care of young Lafayette until he should return to France, as well as the happy love-match of Nellie Custis and his nephew, supplied the human interest without which he was never happy.
Before we trace his connection with public affairs in these closing years, let us take one look at him, through the eyes of a disinterested but keen observer. John Bernard, an English actor, who had come to this country in the year when Washington left the presidency, was playing an engagement with his company at Annapolis, in 1798. One day he mounted his horse and rode down below Alexandria, to pay a visit to an acquaintance who lived on the banks of the Potomac. When he was returning, a chaise in front of him, containing a man and a young woman, was overturned, and the occupants were thrown out. As Bernard rode to the scene of the accident, another horseman galloped up from the opposite direction. The two riders dismounted, found that the driver was not hurt, and succeeded in restoring the young woman to consciousness; an event which was marked, Bernard tells us, by a volley of invectives addressed to her unfortunate husband. “The horse,” continues Bernard, “was now on his legs, but the vehicle still prostrate, heavy in its frame, and laden with at least half a ton of luggage. My fellow-helper set me an example of activity in relieving it of the internal weight; and when all was clear, we grasped the wheel between us, and to the peril of our spinal columns righted the conveyance. The horse was then put in, and we lent a hand to help up the luggage. All this helping, hauling, and lifting occupied at least half an hour, under a meridian sun, in the middle of July, which fairly boiled the perspiration out of our foreheads.” The possessor of the chaise beguiled the labor by a full personal history of himself and his wife, and when the work was done invited the two Samaritans to go with him to Alexandria, and take a drop of “something sociable.” This being declined, the couple mounted into the chaise and drove on. “Then,” says Bernard, “my companion, after an exclamation at the heat, offered very courteously to dust my coat, a favor the return of which enabled me to take deliberate survey of his person. He was a tall, erect, well-made man, evidently advanced in years, but who appeared to have retained all the vigor and elasticity resulting from a life of temperance and exercise. His dress was a blue coat buttoned to his chin, and buckskin breeches. Though the instant he took off his hat I could not avoid the recognition of familiar lineaments, which indeed I was in the habit of seeing on every sign-post and over every fireplace, still I failed to identify him, and to my surprise I found that I was an object of equal speculation in his eyes.” The actor evidently did not have the royal gift of remembering faces, but the stranger possessed that quality, for after a moment’s pause he said, “Mr. Bernard, I believe,” and mentioned the occasion on which he had seen him play in Philadelphia. He then asked Bernard to go home with him for a couple of hours’ rest, and pointed out the house in the distance. At last Bernard knew to whom he was speaking. “‘Mount Vernon!’ I exclaimed; and then drawing back with a stare of wonder, ‘Have I the honor of addressing General Washington?’ With a smile whose expression of benevolence I have rarely seen equaled, he offered his hand and replied: ‘An odd sort of introduction, Mr. Bernard; but I am pleased to find you can play so active a part in private, and without a prompter.'” So they rode on together to the house and had a chat, to which we must recur further on.
There is no contemporary narrative of which I am aware that shows Washington to us more clearly than this little adventure with Bernard, for it is in the common affairs of daily life that men come nearest to each other, and the same rule holds good in history. We know Washington much better from these few lines of description left by a chance acquaintance on the road than we do from volumes of state papers. It is such a pleasant story, too. There is the great man, retired from the world, still handsome and imposing in his old age, with the strong and ready hand to succor those who had fallen by the wayside; there are the genuine hospitality, the perfect manners, and the well-turned little sentence with which he complimented the actor, put him at his ease, and asked him to his house. Nothing can well be added to the picture of Washington as we see him here, not long before the end of all things came. We must break off, however, from the quiet charm of home life, and turn again briefly to the affairs of state. Let us, therefore, leave these two riding along the road together in the warm Virginia sunshine to the house which has since become one of the Meccas of humanity, in memory of the man who once dwelt in it.
The highly prized retirement to Mount Vernon did not now, more than at any previous time, separate Washington from the affairs of the country. He continued to take a keen interest in all that went on, to correspond with his friends, and to use his influence for what he thought wisest and best for the general welfare. These were stirring times, too, and the progress of events brought him to take a more active part than he had ever expected to play again; for France, having failed, thanks to his policy, to draw us either by fair words or trickery from our independent and neutral position, determined, apparently, to try the effect of force and ill usage. Pinckney, sent out as minister, had been rebuffed; and then Adams, with the cordial support of the country, had made another effort for peace by sending Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry as a special commission. The history of that commission is one of the best known episodes in our history. Our envoys were insulted, asked for bribes, and browbeaten, until the two who retained a proper sense of their own and their country’s dignity took their passports and departed. The publication of the famous X, Y, Z letters, which displayed the conduct of France, roused a storm of righteous indignation from one end of the United States to the other. The party of France and of the opposition bent before the storm, and the Federalists were at last all-powerful. A cry for war went up from every corner, and Congress provided rapidly for the formation of an army and the beginning of a navy.
Then the whole country turned, as a matter of course, to one man to stand at the head of the national forces of the United States, and Adams wrote to Washington, urging him to take command of the provisional army. To any other appeal to come forward Washington would have been deaf, but he could never refuse a call to arms. He wrote to Adams on July 4, 1798: “In case of _actual invasion_ by a formidable force, I certainly should not intrench myself under the cover of age or retirement, if my services should be required by my country to assist in repelling it.” He agreed, therefore, to take command of the army, provided that he should not be called into active service except in the case of actual hostilities, and that he should have the appointment of the general’s staff. To these terms Adams of course acceded. But out of the apparently simple condition relating to the appointment of officers there grew a very serious trouble. There were to be three major-generals, the first of them to have also the rank of inspector-general, and to be the virtual commander-in-chief until the army was actually called into the field. For these places, Washington after much reflection selected Hamilton, Pinckney, and Knox, in the order named, and in doing so he very wisely went on the general principle that the army was to be organized _de novo_, without reference to prior service. Apart from personal and political jealousies, nothing could have been more proper and more sound than this arrangement; but at this point the President’s dislike of Hamilton got beyond control, and he made up his mind to reverse the order, and send in Knox’s name first. The Federalist leaders were of course utterly disgusted by this attempt to set Hamilton aside, which was certainly ill-judged, and which proved to be the beginning of the dissensions that ended in the ruin of the Federalist party. After every effort, therefore, to move Adams had failed, Pickering and others, including Hamilton himself, appealed to Washington. At a distance from the scene of action, and unfamiliar with the growth of differences within the party, Washington was not only surprised, but annoyed by the President’s conduct. In addition to the evils which he believed would result in a military way from this change, he felt that the conditions which he had made had been violated, and that he had not been treated fairly. He therefore wrote to the President with his wonted plainness, on September 25, and pointed out that his stipulations had not been complied with, that the change of order among the major-generals was thoroughly wrong, and that the President’s meddling with the inferior appointments had been hurtful and injudicious. His views were expressed in the most courteous way, although with an undertone of severe disapproval. There was no mistaking the meaning of the letter, however, and Adams, bold man and President as he was, gave way at once. Mr. Adams thought at the time that there had been about this matter of the major-generals too much intrigue, by which Washington had been deceived and he himself made a victim; but there seems no good reason to take this view of it, for there is no indication whatever that Washington did not know and understand the facts; and it was on the facts that he made his decision, and not on the methods by which they were conveyed to him. The propriety of the decision will hardly now be questioned, although it did not tend to make the relations between the ex-President and his successor very cordial. They had always a great respect for each other, but not much sympathy, for they differed too widely in temperament. Even if Washington would have permitted it, it would have been impossible for the President to have quarreled with him, but at the same time he felt not a little awkwardness in dealing with his successor, and was inclined to think that that gentleman did not show him all the respect that was due. He wrote to McHenry on October 1: “As no mode is yet adopted by the President by which the battalion officers are to be appointed, and as I think I stand on very precarious ground in my relation to him, I am not over-zealous in taking _unauthorized_ steps when those that I thought _were authorized_ are not likely to meet with much respect.”
[Illustration: HENRY KNOX]
There was, however, another consequence of this affair which gave Washington much more pain than any differences with the President. His old friend and companion in arms, General Knox, was profoundly hurt at the decision which placed Hamilton at the head of the army. One cannot be surprised at Knox’s feelings, for he had been a distinguished officer, and had outranked both Hamilton and Pinckney. He felt that he ought to command the army, and that he was quite capable of doing so; and he did not relish being told in this official manner that he had grown old, and that the time had come for younger and abler men to pass beyond him. The archbishop in “Gil Blas” is one of the most universal types of human nature that we have. Nobody feels kindly to the monitor who points out the failings which time has brought, and we are all inclined to dismiss him with every wish that he may fare well and have a little more taste. Poor Knox could not dismiss his Gil Blas, and he felt the unpleasant admonition all the more bitterly from the fact that the blow was dealt by the two men whom he most loved and admired. Hamilton wrote him the best and most graceful of letters, but failed to soothe him; and Washington was no more fortunate. He tried with the utmost kindliness, and in his most courteous manner, to soften the disappointment, and to show Knox how convincing were the reasons for his action. But the case was not one where argument could be of avail, and when Knox persisted in his refusal to take the place assigned him, Washington, with all his sympathy, was perfectly frank in expressing his views.
In a second letter, complaining of the injustice with which he had been treated, Knox intimated that he would be willing to serve on the personal staff of the commander-in-chief. This was all very well; but much as Washington grieved for his old friend’s disappointment, there was to be no misunderstanding in the matter. He wrote Knox on October 21: “After having expressed these sentiments with the frankness of undisguised friendship, it is hardly necessary to add that, if you should finally decline the appointment of major-general, there is none to whom I would give a more decided preference as an aide-de-camp, the offer of which is highly flattering, honorable, and grateful to my feelings, and for which I entertain a high sense. But, my dear General Knox, and here again I speak to you in a language of candor and friendship, examine well your mind upon this subject. Do not unite yourself to the suite of a man whom you may consider as the primary cause of what you call a degradation, with unpleasant sensations. This, while it was gnawing upon you, would, if I should come to the knowledge of it, make me unhappy; as my first wish would be that my military family and the whole army should consider themselves a band of brothers, willing and ready to die for each other.”
Knox would not serve; and his ill temper, irritated still further by the apparent preference of the President and by the talk of his immediate circle, prevailed. On the other hand, Pinckney, one of the most generous and patriotic of men, accepted service at once without a syllable of complaint on the score that he had ranked Hamilton in the former war. It was with these two, therefore, that Washington carried on the work of organizing the provisional army. Despite his determination to remain in retirement until called to the field, his desire for perfection in any work that he undertook brought him out, and he gave much time and attention not only to the general questions which were raised, but to the details of the business, and on November 10 he addressed a series of inquiries, both general and particular, to Hamilton and Pinckney. These inquiries covered the whole scope of possible events, probable military operations, and the formation of the army. They were written in Philadelphia, whither he had gone, and where he passed a month with the two major-generals in the discussion of plans and measures. The result of their conferences was an elaborate and masterly report on army organization drawn up by Hamilton, upon whom, throughout this period of impending war, the brunt of the work fell.
Careful and painstaking, however, as Washington was in the matter of appointments and organization, dealing with them as if he was about to take the field at the head of the army, there was never a moment when he felt that there was danger of actual war. He had studied foreign affairs and the conditions of Europe too well to be much deceived about them, and least of all in regard to France. He felt from the beginning that the moment we displayed a proper spirit, began to arm, and fought one or two French ships successfully, that France would leave off bullying and abusing us, and make a satisfactory peace. The declared adherent of the maxim that to prepare for war was the most effectual means of preserving peace, he felt that never was it more important to carry out this doctrine than now; and it was for this reason that he labored so hard and gave so much thought to army organization at a time when he felt more than ever the need of repose, and shrank from the least semblance of a return to public life. In all his long career there was never a better instance of his devoted patriotism than his coming forward in this way at the sacrifice of every personal wish after his retirement from the presidency.
Yet, although he closely watched the course of politics, and gave, as has been said, a cordial support to the administration, his sympathies were rather with the opponents of the President within the ranks of their common party. The conduct of Gerry, who had been Adams’s personal selection for a commissioner, was very distasteful to Washington, and was very far from exciting in his mind the approval which it drew from Mr. Adams. He wrote to Pickering on October 18: “With respect to Mr. Gerry, his own character and public satisfaction require better evidence than his letter to the minister of foreign relations to prove the propriety of his conduct during his envoyship.” He did not believe that we were to have war with France, but he was very confident that a bold and somewhat uncompromising attitude was the best one for the country, and that above all we should not palter with France after the affronts to which we had been subjected. When President Adams, therefore, made his sudden change of policy by nominating Murray as a special envoy, Washington, despite his desire for peace, was by no means enthusiastic in his approval of the methods by which it was sought. The President wrote him announcing the appointment of Murray, and Washington acknowledged the letter and the information without any comment. He saw, of course, that as the President had seen fit to take the step he must be sustained, and he wrote to Murray to impress upon him the gravity of the mission with which he was intrusted; but he had serious doubts as to the success of such a mission under such conditions, and when delays occurred he was not without hopes of a final abandonment. The day after his letter to Murray he wrote to Hamilton: “I was surprised at the _measure_, how much more so at the manner of it! This business seems to have commenced in an evil hour, and under unfavorable auspices. I wish mischief may not tread in all its steps, and be the final result of the measure. A wide door was open, through which a retreat might have been made from the first _faux pas_, the shutting of which, to those who are not behind the curtain and are as little acquainted with the secrets of the cabinet as I am, is, from the present aspect of European affairs, quite incomprehensible.” He hoped but little good from the mission, although it had his fervent wishes for its success, expressed repeatedly in letters to members of the cabinet; and while he was full of apprehension, he had a firm faith that all would end well.
For this anxiety, indeed, there was abundant reason. A violent change of policy toward France, the disorders occasioned by political dissensions at home, and the sudden appearance of the deadly doctrine of nullification, all combined to excite alarm in the mind of a man who looked as far into the future and as deep beneath the surface of things as did Washington. It was then that he urged Patrick Henry to reenter public life, and exerted his own influence wherever he could to check the separatist movement set on foot by Jefferson. He was deeply disturbed, too, by the tendencies of the times in other directions. The delirium of the French Revolution was not confined to France. Her soldiers bore with them the new doctrines, while far beyond the utmost reach of her armies flew the ideas engendered in the fevered air of Paris. Wherever they alighted they touched men and stung them to madness, and the madness that they bred was not confined to those who believed the new gospel, but was shared equally by those who resisted and loathed it. Burke, in his way, was as much crazed as Camille Desmoulins, and it seemed impossible for people living in the midst of that terrific convulsion of society to retain their judgment. Nowhere ought men to have been better able to withstand the contagion of the revolution than in America, and yet even here it produced the same results as in countries nearly affected by it. The party of opposition to the government became first ludicrous and then dangerous, in their wild admiration and senseless imitation of ideas and practices as utterly alien to the people of the United States as cannibalism or fire-worship. Then the Federalists, on their side, fell beneath the spell. The overthrow of religion, society, property, and morals, which they beheld in Paris, seemed to them to be threatening their own country, and they became as extreme as their opponents in the exactly opposite direction. Federalist divines came to look upon Jefferson, the most timid and prudent of men, as a Marat or Robespierre, ready to reproduce the excesses of his prototypes; while Pickering, Wolcott, and all their friends in public life regarded themselves as engaged in a struggle for the preservation of order and society and of all that they held most dear. They were in the habit of comparing French principles to a pestilence, and the French republic to a raging tiger. Even Hamilton was so moved as to believe that the United States were on the verge of anarchy, and he laid down his life at last in a senseless duel because he thought that his refusal to fight would disable him for leading the forces of order when the final crash came.
Washington, with his strong, calm judgment and his penetrating vision, was less affected than any of those who had followed and sustained him; but he was by no means untouched, and if we try to put ourselves in his place, his views seem far from unreasonable. He had at the outset wished well to the great movement in France, although even then he doubted its final success. Very soon, however, doubts changed to suspicions, and suspicions to conviction. As he saw the French revolution move on in its inevitable path, he came to hate and dread its deeds, its policies, and its doctrines. To a man of his temper it could not have been otherwise, for license and disorder were above all things detestable to him. They were the immediate fruits of the French revolution, and when he saw a party devoted to France preaching the same ideas in the United States, he could not but feel that there was a real and practical danger confronting the country. This was why he felt that we needed an energetic policy, and it was on this account that he distrusted the President’s renewed effort for peace. The course of the opposition, as he saw it, threatened not merely the existence of the Union, but wittingly or unwittingly struck at the very foundations of society. His anxiety did not make him violent, as was the case with lesser men, but it convinced him of the necessity of strong measures, and he was not a man to shrink from vigorous action. He was quite prepared to do all that could be done to maintain the authority of the government, which he considered equivalent to the protection of society, and for this reason he approved of the Alien and Sedition acts.
In the process of time these two famous laws have come to be universally condemned, and those who have not questioned their constitutionality have declared them wrong, inexpedient and impolitic, and the immediate cause of the overthrow of the party responsible for them. Everybody has made haste to disown them, and there has been a general effort on the part of Federalist sympathizers to throw the blame for them on persons unknown. Biographers, especially, have tried zealously to clear the skirts of their heroes from any connection with these obnoxious acts; but the truth is, that, whether right or wrong, wise or unwise, these laws had the entire support of the ruling party from the President down. Hamilton, who objected to the first draft because it was needlessly violent, approved the purpose and principle of the legislation; and Washington was no exception to the general rule. He was calm about it, but his approbation was none the less distinct, and he took pains to circulate a sound argument, when he met with one, in justification of the Alien and Sedition acts.[1] In November, 1798, Alexander Spotswood wrote to him, asking his judgment on those laws. As the writer announced himself to be thoroughly convinced of their unconstitutionally, Washington, with a little sarcasm, declined to enter into argument with him. “But,” he continued, “I will take the liberty of advising such as are not ‘thoroughly convinced,’ and whose minds are yet open to conviction, to read the pieces and hear the arguments which have been adduced in favor of, as well as those against, the constitutionality and expediency of those laws, before they decide and consider to what lengths a certain description of men in our country have already driven, and seem resolved further to drive matters, and then ask themselves if it is not time and expedient to resort to protecting laws against aliens (for citizens, you certainly know, are not affected by that law), who acknowledge no allegiance to this country, and in many instances are sent among us, as there is the best circumstantial evidence to prove, for the express purpose of poisoning the minds of our people and sowing dissensions among them, in order to alienate their affections from the government of their choice, thereby endeavoring to dissolve the Union, and of course the fair and happy prospects which are unfolding to our view from the Revolution.”
[Footnote 1: See letter to Bushrod Washington, Sparks, vi. p. 387.]
With these strong and decided feelings as to the proper policy to be adopted, and with such grave apprehensions as to the outcome of existing difficulties, Washington was deeply distressed by the divisions which he saw springing up among the Federalists. From his point of view it was bad enough to have the people of the country divided into two great parties; but that one of those parties, that which was devoted to the maintenance of order and the preservation of the Union, should be torn by internal dissensions, seemed to him almost inconceivable. He regarded the conduct of the party and of its leaders with quite as much indignation as sorrow, for it seemed to him that they were unpatriotic and false to their trust in permitting for a moment these personal factions which could have but one result. He wrote to Trumbull on August 30, 1799:–
“It is too interesting not to be again repeated, that if principles instead of men are not the steady pursuit of the Federalists, their cause will soon be at an end; if these are pursued they will not _divide_ at the next election of President; if they do divide on so _important_ a point, it would be dangerous to trust them on any other,–and none except those who might be solicitous to fill the chair of government would do it.”[1]
[Footnote 1: _Life of Silliman_, vol. ii. p. 385.]
He was a true prophet, but he did not live to see the verification of his predictions, which would have been to him a source of so much grief. In the midst of his anxieties about public affairs, and of the quiet, homely interests which made the days at Mount Vernon so pleasant, the end suddenly came. There was no more forewarning than if he had been struck down by accident or violence. He had always been a man of great physical vigor, and although he had had one or two acute and dangerous illnesses arising from mental strain and much overwork, there is no indication that he had any organic disease, and since his retirement from the presidency he had been better than for many years. There was not only no sign of breaking up, but he appeared full of health and activity, and led his usual wholesome outdoor life with keen enjoyment.
The morning of December 12 was overcast. He wrote to Hamilton warmly approving the scheme for a military academy; and having finished this, which was probably the last letter he ever wrote, he mounted his horse and rode off for his usual round of duties. He noted in his diary, where he always described the weather with methodical exactness, that it began to snow about one o’clock, soon after to hail, and then turned to a settled cold rain. He stayed out notwithstanding for about two hours, and then came back to the house and franked his letters. Mr. Lear noticed that his hair was damp with snow, and expressed a fear that he had got wet; but the General said no, that his coat had kept him dry, and sat down to dinner without changing his clothes. The next morning snow was still falling so that he did not ride, and he complained of a slight sore throat, but nevertheless went out in the afternoon to mark some trees that were to be cut down. His hoarseness increased toward night, yet still he made light of it, and read the newspapers and chatted with Mrs. Washington during the evening.
When he went to bed Mr. Lear urged him to take something for his cold. “No,” he replied, “you know I never take anything for a cold. Let it go as it came.” In the night he had a severe chill, followed by difficulty in breathing; and between two and three in the morning he awoke Mrs. Washington, but would not allow her to get up and call a servant lest she should take cold. At daybreak Mr. Lear was summoned, and found Washington breathing with difficulty and hardly able to speak. Dr. Craik, the friend and companion of many years, was sent for at once, and meantime the General was bled slightly by one of the overseers. A futile effort was also made to gargle his throat, and external applications were tried without affording relief. Dr. Craik arrived between eight and nine o’clock with two other physicians, when other remedies were tried and the patient was bled again, all without avail. About half-past four he called Mrs. Washington to his bedside and asked her to get two wills from his desk. She did so, and after looking them over he ordered one to be destroyed and gave her the other to keep. He then said to Lear, speaking with the utmost difficulty, but saying what he had to say with characteristic determination and clearness: “I find I am going; my breath cannot last long. I believed from the first that the disorder would prove fatal. Do you arrange and record all my late military letters and papers. Arrange my accounts and settle my books, as you know more about them than any one else; and let Mr. Rawlins finish recording my other letters, which he has begun.” He then asked if Lear recollected anything which it was essential for him to do, as he had but a very short time to continue with them. Lear replied that he could recollect nothing, but that he hoped the end was not so near. Washington smiled, and said that he certainly was dying, and that as it was the debt which we must all pay, he looked to the event with perfect resignation.
The disease which was killing him was acute oedematous laryngitis,[1] which is as simple as it is rare and fatal,[2] and he was being slowly strangled to death by the closing of the throat. He bore the suffering, which must have been intense, with his usual calm self-control, but as the afternoon wore on the keen distress and the difficulty of breathing made him restless. From time to time Mr. Lear tried to raise him and make his position easier. The General said, “I fear I fatigue you too much;” and again, on being assured to the contrary, “Well, it is a debt we must pay to each other, and I hope when you want aid of this kind you will find it.” He was courteous and thoughtful of others to the last, and told his servant, who had been standing all day in attendance upon him, to sit down. To Dr. Craik he said: “I die hard, but I am not afraid to go. I believed from my first attack that I should not survive it. My breath cannot last long.” When a little later the other physicians came in and assisted him to sit up, he said: “I feel I am going. I thank you for your attentions, but I pray you will take no more trouble about me. Let me go off quietly. I cannot last long.” He lay there for some hours longer, restless and suffering, but utterly uncomplaining, taking such remedies as the physicians ordered in silence. About ten o’clock he spoke again to Lear, although it required a most desperate effort to do so. “I am just going,” he said. “Have me decently buried, and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead.” Lear bowed, and Washington said, “Do you understand me?” Lear answered, “Yes.” “‘Tis well,” he said, and with these last words again fell silent. A little later he felt his own pulse, and, as he was counting the strokes, Lear saw his countenance change. His hand dropped back from the wrist he had been holding, and all was over. The end had come. Washington was dead. He died as he had lived, simply and bravely, without parade and without affectation. The last duties were done, the last words said, the last trials borne with the quiet fitness, the gracious dignity, that even the gathering mists of the supreme hour could neither dim nor tarnish. He had faced life with a calm, high, victorious spirit. So did he face death and the unknown when Fate knocked at the door.
[Footnote 1: It was called at the time a quinsy.]
[Footnote 2: See Memoir on _The Last Sickness of Washington_, by James Jackson, M.D. In response to an inquiry as to the modern treatment of this disease, the late Dr. F.H. Hooper of Boston, well known as an authority on diseases of the throat, wrote me: “Washington’s physicians are not to be criticised for their treatment, for they acted according to their best light and knowledge. To treat such a case in such a manner in the year 1889 would be little short of criminal. At the present time the physicians would use the laryngoscope and _look_ and _see_ what the trouble was. (The laryngoscope has only been used since 1857.) In this disease the function most interfered with is breathing. The one thing which saves a patient in this disease is a _timely tracheotomy_. (I doubt if tracheotomy had ever been performed in Virginia in Washington’s time.) Washington ought to have been tracheotomized, or rather that is the way cases are saved to-day. No one would think of antimony, calomel, or bleeding now. The point is to let in the air, and not to let out the blood. After tracheotomy has been performed, the oedema and swelling of the larynx subside in three to six days. The tracheotomy tube is then removed, and respiration goes on again through the natural channels.”]
CHAPTER VII
GEORGE WASHINGTON
This last chapter cannot begin more fitly than by quoting again the words of Mr. McMaster: “George Washington is an unknown man.” Mr. McMaster might have added that to no man in our history has greater injustice of a certain kind been done, or more misunderstanding been meted out, than to Washington, and although this sounds like the merest paradox, it is nevertheless true. From the hour when the door of the tomb at Mount Vernon closed behind his coffin to the present instant, the chorus of praise and eulogy has never ceased, but has swelled deeper and louder with each succeeding year. He has been set apart high above all other men, and reverenced with the unquestioning veneration accorded only to the leaders of mankind and the founders of nations; and in this very devotion lies one secret at least of the fact that, while all men have praised Washington, comparatively few have understood him. He has been lifted high up into a lonely greatness, and unconsciously put outside the range of human sympathy. He has been accepted as a being as nearly perfect as it is given to man to be, but our warm personal interest has been reserved for other and lesser men who seemed to be nearer to us in their virtues and their errors alike. Such isolation, lofty though it be, is perilous and leads to grievous misunderstandings. From it has come the widespread idea that Washington was cold, and as devoid of human sympathies as he was free from the common failings of humanity.
Of this there will be something to say presently, but meantime there is another more prolific source of error in regard to Washington to be considered. Men who are loudly proclaimed to be faultless always excite a certain kind of resentment. It is a dangerous eminence for any one to occupy. The temples of Greece are in ruins, and her marvelous literature is little more than a collection of fragments, but the feelings of the citizens who exiled Aristides because they were weary of hearing him called “just,” exist still, unchanged and unchangeable. Washington has not only been called “just,” but he has had every other good quality attributed to him by countless biographers and eulogists with an almost painful iteration, and the natural result has followed. Many persons have felt the sense of fatigue which the Athenians expressed practically by their oyster shells, and have been led to cast doubts on Washington’s perfection as the only consolation for their own sense of injury. Then, again, Washington’s fame has been so overshadowing, and his greatness so immutable, that he has been very inconvenient to the admirers and the biographers of other distinguished men. From these two sources, from the general jealousy of the classic Greek variety, and the particular jealousy born of the necessities of some other hero, much adverse and misleading criticism has come. It has never been a safe or popular amusement to assail Washington directly, and this course usually has been shunned; but although the attacks have been veiled they have none the less existed, and they have been all the more dangerous because they were insidious.
In his lifetime Washington had his enemies and detractors in abundance. During the Revolution he was abused and intrigued against, thwarted and belittled, to a point which posterity in general scarcely realizes. Final and conclusive victory brought an end to this, and he passed to the presidency amid a general acclaim. Then the attacks began again. Their character has been shown in a previous chapter, but they were of no real moment except as illustrations of the existence and meaning of party divisions. The ravings of Bache and Freneau, and the coarse insults of Giles, were all totally unimportant in themselves. They merely define the purposes and character of the party which opposed Washington, and but for him would be forgotten. Among his eminent contemporaries, Jefferson and Pickering, bitterly opposed in all things else, have left memoranda and letters reflecting upon the abilities of their former chief. Jefferson disliked him because he blocked his path, but with habitual caution he never proceeded beyond a covert sneer implying that Washington’s mental powers, at no time very great, were impaired by age during his presidency, and that he was easily deceived by practised intriguers. Pickering, with more boldness, set Washington down as commonplace, not original in his thought, and vastly inferior to Hamilton, apparently because he was not violent, and did not make up his mind before he knew the facts.
Adverse contemporary criticism, however, is slight in amount and vague in character; it can be readily dismissed, and it has in no case weight enough to demand much consideration. Modern criticism of the same kind has been even less direct, but is much more serious and cannot be lightly passed over. It invariably proceeds by negations setting out with an apparently complete acceptance of Washington’s greatness, and then assailing him by telling us what he was not. Few persons who have not given this matter a careful study realize how far criticism of this sort has gone, and there is indeed no better way of learning what Washington really was than by examining the various negations which tell us what he was not.
Let us take the gravest first. It has been confidently asserted that Washington was not an American in anything but the technical sense. This idea is more diffused than, perhaps, would be generally supposed, and it has also been formally set down in print, in which we are more fortunate than in many other instances where the accusation has not got beyond the elusive condition of loose talk.
In that most noble poem, the “Commemoration Ode,” Mr. Lowell speaks of Lincoln as “the first American.” The poet’s winged words fly far, and find a resting-place in many minds. This idea has become widespread, and has recently found fuller expression in Mr. Clarence King’s prefatory note to the great life of Lincoln by Hay and Nicolay.[1] Mr. King says: “Abraham Lincoln was the first American to reach the lonely height of immortal fame. Before him, within the narrow compass of our history, were but two preeminent names,–Columbus the discoverer, and Washington the founder; the one an Italian seer, the other an English country gentleman. In a narrow sense, of course, Washington was an American…. For all that he was English in his nature, habits, moral standards, and social theories; in short, in all points which, aside from mere geographical position, make up a man, he was as thorough-going a British colonial gentleman as one could find anywhere beneath the Union Jack. The genuine American of Lincoln’s type came later…. George Washington, an English commoner, vanquished George, an English king.”
[Footnote 1: Mr. Matthew Arnold, and more recently Professor Goldwin Smith, have both spoken of Washington as an Englishman. I do not mention this to discredit the statements of Mr. Lowell or Mr. King, but merely to indicate how far this mistaken idea has traveled.]
In order to point his sentence and prove his first postulate, Mr. King is obliged not only to dispose of Washington, but to introduce Columbus, who never was imagined in the wildest fantasy to be an American, and to omit Franklin. The omission of itself is fatal to Mr. King’s case. Franklin has certainly a “preeminent name.” He has, too, “immortal fame,” although of course of a widely different character from that of either Washington or Lincoln, but he was a great man in the broad sense of a world-wide reputation. Yet no one has ever ventured to call Benjamin Franklin an Englishman. He was a colonial American, of course, but he was as intensely an American as any man who has lived on this continent before or since. A man of the people, he was American by the character of his genius, by his versatility, the vivacity of his intellect, and his mental dexterity. In his abilities, his virtues, and his defects he was an American, and so plainly one as to be beyond the reach of doubt or question. There were others of that period, too, who were as genuine Americans as Franklin or Lincoln. Such were Jonathan Edwards, the peculiar product of New England Calvinism; Patrick Henry, who first broke down colonial lines to declare himself an American; Samuel Adams, the great forerunner of the race of American politicians; Thomas Jefferson, the idol of American democracy. These and many others Mr. King might exclude on the ground that they did not reach the lonely height of immortal fame. But Franklin is enough. Unless one is prepared to set Franklin down as an Englishman, which would be as reasonable as to say that Daniel Webster was a fine example of the Slavic race, it must be admitted that it was possible for the thirteen colonies to produce in the eighteenth century a genuine American who won immortal fame. If they could produce one of one type, they could produce a second of another type, and there was, therefore, nothing inherently impossible in existing conditions to prevent Washington from being an American.
Lincoln was undoubtedly the first great American of his type, but that is not the only type of American. It is one which, as bodied forth in Abraham Lincoln, commands the love and veneration of the people of the United States, and the admiration of the world wherever his name is known. To the noble and towering greatness of his mind and character it does not add one hair’s breadth to say that he was the first American, or that he was of a common or uncommon type. Greatness like Lincoln’s is far beyond such qualifications, and least of all is it necessary to his fame to push Washington from his birthright. To say that George Washington, an English commoner, vanquished George, an English king, is clever and picturesque, but like many other pleasing antitheses it is painfully inaccurate. Allegiance does not make race or nationality. The Hindoos are subjects of Victoria, but they are not Englishmen.
Franklin shows that it was possible to produce a most genuine American of unquestioned greatness in the eighteenth century, and with all possible deference to Mr. Lowell and Mr. King, I venture the assertion that George Washington was as genuine an American as Lincoln or Franklin. He was an American of the eighteenth and not of the nineteenth century, but he was none the less an American. I will go further. Washington was not only an American of a pure and noble type, but he was the first thorough American in the broad, national sense, as distinct from the colonial American of his time.
After all, what is it to be an American? Surely it does not consist in the number of generations merely which separate the individual from his forefathers who first settled here. Washington was fourth in descent from the first American of his name, while Lincoln was in the sixth generation. This difference certainly constitutes no real distinction. There are people to-day, not many luckily, whose families have been here for two hundred and fifty years, and who are as utterly un-American as it is possible to be, while there are others, whose fathers were immigrants, who are as intensely American as any one can desire or imagine. In a new country, peopled in two hundred and fifty years by immigrants from the Old World and their descendants, the process of Americanization is not limited by any hard and fast rules as to time and generations, but is altogether a matter of individual and race temperament. The production of the well-defined American types and of the fixed national characteristics which now exist has been going on during all that period, but in any special instance the type to which a given man belongs must be settled by special study and examination.
Washington belonged to the English-speaking race. So did Lincoln. Both sprang from the splendid stock which was formed during centuries from a mixture of the Celtic, Teutonic, Scandinavian, and Norman peoples, and which is known to the world as English. Both, so far as we can tell, had nothing but English blood, as it would be commonly called, in their veins, and both were of that part of the English race which emigrated to America, where it has been the principal factor in the development of the new people called Americans. They were men of English race, modified and changed in the fourth and sixth generations by the new country, the new conditions, and the new life, and by the contact and admixture of other races. Lincoln, a very great man, one who has reached “immortal fame,” was clearly an American of a type that the Old World cannot show, or at least has not produced. The idea of many persons in regard to Washington seems to be, that he was a great man of a type which the Old World, or, to be more exact, which England, had produced. One hears it often said that Washington was simply an American Hampden. Such a comparison is an easy method of description, nothing more. Hampden is memorable among men, not for his abilities, which there is no reason to suppose were very extraordinary, but for his devoted and unselfish patriotism, his courage, his honor, and his pure and lofty spirit. He embodied what his countrymen believe to be the moral qualities of their race in their finest flower, and no nation, be it said, could have a nobler ideal. Washington was conspicuous for the same qualities, exhibited in like fashion. Is there a single one of the essential attributes of Hampden that Lincoln also did not possess? Was he not an unselfish and devoted patriot, pure in heart, gentle of spirit, high of honor, brave, merciful, and temperate? Did he not lay down his life for his country in the box at Ford’s Theatre as ungrudgingly as Hampden offered his in the smoke of battle upon Chalgrove field? Surely we must answer Yes. In other words, these three men all had the great moral attributes which are the characteristics of the English race in its highest and purest development on either side of the Atlantic. Yet no one has ever called Lincoln an American Hampden simply because Hampden and Washington were men of ancient family, members of an aristocracy by birth, and Lincoln was not. This is the distinction between them; and how vain it is, in the light of their lives and deeds, which make all pedigrees and social ranks look so poor and worthless! The differences among them are trivial, the resemblances deep and lasting.
I have followed out this comparison because it illustrates perfectly the entirely superficial character of the reasons which have led men to speak of Washington as an English country gentleman. It has been said that he was English in his habits, moral standards, and social theories, which has an important sound, but which for the most part comes down to a question of dress and manners. He wore black velvet and powdered hair, knee-breeches and diamond buckles, which are certainly not American fashions to-day. But they were American fashions in the last century, and every man wore them who could afford to, no matter what his origin. Let it be remembered, however, that Washington also wore the hunting-shirt and fringed leggins of the backwoodsman, and that it was he who introduced this purely American dress into the army as a uniform.
His manners likewise were those of the century in which he lived, formal and stately, and of course colored by his own temperament. His moral standards were those of a high-minded, honorable man. Are we ready to say that they were not American? Did they differ in any vital point from those of Lincoln? His social theories were simple in the extreme. He neither overvalued nor underrated social conventions, for he knew that they were a part of the fabric of civilized society, not vitally important and yet not wholly trivial. He was a member of an aristocracy, it is true, both by birth and situation. There was a recognized social aristocracy in every colony before the Revolution, for the drum-beat of the great democratic march had not then sounded. In the northern colonies it was never strong, and in New England it was especially weak, for the governments and people there were essentially democratic, although they hardly recognized it themselves. In Virginia and the southern colonies, on the other hand, there was a vigorous aristocracy resting on the permanent foundation of slavery. Where slaves are there must be masters, and where there are masters there are aristocrats; but it was an American and not an English aristocracy. Lineage and family had weight in the south as in the north, but that which put a man undeniably in the ruling class was the ownership of black slaves and the possession of a white skin. This aristocracy lasted with its faults and its virtues until it perished in the shock of civil war, when its foundation of human slavery was torn from under it. From the slave-holding aristocracy of Virginia came, with the exception of Patrick Henry, all the great men of that State who did so much for American freedom, and who rendered such imperishable service to the republic in law, in politics, and in war. From this aristocracy came Marshall, and Mason, and Madison, the Lees, the Randolphs, the Harrisons, and the rest. From it came also Thomas Jefferson, the hero of American democracy; and to it was added Patrick Henry, not by lineage or slave-holding, but by virtue of his brilliant abilities, and because he, too, was an aristocrat by the immutable division of race. It was this aristocracy into which Washington was born, and amid which he was brought up. To say that it colored his feelings and habits is simply to say that he was human; but to urge that it made him un-American is to exclude at once from the ranks of Americans all the great men given to the country by the South. Washington, in fact, was less affected by his surroundings, and rose above them more quickly, than any other man of his day, because he was the greatest man of his time, with a splendid breadth of vision.
When he first went among the New England troops at the siege of Boston, the rough, democratic ways of the people jarred upon him, and offended especially his military instincts, for he was not only a Virginian but he was a great soldier, and military discipline is essentially aristocratic. These volunteer soldiers, called together from the plough and the fishing-smack, were free and independent men, unaccustomed to any rule but their own, and they had still to learn the first rudiments of military service. To Washington, soldiers who elected and deposed their officers, and who went home when they felt that they had a right to do so, seemed well-nigh useless and quite incomprehensible. They angered him and tried his patience almost beyond endurance, and he spoke of them at the outset in harsh terms by no means wholly unwarranted. But they were part of his problem, and he studied them. He was a soldier, but not an aristocrat wrapped up in immutable prejudices, and he learned to know these men, and they came to love, obey, and follow him with an intelligent devotion far better than anything born of mere discipline. Before the year was out, he wrote to Lund Washington praising the New England troops in the highest terms, and at the close of the war he said that practically the whole army then was composed of New England soldiers. They stayed by him to the end, and as they were steadfast in war so they remained in peace. He trusted and confided in New England, and her sturdy democracy gave him a loyal and unflinching support to the day of his death.
This openness of mind and superiority to prejudice were American in the truest and best sense; but Washington showed the same qualities in private life and toward individuals which he displayed in regard to communities. He was free, of course, from the cheap claptrap which abuses the name of democracy by saying that birth, breeding, and education are undemocratic, and therefore to be reckoned against a man. He valued these qualities rightly, but he looked to see what a man was and not who he was, which is true democracy. The two men who were perhaps nearest to his affections were Knox and Hamilton. One was a Boston bookseller, who rose to distinction by bravery and good service, and the other was a young adventurer from the West Indies, without either family or money at his back. It was the same with much humbler persons. He never failed, on his way to Philadelphia, to stop at Wilmington and have a chat with one Captain O’Flinn, who kept a tavern and had been a Revolutionary soldier; and this was but a single instance among many of like character. Any soldier of the Revolution was always sure of a welcome at the hands of his old commander. Eminent statesmen, especially of the opposition, often found his manner cold, but no old soldier ever complained of it, no servant ever left him, and the country people about Mount Vernon loved him as a neighbor and friend, and not as the distant great man of the army and the presidency.
He believed thoroughly in popular government. One does not find in his letters the bitter references to democracy and to the populace which can be discovered in the writings of so many of his party friends, legacies of pre-revolutionary ideas inflamed by hatred of Parisian mobs. He always spoke of the people at large with a simple respect, because he knew that the future of the United States was in their hands and not in that of any class, and because he believed that they would fulfill their mission. The French Revolution never carried him away, and when it bred anarchy and bloodshed he became hostile to French influence, because license and disorder were above all things hateful to him. Yet he did not lose his balance in the other direction, as was the case with so many of his friends. He resisted and opposed French ideas and French democracy, so admired and so loudly preached by Jefferson and his followers, because he esteemed them perilous to the country. But there is not a word to indicate that he did not think that such dangers would be finally overcome, even if at the cost of much suffering, by the sane sense and ingrained conservatism of the American people. Other men talked more noisily about the people, but no one trusted them in the best sense more than Washington, and his only fear was that evils might come from their being misled by false lights.
Once more, what is it to be an American? Putting aside all the outer shows of dress and manners, social customs and physical peculiarities, is it not to believe in America and in the American people? Is it not to have an abiding and moving faith in the future and in the destiny of America?–something above and beyond the patriotism and love which every man whose soul is not dead within him feels for the land of his birth? Is it not to be national and not sectional, independent and not colonial? Is it not to have a high conception of what this great new country should be, and to follow out that ideal with loyalty and truth?
Has any man in our history fulfilled these conditions more perfectly and completely than George Washington? Has any man ever lived who served the American people more faithfully, or with a higher and truer conception of the destiny and possibilities of the country? Born of an old and distinguished family, he found himself, when a boy just out of school, dependent on his mother, and with an inheritance that promised him more acres than shillings. He did not seek to live along upon what he could get from the estate, and still less did he feel that it was only possible for him to enter one of the learned professions. Had he been an Englishman in fact or in feeling, he would have felt very naturally the force of the limitations imposed by his social position. But being an American, his one idea was to earn his living honestly, because it was the creed of his country that earning an honest living is the most creditable thing a man can do. Boy as he was, he went out manfully into the world to win with his own hands the money which would make him self-supporting and independent. His business as a surveyor took him into the wilderness, and there he learned that the first great work before the American people was to be the conquest of the continent. He dropped the surveyor’s rod and chain to negotiate with the savages, and then took up the sword to fight them and the French, so that the New World might be secured to the English-speaking race. A more purely American training cannot be imagined. It was not the education of universities or of courts, but that of hard-earned personal independence, won in the backwoods and by frontier fighting. Thus trained, he gave the prime of his manhood to leading the Revolution which made his country free, and his riper years to building up that independent nationality without which freedom would have been utterly vain.
He was the first to rise above all colonial or state lines, and grasp firmly the conception of a nation to be formed from the thirteen jarring colonies. The necessity of national action in the army was of course at once apparent to him, although not to others; but he carried the same broad views into widely different fields, where at the time they wholly escaped notice. It was Washington, oppressed by a thousand cares, who in the early days of the Revolution saw the need of Federal courts for admiralty cases and for other purposes. It was he who suggested this scheme, years before any one even dreamed of the Constitution; and from the special committees of Congress, formed for this object in accordance with this advice, came, in the process of time, the Federal judiciary of the United States.[1] Even in that early dawn of the Revolution, Washington had clear in his own mind the need of a continental system for war, diplomacy, finance, and law, and he worked steadily to bring this policy to fulfilment.
[Footnote 1: See the very interesting memoir on this subject by the Hon. J.C. Bancroft Davis.]
When the war was over, the thought that engaged his mind most was of the best means to give room for expansion, and to open up the unconquered continent to the forerunners of a mighty army of settlers. For this purpose all his projects for roads, canals, and surveys were formed and forced into public notice. He looked beyond the limits of the Atlantic colonies. His vision went far over the barriers of the Alleghanies; and where others saw thirteen infant States backed by the wilderness, he beheld the germs of a great empire. While striving thus to lay the West open to the march of the settler, he threw himself into the great struggle, where Hamilton and Madison, and all who “thought continentally,” were laboring for that union without which all else was worse than futile.
From the presidency of the convention that formed the Constitution, he went to the presidency of the government which that convention brought into being; and in all that followed, the one guiding thought was to clear the way for the advance of the people, and to make that people and their government independent in thought, in policy, and in character, as the Revolution had made them independent politically. The same spirit which led him to write during the war that our battles must be fought and our victories won by Americans, if victory and independence were to be won at all, or to have any real and solid worth, pervaded his whole administration. We see it in his Indian policy, which was directed not only to pacifying the tribes, but to putting it out of their power to arrest or even delay western settlement. We see it in his attitude toward foreign ministers, and in his watchful persistence in regard to the Mississippi, which ended in our securing the navigation of the great river. We see it again in his anxious desire to keep peace until we had passed the point where war might bring a dissolution; and how real that danger was, and how clear and just his perception of it, is shown by the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and by the separatist movement in New England during the later war of 1812. Even in 1812 the national existence was menaced, but the danger would have proved fatal if it had come twenty years earlier, with parties divided by their sympathies with contending foreign nations. It was for the sake of the Union that Washington was so patient with France, and faced so quietly the storm of indignation aroused by the Jay treaty.
In his whole foreign policy, which was so peculiarly his own, the American spirit was his pole star; and of all the attacks made upon him, the only one which really tried his soul was the accusation that he was influenced by foreign predilections. The blind injustice, which would not comprehend that his one purpose was to be American and to make the people and the government American, touched him more deeply than anything else. As party strife grew keener over the issues raised by the war between France and England, and as French politics and French ideas became more popular, his feelings found more frequent utterance, and it is interesting to see how this man, who, we are now told, was an English country gentleman, wrote and felt on this matter in very trying times. Let us remember, as we listen to him now in his own defense, that he was an extremely honest man, silent for the most part in doing his work, but when he spoke meaning every word he said, and saying exactly what he meant. This was the way in which he wrote to Patrick Henry in October, 1795, when he offered him the secretaryship of State:–
“My ardent desire is, and my aim has been as far as depended upon the executive department, to comply strictly with all our engagements, foreign and domestic; but to keep the United States free from political connection with every other country, to see them independent of all and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an _American_ character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced that we act for _ourselves_, and not for others. This, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home; and not, by becoming partisans of Great Britain or France, create dissensions, disturb the public tranquillity, and destroy, perhaps forever, the cement which binds the Union.”
Not quite a year later, when the Jay treaty was still agitating the public mind in regard to our relations with France, he wrote to Pickering:–
“The Executive has a plain road to pursue, namely, to fulfill all the engagements which duty requires; be influenced beyond this by none of the contending parties; maintain a strict neutrality unless obliged by imperious circumstances to depart from it; do justice to all, and never forget that we are Americans, the remembrance of which will convince us that we ought not to be French or English.”
After leaving the presidency, when our difficulties with France seemed to be thickening, and the sky looked very dark, he wrote to a friend saying that he firmly believed that all would come out well, and then added: “To me this is so demonstrable, that not a particle of doubt could dwell on my mind relative thereto, if our citizens would advocate their own cause, instead of that of any other nation under the sun; that is, if, instead of being Frenchmen or Englishmen in politics they would be Americans, indignant at every attempt of either or any other powers to establish an influence in our councils or presume to sow the seeds of discord or disunion among us.”
A few days later he wrote to Thomas Pinckney:
“It remains to be seen whether our country will stand upon independent ground, or be directed in its political concerns by any other nation. A little time will show who are its true friends, or, what is synonymous, who are true Americans.”
But this eager desire for a true Americanism did not stop at our foreign policy, or our domestic politics. He wished it to enter into every part of the life and thought of the people, and when it was proposed to bring over the entire staff of a Genevan university to take charge of a national university here, he threw his influence against it, expressing grave doubts as to the advantage of importing an entire “seminary of foreigners,” for the purpose of American education. The letter on this subject, which was addressed to John Adams, then continued:–
“My opinion with respect to emigration is that except of useful mechanics, and some particular descriptions of men or professions, there is no need of encouragement; while the policy or advantage of its taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for by so doing they retain the language, habits, and principles, good or bad, which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they or their descendants get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws; in a word, soon become one people.”
He had this thought so constantly in his mind that it found expression in his will, in the clause bequeathing certain property for the foundation of a university in the District of Columbia. “I proceed,” he said, “after this recital for the more correct understanding of the case, to declare that it has always been a source of serious regret with me to see the youth of these United States sent to foreign countries for the purposes of education, often before their minds were formed, or they had imbibed any adequate ideas of the happiness of their own; contracting too frequently not only habits of dissipation and extravagance, but _principles unfriendly to republican government and to the true and genuine liberties of mankind_, which thereafter are rarely overcome; for these reasons it has been my ardent wish to see a plan devised on a liberal scale, which would have a tendency to spread systematic ideas through all parts of this rising empire, thereby to do away with local attachments and state prejudices, as far as the nature of things would or indeed ought to admit, from our national councils.”
Were these the words of an English country gentleman, who chanced to be born in one of England’s colonies? Persons of the English country gentleman pattern at that time were for the most part loyalists; excellent people, very likely, but not of the Washington type. Their hopes and ideals, their policies and their beliefs were in the mother country, not here. The faith, the hope, the thought, of Washington were all in the United States. His one purpose was to make America independent in thought and action, and he strove day and night to build up a nation. He labored unceasingly to lay the foundations of the great empire which, with almost prophetic vision, he saw beyond the mountains, by opening the way for the western movement. His foreign policy was a declaration to the world of a new national existence, and he strained every nerve to lift our politics from the colonial condition of foreign issues. He wished all immigration to be absorbed and moulded here, so that we might be one people, one in speech and in political faith. His last words, given to the world after the grave had closed over him, were a solemn plea for a home training for the youth of the Republic, so that all men might think as Americans, untainted by foreign ideas, and rise above all local prejudices. He did not believe that mere material development was the only or the highest goal; for he knew that the true greatness of a nation was moral and intellectual, and his last thoughts were for the up-building of character and intelligence. He was never a braggart, and mere boasting about his country as about himself was utterly repugnant to him. He never hesitated to censure what he believed to be wrong, but he addressed his criticisms to his countrymen in order to lead them to better things, and did not indulge in them in order to express his own discontent, or to amuse or curry favor with foreigners. In a word, he loved his country, and had an abiding faith in its future and in its people, upon whom his most earnest thoughts and loftiest aspirations were centred. No higher, purer, or more thorough Americanism than his could be imagined. It was a conception far in advance of the time, possible only to a powerful mind, capable of lifting itself out of existing conditions and alien influences, so that it might look with undazzled gaze upon the distant future. The first American in the broad national sense, there has never been a man more thoroughly and truly American than Washington. It will be a sorry day when we consent to take that noble figure from “the forefront of the nation’s life,” and rank George Washington as anything but an American of Americans, instinct with the ideas, as he was devoted to the fortunes of the New World which gave him birth.
There is another class of critics who have attacked Washington from another side. These are the gentlemen who find him in the way of their own heroes. Washington was a man of decided opinions about men as well as measures, and he was extremely positive. He had his enemies as well as his friends, his likes and his dislikes, strong and clear, according to his nature. The respect which he commanded in his life has lasted unimpaired since his death, and it is an awkward thing for the biographers of some of his contemporaries to know that Washington opposed, distrusted, or disliked their heroes. Therefore, in one way or another they have gone round a stumbling-block which they could not remove. The commonest method is to eliminate Washington by representing him vaguely as the great man with whom every one agreed, who belonged to no party, and favored all; then he is pushed quietly aside. Evils and wrong-doing existed under his administration from the opposition point of view, but they were the work of his ministers and of wicked advisers. The king could do no wrong, and this pleasant theory, which is untrue in fact, amounts to saying that Washington had no opinions, but was simply a grand and imposing figure-head. The only ground for it which is even suggested is that he sought advice, that he used other men’s ideas, and that he made up his mind slowly. All this is true, and these very qualities help to show his greatness, for only small minds mistake their relations with the universe, and confuse their finite powers with omniscience. The great man, who sees facts and reads the future, uses other men, knows the bounds of possibility in action, can decide instantly if need be, but leaves rash conclusions to those who are incapable of reaching any others. In reality there never was a man who had more definite and vigorous opinions than Washington, and the responsibility which he bore he never shifted to other shoulders. The work of the Revolution and the presidency, whether good or bad, was his own, and he was ready to stand or fall by it.
There is a still further extension of the idea that Washington represented all parties and all views, and had neither party nor opinions of his own. This theory is to the effect that he was great by character alone, but that in other respects he did not rise above the level of dignified common-place. Such, for instance, is apparently the view of Mr. Parton, who in a clever essay discusses in philosophical fashion the possible advantages arising from the success attained by mere character, as in the case of Washington. Mr. Parton points his theory by that last incident of counting the pulse as death drew nigh. How characteristic, he exclaims, of the methodical, common-place man, is such an act. It was not common, be it said, even were it common-place. It was certainly a very simple action, but rare enough so far as we know on the every-day deathbed, or in the supreme hour of dying greatness, and it was wholly free from that affectation which Dr. Johnson thought almost inseparable from the last solemn moment. Irregularity is not proof of genius any more than method, and of the two, the latter is the surer companion of greatness. The last hour of Washington showed that calm, collected courage which had never failed in war or peace; and so far it was proof of character. But was it not something more? The common-place action of counting the pulse was in reality profoundly characteristic, for it was the last exhibition of the determined purpose to know the truth, and grasp the fact. Death was upon him; he would know the fact. He had looked facts in the face all his life, and when the mists gathered, he would face them still.
High and splendid character, great moral qualities for after-ages to admire, he had beyond any man of modern times. But to suppose that in other respects he belonged to the ranks of mediocrity is not only a contradiction in terms, but utterly false. It was not character that fought the Trenton campaign and carried the revolution to victory. It was military genius. It was not character that read the future of America and created our foreign policy. It was statesmanship of the highest order. Without the great moral qualities which he possessed, his career would not have been possible; but it would have been quite as impossible if the intellect had not equaled the character. There is no need to argue the truism that Washington was a great man, for that is universally admitted. But it is very needful that his greatness should be rightly understood, and the right understanding of it is by no means universal. His character has been exalted at the expense of his intellect, and his goodness has been so much insisted upon both by admirers and critics that we are in danger of forgetting that he had a great mind as well as high moral worth.
This false attitude both of praise and criticism has been so persisted in that if we accept the premises we are forced to the conclusion that Washington was actually dull, while with much more openness it is asserted that he was cold and at times even harsh. “In the mean time,” says Mr. McMaster, “Washington was deprived of the services of the only two men his cold heart ever really loved.” “A Cromwell with the juice squeezed out,” says Carlyle somewhere, in his rough and summary fashion. Are these judgments correct? Was Washington really, with all his greatness, dull and cold? He was a great general and a great President, first in war and first in peace and all that, says our caviler, but his relaxation was in farm accounts, and his business war and politics. He could plan a campaign, preserve a dignified manner, and conduct an administration, but he could write nothing more entertaining than a state paper or a military report. He gave himself up to great affairs, he was hardly human, and he shunned the graces, the wit, and all the salt of life, and passed them by on the other side.
That Washington was serious and earnest cannot be doubted, for no man could have done what he did and been otherwise. He had little time for the lighter sides of life, and he never exerted himself to say brilliant and striking things. He was not a maker of phrases and proclamations, and the quality of the charlatan, so often found in men of the highest genius, was utterly lacking in him. He never talked or acted with an eye to dramatic effect, and this is one reason for the notion that he was dull and dry; for the world dearly loves a little charlatanism, and is never happier than in being brilliantly duped. But was he therefore really dull and juiceless, unlovable and unloving? Responsibility came upon him when a boy, and he was hardly of age when he was carrying in his hands the defense of his colony and the heavy burden of other human lives. Experience like this makes a man who is good for anything sober; but sobriety is not dullness, and if we look a little below the surface we find the ready refutation of such an idea. In his letters and even in the silent diaries we detect the keenest observation. He looked at the country, as he traveled, with the eye of the soldier and the farmer, and mastered its features and read its meaning with rapid and certain glance. It was not to him a mere panorama of fields and woods, of rivers and mountains. He saw the beauties of nature and the opportunities of the farmer, the trader, or the manufacturer wherever his gaze rested. He gathered in the same way the statistics of the people and of their various industries. In the West Indies, on the Virginian frontier, in his journeys when he was President, he read the story of all he saw as he would have read a book, and brought it home with him for use.
[Illustration: NATHANAEL GREENE]
In the same way he read and understood men, and had that power of choosing among them which is essential in its highest form to the great soldier or statesman. His selection never erred unless in a rare instance like that of Monroe, forced on him by political exigencies, or when the man of his choice would not serve. Congress chose Gates for the southern campaign, but Washington selected Greene, in whom he saw great military ability before any one else realized it. He took Hamilton, young and unknown, from the captaincy of an artillery company, and placed him on his personal staff. He bore with Hamilton’s outbreak of temper, kept him ever in his confidence, and finally gave him the opportunity to prove himself the most brilliant of American statesmen. In the crowd of foreign volunteers, the men whom he especially selected and trusted were Lafayette and Steuben, each in his way of real value to the service. Even more remarkable than the ability to recognize great talent was his capacity to weigh and value with a nice exactness the worth of men who did not rise to the level of greatness. There is a recently published letter, too long for quotation here, in which he gives his opinions of all the leading officers of the Revolution,[1] and each one shows the most remarkable insight, as well as a sharp definiteness of outline that indicates complete mastery. These compact judgments were so sound that even the lapse of a century and all the study of historians and biographers find nothing in their keen analysis to alter and little to add. He did not expect to discover genius everywhere, or to find a marshal’s baton in every knapsack, but he used men according to their value and possibilities, which is quite as essential as the preliminary work of selection. His military staff illustrated this faculty admirably. Every man, after a few trials and changes, fitted his place and did his particular task better than any one else could have done it. Colonel Meade, loyal and gallant, a good soldier and planter, said that Hamilton did the headwork of Washington’s staff and he the riding. When the war was drawing to a close, Washington said one day to Hamilton, “You must go to the Bar, which you can reach in six months.” Then turning to Meade, “Friend Dick, you must go to your plantation; you will make a good farmer, and an honest foreman of the grand jury.”[2] The prediction was exactly fulfilled, with all that it implied, in both cases. But let it not be supposed that there was any touch of contempt in the advice to Meade. On the contrary, there was a little warmer affection, if anything, for he honored success in any honest pursuit, especially in farming, which he himself loved. But he distinguished the two men perfectly, and he knew what each was and what each meant. It seems little to say, but if we stop to think of it, this power to read men aright and see the truth in them and about them is a power more precious than any other bestowed by the kindest of fairy godmothers. The lame devil of Le Sage looked into the secrets of life through the roofs of houses, and much did he find of the secret story of humanity. But the great man looking with truth and kindliness into men’s natures, and reading their characters and abilities in their words and acts, has a higher and better power than that attributed to the wandering sprite, for such a man holds in his hand the surest key to success. Washington, quiet and always on the watch, after the fashion of silent greatness, studied untiringly the ever recurring human problems, and his just conclusions were powerful factors in the great result. He was slow, when he had plenty of time, in adopting a policy or plan, or in settling a public question, but he read men very quickly. He was never under any delusion as to Lee, Gates, Conway, or any of the rest who engaged against him because they were restless from the first under the suspicion that he knew them thoroughly. Arnold deceived him because his treason was utterly inconceivable to Washington, and because his remarkable gallantry excused his many faults. But with this exception it may be safely