WASHINGTON

ADDRESS

BEFORE THE

UNION LEAGUE CLUB
OF CHICAGO

liY

(:^EOKGE F. HOAR,
FEBRUARY -23, 1903.

^ashtugtnn, §. (C.
PRESS OF GIBSON BROS.
ISth and Penna. Avk.
1903.

ADDRESS.

There is no man li^dng anywhere, with whatever honors his
Hfe may ha^-e been crowned, to whom it would not be an
added honor to be imdted to address this brilliant company
in this famous citj- on this historic aimiversary.
Chicago is conspicuous among the great cities of the world
for many things. In two things she stands unrivalled.
Great as she is to-day, wonderful as has been her past,
yet she is, beyond all other communities, the city of the
future. She may well look forward with an assured and
sober confidence to the time when the scepter, which passed
away from Rome, shall pass away from London also, and
shall be within her grasp.
Chicago is foremost among American cities, foremost, so far
as I know, among the cities of the world, in the great virtue
of public spirit. If we can judge by the report of her, the
citizen of Chicago seems to feel, to a degree not found else
where, that her honor is his honor, that her prosperity is
his prosperity, and that aU he is and has is at her ser-\dce.
It is of this temper that civic greatness is born.
Yet to a people having the right that j^ou have to be
proud of their present, and looking forward as you do with
a confident courage and hope to a great hereafter, there is a
peculiar and special danger. That is the danger of Pro
vincialism, the danger of that spirit which is impatient of
the authority of the past, and of the contemporary opinion
of mankind. vSelf-satisfaction, disregard of tradition and
precedent and authority, pride in being a law to themselves,
these are the besetting sins of successful and self-made

men who have acliieved fortune and greatness rapidly.
They are likely to be the besetting sins also of cities and of
States and Nations that have achieved greatness and suc
cess, as you have, mth a wonderful rapidit}'.
There is no Pro^incialism like the Provincialism which
confines a man to his own time. There is no intel
lectual dullness like the intellectual dullness which comes
from the contentment of an absolute self-satisfaction.
There is no man and no conmiunity so certain of failure as
the man or the community to wliich the past can speak no
lesson. But, on the other hand, reverence for the past, a
mind open to the lessons taught by other countries and other
places, which are in some sort to all of us as a posterity,
make even an Insular and Provincial nature Continental
and Imperial.
So, gentlemen, it is a sign of profoundest AAdsdom, it is an
admirable augury of happiest omen to Chicago, that this
influential Society selects the birthday of George Washington
for special commemoration, and means to keep his linea
ments and character before her people, especially before her
youth. It is well that trnch a community still makes the birth
day of Washington its great anniversary. Washington,
too, did his work well in his own time. He was not mthout
proper respect for ancestry, and proper care for posterity.
But he did not dwell too much on either. He was thinking
ahva}'s of the duty which was present and at hand. As
Emerson said of him: "He was up to the top of his boots in
his own meadow."
I have sometimes thought that we might improve some
what our method of celebrating the birthdays of our heroes
and statesmen. Instead of inviting some living orator,
let us, as near as may be, invite the man himself to the cele
bration. If the people are considering some question in-

vohdng the public welfare, or the fate of the republic, or
what, if not the same thing, are higher and dearer yet, the
honor and the conscience of the Republic, let some faithful
searcher gather everything tlie man we would honor has
left us on that subject in the way of example or of precept.
If the question be whether we shall enter upon a career of
foreign dominion, let us celebrate Washington's birthday
by recalling what he said on that subject. If the
question be what constitutes lawful reason for war; or
what is the dutj^ of good citizenship when the country is
in a war in which it is wrong; or what are the rights which
belong eA^erj^vhere to that being which we call a people; or
what is the line of distinction between power and right,
when a strong nation has to deal mth a weak one; or whether
it be lawful for one people to subdue another to its will;
what consent of the governed, if any, be necessary to the
exercise of just powers of government; whether there can
be taxation rightfully without representation; whether men
may be lawfully held in a State as subjects and not citizens —
would it not be well, on Abraham Lincoln's birthday, to
gather everything he said on those subjects, and what he
did when charged with public responsibilities? Would it
not be weU on Webster's birthday, to call him up to bear his
testimony as in visible presence; or, on Jefferson's birth
day, to hear what he had to say about it; or, on Sumner's
birthday, to listen again to the counsel of that dauntless
and righteous spirit? In that way the silent lips of the
mighty dead will seem ever speaking their high commands
to their countrymen. In that way every generation will
still live, and Washington and Webster and Lincoln may
still always be present on the spots with which they were
familiar in life, still sitting, still deliberating, still debating.
But I will not run that risk to-day. Washington's own
words, far better than my own, would be undoubtedly his

most fitting memorial. But I might be thought to convey
by indirection a condemnation of some thing or somebody
which might be thought out of place in a celebration from
which current politics are supposed to be banished.
There is one unerring test of true greatness, whether in
literature, or in science, or thought, or action, or character.
That is, that it seems to be cotemporaneous with all the
generations. The Hebrew Scriptures, the essays of Bacon,
the plays of Shakespeare, Homer, and Virgil, and Dante, the
character and glory of Alfred and Lincoln and Franklin,
Plato, and Socrates, and Cicero, and the Declaration of
Independence, speak to us to-day freshly, and without
loss of effect by reason of remoteness of time. They would
have made a like impression in the time of the Hebrew or
the Greek, or the Roman Commonwealth. They will speak
with like effect hereafter in all coming time to any gen
eration that hath ears to hear.
That is conspicuously true of Washington. If you were
to read of him in Plutarch there would be no sense that he
was out of place. He would still be the most perfect of
Plutarch's men. If you were to read of him on the page
that tells the story of Alfred or the Bruce, or St. Louis
of France, or the greatest and best of the men of the Hebrew
Commonwealth, there would be no feeling that he did not
belong to his age, but only that there was a better and
purer and greater Alfred or Bruce or St. Louis or Hebrew
Monarch. So I believe there never will be a period in all
coming time when a character like that of Washington will
excite a sense of incongruity, or of antiquity, but only the
natural feeling that a character of supreme excellence has
been bestowed by God upon man.
It is the great good fortune of the people of America,
especially of the youth of America, that we have for our
National hero a character whom they can take as a model

of behavior in every condition, every transaction, every
occupation in life. I cannot think of any question of
morality, of courtesy, or noble and elevated behavior, of
expediency in the conduct of doubtful and difficult affairs,
which a young man or an old man could not safely answer
by asking himself and telling himself what George Wash
ington would have done in a like case. I do not know of
any other nation on earth that possesses or has possessed
such a model.
I need not dwell upon the vast advantage of such an ex
ample over a mere lifeless code of general rules for the con
duct of life. Indeed it is not necessary to remind you here
and in this presence that the Author of our religion has
directed that mankind be taught Christian principles and
Christian character by a great Exemplar. The power of
the great religious orders in the great churches, a power
which is among the wonders of history, is due largely to the
example of the saints who founded them, or for whom they
are named.
Now in claiming for George Washington that he was an
example of all excellence which the American youth may
with safety take as his model of character and conduct for
every condition and every transaction in life, do not let
me be suspected of falling into our National habit of ex
aggeration. I wish to cite a few tributes from, if not hos
tile, at least impartial sources of the highest authority.
There is no time to-day to cite much of the overwhelming
and concurrent testimony of great Englishmen, statesmen,
and writers of history, and of great authorities on the Con
tinent, to the primacy of George Washington among man
kind. The only name likely to be thought of anywhere
for parallel or comparison is that in whose glory we also
have an inherited title to share — that of Alfred.
We need have no misgivings about Washington. By

this time, more than a century from his death, his life at
home and in public is well known. The case is all in.
"Whatever record leap to light, he never shall be shamed."
The youth of America need not depend on American
authority for an estimate of this supreme and faultless
character. The great historians of other countries are
not behind ours in their tributes to his greatness. Earl
Russell said of him :
"Without the genius of Julius Caesar or Napoleon Bona
parte, he has a far purer fame, as his ambition was of a
higher and holier nature. In modern history no man had
done such great things without the soil of selfishness or the
stain of a groveling ambition. Ctesar, Cromwell, Napo
leon, attained a higher elevation, but the love of dominion
was the spur that drove them on. John Hampden, AVil-
liam Russell, Algernon Sydney, may have had motives
as pure, and an ambition as unstained; but they fell. To
George Washington nearly alone in modern times has it
been given to accomplish a wonderful revolution, and yet
to remain to all future times the theme of a people's grati
tude, and an example of virtuous and beneficent power."
Lord Erskine, the greatest of English advocates, in
scribed one of his works to Washington, declaring, "You
are the only being for whom I have an awful reverence."
Charles James Fox said of him in the House of Commons,
"The illustrious man before whom all borrowed great
ness sinks into insignificance." Lord Brougham, at the
close of his public life, repeated the estimate he had given
near the beginning of it: "Until time shall be no more,
will a test of the progress which our race has made in wis
dom and virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the
immortal name of Washington." And again, at another
time. Lord Brougham says, " Washington was the greatest
man of our own or any age."

9
At another time Fox says of him: "A character of vir
tues so happily tempered by one another, and so wholly un
alloyed with any vices as that of Washington is hardly to
be found on the pages of history."
Mr. Green, the author of the history of the English
people, says of him :
V "No nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's
life. , Washington was grave and courteous in address;
his manners were simple and unpretending; his silence and
the serene calmness of his temper spoke of a perfect self-
mastery. But there was little in his outer bearing to reveal
the grandeur of soul which lifts his figure with all the simple
majesty of an ancient statue out of the smaller passions and
meaner impulses of the world around him. It was only
as the weary fight went on that the colonists discovered,
however slowly and imperfectly, the greatness of their
leader, his clear judgment, his heroic endurance, his silence
under difficulties, his calmness in the hour of danger or
defeat, the patience with which he waited, the quickness
and hardness with which he struck, the lofty and serene
sense of duty that never swerved from its task through
resentment or jealousy, that never through war or peace
felt the touch of a meaner ambition, that knew no aim save
that of guarding the freedom of his fellow countrymen, and
no personal longing save that of returning to his own fire
side when their freedom was secured.. It was almost un
consciously that men learned to cling to Washington with
a trust and faith such as few other men have won, and to
regard him with a reverence which still hushes us in pres
ence of his memory."
No other man uttered the best thought of Scotland as
it was uttered by Robert Burns. When somebody in his
presence proposed the health of Pitt, I think then Prime
Minister, Burns said, " I give the health of a better man,
George Washington." This was not very long after Burns

10
had given, during the American War, the toast, " May our
success in the present war be equal to the justice of our
cause." Count Herzburg, for thirty years Frederick the Great's
famous minister of foreign affairs said, that Washington
surpassed men in his great virtues and qualities, even the
most celebrated of antiquity.
Lord Byron's tribute is well known:
Where may the wearied eye repose
When gazing on the great,
Where neither guilty glory glows
Nor despicable state?
Yes, One, the first, the last, the best,
The Cincinnatus of the West
Whom Envy dared not hate,
Bequeathed the name ot Washington,
To make men blush there was but one.
"No one who has not been in England can have a just
idea of the admiration expressed among all parties for
General Washington. It is a common observation that
he is not only the most illustrious, but the most meri
torious character that has j^et appeared."
Rufus King to General Hamilton, 1797.
Y Mr. Gladstone said that Washington was the purest
figure in histor}r. He declares :
"If, among all the pedestals supplied l3Y history for
public characters of extraordinary nobilitj^ and purity,
I saw one higher than all the rest, and if I were required,
at a moment's notice, to name the fittest occupant for it,
I think my choice, at anj^ time during the last forty-
five years, would have lighted, and it would now light,
upon Washington."
Tallej'rand said of him:
"His fame is beyond comparison with that of others."

11
Even China has placed in his monument a stone which
declares: "Can any man of ancient or modern times fail
to pronounce Washington peerless?"
I will add one other tribute of exquisite beauty, from an
American source. It is from the most fastidious of critics,
Fisher Ames:
"Consider for a moment, what a reputation it was;
such as no man ever before possessed by so clear a title,
and in so high a degree. His fame seemed in its puritj^
to exceed even its brightness. Office took honor from his
acceptance, but conferred none. Ambition stood awed
and darkened by his shadow. For where, through the
wide earth, was the man so vain as to dispute precedence
mth him; or M'hat were the honors that could make the
possessor Washington's superior? Refined and complex
as the ideas of virtue are, even the gross could discern in
his life the infinite superioritj^ of her rewards. Mankind
perceived some change in their ideas of greatness; the
splendor of power, and even of the name of conqueror,
had grown dim in their eyes. Thej^ did not know that
Washington could augment his fame; but they knew and
felt that the world's wealth, and its empire, too, would
be a bribe far beneath his acceptance."
Works of Fisher Ames, Vol. 2, p. 78.
Probably no American public man of Washington's
time — certainly none who deserved the name of states
man — differed so entirelj^ in character, mental traits, and
political opinion from Washington as Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson left the Cabinet of his great chief of his own ac
cord to become the leader of the party opposed to his
policies — a party which took possession of the government
four years after Washington's retirement and a little more
than one year after Washington's death. But Jefferson,
late in his own life, when it was suggested to him that the

12
fame of Washington might lessen with the lapse of years,
looked up to the sky and answered: "Washington's fame
mil go on increasing until the brightest constellation in
yonder heavens is called by his name."
So we have the right to say of him as the old Monk
said of King Arthur:
"The Old ^^'orld knows not his peer, nor mil the future
show us his equal ; he alone towers over other kings, better
than the past ones, and greater than those that are to be."
If you wish to make a study of this great man you will
do well not to confine yourselves to any one biography.
When you have read carefully the best lives of Washington
you mil have become familiar not only with the greatest
human character in history, but with a historic epoch of
large and enduring influence upon the destinies of mankind.
Several historians of great distinction and of great variety
of intellectual quality, but all of the first rank, have made the
life of Washington their theme. You will do well to study
them all, perhaps to study them all at the same time.
When you deal with a great event, political or military, it
may be well to have the narrative of it as told by each of
these authors in the mind at the same time.
The first of these in the order of time, as in intellectual
rank, is the life of Washington by John Marshall, the great
Chief Justice of the United States. Marshall was a grave
and serious-minded man, indifferent to the graces of style,
or to the art by which an author entertains his readers
and relieves the tediousness of a narrative without depart
ing from sobriety and propriety. His account of Washing
ton's earl}'' life and the military transactions of the Revolu
tionary war are lacking in spirit and picturesqueness,
although absolutely trustworthy, as the character of the
narrator would make us sure. Marshall's account of the
political history of the country from the close of the Revolu
tion to Washington's death in 1799, is that of a very great

13
statesman and Constitutional lawyer who himself had a
large share in the transactions of which he has to tell. No
other man who ever lived was so capable of understanding
the great principles settled in that day, on which the en
during foundations of the Republic are builded. He en
joyed Washington's fullest confidence. He belonged to
Washington's own State. He was a leader in the legisla
ture of Virginia, where the straggles were almost as impor
tant as those in either House of Congress. He was one of
the leaders in the Virginia Convention that adopted the
Constitution, a convention on whose decision the fate of
the Constitution largely depended. Washington offered
him a seat in his Cabinet, which he declined. He offered
him the place of Envoy to France, which he declined. He
was afterward a member of Congress, Secretary of State
and, as you know. Chief Justice of the United States for
thirty-four years. It is hardly too much to say that but for
his great judgments the Constitution of the United States
could not successfully have worked in practice as a mecha
nism of govermnent. But as is commonly the case with
biographies written so near the lifetime of the subject, the
author had not access to a great deal of the material which'
afterward came to light, necessary for a perfect execution
of his task.
Jared Sparks, the editor of Washington's Avritings in
twelve volumes, and also the author of a life, is perhaps
unequaled among our historic investigators in the unerring
accuracy of historic judgment. He lacks grace of style,
enthusiasm, spirit and imagination. But he was the most
conscientious and industrious of investigators. He had
access not only to Washington's own papers but to the
family papers of a great many of his contemporaries. He
runmiaged the National archives and those of most if
not all of the old thirteen States, and he knew well what
was important and what was unimportant. He sticks to

14
his fact hke a mathematician. What he says is true is
true, and you need not trouble yourself to inquire further.
Washington Irving brought to his task industry, in
tegrity, the charm of that matchless style which makes
him still accounted, so far as that is concerned, the fore
most of American prose writers, or in that respect at least
to share that lofty place with Hawthorne alone. Mr.
Irving liked to delight and ehtertain as well as to instruct
his readers. In his pages Washington steps down from
his pedestal, and while there is nothing found which tar
nishes that pure fame, the hero leaves the rank of demigods
and mingles with mortal men.
Edward Everett also has written a brief life, prepared
originally for the Encyclopedia Britannica, and expanded
into a small volume. You can read it in two or three
hours. It will repay perusal as a good summing up of
the great career of the Father of his Country, although
there is nothing in it to enhance the fame either of the
subject or the author. It is a pity that Lord Macaulay,
on whose recommendation Mr. Everett was asked to
write that Memoir, could not have undertaken it himself.
But if I cannot speak with enthusiasm of Mr. Everett's
life of Washington, I can hardly find language to express
myself, in commending to you, and to the youth of the
present generation, Mr. Everett's masterly oration upon
the same theme. It is, so far as I know, and, so far as I
can judge, foremost among the masterpieces of eulogistic
oratory in any tongue or in any generation. It was un
dertaken by Mr. Everett for the purpose of purchasing
and preserving Mt. Vernon. It was delivered and repeated
in the chief cities and large towns of the country and,
with the proceeds of a few other lectures and essays by Mr.
Everett on kindred subjects, yielded about ninety thou
sand dollars of the fund of one hundred thousand required
to redeem Mt. Vernon. Mr. Everett sketches the Intel-

15
lectual and physical character of Washington, from his
splendid youth, a model of manly strength and beauty,
perfect in the qualities and accomplishments of the gentle
man and the soldier, but wise and thoughtful beyond his
years, inspiring at the outset of his career that love and
confidence which are usually earned only by a long life of
service, through all the acts of that mighty drama of which
he was the foremost character, the observed of all eyes,
the beloved of all true American hearts, shaping and wielding
the destinies of his country in her great birthtime, down
to his death at Mount ^"ernon, in his own home, the wife of
his youth by his side, amid the benedictions and the
sorrow of his countrymen. The story is depicted by the
marvelous genius of the great artist on a canvas that shall
endure as long as the fame of Washington himself. I
should like to repeat to you some of the great passages from
that great oration, especially the contrast between Mt. Ver
non, the simple dwelling place of America's illustrious hero
and Father, the home of George Washington and Martha,
his beloved, loving and faithful wife, and the splendor of
Blenheim House, the monumental pile where the gratitude of
England poured itself out in unrestrained lavishness upon
her great warrior and victor; and the beautiful close where
the orator conceives the fame of Washington passing from
the narrow strip of territory fringing the Atlantic shore,
which was all his country occupied when he died, from the
southern plains to the western lakes, beyond the . Ohio, be
yond the Mississippi, along with the stupendous trail of im
migration from east to west, which, bursting into States as it
moved westward, was then already threading the western
prairies, swarming through the portals of the Rocky
Mountains and winding down their slopes to the Pacific,
and then in the prophetic imagination of the orator, trav
eling with the Silver Queen of heaven through sixty de
grees of longitude, and not parting company with her till

16
she walks in her brightness through the golden gate of
California, and passes serenely on to hold midnight court
with her Australian stars.
Mr. Everett adds that there and only there, in barbarous
archipelagoes, as yet untrodden by civilized man, the
name of Washington is unknown, and there, too, when
they swarm with enlightened millions, new honors shall
be paid with ours to his memory.
But the rich silver tones of the trumpet voice of the
unequaled orator, speaking as Pericles might be conceived
to have spoken to an Athenian audience in the great day
of Grecian eloquence, still linger in my memory and forbid
the sacrilegious attempt.
But, after all, among the elaborate biographies of
Washington the best portraiture of him in literature is
the life of him by my colleague, Henry Cabot Lodge. It
may be trusted thoroughly as to its facts and its judg-
mtens. A flood of light has been poured in upon the sub
ject by the material which has been uncovered since the
time of Marshall and Sparks and Irving. The memoir is
full enough to tell the story of the great and important
transactions of Washington's life, and still compact
enough to retain its hold on the interest and attention of
the reader from the beginning to the end. Mr. Lodge has
a statesman's capacity to deal with and to judge of the con
cerns of State, the enthusiasm of an orator, the literary
skill of a trained and practiced writer, and the industry
of a thorough historic investigator. If you have time but
for one of these biographies, I commend to you that of
Mr. Lodge as, on the whole, the best, although he has to
contend with such great competitors as Marshall and
Sparks and Irving.
You should also make yourselves familiar, not only for a
description of Washington, but as a masterpiece of splendid
oratory, with the almost forgotten oration of Fisher Ames,

17
delivered before the Massachusetts Legislature just after
Washington's death. It is a tribute of exquisite beauty,
from an American source. Mr. Ames was the most fastid
ious of judges and of critics. But he knew Washington,
in whose first administration he was, although a young
man and in feeble health, a great Federalist leader. His
speech on Jay's Treaty ranks with that of John Marshall
on the case of Jonathan Robbins, and Webster's reply to
Hayne, as one of the three greatest speeches ever delivered
in either House of the American Congress. It is said that
that speech and the speech of Chief Justice Marshall, which
I just mentioned, are the only speeches ever made in the
American Congress that converted a hostile majority on a
great political question on which the House was divided
by party lines. Mr. Ames's thought is profound and
wise as that of Burke, his style full of life and spirit, im
pressive and sententious like that of the Proverbs of Solo
mon. Image crowds upon image in the inexhaustible
fertility of his mind, keeping the mind of the hearer and
the reader constantly stimulated with expectation and
curiosity, and creating constant surprise and delight.
I think I ought also to commend to your attention two
very remarkable addresses by the late Robert C. Winthrop.
He delivered the oration at the laying of the corner-stone of
the Washington Monument, July 4, 1848, and again an
oration in commemoration of its completion February
22, 1885, thirty-seven years thereafter. It is a curious
coincidence that he associated his name forever with the
beginning and the finishing of that monument, as Mr.
Webster is associated by two wonderful orations with the
foundation and the completion of the monument at Bunker
Hill. Mr. Winthrop's addresses are in all respects worthy
of comparison with those of Webster. These four orations
will stand together at the very head of that department of
oratorv.

18
^A'hen you have read these lives and read also Washing
ton's own great addresses — his farewell to the Governors
of the States when he laid down his commission in 1783;
his Farewell Address when he laid down the Presidency in
1797 — you will have seen Washington as he was. You
will see him as if you had gazed upon a photograph of his
very soul. You will know by heart the greatest man in
all history ; one of the very few and the greatest of the very
few great men who have lived wholly for their country and
not at all for themselves, and who, as a great orator says,
appear in human annals "like five or six lighthouses on as
many thousand miles of coast."
It was said by Richard Steele of a beautiful and accom-
phshed Englishwoman, Lady Elizabeth Hastings, that to
love her was a liberal education. If you have studied and
taken into your hearts and souls the character of Washing
ton as depicted by these great authorities, you have a
liberal education in the essentials of American citizenship.
You have laid the foundation in character for anything that
can be demanded of you by your country in war or in peace,
for soldier, statesman, citizen.
Now in commending to you the sources by which you
can possess yourself of a just conception of the great char
acter of the Father of our Country from an original investi
gation, I have left little space to say anything about him
from myself. But surely it is better so. What can I say
which is worth saying upon such a theme? Washington
died one hundred and four years ago next December,
From that day to this his hfe and his praise have been the
theme of oratory and poetry the country through, on
every recurring anmversary of his birthday which, like
the birthday of the country itself, is one of our two great
national holidays.
The designer of the noble shaft which towers above the
city which bears his name has with rare felicity designed

19
that emblem of the simple and majestic character of Wash
ington. There is no ornament or sculpture or delicate carv
ing to attract or fascinate the eye. Simplicity, grandeur,
just proportion, strength, endurance are its characteristics,
as they were his characteristics. It must ever take a high
rank among great and majestic public works. In a clear
morning, when the sky is full of light or some delicate
cloud moves over its summit, far above the streets and
towers and spires of the city, its shining point suggests the
lines of the Englishman, Doctor Aiken, written while Wash
ington was yet living :
Point of that pyramid, whose solid base
Rests firmly fovmded in a Nation's trust,
Which, while the gorgeous palace sinks in dust,
Shall stand sublime, and fill its ample space.
Think how poor were Washington's resources! During
a large part of the time when he was besieging the British
army in Boston, he had scarcel}^ powder enough to fire
a salute. His few cannon had been dragged by oxen
across New England from Ticonderoga. He had no money
to pay his soldiers ; no drill-officers to teach his raw recruits
military discipline; no military text-books for his engi
neers. His life was almost a solitude amid the jealousies
and strifes which existed in that day, in quite as large
degree as now, among his generals and officers, and (what
has happily passed by now), among the troops of the dif
ferent colonies. The inexhaustible pecuniary resources
of England promised an inexhaustible supply of troops,
native or mercenary. His great antagonists had the sup
port of a powerful navy. I would not undervalue the
navy of the revolution, whose great service to the cause
of independence has been so much overlooked. Indeed,
it is doubtful whether without it the war for liberty could
have been brought to a successful close. But its chief
service was in destroying English commerce and not as an

20
aid to our military operations. So in the time of framing
the Constitution and in administering the government for
the first eight years, Washington had nowhere to look
either for example or for instruction. All the paths he
trod had to be broken out by himself and his great com
panions and associates. We who find our path broken,
macadamized, leveled, blazed by the sure and safe precedents
of one hundred and twenty-five years can hardly under
stand the difficulties which beset Washington. And yet,
in his whole life, from the time when, but a youth of
t\\'enty-four, he gave his wise but vain counsel to General
Braddock, and brought home all the laurels of that most
disastrous expedition, to the time when, full of years and
honors, he left to his countrymen his Farewell Address —
that almost inspired political Bible, the adherence to
which ever has brought and ever will bring to us safety,
prosperity, and glory, the departure from which is the
path to danger, ruin and shame — he never made a mis
take and never gave unwise counsel to his countrymen.
There are some characters, unhappily few, of whom we
never think as struggling with or conquering temptation.
Sin did not beset them. I suppose this was never yet
literalh- and perfectly true of any man or woman. Yet it
was as nearly true of George Washington as of any man
or woman. Integrity, unselfish and unambitious service,
industry that sought no repose while it remained to be
done, unhesitating self-sacrifice, purity not only unsullied
but untempted, were all his. The temptation to evil never
seems to have beset that lofty nature, nor besieged that
impregnable fortress. The Devil is an ass. But he never
was such an ass as to waste his time tempting George
Washington. Washington's stjde, in general, is somewhat artificial,
with a little tendency on ordinary occasions to the some
what inflated, latinized diction of which Doctor Johnson

21
had set the fashion in his time. But he rises often, when
he forgets the language and is intent on the thought, into
a noble and vigorous speech. Some of the best examples
of good English are to be found in the untutored speech
and writing of boys. Washington compiled or copied or
composed, in early youth, a series of rules of behavior in
company and conversation which ends with a maxim cer
tainly not to be improved upon either in style or sub
stance: "Labor to keep alive in your breast that little
spark of celestial fire — conscience."
Mr. Winthrop, with that curiosa felicitas both of thought
and phrase, for which he is unsurpassed among the orators
of the generation which has just left the stage, said in his
last great public address, speaking to the youth of the
country: "Keep ever in your mind and before your mind's
eye the loftiest standard of character. Strive to approxi
mate that lofty standard, and measure your integritj^ and
your patriotism by your nearness to it or your departure
from it. The prime meridian of universal longitude on
sea or land may be at Greenwich or at Paris or where you
will. The prime meridian of pure, disinterested, patri
otic, exalted human character, will be marked forever by
yonder Washington obelisk."
Washington's virtues were the corner-stone virtues.
They were the virtues which lie at the foundation of all
civil society as well as of noble individual character. It is
not these which commonly excite the imagination or strike
the fancy. It is not these which delight audiences in the
portrayal. Poets celebrate the beauty of the morning,
the Assyrian sunrise and the Paphian sunset, the fragrance
of the rose, the verdure of the grass, the softness of the
gale. They do not write odes to gravitation or to mathe
matics, or to order, or to the great laws which preserve
health. So we do not find that veracity, judgment, pru
dence, disinterestedness, justice, sobriety, stir the blood

22
and quicken the pulse when we talk of them. But they are
the virtues to which human life owes its safety and human
society its civilization.
1 would say it in all reverence (surely we have a right
to say it), if it be true that God has made man in his own
image, and if it be true that divinity has come to the earth
to be» an example to humanity, then it is not impious for
us to claim that humanity has sometimes attained some
thing of the divine image in which it was created, and has
been able to copy the divine Example to imitate which it
is invited. The virtues of AVashington are the virtues which
we ascribe in our humble, imperfect and faraway concep
tion to divinity.
Think of his absolute veracity! He conducted with
his own hand a vast correspondence, enough to tax to its
uttermost the strength of mind and brain and body of an
athlete even if he had had to bear no other burden of
public care. His published correspondence fills many large
volumes, and there is a great deal, I suppose, still unpub
lished. But there is not a trace of duplicity, of conceal
ment, of saying one thing to one man and another to
another, of assurances of respect or goodwill that do not
come from the heart, such as, I am sorry to say, disfigure
the correspondence of some of his famous and honored
cotemporaries. The little fable invented by Weems, his
enthusiastic biographer, has become the standing jest of
many a generation of irreverent boys. But nobody ever
doubted or ever will doubt that George Washington could
not tell a lie, could not act a lie, could not think a lie ; that
a lie could not live in his presence, or that all falsehood
and dissimulation would slink abashed and confounded
from the gaze of those pure eyes and from that perfect
witness. "I do not remember," said Washington in 1786, "that
in the course of my life I ever forfeited my word, or broke
a promise made to any one."

23
" I never say anything of a man that I have the smallest
scruple of saying to him."
This virtue of absolute veracity deserves to rank highest
among those which our humanity can attain. Men of all
civilized nations pay an unconscious tribute to it when
they resent the imputation of falsehood as even a greater
afl'ront than the charge of cowardice. Indeed falsehood is
the very essence of cowardice. The man who lies, lies,
usually, because he is afraid to tell the truth, because he does
not dare to stand by his action or his thought. The great
nations of history, the great characters of history, are those
who are most famed for the supreme virtue of truth. The
only heroes of the nation from whom we derive our own
lineage, who deserve to be named in the same day with
Washington are the Englishman King Alfred, and the
Irishman, the Duke of Wellington. King Alfred was
called "the truth teller." WeUington was called the
truth lover. Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named.
Truth-lover was our English Duke.
He had a weighing and balancing mind. His intellect
was like a pair of accurately adjusted scales. He did not
often, especially in civil affairs, originate the policies upon
which he acted. But he listened carefully and patiently
to every counsel from which he could get instruction, and
then brought it in the end to the sure test of his own un
erring judgment. He weighed the advice of his great
counsellors, the claims of contending parties, and of Jeffer
son and Hamilton and Adams and Pickering, in a balance as
infaUible as the golden scales which the Eternal hung forth
in Heaven. "Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign"
in which, according to Milton, the arch-rebel read and
knew his fate.

24
There are young men before me who I am sure aspire to
take hereafter an honorable part in the service of the
country. You have not received the priceless advantage
and blessing of American citizenship as beggars or mendi
cants who receive a benefit which they never return.
What your country has given you you mean to return
again to her. You mean, in the simple language of the
oath taken by the humblest official, "to defend her against
ah enemies, foreign or domestic. " The foreign enemy is not
likely to put your manhood to any severe proof, or it will
be a proof of your physical courage alone. The enemy
that will demand your moral courage for the encounter is
the domestic enemy. He will appear under many names,
in various guise. But the unerring test by which ycu
will detect him will be by comparing his principles, pur
poses and character with those of George Washington.
If any man tell you that the counsels of George Washing
ton have grown musty and rusty; that they are not
for large nations, but only for little ones ; that, as a great
newspaper said the other day, a man who is now in the
company of George Washington is in bad company, be
cause his policies and counsels are bad for the America
of the present day— mark and distrust that man as the
domestic enemy of your country. He may be sincere; he
may be misguided; he may be carried away by a spasm of
popular excitement; he may be obeying the behest of
party. But, none the less, indeed all the more for that,
is he the dangerous enemy of the peace and prosperity
of the United States.
Mr. Everett's great oration, of which I spoke just now,
was delivered in the few years preceding 1860, when the
angry threatenings of ci'vil war and disunion were heard
all round our national horizon. Mr. Everett called upon
his countrymen, as it seemed for a time, in vain, to forget,
to turn a deaf ear to these unpatriotic counsels, to this

25
mad cry of treason and disunion, and return once more
to the patriotic counsel of Washington. It seemed, for a
time, as if the appeal were unheeded. But the spasm of
popular madness and rage passed by, and Washington
resumed his place again as our supreme counsellor and
leader. He became once more the example and idol of
every American soldier and statesman, and the Farewell
Address became once again the political Bible of every
American. Doubt not that this shall happen again and
again. Other temptations will come to us, and party spirit,
like Satan sitting at the ear of Eve, will speak again its
baleful counsel in the ear of the people. Popular excite
ment will be kindled by the lust of empire and passion
for conquest. The eyes of the people may be dazzled
for a time by a false and tinsel military glory. But while
the portrait of Washington hangs in every village; while
his statues adorn our chief cities; while his monument is
found in every State ; while his life is on the shelf of every
home; while the detail of his great career is studied in
every university; while his image is in the heart of every
youth, the people will come back again to the wise, sober
and just counsel in following which lies the path to a
true glory and a true safety. The Ai ( rican people will
never long go astray so long as to every great question of
national policy or national duty they know what Wash
ington would have said, and know what Washington did
say. If any man would test, as with a touch-stone, any
party or political war-cry of to-day, let him think before
he grow too enthusiastic if he can imagine George Washing
ton uttering it. If he can, he is safe enough to utter it
himself. If he cannot, he had better try to find another.
Who ever thinks of George Washington as stopping to
consider popularity or public sentiment or political or per
sonal advantage to himself by pleasing the people when he

26
had to determine a question of duty? He was as unmoved
by the breeze of popular opinion as the summit of the
mountain that bears his name. It is for that reason that
the reverence in which his countrymen hold him is as en-
dming and as unshaken as the mountain summit.
I am no blind worshipper of the Past. I do not believe
that Renown and Grace are dead. I am no pessimist or
alarmist. I am certainly no misanthropist. While there
are many men who have served their country better in
their generation than I have in mine, I yield to no man in
love for the Republic, or in pride in my country, and in my
countrymen who are making to-day her honorable history.
We may err in our day. Our fathers erred in theirs. Yet
our generation is better than those who went before it.
The coming generations will be better than we are. The
Republic where e\-ery man has his share in the Govern
ment is better than the Monarchy, or the Oligarchy, or
the Aristocracy. Our Republic is better than any other
Repubhc. To-day is better than yesterday, and to-morrow
will be better than to-day. But while each generation
has its own ^drtues, each generation has its own dangers,
and its own mistakes, and its own shortcomings.
The difference between the generations of any country
with a history is commonly not one of principle, but of
emphasis. The doctrine of 1776, when we won our inde
pendence, planted our country on the eternal principles of
equality of indi'^dduals and of nations in political rights,
and declared that no man and no people had the right to
judge of the fitness of any other for self-government. In
1787 the Constitution was builded on the doctrine that there
were domains mthin which the Government had no right to
enter, and that there were powers which the people would
not commit to any authority, State or National. The
doctrine of 1861 and the years which followed, declared
the natural right of every man to his own freedom, what-

27
ever might be his race or color; and the natural right of
every man to make his dwelling wherever on the face of
the earth he might think fit. These truths will, perhaps,
be accepted to-day as generally as thej^ were accepted
then. But if accepted at all they are accepted by the
intellect only, and not by the heart. They are not much
talked about, except to ridicule them, to refine about
them, or to find some plausible reason why they should
not be applied.
The orator of to-day puts his emphasis on Glory, on
Empire, on Power, on Wealth. We live under, and love,
and we still shed our heart's blood for the same flag
which floated over our fathers, and for which they were
ready to die. But it sometimes seems that the flag has a
different meaning, whether it float over the Capitol or
the ship of war, or the regiment on the march, or the public
assembly. We no longer speak of it, except coldly and
formally, as the sjinbol of Liberty ; but only as the symbol
of power, or of a false, cheap, tinsel glory.
I think the popular reverence for Washington, and Lin
coln, and for Sumner, and for Webstej, is not abated. But
yet few political speakers quote to-day the great sentences
which made them so famous, or the great principles to
which they devoted their lives.
While, as I said, I have a profound respect for the opinion
of my countrymen, it is not for that opinion formed in ex
citement or in haste or under pressure of political necessity.
It is for the opinion formed, as Washington formed his,
soberly, quietly, calmly, through sober, second thought.
There is scarcely a shabby or sorry storj'' of any
country, certainly in the history of free nations, which is not
a story of a popular delusion in which for a time nearly the
whole community shared. The martyrdom of Socrates,
the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the persecution which
drove the Pilgrims to Leyden, the witchcraft delusion, the

28
Compromise measures, the brief rise and spread of Know-
Nothingism, all represent completely the desire of the peo
ple for the time being.
There have been many such delusions in the historj^ of the
American people. But, so far, the American people have
outgrown them, have repented of them, and have atoned
for them. Indeed we can hardly lament that they have
happened, when we think that if they had not happened
the sublime repentance and atonement also would not
have happened. We may lament the long and gloomy and
terrible years of Slavery and of Rebellion; and yet without
Slavery and Rebellion we should have never known the
heroism of the American people, or the quality of our
splendid }^outh of 1861. We cannot explain why it is that
an omnipotent and benignant Providence has suffered
evil to exist in the universe He has created. But at least
this is true, "\^'lthout evil there could have been no virtue ;
without the possibility of sin, there could have been no
possibility of righteousness; without the Athenian mob,
there could have been no Socrates; without George III
and Lord North, there could have been no Washington;
without Slavery and Rebellion, there could have been no
Lincoln. Another lesson the Republic may learn from Wash
ington is its sensitiveness to the individual touch. I do
not think that it would be true if I were to say that the
moral power of a single will and a single character is as
strong in a popular Government as in a Monarchy or a
Despotism. But I am sometimes tempted to say so when
I think of the many instances where the whole current of
our history has been turned by one man.
I should like, if I had time, to give a great many ex
amples, easily to be found, where the fate of a nation, and
many more where the fate of a generation has depended
upon the -^vill and the purpose and the character of a sin-

29
gle individual. Many of Washington's contemporaries
believed that but for the confidence felt in him the con
flict with England could not have been maintained. Mr.
Jefferson, I think it was, said later: "We can all hang to
gether, so long as we have you to hang to." It does not
seem likely that the great political revolution which over
threw the Federal part}' after its tAvelve years of power,
could have been accomplished but for the individual skill
of Jefferson. I suppose most lawyers agree that but for
the interpretation of the Constitution, supported by the
great Judge Marshall, and carried into effect by his au
thority, the mechanism of our Constitution would have
failed. The spot where I am now speaking would, in
my opinion, as I think can be clearly established, have
been at this moment part of a great slave-holding Empire
but for the far-reaching sagacity and untiring energy of
Rufus Putnam, the founder and father of Ohio, who put
a new life into the dead Ordinance which consecrated this
region to religion, education, and Liberty, and himself led
the first colony down the Ohio to Marietta. There have
been in our own day great measures pregnant with his
tory, and with the fate of parties, won or lost by a single
vote. Washington is by no means the only conspicuous ex
ample in history, God be thanked, of a man whose public
conduct was determined absolutely by the sense of duty.
But he is the most conspicuous and lofty example. He is
the best example of absolute conscientiousness accom
panied by unerring wisdom in a place of power, where his
action determined the fate of a nation, and was successful
in achieving the most fortunate results.
The fate of the nation depends in the last resort on in
dividual character. Everything in human government,
like everything in individual conduct, depends, in the
end, upon the sense of duty. Whatever safeguards may

30
be established, however complicated or well adjusted the
mechanism, you come to a place somewhere where safety
depends upon somebody having the will to do right when
it is in his power and may be his interest to do -wrong.
When the people were considering the adoption of the
Constitution of the United States, one of our wisest states
men said that the real and only security for a Republic is
when the rulers have the same interest as the people. If
they have not, constitutional restraints will break down
somewhere, except for the sense of duty of the rulers.
All elections depend upon this principle. You may
multiply election officers and returning boards, you may
provide for an appeal to courts of first resort or last
resort. But in the end you must come somewhere to a
point where the sense of public duty is stronger than party
spirit, or your election is but a sort of fighting, or, if not
that, a sort of cheating. The same thing is true of the
individual voter, or of the legislator who is to elect the
Senator, or the governor who is to appoint the judge, or
the executive officer, or the judge who is to interpret the
Constitution or the statute and decide the cause, or the
juror who is to find the fact. On these men depend the
safety and the permanence of the Republic. On these
men depend life, liberty, and property. And yet each
of them has to make that choice. Each has to decide
whether he \vill be influenced by ambition or by party
spirit or the desire for popular favor or the fear of popular
disfavor or the love of money, on the one side, or by the
sense of duty on the other.
So, in the last resort, the destiny of the Repubhc, like
the destiny of the individual (and, in the case of an in
dividual, character and destiny are the same thing), de
pends upon individual will. Will the individual will
choose what is right and not what is wrong? Now this
choice is largely affected by what we call strength of will ;

31
by that habit of the soul which enables man to adhere'to
its deliberate purposes and principles, formed when reason
is unaffected by passion or by desire, against the pressure
and excitement of an immediate demand ; that character
of ¦will which, as Wordsworth saj's in his "Happy Warrior" —
"in the heat of conflict keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what it foresaw."
The great single purpose of moral education, must be to
induce the will to adhere to its general, permanent and
deliberately conceived purpose, in spite of the motives
which appeal to it with special strength at the time of the
choice or action. In other words, to give a strength to
resolution which will overcome the strength of temptation.
Of course, the first and perhaps the greatest thing to be
accomplished is to get habit upon the side of virtue.
"Happy is the man whose habits are his friends." To
Washington no duty, however obscure, was unimportant,
and no de\dation from duty, however trifling, was pos
sible. I said just now, quoting from a great orator, that a few
great men who have lived wholly for their country and
not at all for themselves, and who alone can be thought of
for comparison with Washington, appear in human annals
like five or six lighthouses on as many thousand miles of
coast. Even to complete that list men must go to Roman
or Grecian story, where you cannot verify the record. How
much of their glory Plutarch's characters owe to Plutarch,
no critic can tell you to-day.
All the great men of antiquity, who in the boldest imagi
nation might be compared with Washington, failed in accom
plishing their desire for their country. Epaminondas died
in battle. Socrates died by public sentence. Aristides
was ostracized and banished. Cato died a suicide and au
exile. The destruction of the Republic he served speedily
followed the death of each.

32
In later times ^^'ellington was the instrument of saving
Europe from the ambition of Napoleon. He was a high
example of sincerity and strength and unselfishness in
peace. But he had at his command the resources of a
great Empire, and the indomitable English military spirit,
indomitable from the beginning of her history save by the
power which AVashington organized and led. No man can
doubt that with A^'ellington's resources Washington could
have accomplished AVellington's results. No one can say
that with AVashington's irsources Wellington could have
accomplished the results of "\'\"ashington.
But his" achievement in war is the least of Washington's
title to glory. Through his influence a great Republic was
constructed and inaugurated on principles unknown until
his time to histor}'. He laid the foundation of our Empire
not on military strength, but on Liberty and Law. The
Constitution framed by the Convention over which he
presided, which would not have been adopted but for his
influence, and which he inaugurated, was a new and un
tried experiment, without either example or model in
human history. Wellington, on the other hand, was a
defender of the existing order of things. Many an abuse
and injustice was prolonged through his influence.
No American, I think no lover of virtue anywhere,
would seek to diminish or to darken the glory of Alfred,
that "King to Justice dear" —
' • Mirror of Princes, indigent renown
Might search the "starry ether for a crown
Equal to his deserts."
The glory of Alfred is ours also. The laws he gave have
come down to us. We are of the blood and lineage of the
country where for more than a thousand years the descend
ants of the great Saxon have occupied the throne. We have
certainly no desire to cultivate that temper which, when-

33
ever goodness or greatness anywhere be mentioned, is eager
always to declare that something or somebody else is lietter.
But the witnesses whom we have cited, who declared Wash
ington's primacy among mankind, are English witnesses
of the highest title to be believed. Not one of thorn has
given his judgment without considering the name of King
Alfred. AVe may concede to King Alfred perhaps an integrity
and an unselfish devotion to his country unsurpassed even
by that of Washington himself. But it is to be remembered
that the difficult task of rallying the people of England
to the expulsion of a band of piratic invaders, was far less
than of sustaining a civilized warfare for eight years against
the fleets and armies and inexhaustible treasure of Great
Britain. AVhen Alfred won his throne he gained a kingly
power. He had a kingly power at his command. He'
had not, as Washington had, to reconcile hostile factions,
to bring into accord jealous and rival States, to inaugurate
a Government, the like of which was to that time un
known to the experience of mankind. We can not only
believe, we can be sure that in Alfred's place AA'ashington
would have ccomplished everything that Alfred did. No
man can be sure that in Washington's place Alfred would
have been able to accomplish what AVashington did.
One figure remains, and one alone, who in the opinion of
mankind may share with AA'ashington his lofty pinnacle.
His is an American name also ; a name among the priceless
treasures of the great State within whose borders we come
together. Never were two men more unlike in every lineament
that made up their mental and physical portraiture than
George AVashington and Abraham Lincoln. They seemed
to come to the same high place from opposite quarters and
by diverse paths. Washington, with his quiet and grave
manner, with his seriousness, his earnestness, with the

34
stately beauty and dignity of his person and behavior,
has been claimed by Englishmen as an admirable example
of an EngUshman. The awkward and ungainly Lincoki,
with his wit and his jesting and his homely proverbs, his
stories as pithy and to the point as the fables of ^sop, his
shrewd management of men, his tenderness, his knowledge
of human nature in every variety and condition, was, if
ever man was, a typical American. Washington was a
born Aristocrat, who had learned by the experience of life
the justice and the beauty of Democracy. Lincoln was
the child of the people, who had learned by the experience
of life the value of order and strong Government.
"His was no lonely mountain peak of mind
Thrusting to thin air o 'er our cloudy bars,
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind ;
Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined,
Fruitful and friendly for all human kind.
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars,
Nothing of Europe here,
Or, then, of Europe fronting morn ward still,
Ere any names of Serf and Peer
Could Nature's equal scheme deface
And Thwart her genial will ;
He knew to abide his time,
And can his fame abide
Still patient in his simple faith sublime,''
rill the ¦wise years decide. ' '
Washington had little poetry or imagination in him.
He accepted and lived by the simplest maxims of morals
and duty. He did not seem to care for the great things
in literature or poetry. You do not find him quoting
the noble sentences of the Declaration, although he did
so much to make it real. Lincoln was an idealist. He
was penetrated to the very depth of his soul with those
eternal idealities. They moved and stirred him like a
note of lofty music. But yet to his mind they were as
real and practical and undoubted as the multiplication

35
table, or the Ten Commandments. No Republic could live
long, or deserve to live long, that was not founded on
them. He declared on that fateful journey to Washington,
on his way to be inaugurated, that he was willing to be
assassinated, if need be, for the doctrine that all govern
ments derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed, and that no man, and no people, had the right
to judge of the fitness for self-government of any other.
And he was assassinated for it.
Each of these men embodied what was best in his
countrymen in his generation. Each was the first citizen
among a people who were like him. Each wrought in ac
cord with his time. AVashington more than any other
man was the creator of a nation, of which Lincoln, more
than any other man, was the Saviour. It will be for a
later generation, not for us who remember Lincoln, to
assign the precedence to either. Of one thing we may be
sure, knowing the modesty so characteristic of both, that
each, were he consulted, would yield the palm to the other.
AA^ashington was a good neighbor and friend, hospitable
and charitable. He loved his Mother and his Wife, and
his kindred. He had companions and counsellors and
correspondents. And yet, and yet, in spite of it all, he
seems to me with his austere sense of duty and his free
dom from all disturbing influences and attractions, to
have dwelt in a solitude —
"Like as a ship, that through the ocean wide.
By conduct of some star doth make her way."
But after all, Washington has but one lesson for us;
one lesson for the country; one lesson for each of his coun
trymen. It is the old lesson, older than history, old as
Creation. That is that Justice, Veracity, Unselfishness,
Character, lie at the foundation of all National and all
Individual Greatness. Justice and Freedom are the Par-

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36
ents of Fate. To the larger and surer vision there is no
such thing as Fortune. Where these are we have no need
to concern ourselves with what the day may bring forth.
The product of the eternities will be secure. The cosmic
results will be the same, whatever the daily event may be.
It is to this that the story of George AVashington is a per
petual witness to his countrymen. It will be their fault
if they do not make their country its perpetual witness
to mankind.