More than all, and above all, Washington was master of himself. If there be one quality more than another in his character which may exercise a useful control over the men of the present hour, it is the total disregard of self when in the most elevated positions for influence and example.
Charles Francis Adams.
WASHINGTON'S RELIGIOUS CHARACTER[ToC]
BY WILLIAM M'KINLEY
In an Address, February 22, 1898
Though Washington's exalted character and the most striking acts of his brilliant record are too familiar to be recounted here, yet often as the story is retold, it engages our love and admiration and interest. We love to record his noble unselfishness, his heroic purposes, the power of his magnificent personality, his glorious achievements for mankind, and his stalwart and unflinching devotion to independence, liberty, and union. These cannot be too often told or be too familiarly known.
A slaveholder himself, he yet hated slavery, and provided in his will for the emancipation of his slaves. Not a college graduate, he was always enthusiastically the friend of liberal education....
And how reverent always was this great man, how prompt and generous his recognition of the guiding hand of Divine Providence in establishing and controlling the destinies of the colonies and the Republic....