Now, though withdrawn from public position, his controlling sense of duty made Washington still anxious for his country, and ready to render any service which might appear incumbent on him. So, when it seemed that a war with France was inevitable, old man as he was, enshrined as he was in the hearts of his countrymen, with nothing more of fame to attain, and nothing more of glory to covet, from a pure sense of duty, he agreed to take charge of the armies of the nation, and to imperil life, reputation, every thing, for his country's good. The occasion for his services did not arise; but the certainty that it would not was scarcely manifest, when death came to summon him to the "mansions of eternal rest."
It is allowed to few men to carry on a revolution, and to see it successfully terminated in the independence of a nation. Fewer still, perhaps, are permitted to inaugurate a new government, and witness its firm establishment in the freedom of the people. Washington had the singular good fortune to do both, and to die at last at home and in the bosom of his family.
Hero! Patriot! Sage! If there be one title more pure, more lofty, more noble than all others, by that title I would name him. To whom shall we liken him, or with whom shall he be compared? There is the long list of military heroes, in ancient and modern times. Let them pass in solemn procession across the stage, each bearing the light of his past life, like the solemn procession of torch-bearers in the sacred mysteries of Eleusis. Gaze on them as they pass! Great, illustrious, resplendent! There are Alexander and Hannibal, Scylla and Cæsar, Charlemagne and Marlborough, Bonaparte and Wellington. Which one of them all that has not a record marked by some weakness, or marred by some crime? Love of glory, lust of dominion, or greed of gain, is written by the pen of history upon the escutcheon of all.
[OUR GREAT INHERITANCE.—John J. Crittenden, 1860.]
We have the greatest country on the face of the earth. Let not our minds be so distracted by mere party strife and confusion that we shall see our government fall to pieces before our eyes, and sacrifice our country to our party instead of being ready at all times to sacrifice our party to our country. After we become the slave of party, we dare not, in the presence of any danger to the country, turn our backs to our parties, and say that we have a country that demands our services, and to it will we give them. Are we now unable to do this? Have we lost this spirit? has it gone from among us?
Providence has given this great country to us. Our wise and valiant forefathers gave us liberty and established a government for us. Let us take care of it—take care of the Constitution and the Union. That is all we require. We have before us the prospect of a glory unknown to other nations—a prospect in which our land will become the glory of the earth. Neither Rome nor any of the great empires of antiquity or of modern times can compare with what we shall be at no distant day. We are now thirty millions strong, yet we have been but eighty years in existence as a free nation. From the year 1776 down to the present time, God Almighty has blessed us above all other people and all other nations. Where shall we be thirty years hence, if such prosperity attend us? A great nation of one hundred million souls, with not enough then to develop all our resources. Every man free to think, free to speak, free to act, free to work. What must this mighty freedom produce with this mighty concurrence of hearts, of heads, of hands! What navies, what armies, what cities! Let us lift ourselves to the contemplation of what our children will be. Shall we not leave them a legacy as great as that our fathers left us? Let the contemplation of the mighty destinies involved in our Confederacy engage us until we absorb the genius of this Republic and its Constitution. Let it enter into all our motives of public action, that we may no longer be the tools and slaves of parties, of party platforms, and of party conventions.
[EULOGIUM ON HENRY CLAY.—Lincoln, 1852.]
On the 4th day of July, 1776, the people of a few feeble and oppressed colonies of Great Britain, inhabiting a portion of the Atlantic coast of North America, publicly declared their National Independence, and made their appeal to the justice of their cause, and to the God of battles, for the maintenance of that declaration. That people were few in numbers, and without resources, save only their wise heads and stout hearts. Within the first year of that declared independence, and while its maintenance was yet problematic—while the bloody struggle between those resolute rebels and their haughty would-be masters, was still waging, of undistinguished parents, and in an obscure district of one of those colonies, Henry Clay was born. The infant nation and the infant child began the race together. For three-quarters of a century they have traveled hand in hand. They have been companions ever. The nation has passed its peril, and is free, prosperous, and powerful. The child has reached his manhood, his middle age, his old age, and is dead. In all that has concerned the nation the man ever sympathized, and now the nation mourns for the man.