THE WONDERFUL STORY OF WASHINGTON
[Illustration]
“The ingenuous youth of America will hold up to themselves the
bright model of Washington’s example, and study to be what they
behold; they will contemplate his character, till all his
virtues spread out and display themselves to their delighted
vision; as the earliest astronomers, the shepherds on the
plains of Babylon, gazed at the stars till they saw them form
into clusters and constellations, overpowering at length the
eyes of the beholders with the united blaze of a thousand
lights.”--WEBSTER.
_Inspiration Series of Patriotic Americans_
THE WONDERFUL STORY OF WASHINGTON
AND THE MEANING OF HIS LIFE
FOR THE YOUTH AND PATRIOTISM
OF AMERICA
BY C. M. STEVENS
Author of “_The Wonderful Story of Lincoln_”
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
Copyright, 1917, by
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS
American Patriotism and the Meaning of America.
Washington’s Early Surroundings.
II. THE BOY WITH A WILL AND A WAY
Early Circumstances of the First American Hero.
A Community Proud of Its Family Honor.
The Self-Pity and Sentimentalism of Youth.
III. BEGINNINGS OF EXPERIENCE IN BORDER WARFARE
Getting Used to Roughing It.
Land Speculation as the Beginning Leading to
American Self-Government.
The Struggle for the Indian’s Hunting Grounds.
IV. THE RIVALRY AND DIPLOMACY OF THE FRONTIER
The First Great Problems of the Indians.
Alarm for the Future.
Indifference to Great Interests.
V. THE CONSEQUENCE OF ARROGANCE AND IGNORANCE
Annoyances and Antagonisms.
Dishonors and Disasters.
Washington Entering the School of War.
VI. THE STRUGGLE FOR FORT DUQUESNE
The Separation Beginning Between the Colonies and
England.
Lessons Gathered from Defeat.
Some Personal Interests at Home.
VII. THE FATE OF THE OHIO VALLEY
Frontier Fears and Panics.
Political Intrigue and Official Confusion.
“A Matter of Great Admiration.”
VIII. THE BEGINNING SIGNS OF A GREAT REVOLUTION
Military Victory and a Happy Marriage.
Life Fulfilled as a Virginia Country Gentleman.
The Momentous Struggle Between Might and Right.
IX. SOWING THE WIND AND REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
Mount Vernon at First in a Zone of Calm.
Giving the Appearance and Keeping the Substance.
“Soft Words Butter No Parsnips.”
X. ANTAGONISMS AND HOSTILITIES
Blazing the Way to War.
The Double-Quick March to Revolution.
Violence and Flattery as Methods of Mastery.
XI. GREAT MINDS IN THE GREAT STORM
Suppressing Americans.
The Business of Getting Ready.
Many Men of Many Minds.
XII. THE HOUSE LONG DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF
Unpatriotic Confusion of Opinions and Interests.
Sometimes Too Late to Mend.
Selecting the Leader of Liberty for America.
XIII. LARGE BODIES MOVE SLOWLY
The First Commander-in-Chief.
Big Business, Money-Makers and Patriotism.
The Strong Mind for Great Needs.
XIV. TURNING REVOLUTION INTO GOVERNMENT
Seeking Retirement for Life.
Freedom and the Wrangle for Personal Gain.
Laying the Foundations of Liberty and Law.
XV. THE PEACE OF HOME AT LAST
Sorrow for the Departed Scenes.
Crowned in the Fullness of Time.
A Life-Like Scene from Washington’s Home Life.
XVI. STANDARDS OF AMERICAN PATRIOTISM
Foundations.
Freedom of the Western Hemisphere.
The Loyalty of Youth.
XVII. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS
The Washington Ideal as the American Ideal.
Not Birth But Character Makes Americans.
The American Lesson Learned from the Greatest
Leaders in the Making of America.
WASHINGTON AND AMERICAN LIBERTY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY CONSIDERATIONS
I. AMERICAN PATRIOTISM AND THE MEANING OF AMERICA
“America for Americans” is a patriotic appeal that has arisen in many
a political crisis, and then gone to pieces in the confusions of what
we mean by “Americans” and “America.” American Liberty has been a
goddess of worship from the beginning, and yet we find ourselves in an
endless turmoil concerning what we mean by “American liberty.”
Washington and his associate patriots wrote a great definition in
history and established that definition in the Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution of the United States, but human
meaning, like the skies, seems hard to get clear and to keep clear. To
know clearly what the definition of freedom means and to promote it
in the right-minded way, is the patriotism that identifies anyone
anywhere as being American. The makers of America loved the
right-minded way, and their primary test of justice unfailingly
required, as a basis, the personal liberty that has been described to
us by all as freedom to do the right that wrongs no one. To these
“rights of man,” they gave “the last full measure of devotion,” as
Lincoln defined patriotism, for “the birth of a new freedom under
God.”
The public-school youth, who is not in one way or another familiar
with the Americanism of Washington and Lincoln, is not yet prepared
either for college or for life, and, still more clearly, is not
prepared to be an American. The number of un-Americans in America may,
in some crisis, become appalling, if, in fact, they do not succeed in
Europeanizing America. Against that possibility there is nothing to
save us, if we do not save ourselves as our hereditary task of
American patriotism.
Washington and Lincoln are the two incomparable constructive ideals of
American liberty and manhood. The two lives together complete the
meaning of America. Washington began his life with a super-abundance
of everything aristocratic in his age. Lincoln began his life in
worldly nothingness that had indeed nothing for him but the democratic
wilderness till he became a man. And yet both became the same great
soul in the same great cause, the maker and preserver of American
civilization, as the moral law of man and God.
[Illustration: The Birthplace of George Washington--Bridges Creek,
Westmoreland Co., Virginia.]
American life and its ideal humanity cannot be understood by American
youth until the wonderful character and struggle of these two
supremely typical Americans are understood as the expression of the
meaning of America, and even no less as a meaning for the world.
The Great Teacher said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he
will lay down his life for a friend,” and no man on earth has a
greater friend than the America of Washington and Lincoln.
II. WASHINGTON’S EARLY SURROUNDINGS
We cannot think with a true vision, in estimating the meaning of
colonial and revolutionary days, if we allow the glamor of fame and
the idolatry of colonial patriotism to obscure our view of those
times. There were heroes immortal with what we know as “the spirit of
’76,” but, grading from them were the good, bad and indifferent, that
often seemed overwhelming in numbers.
George Washington is known chiefly through the rather stilted style of
writing that then prevailed, and the puritanic expressions that were
used in describing commendable conduct. Even Washington’s writings
were edited so as not to offend sensitive ears, and so as not to give
an impression to the reader different from the idealized orthodox
character of that severe pioneer civilization. The people were free in
everything but social expression. That was sternly required to conform
to a rigid puritanic or cavalier standard.
Washington, more than any other great man, seems to have composed his
early life from what some well-meaning reformers have termed
“copy-book morality;” that is, proverbial morality or personal rules
of conduct. Washington in his boyhood wrote out many moral sentences
as reminders for his own guidance. He was a persistent searcher after
the right way toward the right life.
Washington’s mother is described as being stern in business and moral
discipline, even as having a violent temper and being capable of very
severe measures to accomplish needed results. It seems that
Washington, seeing this method in both father and mother, reinforced,
as it were, by the military bearing of his much-admired elder
half-brother, took that form of life as his earliest ideal. He was as
tireless in perfecting models of business and life as Lincoln was in
mastering the unconventional meaning of human beings. Washington at
the ages of eleven and twelve delighted to copy various book-keeping
forms and mercantile documents. His school books at that age are still
preserved and they are models of accuracy and neatness. Besides that,
he loved to discipline himself. He was always subjecting himself,
either mentally or physically, to some kind of orderly training.
For one who was destined to have such a leading part in framing a new
nation for a new world, such a making of mind seems to have been just
the thing for that great task.
He enjoyed a great local reputation as the boy who could ride any
horse in that county, and who could throw a stone across the
Rappahannock. He was a leader in every group of boys to which he came.
He drilled them in military parades and umpired them in their disputes
and games. Students of the mind-making process have much to consider
in the comparison and analogy of a boy being first military chieftain
to his playmates, and then step by step, the legislator, judge and
chief executive in their political affairs, with the generalship of a
revolution for national independence, and the statesmanship of a new
empire built in the cause of humanity.