The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 14

by Unknown

On April 30, 1789, he took the oath and entered on the office of President of the United States, one of the highest as well as most thankless that could be undertaken by man. The head of this free Government is no idle, empty pageant set up to challenge the admiration and coerce the absolute submission of the people; his duties are arduous and his responsibilities great; he is the first servant, not the master, of the state, and is amenable for his conduct, like the humblest citizen. As the executor of the laws, he is bound to see them obeyed; as the first of our citizens, he is equally bound to set an example of obedience. The oath, "to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," was administered in the balcony of the old Federal Hall in New York, by the chancellor of the State, and the Bible on which it was sworn is still preserved as a sacred relic.

At the time Washington assumed the high functions of President of the United States, there was ample room for the exertion of all his firmness, integrity, and talents. A new constitution to be administered, without the aid of experience or precedent, by an authority to which the people were strangers; serious and alarming difficulties to be adjusted with England; the Indian nations all along our frontier brandishing their tomahawks and whetting their scalping-knives; war with Mediterranean pirates; the Spaniards denying our right to navigate the Mississippi, and the people of Kentucky threatening a separation from the Union unless that right was successfully asserted by the Government. Other difficulties stared the new President full in the face. Some of the States still declined to accept the new Constitution, and become members of the Confederation; others nearly equally divided on the subject; and a debt of eighty million dollars; to meet all which there was an army of less than a thousand men and an empty treasury.

Here was enough, and more than enough, to call forth all the energies, if not to produce despair in the mind, of an ordinary man. But Washington was not such a man. Conscious of the purity of his purposes, he relied on the protection of that Power which is all purity. His first care was to provide for the civil and judicial administration of the government, by the appointment of men in whose virtue and capacity a long experience had given him confidence. Having done this he took the reins with a firm, steady hand, and commenced the ascent of the rugged steep before him.

The next object that called his attention was the situation of the inland frontier, now exposed to the inroads of the savages, who had not been included in the general pacification, although a proposition to that effect had been made by the British commissioners. Although our Government has always treated with the Indians as independent tribes, it has never placed them on the footing of civilized nations, or admitted any mediation on the part of foreign powers. The United States do not recognize them as parties in civilized warfare; they neither avail themselves of their alliance nor acknowledge them as the auxiliaries of other nations.

A system was devised for the conduct of those singular relations which alone can subsist between people so different in all respects, moral and political. The wisdom of that system has been exemplified in having uniformly been acted upon to this time, and though it may perhaps be questioned as to its abstract principles, it would be perhaps difficult if not impossible to devise a better. Our ancestors came to this country under the sanction of a principle at that time universally acknowledged among civilized nations, and when once here, the first law of nature, self-defence, furnishes their only justification. While weak, they were obliged to defend themselves, and when they became strong they were probably too apt to remember their former sufferings.

The policy of Washington, with regard to these unfortunate people, was successful in quieting, if not conciliating many of the Indian tribes; but others remained refractory and continued their atrocities. After defeating two American armies with great slaughter, they were at length brought to terms by the gallant Wayne, who gave them so severe a beating in a great general action that they sued for peace. This was concluded at Greenville; and the cession of a vast territory not only relieved the frontier from savage inroads, but paved the way for the progress of civilization into a new world of wilderness.

He was equally successful at a subsequent period in his negotiations with Spain. His high character for veracity and honor gave him singular advantages in his foreign intercourse. He proceeded in a straightforward, open manner, stated what was wanted, and what would be given in return; relied on justice, and enforced its claims with the arguments of truth. He disdained to purchase advantages by corruption, or to deceive by insincerity. As in private, so in public life, he proceeded inflexibly upon the noble maxim, whose truth is every day verified, that "Honesty is the best policy." The conviction of a man's integrity gives him far greater advantages in his intercourse with the world than he can ever gain by hypocrisy and falsehood. The right of navigating the Mississippi was finally conceded by Spain.

The settlement of the controversies growing out of the treaty with England proved even more difficult than those with Spain. The wounds inflicted on both nations by a war of so many years were healed, but the scars remained, to remind the one of what it had suffered, the other of what it had lost. Time and mutual good offices were necessary to allay that spirit which had been excited on one hand by injuries, on the other by successful resistance; and time indeed had passed away, but it had left behind it neither forgiveness nor oblivion. It was accompanied on one hand by new provocations, on the other by additional remonstrances and renewed indignation. Negotiations continued for a long while, without any result but mortification and impatience on the part of the people of the United States; and it was not until the French Revolution threatened the existence of all the established governments of Europe, and England among the rest, that a treaty was concluded, which brought with it an adjustment of the principal points that had so long embroiled the two nations and fostered a spirit of increasing hostility. The most vexing question of all however—that of the right of entering our ships and impressing seamen—was left unsettled, and it became obvious that it would never be adjusted except on the principle of the right of the strongest. About the same time peace was concluded between the United States and the Emperor of Morocco, and thus, for a while, our commerce remained unmolested on that famous sea where, some years afterward, our gallant navy laid the foundation of its present and future glories.

It is not my design to enter minutely into the principles or conduct of the two great parties, which, from the period of the adoption of the Constitution down to the present time, have been struggling for ascendency in the Government of the United States. My limits will not permit me, if I wished; but if they did, I should decline the task. My youthful readers will know and feel their excitement soon enough, perhaps too soon; and I wish not to become instrumental in implanting in their tender minds the seeds of social and political antipathies. I am attempting to picture a great and virtuous man; to exhibit a noble moral example for the imitation of the children of my country. My business is with the actions of Washington, not with the imputations of his enemies or the struggles of ambitious politicians. Posterity has placed him far above such puny trifles and triflers, and I will not assist, however humbly, in reviving imputations which have long since sunk into oblivion or insignificance under the weight of his mighty name.

The French Revolution, which set the Old World in a blaze, but for the wisdom and firmness of Washington would have involved the United States in the labyrinth of European policy. He it was that prevented their becoming parties in that series of tremendous wars which desolated some of the fairest portions of the earth; caused the rivers to run red with blood; overturned and erected thrones; converted kings into the playthings of fortune; and ended in the creation of a mighty phantom, which, after being the scourge and terror of the world, vanished from our sight on a desolate rock of the ocean.