Nor are concrete evidences of his greatness as a soldier lacking. We re member the Berserker rashness and dar ing displayed at Fart Duquesne and at Monmouth, and we recall William the Conqueror at Hastings. We watch him at the crossing of the Delaware and at Valley Forge, and we recall Hannibal on the Alps. We observe him turning a ragged body of suspicious New Eng landers into trained soldiers ready to die for him, and we recall no less a man than Cmsar. We see him put down the Conway cabal and reduce Congress to his bidding, and we recall Marlborough. We see him quell Lee with his fiery eye and biting words, and we somehow recall Cromwell. We watch him in his tent, brooding over the treason of Arnold and weighing the claims of mercy and justice in the case of Andre, and we recall only his own imperial self. Yes, Washington the general is a supremely great man, and those who deny the fact do so be cause they have not been able to survey his career from the proper point of view. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that to the trained student his greatness is even implicit in his proclamations to his soldiers from first to last.
He was no master of style, but cer tainly for directness and vigor of phrase, for patriotic purpose, for clear-sighted content, his circular letter to the gover nors of all the States (June 8, 1783) is unsurpassed among the political docu ments of the world. His entire corre spondence from the time he retired from command of the army till he re-entered the service of his country as its first President, is a monument to his modesty, his magnanimity, his prudence, and his wisdom. Frederick the Great himself, resting from war that he might restore order and peace to the people, is no grander figure than this victorious American general, watching from Mount Vernon the fortunes of his country, and lending the weight of his counsel and his example to the sacred cause of union. He served this cause still further by pre siding over the convention in 1787, and 1789 he entered on the presidency of the nation, assuming a new role for which he was admirably fitted and in which he was destined to achieve magnificent success.
To many persons Washington the statesman is harder to realize than Washington the general. This is prob ably a result of political partisanship. Men look back to those two great found ers of parties, Jefferson and Hamilton, and forget the chief who dominated and controlled them. Washington really made Hamilton and he always used Jef ferson when he needed him; it was thus perhaps in accordance with weak hu man nature that Hamilton should have been ungrateful to his memory, while Jefferson was impelled to pay him a tribute—noble in spite of its jealous touches. No fact in history is more clearly established than that Washington was the chief figure in his own adminis trations. He came to the chair of State with the best equipment possible, and he would have left it vacant forever had it been requisite to fill it with a successor who should be his equal. He had not the analytic mind of Hamilton nor the philosophic grasp of Jefferson, but his training for the duties of a statesman had been superior to theirs. He came of a race used to act and to command. From an early age he had to rely on himself, and so he attained to that self-discipline which is indispensable to a political leader. Circumstances determined that he should learn the lessons of life from men rather than from books; thus he stood in no danger of becoming a doctrin aire. His early experiences as a survey or, a backwoodsman, and a soldier gave him a true sympathy with democracy, and hence enabled him to understand the only rational principle on which a stable government could be founded in Amer ica; while his good birth and training, and his position as a planter aristocrat, put him in touch with that English past from which it would have been impossible for the new nation to break entirely. Add to all this the fact that his nature was essentially straightforward and manly, and that he had not a conspicuous weakness, that his mind was clear and flexible, and if not quick, certainly not slow, and we surely have as well-equipped a statesman as the world's history can furnish.
Compared with him, how the other figures of the period, even the greatest, shrink and diminish! The spiritual dig nity of his altruism sits not on Franklin; his breadth and catholic charity of judg ment belong neither to Hamilton nor to Jefferson: and who would think of com paring with him the Madisons, the Jays, the Morrises, the Ameses, the Wilsons of the time, able and patriotic men though they all were. Dignity, steadfastness, up rightness, serenity, benignity, wisdom— these are the characteristics of Wash ington's statesmanship, whether we re gard his firm policy of resistance to the insolence of revolutionary France, or his refusal to plunge his country into a second war with England, or his cordial acceptance of the financial measures of Hamilton, or his steady accentuation of the national principle, or his noble efforts to reconcile his cabinet, or his strong but humane policy toward the Indians, or his prompt crushing of the Whisky Rebellion, or finally, his progressive views on the subjects of slavery and national education, and his prophetic comprehension of the importance of the West. A perfect equipoise of powers, which taken separately would not be supreme, appears to be the characteristic mark of his rare variety of genius, which among men of action is illustrated in Alfred the Great, and among men of letters in Sophocles. It is to this class that Washington belongs—to the class of men whose balance of faculties is so serenely perfect as to constitute genius of perhaps the highest order. What shall we say of such a man, save that he was as great in peace as he was in war; that he was veritably the Father of his Country? Washington became Commander-in Chief of the American army on June 15, 1775, and for several years his history was that of the Revolutionary War, else where recorded. Suffice it here to say that he created the American army; fought the English generals, Howe, Clin ton, Burgoyne, and Cornwallis, with va rious results; till, finally, he surrounded Cornwallis at Yorktown, and com pelled him to capitulate. To his intre pidity, prudence, and moderation the United States is almost wholly indebted for the independence which was secured to it by the treaty of peace concluded in 1783. Soone after this event Washington resigned his commission to Congress, and in his address on that occasion the mag nanimity of the hero was blended with the wisdom of the philosopher. He re turned to his seat at Mount Vernon and, like Cincinnatus of old, he returned to his former and favorite pursuit of agri culture. The federation of the States having failed to afford an efficient gov ernment, Washington proposed conven tions for commercial purposes, which led to the Convention of 1787, of which he was a member, which founded the present Federal Constitution, considered by him as the only security against an archy and civil war. Under this Con stitution he was chosen President, and inaugurated in New York, April 30, 1789. His government was marked by that well-tempered prudence which dis tinguished all his conduct. Having been re-elected as president, he held office till 1797, when he again retired to his estate at Mount Vernon. In 1797, when there arose a difficulty with France, threaten ing hostilities, he was appointed Lieu tenant-General and Commander-in-Chief, a post which he accepted with extreme reluctance, but with that spirit of obedi ence to the call of duty which has been the governing rule of his life. On Dec. 12, 1799, he was exposed in the saddle, for several hours, to cold and snow, and attacked with acute laryngitis, for which he was repeatedly and largely bled, but sank rapidly, and died, Dec. 14.