Fascinated by the perfection of the man, we are loath to break the mirror of admiration into the fragments of analysis. But, lo! as we attempt it, every fragment becomes the miniature of such sublimity and beauty that the destructive hand can only multiply the forms of immortality.
Grand and manifold as were its phases, there is yet no difficulty in understanding the character of Washington. He was no Veiled Prophet. He never acted a part. Simple, natural, and unaffected, his life lies before us—a fair and open manuscript. He disdained the arts which wrap power in mystery in order to magnify it. He practiced the profound diplomacy of truthful speech—the consummate tact of direct attention. Looking ever to the All-Wise Disposer of events, he relied on that Providence which helps men by giving them high hearts and hopes to help themselves with the means which their Creator has put at their service. There was no infirmity in his conduct over which charity must fling its veil; no taint of selfishness from which purity averts her gaze; no dark recess of intrigue that must be lit up with colored panegyric; no subterranean passage to be trod in trembling, lest there be stirred the ghost of a buried crime.
A true son of nature was George Washington—of nature in her brightest intelligence and noblest mold; and the difficulty, if such there be, in comprehending him, is only that of reviewing from a single standpoint the vast procession of those civil and military achievements which filled nearly half a century of his life, and in realizing the magnitude of those qualities which were requisite to their performance—the difficulty of fashioning in our minds a pedestal broad enough to bear the towering figure, whose greatness is diminished by nothing but the perfection of its proportions. If his exterior—in calm, grave, and resolute repose—ever impressed the casual observer as austere and cold, it was only because he did not reflect that no great heart like his could have lived unbroken unless bound by iron nerves in an iron frame. The Commander of Armies, the Chief of a People, the Hope of Nations could not wear his heart upon his sleeve; and yet his sternest will could not conceal its high and warm pulsations. Under the enemy's guns at Boston he did not forget to instruct his agent to administer generously of charity to his needy neighbors at home. The sufferings of women and children thrown adrift by war, and of his bleeding comrades, pierced his soul. And the moist eye and trembling voice with which he bade farewell to his veterans bespoke the underlying tenderness of his nature, even as the storm-wind makes music in its undertones.
Disinterested patriot, he would receive no pay for his military services. Refusing gifts, he was glad to guide the benefaction of a grateful State to educate the children of his fallen braves in the institution at Lexington which yet bears his name. Without any of the blemishes that mark the tyrant, he appealed so loftily to the virtuous elements in man, that he almost created the qualities which his country needed to exercise; and yet he was so magnanimous and forbearing to the weaknesses of others, that he often obliterated the vices of which he feared the consequences. But his virtue was more than this. It was of that daring, intrepid kind that, seizing principle with a giant's grasp, assumes responsibility at any hazard, suffers sacrifice without pretense of martyrdom, bears calumny without reply, imposes superior will and understanding on all around it, capitulates to no unworthy triumph, but must carry all things at the point of clear and blameless conscience. Scorning all manner of meanness and cowardice, his bursts of wrath at their exhibition heighten our admiration for the noble passions which were kindled by the aspirations and exigencies of virtue.
Invested with the powers of a Dictator, the country bestowing them felt no distrust of his integrity; he, receiving them, gave assurance that, as the sword was the last support of Liberty, so it should be the first thing laid aside when Liberty was won. And keeping the faith in all things, he left mankind bewildered with the splendid problem whether to admire him most for what he was or what he would not be. Over and above all his virtues was the matchless manhood of personal honor to which Confidence gave in safety the key of every treasure on which Temptation dared not smile, on which Suspicion never cast a frown. And why prolong the catalogue? "If you are presented with medals of Cæsar, of Trajan, or Alexander, on examining their features you are still led to ask what was their stature and the forms of their persons; but if you discover in a heap of ruins the head or the limb of an antique Apollo, be not curious about the other parts, but rest assured that they were all conformable to those of a god."
"Rome to America" is the eloquent inscription on one stone of your colossal shaft—taken from the ancient Temple of Peace that once stood hard by the Palace of the Cæsars. Uprisen from the sea of Revolution, fabricated from the ruins of bartered bastiles, and dismantled palaces of unrighteous, unhallowed power, stood forth now the Republic of republics, the Nation of nations, the Constitution of constitutions, to which all lands and times and tongues had contributed of their wisdom, and the priestess of Liberty was in her holy temple.
When Marathon had been fought and Greece kept free, each of the victorious generals voted himself to be first in honor, but all agreed that Miltiades was second. When the most memorable struggle for the rights of human nature of which time holds record was thus happily concluded in the muniment of their preservation, whoever else was second, unanimous acclaim declared that Washington was first. Nor in that struggle alone does he stand foremost. In the name of the people of the United States, their President, their Senators, their Representatives, and their Judges do crown to-day with the grandest crown that veneration has ever lifted to the brow of Glory, him whom Virginia gave to America, whom America had given to the world and to the ages, and whom mankind with universal suffrage has proclaimed the foremost of the founders of empire in the first degree of greatness; whom Liberty herself has anointed as the first citizen in the great Republic of Humanity.
Encompassed by the inviolate seas, stands to-day the American Republic, which he founded—a freer Greater Britain—uplifted above the powers and principalities of the earth, even as his monument is uplifted over roof and dome and spire of the multitudinous city.
Long live the Republic of Washington! Respected by mankind, beloved of all its sons, long may it be the asylum of the poor and oppressed of all lands and religions—long may it be the citadel of that Liberty which writes beneath the eagle's folded wings, "We will sell to no man, we will deny to no man, right and justice."