"Earth highest yearns to meet a star,"
the monument which "We the people of the United States" have erected to his memory. It is a fitting monument, more fitting than any statue. For his image could only display him in some one phase of his varied character—as the Commander, the Statesman, the Planter of Mount Vernon, or the Chief Magistrate of his Country. So art has fitly typified his exalted life in yon plain lofty shaft. Such is his greatness, that only by a symbol could it be represented. As Justice must be blind in order to be whole in contemplation, so History must be silent, that by this mighty sign she may unfold the amplitude of her story.
In 1657, while yet "a Cromwell filled the Stuarts' throne," there came to Virginia with a party of Carlists who had rebelled against him John Washington, of Yorkshire, England, who became a magistrate and member of the House of Burgesses, and distinguished himself in Indian warfare as the first colonel of his family on this side of the water. He was the nephew of that Sir Henry Washington who had led the forlorn hope of Prince Rupert at Bristol in 1643, and who, with a starving and mutinous garrison, had defended Worcester in 1649, answering all calls for surrender that he "awaited His Majesty's commands."
And his progenitors had for centuries, running back to the conquest, been men of mark and fair renown. Pride and modesty of individuality alike forbid the seeking from any source of a borrowed lustre, and the Washingtons were never studious or pretentious of ancestral dignities. But "we are quotations from our ancestors," says the philosopher of Concord—and who will say that in the loyalty to conscience and to principle, and to the right of self-determination of what is principle, that the Washingtons have ever shown, whether as loyalist or rebel, was not the germ of that deathless devotion to liberty and country which soon discarded all ancient forms in the mighty stroke for independence?
One hundred and fifty-three years ago, on the banks of the Potomac, in the county of Westmoreland, on a spot marked now only by a memorial stone, of the blood of the people whom I have faintly described, fourth in descent from the Colonel John Washington whom I have named, there was born a son to Augustine and Mary Washington. And not many miles above his birthplace is the dwelling where he lived, and near which he now lies buried.
Borne upon the bosom of that river which here mirrors Capitol dome and monumental shaft in its seaward flow, the river itself seems to reverse its current and bear us silently into the past. Scarce has the vista of the city faded from our gaze when we behold on the woodland height that swells above the waters—amidst walks and groves and gardens—the white porch of that old colonial plantation home which has become the shrine of many a pilgrimage. Contrasting it as there it stands to-day with the marble halls which we have left behind us, we realize the truth of Emerson: "The atmosphere of moral sentiment is a region of grandeur which reduces all material magnificence to toys, yet opens to every wretch that has reason the doors of the Universe."
The quaint old wooden mansion, with the stately but simple old-fashioned mahogany furniture, real and ungarnished; the swords and relics of campaigns and scenes familiar to every schoolboy now; the key of the Bastile hanging in the hall incased in glass, calling to mind Tom Paine's happy expression, "That the principles of the American Revolution opened the Bastile is not to be doubted, therefore the key comes to the right place;" the black velvet coat worn when the farewell address to the Army was made; the rooms all in nicety of preparation as if expectant of the coming host—we move among these memorials of days and men long vanished—we stand under the great trees and watch the solemn river, in its never-ceasing flow, we gaze upon the simple tomb whose silence is unbroken save by the low murmur of the waters or the wild bird's note, and we are enveloped in an atmosphere of moral grandeur which no pageantry of moving men nor splendid pile can generate. Nightly on the plain of Marathon—the Greeks have the tradition—there may yet be heard the neighing of chargers and the rushing shadows of spectral war. In the spell that broods over the sacred groves of Vernon, Patriotism, Honor, Courage, Justice, Virtue, Truth seem bodied forth, the only imperishable realities of man's being.
There emerges from the shades the figure of a youth over whose cradle had hovered no star of destiny, nor dandled a royal crown—an ingenious youth, and one who in his early days gave auguries of great powers. The boy whose strong arm could fling a stone across the Rappahannock; whose strong will could tame the most fiery horse; whose just spirit made him the umpire of his fellows; whose obedient heart bowed to a mother's yearning for her son and laid down the midshipman's warrant in the British Navy which answered his first ambitious dream; the student transcribing mathematical problems, accounts, and business forms, or listening to the soldiers and seamen of vessels in the river as they tell of "hair-breadth 'scapes by flood and field;" the early moralist in his thirteenth year compiling matured "Rules for behavior and conversation;" the surveyor of sixteen, exploring the wilderness for Lord Fairfax, sleeping on the ground, climbing mountains, swimming rivers, killing and cooking his own game, noting in his diary soils, minerals, and locations, and making maps which are models of nice and accurate draughtsmanship; the incipient soldier, studying tactics under Adjutant Muse, and taking lessons in broadsword fence from the old soldier of fortune, Jacob Van Braam; the major and adjutant-general of the Virginia frontier forces at nineteen:—we seem to see him yet as here he stood, a model of manly beauty in his youthful prime, a man in all that makes a man ere manhood's years have been fulfilled, standing on the threshold of a grand career, "hearing his days before him and the trumpet of his life."
The scene changes. Out into the world of stern adventure he passes, taking as naturally to the field and the frontier as the eagle to the air. At the age of twenty-one he is riding from Williamsburg to the French post at Venango, in Western Pennsylvania, on a mission for Governor Dinwiddie, which requires "courage to cope with savages and sagacity to negotiate with white men"—on that mission which Edward Everett recognizes as "the first movement of a military nature which resulted in the establishment of American Independence." At twenty-two he has fleshed his maiden sword, has heard the bullets whistle, and found "something charming in the sound;" and soon he is colonel of the Virginia regiment in the unfortunate affair at Fort Necessity, and is compelled to retreat after losing a sixth of his command. He quits the service on a point of military etiquette and honor, but at twenty-three he reappears as volunteer aide by the side of Braddock in the ill-starred expedition against Fort Duquesne, and is the only mounted officer unscathed in the disaster, escaping with four bullets through his garments, and after having two horses shot under him.
The prophetic eye of Samuel Davies has now pointed him out as "that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I can but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his country;" and soon the prophecy is fulfilled. The same year he is in command of the Virginia frontier forces. Arduous conflicts of varied fortunes are ere long ended, and on the 25th of November, 1759, he marches into the reduced fortress of Fort Duquesne—where Pittsburgh now stands, and the Titans of Industry wage the eternal war of Toil—marches in with the advanced guard of his troops, and plants the British flag over its smoking ruins.