Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

for their good, never in the dark ages of national fortune when anxious patriots explore the annals of the past for examples of public virtue, never in the admonition of the parent forming the minds of his children by lessons of fireside wisdom, never, oh, never, will the name of Napoleon, nor of any of the other famous conquerors of ancient and modern days, be placed upon a level with Washington's.

But though Washington was thus great in an age of great men and great events, yet was his greatness neither borrowed nor reflected, but original. This is a trait in his character, and in that of some of his most distinguished contemporaries, not perhaps duly appreciated; that they were to a degree rarely, if ever, equaled, the architects of their own character and of their country's fortunes. Enriched and instructed as we are by the bright examples, the recorded opinions, and the established institutions of the past, we reflect too little how much guidance we derive from them in the practical duties of public life; nor do we sufficiently bear in mind how many of these examples, opinions, and institutions came down to us from the age of Washington; how few go back to an earlier period, or could have been of use in the formation of his mind or the guidance of his conduct. In order fully to estimate what he did for the country, he and his associates, we must contrast America as it was in 1732, without great events, great institutions, great traditions, and great characters, with America as it stood at his decease rich in great events, great institutions, great traditions, and great characters, and his the greatest of them all. Our voyage is on a well-known sea, the course laid down on faithful charts, and the shores and the havens pointed out and describedˇ· by those who have preceded us; but Washington and the men of his age were compelled, against adverse tempests, to sound their way along the unvisited coasts of republican government and constitutional liberty.

II. HIS SOLITARY EMINENCE

Mr. Everett declares that Washington was called upon to take part in measures which were without precedent, and he and his associates were compelled to form their own plan of government. "I doubt if a hundred pages had been written to which Washington and the men of his age could refer for such lessons as to us drawn from the writings and examples of

the Revolutionary age - are as familiar as household words."

There was no Washington in the seventeenth century, in the pure mirror of whose character the Washington of the eighteenth century could mold and fashion his youthful virtues, or rehearse the great part he was to act in life.

There was none in America, there was none in Europe, there was none in the modern world, there was none in the ancient world. I cast my eyes along the far-stretching galleries of history, still echoing to the footsteps of the mighty dead; I behold with admiration the images and the statues of the great and good men with which they are accorded. I see many who deserved well of their country in civil and in military life, on the throne, in the council chamber, on the battle field, — but I Behold in the long line, no other Washington. I return from the search up and down the pathways of time, grateful to the Providence which, at the solemn moment, when the destinies of the Continent were suspended in the balance of doubtful future, raised up a chieftain endowed with every quality of mind and heart to guide the fortunes of a nascent state.

If, then, we claim for Washington this solitary eminence among the great and good, the question will naturally be asked, in what the peculiar and distinctive excellence of his character consisted; and to this fair question I own, my friends, I am tasked to find an answer that does full justice to my own conceptions and feelings. It is easy to run over the heads of such a contemplation; to enumerate the sterling qualities which he possessed, and the defects from which he was free; but when all is said in this way that can be said, with whatever justice of honest eulogy and whatever sympathy of appreciation, we feel that there is a depth which we have not sounded, a latent power we have not

measured, a mysterious beauty of character which you can no more describe in words than you can paint a blush; a moral fascination, so to express it, which all feel but which we cannot analyze nor trace to its elements. All the personal traditions of Washington assure us that there was a serene dignity in his presence, which charmed while it awed the boldest who approached him.

You feel as if you are gazing into that patient blue eye, where resignation shades into sadness; that you are looking upon a man whose word you would respect as an uninspired scripture, whose probity you would trust with uncounted gold, whose counsels you would lay up in your heart as those of a dying father, whose lead you would implicitly follow in the darkest hours of trial, ( whose good opinion you would not barter for the wealth of the Indies; a man toward whom affection rises into reverence, and reverence melts back into childish, tearful love.nce

I am disposed to place the distinctive beauty and excellence of Washington's character in that well-balanced aggregate of powers and virtues for which he was distinguished, and which necessarily excludes the possession of one or two highly developed prominent traits. No one, I think, who has carefully reflected on the subject but will come to the conclusion that, instead of being improved, his character would have been impaired by any such dazzling quality, especially when we take into account the defects with which such qualities are sure to be accompanied. The ardent and ungoverned temperament, the indomitable will, often another name for arrogant obstinacy and selfishness, the passionate love of distinction and applause, which enter so largely in most cases into what is called a brilliant public character, would have destroyed the beauty and broken down the strength of Washington's. The ancient philosophers placed the true conception of perfect manhood in the possession of those powers and qualities which are required for the honorable and successful discharge of the duties of life, each in the golden mean, equally removed from excess in either direction, and all in due proportion. This type of true greatness I find more fully realized in the character of Washington

than in that of any other chieftain or ruler of ancient or modern times. He did not possess a few brilliant qualities in that exaggerated degree in which they are habitually ascribed to the heroes of poetry and romance, but he united all the qualities required for the honorable and successful conduct of the greatest affairs, each in the happy mean of a full maturity, and all in that true proportion in which they balance and sustain each other.

III. HIS MORAL GRANDEUR

Mr. Everett discusses the special qualities that go to make up Washington's character, among which are prudence, love of justice, common sense, a calm temperament, and modesty. Then he says that all these were "founded on the basis of pure Christian morality."

All the great qualities of disposition and action, which so eminently fitted him for the service of his fellow men, were founded on the basis of a pure Christian morality, and derived their strength and energy from that vital source. He was great as he was good; he was great because he was good; and I believe, as I do in my existence, that it was an important part in the design of Providence in raising him up to be the leader of the Revolutionary struggle, and afterwards the first President of the United States, to rebuke prosperous ambition and successful intrigue; to set before the people of America, in the morning of their national existence, a living example to prove that armies may be best conducted, and governments most ably and honorably administered, by men of sound moral principle; to teach to gifted and aspiring individuals, and the parties they lead, that, though a hundred crooked paths may conduct to a temporary success, the one plain and straight path of public and private virtue can alone lead to a pure and lasting fame and the blessings of posterity.

Born beneath a humble but virtuous roof, brought up at the knees of a mother not unworthy to be named with the noblest matrons of Rome or Israel, the "good boy," as she delighted to call him, passed uncorrupted through the temptations of the solitary frontier, the camp, and the gay world, and grew up the

good man. Engaging in early youth in the service of his country, rising rapidly to the highest trusts, office and influence and praise, passing almost the bounds of human desert, did nothing to break down the austere simplicity of his manners or to shake the solid basis of his virtues. Placed at the head of the suffering and discontented armies of his country, urged by the tempter to change his honest and involuntary dictatorship of influence into a usurped dictatorship of power, reluctantly consenting to one reëlection to the Presidency and positively rejecting a second, no suspicion ever crossed the mind of an honest man let the libelers say what they would, for libelers I am sorry to say there were in that day as in this, men who pick their daily dishonorable bread out of the characters of men as virtuous as themselves, and they spared not Washington - but the suspicion never entered into the mind of an honest man that his heart was open to the seductions of ambition or interest; or that he was capable in the slightest degree, by word or deed, of shaping his policy with a view to court popular favor or serve a selfish end; that a wish or purpose ever entered his mind inconsistent with the spotless purity of his character.

There is a modest, private mansion on the bank of the Potomac,/ the abode of George Washington. It boasts no spacious portal, nor gorgeous colonnade, nor massy elevation, nor storied tower. No arch or column, in courtly English or courtlier Latin, sets forth the deeds and the worth of the Father of his Country; he needs them not; the unwritten benedictions of millions cover all the walls. No gilded dome swells from the lowly roof to catch the morning or evening beam, but the love and gratitude of united America settle upon it in one eternal sunshine. From beneath that humble roof went forth the intrepid and unselfish warrior the magistrate who knew no glory but his country's good; to that he returned happiest when his work was done. There he lived in noble simplicity; there he died in glory and peace. While it stands, the latest generations of the grateful children of America will make their pilgrimage to it as to a shrine; and when it shall fall, if fall it must, the memory and the name of Washington shall shed an eternal glory on the spot.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »