E312 LIBRARY OF CX)NGRE$S 35435D 1 III III DO 003 •. "o • k * A <> *^TrT lOv!, ,40, ^- i-^"^' .i;^!- "^__ c^' .c:;.;^^^ ^o - ^^r^ ^""^t. "^o^ ".'^^'X. ^*'' v^*il%% ^^ ^r-^'- Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/addressonserviGeOOever ADDRESS SERVICES OF WASHINGTON, BEFORE THE SCHOOL CHILDREN OF BOSTON ^ OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE, 22 FEBRUARY 1886. WILLIAM EVERETT. BOSTON : ROBERTS BROTHERS, 1886. ADDRESS SERVICES OF WASHINGTON, BKFOKK THK 5CH00L CHILDREN OF BOSTON, OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE. 22 FEBRUARY 1886, WILLIAM EVERETT. SEP 6 1881 Ol©/wASHlH' BOSTON -N^- WASHIHC^ ROBERTS BROTHERS, 188G. C<7 ADDRESS May it Please Youk Honor: Fellow Citizens, Young and Old — When Boston cele- brates Washington's Birthday in the Old South, it is natural to think of that winter long ago when Washington himself passed his birthday within cannon shot of the Old South, one might say. One hundred and ten years ago this day, the 22d of February, was kept by Washington in the old headquarters at Cambridge, chafing at the want of artillery that delayed his driving the English out of Boston. This house, as I trust every boy and girl here knows, was a riding school for the British troopers, who found it easier to exercise their horses in the Old South than to get hay and corn for them, with the rebel parties scour- ing every meadow and island, and carrying off the fodder by stacks. There is no record, so far as I am aware, of any extraordinary flood near Boston in the second week of February, 1776, though perhaps it would not have done so much harm if there had been, as people then did not think of living in the swamps and gullies into which they now crowd, and it would have been justly thought absurd and impious to turn the oozy flats west of the Common into streets and houses. But we do know that it was an open and warm season. '^ Everything thaAvs here but Old Put," says a letter written in those days. Old Put was full of a plan to march straight across those same Back Bay flats, when they Avere frozen, as he thought they ought to have been in the month of February ; but they re- mained obstinately open, and the old hero of the wolfs den was frozen and crusty in proportion. By the 4th of IMarch, wdiich is sure to be a cold day for somebody, the ground was again frozen solid, and the hard frost added no little to the difficulty experienced by Washington in fortify- ing Dorchester Heights for the final assault. The ^^reparations for that assault were actively going on all this third week of February. It was, I tliiidv, on this very day that General Knox suc- ceeded in completing the transport of his siege guns all across the State, from the forts on Lake Champlain — no trifling feat even now with our railroads, and a portentous task on the winter roads of that day. The hay which the poor horses in the Old South missed so sadly was packing into enormous fascines for the siege works on the heights. Manly, by his daring capture at sea, had at last secured an abundance of powder ; Gridley and Thomas, and Rufus Putnam, the pioneer of Ohio, w^ere working on all details of the final storm. And it must have been almost exactly on the anniversary of Washington's Birthday that he began the actual putting into operation those plans which culminated on the anniversary of the Boston massacre, eleven days later, with the fatal seizure of the heights. In about a fortnight more the English were driven from Boston,, and Washington went in triumphal procession along the Neck, and into this buildino' to see and mourn over the ravag-'es of the brutal troopers. Our street, afterwards named for him, was then known as Orange street from the iiarrowest part, not far from Union Park, to Essex street; as Newbury street to West street; as Marlborough street to School street ; and as Cornhill to its termination in Dock square. These names re- mained well into this century; but it did not need the change to the name of Washington to stamp his memory on every stone in these streets, every brick in this ancient meeting-house and in all the buildings of Boston, every wharf that pro- jects into our harbor, every tree that waves on the Common, every hearthstone that glows with domestic comfort, every dome and spire tliat courts the sun. Boston itself, which he con- quered for its own people, which he saved from the fires of its spiteful garrison, — Boston, Avliich always loved him, always honored him, always fought with him and for him, always reverenced and mourned him, — is a monument in every foot of her territory to him, her darling chief, her sainted guide, as pure and as single as the stately obelisk that toAvers at the cit}' of his name on the banks of his own river. His birthday will be celebrated in many ways throughout the United States to-day; but this celebration, I understand, is to keep his name alive in the hearts of young people — to tell them why we give an entire holiday, not to any great battle or great event like Bunker Hill or the Dec- laration, but to a man : the only man, as far as I know, on whose birthday an entire nation now openly stoj^s its work and gives way to grateful memories. AVhen I was a boy, the age of many of you, I was tired, not to say sick, of hearing about Wash- ington. It seemed to me that every book which they gave me about the country, every history, every reader, every speaker talked about him in- cessantly, as if there was no one else in the world, as if his was the only name worth mentioning. And yet it seemed to me it was only a name ; they were always talking about his character, as if it was something one had never seen before; they praised it in the same words over and over again ; and yet they did not seem to tell me about any- thing particular that he did or said. I found his life terribly dull to read ; I could not remember it, as I could the lives of other men ; and I turned away tired and weary of Washington's name, to find in other biographies and other histories the stories of men whom I seemed to feel were more real and nearer to my heart. I think this weariness came partly from the oooks which were written about Washington. The standard lives of him, on which the cliiklren's books were based, were written by men who hon- ored him and loved him, who wanted to preserve every scrap of real Jvnowledge abont him, and make a life as trnthful as he was himself. > They consequently threw away a great deal of trash in the way of impossible feats and sayings that had been invented abont him, and determined to tell nothing but the truth ; but they threw away also the real life of the man. They did what a great many authors did about fifty years ago — in order to make books that nobody could find fault with, they made books that nobody could care about ; and consequently they left on my mind just ex- actly that idea about Washington, — that he was a man that nobody could find fault with, but that nobody could care about. That was the way I felt as a boy. It was just thirty years ago this dav that 1 heard an oration about Washington Avhich set me thinking, as it did thousands of other Americans, what it could be that had made the Avhole country pick him out as such a man above other men; why the men who saw him during the sixty-seven years of his life, and their sons to whom they told his story, thought of him as they never thought of any other man. I began noting down every- thing I could learn about what the man actually had been in the time when he lived ; I compared him with other men who had done great things ; and very soon I found out why every one who talked about him had spoken of his character. I found out that the things he said and did, although many of them were really great things, yet ijeemed almost nothing, besides the man him- self. There was something — there is something — about him that not only made the things great wherein he succeeded, but the very things where- in he failed more honorable — and even glorious — than the successes of other men. I soon saw that the men of his own time put confidence in him, entirely independent of whether he suc- ceeded or failed, as people commonly talk of success or failure. I found out that when all he had to sliow^ for the men and mone}^ and power which he had received, was a thinned, discon- tented, defeated army, that was held to be only a reason for giving him more power — for giving him absolute power — that he might make the army strong and victorious. And so, as I read on, I became convinced that the whole man, his en- tire life, his united purposes, his unchangeable spirit, his character, in short, Avas something greater and stronger than other men, who might perhaps have done or said one thing, or half a dozen things, more striking than anything he could do. And so, my dear boys and girls, it began to dawn upon me what it was that made Washing- ton spoken of as I had found him. The men who had known him and the men to whom they had talked of him spoke of him in simple words of praise and trust for his greatness and goodness, without going into particuhirs, as they Avoukl about other men, because lie Avas all great and good. When you talk about Avealth and treas- ure ; Avhen you count U]^) all the thousand beautiful and useful and precious things in Bos- ton ; when you tell of the riclies and the labor and the study and the inyention that they need to produce their monstrous masses, their convenient appliances, their beautiful shapes, their gorgeous colors, you do not count in this air that is playing through our lungs, and this light that is stream- ing from heayen. These are not called yaluable, because they are priceless. They are not a part of our wealth or a help to our living, because they are Avealth and life itself; you cannot describe them — you cannot even see the air or touch the light ; but the air and light are above and beyond and Avitliin everything. So I found out it was with America in the last forty years of the centu- ry ; she had brave soldiers, skilful generals, Avise statesmen, eloquent orators, cunning inventors, bold seamen ; but behind and beyond and above them all she had this man, Avhose manhood, Avhose mere existence, helped to make the manhood and life of others, and Avas Avortli more than all that the best of them said and did. And so boys and girls, 1 learned to feel as those men felt. I learned to honor and love that man aboA^e every great man I read of; I learned to feel it Avas rio'ht he should be singled out as 10 the man of men, to have his birthday celebrated among all our great and glorious days till the end of time. I should like to make you feel as I feel ; I should like to give you, if you have not got it, something of the notion of vilmt it is to be simply a great man, and not merely great in some one thing. I shall try to do so ; and I think it will do no harm if I first run over to you what the great events of his life were, and it would be an excellent plan for you to learn them by heart. Learning names and dates and events by heart is in itself a good thing, though some people who don't know them, or are too lazy to know them, pretend it is not. George Washington was born in Westmore- land, Virginia, on the 22d of February, 1732, though people were eleven days behind then, so they called it only the 11th. His father, Augus- tine Washington, was a worthy Virginia planter, who died when George was quite young, and left the family to his mother's care. This lady, Avhose name had been Mary Ball, was, I am afraid, a pretty stern person, and brought up George in what was even then a very strict and unyielding way. His own brother Lawrence had made the acquaintance of Admiral Vernon, a very distin- guished naval officer, and when he built a new house higher up the Potomac, named it Mt. Vernon. ^ George was very near entering the English Navy in consequence of this friendship. He grew up unusually tall, strong and handsome, 11 very fond of out-door sports, especially fox hunt- ing, and was naturally of a fiery temper, which he managed to keep in control in a way I fear very few of us ever do. Whenever I hear of a boy, or for that matter of a man either, who excuses him- self for something wrong because he was made so, I think of Washington's temper, and how he made himself the most even of men. George was not in a way to get a great deal of schooling ; but as far as he could he educated himself to be a surveyor, and in that profession acquired a great knowledo'e of the wild land and mountains and rivers, and not a little of the wild men to the west of the Virginia settlements. In 1751 he entered the militia and studied everything he could on tlie art of war. In 1752 his brother died, and George succeeded to the family estate. Toward the end of the same year he was sent by the governor of Virginia on a very dangerous expedition, to the extreme frontier settlements on the iMonongahela and Alleghany, to see if there was any truth in the report that the French and Indians were preparing war against the colonies. In the return he was in imminent danger of los- ing his life, first by his Indian guide's treachery, and then by the flood and ice of the Alleghany, The next year, when war was actually at hand, he was sent to construct a frontier post near where Pittsburg now stands, which he called Fort Necessity. He was soon attacked, and obliged to surrender on the 4th of July, just twenty-two 12 years before the great declaration, leading his lit- tle force back with the utmost prudence and courage. In almost exactly a year he accompan- ied General Braddock to the same spot, and esca^iied from the disgraceful carnage without a wound, although a constant mark for the Indian bullets. In consequence of the disputes between officers of troops raised in the colonies and those who had come over from England, he soon with-! drew from the army; but he became a very important member of the Virginia Legislature. When the war for the rights of the Colonies broke^ out, in 1775, he was made commander-in-chief. He drove Sir William Howe from Boston in March, 1776. Later in the year he was defeated at Long Island, and at White Plains, retreating into New Jersey ; just as the old year was passing into the new, he Avon the victories of Trenton and Princeton ; he was defeated successively at the Brandywine and Germantown, 1777, and ended the year in the winter (juarters of Valley Forge near Philadelphia, in terrible suffering. He fought the battle of Monmouth in 1778, which would liave been a brilliant Aictory but for the treach- ery of Charles Lee. He narrowly escaped being captured at West Point, by the treachery of Arnold, 1780. With the help of the French allies he forced Lord Cornwallis to surrender in 1781. In 1784 he laid down his commission and retired wholly to private life. In 1787 he was president c.f the convention that formed the Constitution 13 Df the United States ; wai chosen the first Pres- ident after it had been adopted, and inaugurated Dn the 30th of April, 1789 ; served for two terms is President, and peremptorily refusing a third berm, issued his farewell address to the people in 1796. The next year war broke out with France. He was called from his retirement and made lieutenant-general in 1798, and on the 14th of December, 1799, he died of a neglected cold, at uhe age of not quite sixty-eight years. These are the great events — the great land- Qiarks in his life. For what he showed himself in these years the men of his own time ranked him as a man fit to rank with the greatest men that 9ver lived ; a name which America need never Pear to present to the world when great men are ^poken of, and challenge other nations, old and new, to name a greater. What was it that made him so great ? What is it that makes anybody great ? What are great lien ? You might define the word in twenty dif- ferent ways ; and, as it seems to me, a great deal )f time has been wasted in cautioning boys and ^irls not to get mistaken ideas of greatness. When [ was a boy, there used to be a debate printed for 3oys to speak on the question whether Julius Zlaesar was or Avas not a great man ; you can find t in the old reading books, and a very rambling ind profitless debate it is. There are all sorts of ^reat men ; and every one of us will have some 'avorite, who we have been taught to think, or 14 have taught ourselves to think, is the greatest of the great. But I understand a great man to be one who leaves the world different from what he found it. He has stamped the seal of his name ujDon history, so that men must read it carelessly if they pass him by. The ways in which men are great are countless ; and some persons have their eyes so fixed upon one kind of greatness or another that they are surprised to learn that there have been great men whom they never heard of, and cannot believe they really are great. I am going to name to you a dozen men, born within a very few years of Washington, ever}^ one of whom changed the w^orld, so that either in his own lifetime, or after his death, men could not and cannot now do their own w^ork, without stop- ping to think what these great masters did before them, and learning of them, just as you learn of your teachers now. I shall scarcely go out of England in my list, and I shall name nobody that Washington might not easily have known if he had been so inclined. In that same year, 1732, which brought Washington into the world, was born Warren Hastings, the great governor of India, who fixed the empire of England over the Hindoos, Avitli a head as clear as crystal, but a hand and heart, I am afraid, as hard as iron. In the same year were born Lord Kenyon and Lord Thurlow, who were two of the very greatest lawyers and judges £)f their time, and rose together to be Chief Justie i5 and Chancellor of England. In the same year, 1732, was born Joseph Haydn, the great mnsical composer, the author of the '^ Seasons '' and the " Creation," whose strains are as sweet and as heavenly now as they were a hundred years ago. In 1731, the year before Washington, Avas' born William Cowper, the inspired poet, the author of the " Task '' and of "John Gilpin," who raised poetry almost from the grave in England with his manly, tender, lofty verses, never written for any but a good end. In that same year of 1731, was born Henry Cavendish, the great chemist, the discoverer of the composition of water, who gave that marvellous science of chemistrj^ a new im- pulse that it still feels. One 3'ear earlier, in 1730, was born Edmund Burke, the wise statesman, the oiorious orator, whom Ireland o-ave to Enoiand as the model of what her great men ought to be, the friend of America, dearer even to us than to his own. One year earlier, ^^'as born James Cook, the bold navigator, who brought the islands of the Pacific out of the darkness of ages ; as kind and thoughtful a captain as he Avas an intrepid and wise navigator. Six years before Washington, was born John Howard, the lover of mankind, who travelled the length and breadth of Europe, to relieve the miseries of the prisoner. Nine years before Washington, we have Reynolds, the great painter, on whose canvas the great men and lovely women of the century live and breathe in a rich immortality. Four years after Washington, was 1(5 l)orn, ill 1736, James Watt, the mighty iuveiitor, who seized on the spirit of tlie steam ch^ud, and chained his giant limbs for the Avork and service of man. In 1737 was born Edward Gibbon, the great historian, Avho compressed the fall of Rome, the story of fourteen centuries, into a monumental work, which all other writers must despair of sur- passing. In 1738, was born William Herschel, the astronomer, who turned to the heavens a mightier telescope by far than had yet been known, and forced the remote depths of the solar system to reveal the planet Uranus, whose very existence before was scarcely known and Avholly misunderstood. NoAV, here I have named to you a dozen men, every one of whom did something great, — every one of whom made the world feel liim ; to every one of whom the world has looked up as a master. And the stamp which they put on the world has not worn away. With two exceptions, they are all valued more highly than they were in their lives. The two great lawyers I named to you, Avho were considered in their lifetime far more successful, far luckier, as men say, than any of the others, have much less chance of having their names permanently counted among the really great men of the world than any of the others who were their contemporaries. Now what was it that made men count Wash- ington in his lifetime, and makes them count him now, greater in degree, greater in kind than any 17 of these ? He painted no pictures, he wrote no poems or histories, he sung no strains of nuisic, he discovered no islands, no elements, no planets. He did not make men tremble before him at the Bar, nor hang on his lips in the Senate. The only man of the twelve with whom we can> direct- ly compare him is Warren Hastings, who ceased to govern India just as Washington was beginning t(j govern America ; and the wide provinces that he ruled, the teeming millions he swayed, the vast tributes he exacted, the numerous and well-ap- pointed troops he directed, shame into insignifi- cance the half-clothed and feeble regiments, the scanty, the ill-paid, rather the unpaid, revenues, the scattered population of the half-explored and undeveloped country, which was all Washington liad to rule. Yet it seems almost a profane insult to name in the same day with Washington the great pro-consul whose birth so nearly agreed witli his own in time. He stands higher than all these men, most of whom were as good as they were great, because his work was in itself a greater work ; because the way he did it was a greater way than that in_ which work is often done, and because he inspired a trust in himself for what he did which made men yield themselves to liim as to a superior being. His work was the greatest that man requires. He created a nation. The time had come in the 18 providence of God tliat the United States should he no n:iore a dependency of England, but a peo- ple by themselves, and it was he that made them so. It very, very rarely happens that a new nation forms itself and takes its place among those that exist already. It can only be done when they choose to recognize it and admit that it really is their sister; and in order that they may give it this recognition, there must be some ^Ji'oof that it is worthy of that high place. It was "Washington that gave such a j^roof to the world. It was he, more than anyone man, — more than all togethe]", — whom America accepted as her leader, whom she j^resented to the world as her chosen son, the representative of her A'ery self. It was long years before the existence of the United States, the equal and sister of every other nation, was fully established ; again and again it seemed as if our self-assertion, our declaration must be 23remature — as if we must break down ; and again and again it was Washington and Washington alone on whom we fell back as a rock from which the waves must recoil. After the defeat of White Plains in 1776, the capture of Philadelphia in 1777, the rout of Camden in 1780, the prostration of national sentiment in 1785, the insolent aggres- sions of France in 1793 and 1798, it did seem as if America, the last hope of constitutional liberty, must break down under one or another evil force ; and every time it was the living jDresence of Washington that rallied the good and true all 19 over the Avoiid to lier support, like tlie white plume of Heniy lY, in the shock of Iviy. This creation of a new people, this adding a new star to the cluster of the nations, is a greater thing for man than the work of Cavendish in finding two gases in water, or of Cook in' finding new islands in the ocean, or of Herschel hi de- tecting a ncAV planet in the skies. It does not merely add a new name to the map ; but it endows every man and woman witliin the lines where that new name is printed with a life that had not belonged to them under the old. It is a great thing whenever it is done. When Italy became a nation, men could not help sounding the name of Cavour as a great man, though many things in his career might seem artful and almost treacherous. When Germany became a nation, men could not help praising Bismarck, though much in him may seem savage and tyrannical ; but both these men made a people. When a people is created, it claims for itself the glory of all other creations and discoveries which any of its children may acquire. The planet that Piazzi discovered at Palermo, the music that Bach poured forth at Eisenach have a new glory since Cavour and Bismarck created Italy and Germany. Since Washington's time, astronomers and chemists, artists and inventors, historians and poets, have sent the name of the United States far and wide through the Avorld ; but not one of all these illus- trious men but feels a keener glow in his own 20 triumph from tlie thouglit tliat lie is tlie country- iiiaii of Washington, the founder and father of jiis home. J)Ut he not merely made a new nation — he made it in the interests of haw and liberty. A nation may be created for no good. If a wikl tribe succeeds in breaking away from Avise re- straint, if a tyrant succeeds in carving out an empire and giving it his own name, it is a great but an accursed deed ; it is like the discovery of a new disease, or the invention of a new poison ; we wish that it may prove a failure. But Wash- ington made a new nation on the principles that pojnilar liberty can exist with a welcome to the natives of all lands, that reverence for law can exist among a people that are working to ])lant and subdue a wilderness ; and to find anything like v/hat he did we must go back to the unknown and unreal ages, when Theseus is said to have united in one the scattered communities of Attica and made of them the city of Athens, the home of liberty, the refuge of the oppressed, the mother of all that was bright and beautiful in the ancient world, the never-dying model of art and elo- quence and poetry. But it w^as the Avay he did tliii work, the virtues that he showed Avhile he Avas doing it, that made men feel that no nation ever had been so created, that no nation could have been cre- ated out of such materials by any other man. It was the far-reaching prudence that made him 21 calculate to the full ever}' measure Ijefore lie uudertook it ; it was the untiring patience which made him live and^Avork and plan through reverse after reverse and disappointment after disappoint- ment ; it was the dauntless courage and fortitude that made him eao-er to attack on the sli2,'htest opening, and slow to ^^ield under the severest pressure ; it was tlie soaring confidence, the un- dying hope — that child of patience and daring combined — that made him positively incapable of the despair that Ijowed others to the dust; it A\as tlie absolute unselfishness and generosity that prevented him, a score of times, from draw- ing to himself precisely the advantages that have corrupted one conqueror after another, while he saw, not only without a murmur, but wdtli the utmost cordiality, brilliant prizes assigned to oth- ers ; it was the unflinching devotion to right and duty, tlie stern rebuke of anything like wrong, the absolute reliance on God and reference to his will, which lifted him up to a higher level than most of us reach, and caused men to look to his words and his very thouglits as tliose of the in- spired of the Lord. Of these qualities, two st'eni to me most exceptional and wonderful, the sort of qualities that one wants in a liero, in tlie man whom you pick out to be your own favorite. -First, is that wonderful quality of hope — a child, as I say, of daring and patience — which is never satisfied with failure, which never gives up a cause, which 22 is ready to look forward a thousand times after the workl says there is nothing ahead. Hope is a virtue ; hope is a duty ; it is a guiding principle in our relio'ion, wherein tlie teaching^ of Christ differs from that of those strange people called philosophers, ancient or modern, in that it com- mands us to desire, to anticipate, to claim a future of success and happiness as the reward of duty. I cannot tell you how I despise the opposite phi- losophy, the doctrine of acquiescence, which believes that we ought to accept failures as our proper portion, and mould ourselves to destiny; still more, liow hateful to me is that belief, which has great names to sanction it, if anything could sanction it, that sometimes the best thing we could do is to try no longer, but to give up hope itself as a failure. Yet this last, meanest, most detestable belief is spreading, I cannot take up a paper now but I see the spread of this misera- ble, cowardly delusion of suicide. Every day I read of some man or woman or boy — thank Heaven I I scarcely ever see the news told of a girl — who decides that life is not worth living, and accordingly destroys what God gave to be used under his laws. It is a special sin of our times, as it has been of certain times before, this silly cow^ardice, this wanton wickedness, that can- not see God's sun shining behind the darkest cloud. I do not desire to spend many w^ords over a sin Avhicli has sent giief and horror into the hearts of hundreds of parents ; but I call on every 23 boy and girl here, who fancies life is hard, and men crnel, and God forgetful, to turn to the stoiy of Washington, and see ho^Y, under the most crushing blows, defeat, ingratitude, treach- ery, he not only never lost patience and courage, but maintained a lively hope, that carrred him through triumphant, when all else despaired ; and let them learn that to give up is a sin, and suicide as wicked as murder. And scarcely less equal to this is his generos- ity ; his utter unselfishness, that seemed incapable of thinking what personal distinction might be. I might give a score of instances, but the most striking was wdien Burgoyne was pressing down on us from the north, and all decency urged that the direction of affairs against him should be in Washington's hands. His enemies in Congress contrived to give the command to others. The battle of Saratoga followed, a brilliant and tri- umphant success, in contrast to all Washington's defeats. He never murmured; he received the victory with rejoicing and pride, even though the credit w^as given, not to Schuyler, whose talent had planned it — not to Arnold, whose courage had won it, but to Gates, — the vainest, the most trifling, the most incompetent of men. But yet some men know all this about Wash- ington, the heroic work which he did, the saintly Avay in which he did it, yet think he was not a great man of tlie highest kind — that he wanted genius. O boys and girls, there never was a 24 greater blunder. Do not fiincy f!>r a moment that Wasliington was a commonplace, second-rate, dull ]nan, who simply did his duty in a dogged way, and rose to. eminence because his country was great and his enemies were fools. He had genius — the genius of a ruler — of a king of men; tlie miglity art by which, at intervals in the histo- ry of the world, one royal soul after another lias caused other souls to seek him, to defer to him, to yield to him, to obey him, to give up their destiny to his will. Tills art of government is a S2)eciric gift as completely as Reynolds's painting, or Burke's orator}^, Cowper's poetry, or Haydn's mu- sic, or Watt's invention. Like every one of these, it may be studied, 2)ractised, cultivated; it is hel})ed ])y opportunity, by daring, by prudence; but ANhen we come to the last analysis, we feel tliat some men, some Avonien, Ave might say some boys and girls, are born leaders, and bound to lead, un- less jealousy and crime deliberately sliuts them in or cuts them off, because their natural power is recognized and dreaded. They may be great as soldiers, they may ])e orators, they may be states- men, or they may have little or no success in tliese arts ; but they will sIioav the power of making the greatest soldiers and orators and statesmen do their work, and set their diadems firmer on their heads. The l)est of tliese leaders includes tlie greatest friends and the greatest enemies of nuin- kind; it includes tyrants and it includes heroes. But tlie emphatic name, lord of men, given by 25 Humer to liis great cliief, wlio was not tlie strong- est nor the bravest, nor tlie wisest in his army, is one which marks an independent quality, as much as a sculptor's or a navigator's. A blessing or a curse to mankind, according as lie wlio has it rules for himself and his favorites or for liis peo- ple and liis God. You may all see at this moment, two men in Europe who are maintainiiig their positions against every kind of enmity open and secret, because they have a genius for ruling. Envy and hatred themselves cannot deny that Bismarck and Gladstone have' the gift of control — the power that sets one man above other men ; and, unless I am very much mistaken, it will be recognized, and recognized before very long, by those who do not know it now, that the United States is under the management of one of these born rulers, — our, wise, fearless, noble, 2>'itriotic President Cleveland. It seems to me no one who reads Washing- ton's life attentively can doubt that he had this power. It is on the very face of history that men the most opposite in all respects consulted him, confided in him and submitted to him, simply because the}^ had a feeling that his way must be the right way, and his authority was Avith tliem more than mere wisdom or experience. These were no infeiior men whom he had to deal with. Franklin and Adams, Jefferson and Hamilton, Jay and Marshall, Greene and Knox, Lafayette and Gallatin were not men who easily accept another 20 mail as their leader and yield their judgment to liis. They were men of rare independence of character — leaders of men themselves, who won renoAvn and honor in stations of government. Yet every one of them felt lionored by recognizing liim as their leader ; and the army, the country, tlie distinguished men Avho came to us from abroad, the wise and great in every land to whom they sent back the tale ; the heart of mankind which feels when a great man is born into the world, recognized with tears of joy and gratitude that God had raised up another prophet to lead Israel out of captivity. It was well that it was so. It was better that America should give birth to a king of men in her hour of agon}^, than that she sliould have ^lozart or Goethe born to her. In this year, 1886, it is especially important for us to remember this. Tliis is the centennial year of America's darkest and saddest hour. In 1T86, my dear children, your dear country and mine had sunk lower in the Avoiid's opinion than ever she did before or since. The thirteen States were quarrelling with each other and among themselves ; the grand impulses with which they had rushed to Lexington and Princeton and Eutaw and Yorktown was all ex- pended; they could not pay their just debts to Europe, whose generosity had helped them through the war, nor even to their own soldiers, whose courage had won it. They stood before the world discredited and abased, and men were 27 patching to see England and France and Spain sWOop dovv^n like eagles on their bloodless carcasses md divide the plunder among themselves. It was absolutely necessary to do something, to do it strong- ly, and to do it soon. What was wanted was a national government, a central power throughout che whole country, informing every citizen in it, and every nation outside of it, that the United States made one people, and as one people would make their just will felt, both at home and abroad. But this government was just what many A^mericans were afraid of. They thought liberty was the only thing worth having ; they thought liberty could do everything ; that it was the only good thing, and that everything that hindered liberty was Dad, They had for a moment forgotten that there was another thing which makes a people great, and that is law, the law that takes away a part of liberty to keep the rest from being lost in tyranny. But Americans at this time were terribly afraid of anything like a law for the whole Union; they could think of nothing but freedom, and for that they were prepared to sacrifice prosperity and honesty. They smelt the poison of tyranny in every government. They fancied that if they elected rulers they would make themselves kings, blazing Avith gold and fenced with steel, buying up every base man and killing every good man in their lust for power. I must be allowed to say that some of the most distinguished Americans of the time — Patrick Henry, for instance, whose 28 burst about liberty j^^'^^^}' i^i'^icli every boy here has declaimed — talked a monstrous deal of non- sense on this matter. They said if you have av general government you must put one man at the|| head of it, and that man Avill become a tyrant. " No," said the friends of government, " we shall put George Washington at the head of it; he cannot become a tyrant, and no one after liim will dare to." It was the true answer, and it Avas enough. It was felt that the disgrace and misery of 1786 must not be repeated. In 1787, the Avisest men of the country met in convention to form a Constitution for the United States. It Avent out under Washington's signature, and his authority l| carried it through against the boldness of Adllains, the craft of knaA- es and tlie terrors of fools, and, AA'liat is harder to conquer than all three, the quib- lings of men Avho haA^e some goodness, some honor and some sense, but Avho Avould pick to pieces any plan, though an angel from heaven proposed it. The fact that Washington believed in the Consti- tution, and that he Avas there to be the first President, Avas an argument in its favor that all the genius of Hamilton, all the Avisdom of Madi- son, all the virtue of Jay could not equal. It Avas adopted ; he was chosen ; our country came up from the depths and stood on her feet ; and it Avas having him at her head that did it. No lib- erty and no laAv, no enterprise and no patience, no courage and no religion Avill of themselves make a nation unless there are men to lead ; and in terri- 29 ble times, when the bravest falter and the truest doubt, there needs one great man to whom all may look as to the oracles of God. The people must have a man in whom the honor and strength of their nation is concentrated ; a man to lead their charge onward, like Washington, when he leaped the w^all at Princeton, bursting on the startled British like a hunter on his game : — a man to hold them firm in a well-chosen position, like Washington, when he held the British pent within the lines of Boston, weakening and wasting them simply by standing still : — a man, it may be, to bid his people fall back from a wrong done in rashness and folly, retreat- ing to the firm ground of honor and virtue, like Washington, when, on his first campaign, he aban- doned the fortress of the Great Meadows. Our constitution declares that any American man may rise to be a ruler in the land ; it may be that before many years, though I do not see it, the American women will rise and declare they shall be rulers, too — if they want to be they cer- tainly will. But this I say to you, dear boys and girls, from whom our rulers are to come, — what- ever rights and opportunities the law may give, no man is fit to be a ruler of his country who does not model himself, first, last and always, on the greatest of all who ever bore that mighty name, the Father of his Country, the Friend of Man- kind, the Servant of God, the Saint and Hero, George Washington ! W84 ^ "^ v^^ o *«^o' ^o ^^ / V '^ •*:-o^ V *,t»..''> ■■ ^--'.i&i.X .-^'^.i^-;-. . N^. ^^^ <^:/:-iz^- ■ ■/;•«&; V • ; •^ov* : .-?>" V'*: : '^^o :6 ^v^ . ^^ .. ^ .* . V^. c'^ •^ ».^^.% ^ ,-e' ♦^^ ^ ?PVi9£RTB00KBL\'i)IN^ '